NucNews - January 25, 2005 -------- NUCLEAR -------- accidents and safety Act: Fermi 2 Nuclear Plant Shut Down After Leak From: "james m nordlund" Date: Tue Jan 25, 2005 5:44 am News Update from Citizens for Legitimate Government January 25, 2005 Fermi 2 Nuclear Plant Shut Down After Leak --Detroit Edison has shut down the Fermi 2 Nuclear Power Station in Newport, Michigan, after a leak of radioactive coolant. The leak happened around 5:00 Monday afternoon in the containment building that houses the nuclear reactor. The NRC says the coolant was leaking at a rate of 50 to 75 gallons per minute. Exactly how much coolant was lost is not known. The NRC has issued an "Alert" for the plant. -- Re: Fermi 2 Nuclear Plant Shut Down After Leak From: "Jim Hoerner" Date: Tue Jan 25, 2005 8:23pm I'm not sure what this has to do with Abolition Caucus, but for anyone interested, this was not the mildly radioactive reactor coolant, so the above news update may be somehwhat misleading in its reference to "radioactive coolant". Far be it from me, however, to claim that the water was not radioactive, since even water from your tap has easily-detectable amounts of naturally-occurring uranium disolved in it due to the evil actions of Mother Nature. See below for the scarey facts about the Fermi leak and the unheroic actions of the plant operators to stop the near non-catastrophe. Meanwhile, in an arguably-superficial attempt to make this thread on-topic, let me point out that the EPA estimates that non-nuclear power sources kill as many people in the US alone every few years, as those who perished in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And this does not include the toll from wars for oil, which still provides about ten times the _electricity_ to the US that non-hydro renewables do. Yet, misguided activists still protest much safer nuclear power, at the expense of tens of thousands annually in the US and millions worldwide. So if you are interested in peace, give consideration to that fact that fossil fuels and hydro power are the only affordable alternatives for power that must be there when we need it, and they are all very dangerous. Also, nuclear power plants are a great way to destroy existing nuclear weapons stockpiles, and the plutonium that they produce is not weapons-grade, despite some arguably-dishonest claims by some in the anti-nuclear community that they are "weapons-usable" by states with existing highly-advanced weapons programs. Finally, if any of y'all are interested in discussing nuclear power, please feel free to join Know_Nukes. Best regards, Jim UNUSUAL EVENT DUE TO UNIDENTIFIED LEAKAGE GREATER THAN 10 GPM http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/event-status/event/en.html The licensee reported that it had indications of unidentified reactor coolant leakage greater than 10 gpm which placed the licensee into an unusual event emergency action level (EAL). Indication of drywell sump level increase and pump out rate gave an approximate leak rate of 30 gpm. The licensee also indicated that drywell pressure was above the normal range. The unusual event declaration was made at 1610 EST. At 1619 EST, the licensee manually scrammed the reactor. The scram was uncomplicated with all rods fully inserting and all systems functioning as required. Decay heat is being rejected to the main condenser. There has been no ECCS injection actuation and reactor water level is being maintained by feed pumps. The licensee has no significant safety related equipment out of service. The licensee stated that there is no indication of further degradation of the leak rate and the source of the leak is still under investigation The licensee has notified the NRC Resident Inspector along with State, Local, and other government agencies. * * * UPDATE FROM LICENSEE (SKORBEK) TO NRC (HUFFMAN) AT 1640 EST ON 1/24/05 * * * At 1640 EST, the licensee upgraded to an ALERT following additional leak rate calculations that indicated the leak rate was approximately 75 - 80 gpm based on drywell sump pump out rate. The licensee's EAL for an alert is RCS leakage greater than 50 gpm. The NRC entered the monitoring mode at 1653 EST. The licensee stated that there has been no increase in drywell radiation levels and that sump water chemistry analysis is in progress. In addition to the normal government agencies notified, the NRC also notified the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission Duty Officer (R. Chamberlaine). * * * UPDATE FROM LICENSEE (VIA MANAGEMENT BRIEFING) AT 1930 EST ON 1/24/05 * * * The licensee has indications that the leakage may not be reactor coolant leakage. Chemistry results show that the sump water radiation levels are at a level less than would be expected for RCS leakage. In addition, a secondary cooling system was found in a lineup configuration that could have masked leakage from the system. The licensee is waiting to get additional chemistry results on the presence of corrosion inhibitors in the sump water to provide additional confirmation that the leakage is not from the RCS. * * * UPDATE FROM LICENSEE (VIA MANAGEMENT BRIEFING) AT 2200 EST ON 1/24/05 * * * The licensee confirmed the presence of corrosion inhibitors in the drywell sump. In addition, based on manipulations of the Reactor Building Closed Cooling Water system and the Emergency Equipment Cooling Water system the licensee believes that the leakage is from the Reactor Building Closed Cooling Water system and not RCS leakage. The plant is stable and the licensee is continuing to cool down with pressure now at 180 psi and decreasing. * * * UPDATE FROM THE LICENSEE (STROBEL) TO NRC (VIA R3 IRC BRIEFING) AT 22:30 EST ON 1/24/05 * * * The licensee terminated its Alert and Unusual Event at 22:28 EST based on sump water chemistry, activity, and Reactor Building Closed Cooling Water System manipulations that indicate the leakage is secondary cooling water and not from the RCS. The NRC secured from the monitoring mode at 22:36 EST. Notified DHS (Belt), FEMA (Caldwell), DOE (Dasilva), EPA (Baumgartner) USDA (Sykes), and HHS( Pyles). The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission Duty Officer (R. Chamberlaine) was also notified. http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/event-status/event/en.html ---- Fermi II plant shut for leak The public wasn't endangered and no one was evacuated, nuclear officials say. By Oralandar Brand-Williams and Francis X. Donnelly The Detroit News, Tuesday, January 25, 2005 http://www.detnews.com/2005/metro/0501/25/B01-69792.htm The Fermi II nuclear plant near Monroe was shut down Monday afternoon after developing a coolant leak. No one was evacuated and the public wasn't endangered in the incident, a Nuclear Regulatory Commission official said. Workers discovered the source of the leak late Monday night and promptly shut off the water, stopping the leak, said DTE Energy, which operates the plant. It wasn't known when the facility would resume operations. The plant, in Frenchtown Township in northern Monroe County, was shut down at 4:20 p.m. without complications, said NRC spokeswoman Viktoria Mitlyng. "Any time a plant has to shut down it is, of course, a concern," she said. "(But) this is the second-lowest classification as far as emergencies are." The problem involved nonradioactive water used in the facility's cooling system, said John Austerberry, a spokesman for DTE. That's different from the plant's reactor coolant, which didn't leak and remains at normal levels. The leak, which occurred in a steel and concrete structure that surrounds the steel reactor, was originally 50 gallons a minute before workers shut off valves to stop it between 9 and 10 p.m., Austerberry said. A Detroit physicist said the problem, as described by plant officials, didn't sound ominous. "It's not that dangerous," said Al Saperstein, a physics professor at Wayne State University. "Water leaks in all kinds of large steam generators." The leak and resulting shutdown of the plant caused Monroe County officials to set up their emergency center, said Charles Londo, the Monroe County administrator and member of its Emergency Operating Center staff. "You gotta be prepared if there is any activation of the emergency preparedness system," added Londo. "It's a monumental task if you have to get into it. Thank God we didn't have to." But the shutdown of the plant could lead to higher utility bills if DTE is eventually forced to buy energy from other sources, Saperstein said. At least one Frenchtown resident took the plant shutdown in stride. Peggy Valentine, a 15-year resident who works at a local restaurant, said several plant workers are customers and have reassured her about its operations in the past. "You can't start to get paranoid about it," she said. "If you start to get paranoid, then you'll make everyone around you worry, especially the children." The 1,150-megawatt plant, which opened in 1988, has experienced several minor stumbles in the past five months. It briefly operated at 60 percent of its power in October after a recirculating water pump unexpectedly slowed down. The problem was solved, and the plant resumed full power in 27 hours. Neither of the plant's two major pumps, which control the flow of coolant water, was idled in the incident, and the problem never posed a threat to the public, NRC officials told the local paper. The plant also was shut down for unexpected repairs in August when repairs to one of its four emergency diesel generators couldn't be completed within seven days. Before that incident, the plant had operated for 334 days without incident, the second-longest such stretch in its nearly two-decade history. The facility, which employs 900 workers, produces 15 percent of the power generated by DTE power plants, utility spokeswoman Lorie Kessler said. "It's an important part of our system," she said. "If you start to get paranoid, then you'll make everyone around you worry." You can reach Oralandar Brand-Williams at (313) 222-2027 or bwilliams@detnews.com. -------- asia China says knows nothing about North Korea uranium Tue Jan 25, 2005 03:59 AM ET (Reuters) http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=0T0EDCOO5IC20CRBAEZSFFA?type=topNews&storyID=7419709 BEIJING - China said on Tuesday it had no knowledge of the existence of a uranium-enrichment programme in North Korea, reiterating a long-standing position and debunking a Japanese newspaper report that Beijing's stance had changed. The issue is at the heart of the two-year-old deadlock over North Korea's nuclear ambitions. The United States says it has evidence Pyongyang has a covert programme to enrich uranium for nuclear arms and says North Korean officials admitted as much in November 2002. North Korea has publicly denied the existence of such a programme since. Japan's Nihon Keizai business daily reported on Monday that China, in a policy turnaround, was urging North Korea to declare it possesses enriched uranium and has a nuclear development programme. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan said he was doubtful of the sources for the story and its content. "We have expressed our position many times, including on the enriched uranium issue," Kong said. "We have no understanding of this situation," he added, repeating China's position. "We think this issue should be clarified within the framework of the six-party talks." China has hosted three rounds of talks on the nuclear crisis also involving the two Koreas, the United States, Japan and Russia. North Korea scuttled a fourth round scheduled in September saying it would not return to the table until the United States dropped its hostile policy toward Pyongyang. The North has also been keen to wait for the second-term administration of U.S. President George W. Bush to take shape before committing to more talks. Bush was inaugurated on Saturday. -------- business USEC Achieves Another American Centrifuge Milestone Company Begins Centrifuge Testing Tuesday January 25, 10:00 am ET--(BUSINESS WIRE) http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/050125/255610_1.html BETHESDA, Md.--Jan. 25, 2005--USEC Inc. (NYSE:USU - News) announced today that it has met another American Centrifuge program milestone by beginning to test a full-size centrifuge machine. Today's announcement marks the completion of eight milestones for demonstrating and deploying the American Centrifuge technology. "We have a great team of scientists, engineers and technicians on this project," said Ron Green, USEC senior vice president. "Their talent and dedication will be even more valuable as the program enters this critical and challenging phase of machine testing." Most of the machine's components were manufactured in USEC facilities in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The centrifuge is currently being tested in the K-1600 facility, which was used until 1985 to develop and evaluate the original U.S. Department of Energy machines on which the American Centrifuge is based. It contains special test stands with diagnostic instrumentation for assessing the performance of an individual centrifuge. USEC expects to begin operating the American Centrifuge Demonstration Facility in Piketon, Ohio later this year. The facility will yield cost, schedule and performance data before USEC begins construction of the full-scale American Centrifuge Plant, which is scheduled to be operable by the end of the decade. The plant is expected to provide a reliable, competitive fuel source for the world's nuclear power plants, while supporting U.S. energy security and national security interests. This news release contains forward-looking information (within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995) that involves risks and uncertainty, including certain assumptions regarding the future performance of USEC. Actual results and trends may differ materially depending upon a variety of factors, which are described in USEC's periodic filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. These SEC filings are available on USEC's website, www.usec.com. USEC Inc., a global energy company, is the world's leading supplier of enriched uranium fuel for commercial nuclear power plants. -------- india / pakistan Tsunami Makes India's Nuke Workers Jittery by Harbaksh Singh Nanda New Delhi (UPI) Jan 25, 2005 http://www.spacedaily.com/news/nuclear-civil-05a.html Although India claims that its nuclear reactors in Tamil Nadu state withstood the tsunami lashes, workers and local residents around the Kalpakkam nuclear facility are feeling insecure and unsafe after the facility was deluged. The nuclear reactor plant was temporarily shut down after the coastal waves inundated the unit following Dec. 26 tsunami disaster. Despite the repeated assurances by the Department of Atomic Energy and the Nuclear Power Corporation of India that the Kalpakkam unit was safe and there is no cause for worry, a sense of insecurity remains among workers and local residents. According to the South Asian Community Center for Education and Research, at least 60 to 80 people were killed and more than 1,000 houses damaged at Kalpakkam, 50 miles south of Madras. The watery fury left behind a trail of debris across the camp us. The heavy protection walls on the seashore simply disappeared without a trace, Indo Asian News Service reported. The Kalpakkam Nuclear Power Station Casual Contract Laborers' Federation said that some 300 workers were missing from the Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor site, whose foundation pit was flooded by the tsunami. There are two Madras Atomic Power Station reactors and one test reactor for the Indira Gandhi Center for Atomic Research in operation at Kalpakkam. Besides 3,000 regular employees, at least 1,000 people are employed as contract laborers. Scientists have some very tough question for the administration. What will happen to the prototype fast breeder reactor stations, which have liquid sodium as coolant, if there is another inundation by a tsunami? The reprocessing plant holding glass-matted enriched waste is said to be just about 150 meters from the sea. Will it be safe if another tsunami strikes? The Kalpakkam facility lost all contact after its telephone exchange was flooded Dec 26, the IANS reported. "On Dec 26, the Madras Atomic Power Station looked like a desolate place with no power, no phones, no water, no security arrangement and no hindrance whatsoever for outsiders to enter any part of the plant," said S.P. Udaykumar of SACCER. However, the Nuclear Power Corporation of India official S.K. Aggarwal said India's nuclear power plants are the safest in the world. New Delhi had earlier said that tsunami water had made its way into the nuclear facility. "Information reaching us suggests that facilities at Kalpakkam nuclear station may have been affected by the tidal waves," said a spokesman from the prime minister's office. Not many workers are willing to return to the nuclear reactor plant, fearing it may be unsafe to work there. The Kalpakkam Atomic Energy Employees' Association and other workers' unions plan to file a court case charging that there is "a serious lack of qualified technical personnel at critical positions of the MAPS reactors" and that this compromises the safety of the plant and the public, the IANS reported. The Reactor Pressure Vessel for the Kudankulam Atomic Power Project, which is considered to be the heart of the nuclear power plant, has meanwhile safely arrived at the Tuticorin Port. Aggarwal said that when the tsunami waves hit the Indian coastline, the shipment that was flagged off by the first week of last month from St Petersburg port in Russia was mid-sea. Immediately after hearing of the tsunami havoc, the Kudankulam project officials who made efforts to trace the exact location of the ship carrying the crucial equipment, found out that it was very near to the Tuticorin Port and was unaffected by the waves. The impact of huge ocean waves, any possible threat due to collision of aircraft into the buildings where the nuclear core is located, effects of earthquakes and cyclones have been taken into account in the design features of the power plant, a government statement said. Meanwhile, news reports say that India's pirated video market has been flooded with horrific videos and pictures of the tsunami survivors and victims. Similar videos are also being sold in Thailand and Indonesia for nearly $2 apiece. ---- Pakistan moving 'step by step' towards peace with India: PM BRUSSELS (AFP) Jan 25, 2005 http://www.spacewar.com/2005/050125153404.hxqyeg67.html Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz pledged Tuesday to keep moving "step by step" towards peace with long-time nuclear foe India, voicing hope that such moves will benefit the entire region. Speaking after talks with European Union (EU) officials in Brussels, he also hailed recent progress towards stabilizing Afghanistan, fueled by presidential elections last October. "Pakistan strives for peace with India," he told reporters in a joint press conference with EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana. "We are taking a step at a time in the right direction. We are optimstic that the composite dialogue process will take peace in south Asia to new levels," he added, referring to peace talks between Islamabad and New Delhi. The slow-moving peace process has been shaken recently by Pakistani accusations that India is violating a 14-month-old ceasefire in Kashmir, days after New Delhi alleged Islamabad had launched mortar bombs into its territory. Aziz discussed the latest India situation with Solana, notably underlining a number of initiatives such as the opening of an energy corridor and a cross-border bus services as examples of bolstered cooperation. A diplomat close to the talks said the two men had no substantial discussions of the recent tensions. The Pakistani leader meanwhile welcomed signs of progress in Afghanistan, which is battling to recover from decades of civil war notably with parliamentary elections in a few months' time. He trumpeted the fact that trade between Pakistan and Afghanistan has ballooned to 1 billion dollars last year. "Pakistan believes in peace in the region and a strong, stable economically vibrant Afghanistan is good for the people of Afghanistan, for Pakistan and for the region as a whole," he said. Solana meanwhile said that the EU is happy with the democratization process under Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. Musharraf, who seized power in a bloodless coup in 1999, has infuriated extremist groups by his ties with Washington and faces pressure from opposition parties over his broken promise to relinquish his role as army chief. Solana said that issue had been discussed. "We have got very good guarantees, which for us is enough, that the process is going to continue, that democracy is there to stay," the EU chief said. ---- Cap the nuclear arsenal now By R. Rajaraman The Hindu Jan 25, 2005 Opinion - Leader Page Articles http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/thscrip/print.pl?file=2005012501611000.htm&date=2005/01/25/&prd=th& If we in South Asia do not act now we will bequeath succeeding generations hundreds of nuclear weapons, in the shadow of whose hazards they will have to live. NOTWITHSTANDING THE lip service that they periodically pay to the goal of a nuclear weapon-free South Asia, in practice the Governments of India and Pakistan are not taking serious steps to move towards it. Most of our national security experts also seem to consider nuclear disarmament to be no more than a pipe dream of peace activists. Admittedly, given the state of India-Pakistan relations and the proximity of a nuclear China, the prospects for ridding our country of these weapons do seem bleak. But I do not believe they are hopeless. However in order to achieve disarmament people advocating it have to go about it in graduated steps, rather than demand immediate disarmament on an all-or-nothing basis. Taking on the task of full disarmament of South Asia at this stage may be forbidding . But the more modest goal of capping the arsenal at existing levels may be achievable. As of now, South Asian nuclear forces and their associated infrastructure are still relatively small compared to those of other nuclear powers. If further growth and consolidation could be stopped soon, it may be possible eventually to roll back the arsenal. It is the first step on the road to full disarmament. Keeping the arsenal from becoming larger also lowers the various risks attendant with the possession of nuclear weapons. These risks include the possibility of accidents, fires, launch through human and instrumental error, and theft by non-state actors. Therefore a concerted effort should be made by peace lovers and arms controllers to demand the capping of South Asian nuclear arsenals at current levels as soon as possible. We in India should do this unilaterally, in our own enlightened self-interest. Even this smaller goal of capping the arsenal will not be easy to achieve. It can only be done by evolving a broad consensus among people with different shades of opinion on the nuclear issue. There are some in the subcontinent who, like me, strongly believe that nuclear weapons are not essential for national security. But there are others, many more in number and most of them not hawks by nature, who genuinely feel that nuclear weapons are a necessary evil to deter our nuclear neighbours. Their concerns must be addressed if a consensus is to be evolved to stop the onward march of nuclearisation. The concept of nuclear deterrence is based on shaky foundations that are as much psychological as they are logical. Nevertheless, in order to address the concerns of those who believe in it, let us accept the notion of deterrence for the sake of argument. That raises the question of how large an arsenal of warheads is really needed for that purpose. The strategy of deterrence relies on possessing a nuclear capability that can still inflict, even after a first attack by the enemy, unacceptable damage to the other side. This, it is argued, would deter them from attempting a nuclear first strike. Now, just a couple of modest 15-20 kiloton weapons dropped on Lahore and Karachi or New Delhi and Mumbai would kill half a million people. Surely, that should already be "unacceptable damage" to an even remotely responsible leadership. A leadership that finds this "acceptable" is beyond the pale of rationality and cannot be relied upon to feel deterred even by the prospect of a larger attack. Given that a successful attack on a few major cities with a couple of 20 kiloton weapons each would inflict unacceptable damage, it is not clear why the notion of deterrence should call for dozens, let alone hundreds, of weapons. All one needs are a few surviving deliverable weapons. With clever camouflaging techniques, mobile launchers, and submarine-based missiles, losses due to limitations of reliability, accuracy, and survivability in the event of a first attack would at most be about 50 per cent. Altogether then, about a dozen safely stored warheads should really be sufficient for such deterrence. Now, a conservative estimate based on most reports would suggest that India and Pakistan already have 40 or more nuclear weapons each — more than sufficient to serve the requirements of deterrence. Unfortunately, even with so many weapons already in hand, they see their nuclear arsenals as still being at some incomplete stage. Despite the fact that relations between the two countries have improved over the past year and a dialogue is proceeding on different fronts, there has been no interruption in the further build-up of their respective nuclear forces. In fact not too long ago Pakistan's President, Pervez Musharraf, assured his nation, in connection with the Dr. A.Q. Khan episode, that its nuclear assets and its missile programme would not be rolled back. On the Indian side too one has not heard any person in authority talking of stopping or even slowing down further growth of nuclearisation. India's nuclear doctrine, which is presumably still the blueprint for its nuclear strategy, speaks of a triad of aircraft, mobile land-based missiles, and sea-based assets with multiple redundant systems. So the present thaw in India-Pakistan relations notwithstanding, if no decisive steps are taken to reverse the existing policies of nuclear build-up there may be well over a hundred nuclear weapons on each side within a decade. Certainly I know some influential voices in India that would want even bigger arsenals. We are aware that India's nuclear strategy is not just a bilateral matter involving Pakistan. It is designed as much, if not more, with China in mind. That we have three contiguous nuclear nations certainly makes the de-nuclearisation of this region a very complicated matter. But as far as capping the Indian arsenal is concerned, the preceding arguments for it hold just as much when applied to China as the adversary. The assured prospect of, say, Nanjing and Shanghai receiving a couple of bombs that would kill half a million people should be ample for deterring today's China (we do not yet have the missiles to deliver them that far, but no doubt we are working on them). In China's perception its main external threat comes from the United States and its missile defence programme and not India. Furthermore, China is now focussed strongly on pursuing its economic growth and domestic prosperity. It is extremely unlikely to initiate any adventure against India that could invite nuclear retaliation against any of its major cities. The fact that China possesses several hundred nuclear warheads does not negate the argument for capping the Indian arsenal at a much smaller number. The tenets of deterrence do not require that your arsenal match that of your adversary, but only that it be capable of inflicting damage that is unacceptable to any rational leadership on the other side. Recall that China itself has been content to stay with just a few hundred weapons, even though the U.S. and Russia, which it views as its main adversaries, possess several thousands of them. The call for capping the arsenal may be opposed not just by pro-nuclear strategists but, ironically, also by staunch anti-nuclear groups for different reasons. The latter may feel that in arguing that the existing arsenal is "more than enough," the weapons are being rationalised and sanctified. That is not the intention. We must remember that the present arsenal is a reality that is already there. Worse still, it is growing with time. If you cannot even stop its growth there is no question of eventually achieving total disarmament. Hard-headed strategists, on the other hand, may view the suggestion for a cap as naïve and impractical given the state of India-Pakistan relations. But there are special situations when governments have to rise above traditional postures and diplomatic caution in order to achieve special goals. The dangers of increasing nuclear arsenals further are far too serious and call for drastic measures immediately. There is an urgent need to cap the nuclear arsenals now. For, once deeply entrenched, nuclear weapon systems will not go away so easily even after political tensions get defused. We only need to look at Russia and the U.S. 15 years after the Cold War has ended. Each of them still has several thousand weapons on alert with no discernable threat left to justify them. If we in South Asia do not act now we too will bequeath our succeeding generations hundreds of nuclear weapons, in the shadow of whose hazards they will have to live for decades if not centuries. (The writer is Professor Emeritus of Physics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.) ---- NTPC in talks with NPC for foray into nuclear power generation Archana Chaudhary Mumbai , Jan. 25, 2005 The Hindu http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2005/01/26/stories/2005012602540100.htm NATIONAL Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) is in talks with Nuclear Power Corporation of India (NPCIL) for possibilities of entering into nuclear power business, as part of its diversification agenda. Officials of the Rs 26,000-crore company have met representatives of Nuclear Power Corporation three times in the last six months to learn more about nuclear power generation. Currently, NPCIL is the only Indian company specialising in nuclear power generation. As per the Atomic Energy Act, only Government-owned companies can set up nuclear power generation units. According to a senior NPCIL official, the company has suggested that NTPC take up an equity stake in one of the upcoming nuclear power projects. NPCIL is currently working on eight projects at four sites and will generate close to 7,000 mega watts by 2007-08, more than double its current capacity. It has also suggested that NTPC train its people on how to `balance' a nuclear plant, to begin with, and then it could proceed from there, the senior official said. NTPC, which generates more than 21,000 mega watts every year, has been pursuing the nuclear power option more aggressively for the last two quarters. Industry observers are sceptical about NTPC's move, mostly because of the technical stringency required for setting up nuclear power plants. And the fact that the Government has so far not allowed any other company to enter the atomic energy field. Although the previous NDA Government had considered allowing private sector participation in nuclear power generation, the new United Progressive Alliance Government has not yet moved on the idea. NTPC had, in its Corporate Plan 2017 approved by the Union Government, announced its plans to diversify into hydro and nuclear power generation. According to estimates, the viability of thermal power is expected to take a hit because of rise in costs of mining and transporting coal over the coming decade. The per unit cost of generating coal-based power is expected to go up to Rs 4 in the next 10 years, making it unviable for the average Indian customer, according to estimates drawn up by NTPC, said a senior NTPC official. Although nuclear power has been considered to be an expensive option, the average capacity of the plants operated by Nuclear Power Corporation has steadily risen from 60 per cent in 1995-96 to 85 per cent in 2001-02. -------- iran Target Iran: How Likely Is a U.S. First Strike? By Jefferson Morley washingtonpost.com Staff Writer Tuesday, January 25, 2005; 10:00 AM http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A35105-2005Jan25?language=printer As President Bush embarks on his second term in office, "the world already has a clue [as] to what to expect from his foreign policy over the next few years," says a leading German daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung (in German): "Iran, Iran, Iran." Online commentators from London to Tehran to Tel Aviv agree. Many say the possibility of military conflict between the United States and Iran, which Washington believes seeks to develop nuclear weapons, is now growing. While verbal warfare between Washington and Tehran is nothing new, international pundits point to a number of recent developments, large and small, that suggest rhetorical bombshells could give way to the real thing. Vice President Cheney's comment on Inauguration Day that Iran's nuclear program put it "right at the top of the list" of global trouble spots is one sign, pundits say. Another sign was Seymour Hersh's story in the New Yorker magazine reporting that the White House had authorized covert commando missions to identify targets inside Iran. Yet another signal of deepening conflict was the dismissive response of Iranian leaders. "We are eagerly looking for the Americans commandos to come to Iran since they are chicks which would rapidly be picked up by our eagles," declared Iran's Intelligence Minister, according to a report from the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting service. Iran, the largest country in the Middle East with a population of 67 million, has political and military assets throughout the region, noted Reuters in a story published in Iran News. "Tehran has ballistic missiles capable of striking Israel or U.S. bases in the Gulf and can easily stir up violence in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine through proxy agents and militant groups it backs." Optimists see a standoff that will enable European diplomats to forge a negotiated settlement in which the Iranian government renounces its nuclear ambitions in return for enhanced trade relations. Pessimists see enormous potential for miscalculation between two confident and ideologically hostile governments that have not had diplomatic relations for a quarter century. Concern is growing in Britain where a weekend editorial in the Sunday Mirror tabloid declared "Count Us Out of Iran War. " "Amid fears that President George W Bush's administration may seek Britain's backing for a new conflict," the Times of London reported Sunday that British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw would bring a 200-page dossier arguing against a military strike on Iranian nuclear weapon facilities to his Monday meeting with Secretary of State-designate Condoleezza Rice in Washington. The European Union still believes that a negotiated settlement is possible, reports Deutsche Welle, the German broadcast network. Just last week, European representatives met with Iranian counterparts in Brussels to discuss a possible trade agreement, something that Iran has long been striving for. "But the EU cannot and will not forever play the role of the good cop while the U.S. holds a big stick in its hand." Deutsche Welle added that German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer "has repeatedly told the regime in Teheran that it may be miscalculating the EU's ability to hinder the U.S. from using military force." Iranian President Mohammed Khatami, according to Aljazeera.net, said "that the possibility of an attack was very low because Washington was preoccupied with Iraq." In Israel, the government has long warned that Iran's nuclear ambitions pose a threat to the Jewish state. Iran's nuclear program is close to the "point of no return," said Mossad chief Meir Dagan. Dagan, head Israeli's foreign intelligence agency, said Iran will no longer need outside or international help to enrich uranium for use in atomic weapons, according to the Jerusalem Post. Labor Party member of the Knesset and former Mossad chief, Danny Yatom said that a nuclear Iran "is a danger to the entire world." He said that Cheney's statement last week intimating that Israel or the U.S. would act first "was designed to push the Europeans into getting involved." In 1981 Israeli warplanes destroyed an Iraqi nuclear reactor where Saddam Hussein was seeking to produce nuclear weapons. The Israeli government, which hopes to maintain its position as the only nuclear power in the Middle East, has not ruled out a similar attack on Iran. The Bush administration, wrote Amir Oren in the Tel Aviv daily Haaretz, "is using the possibility of an Israeli operation against Iran to threaten Tehran, while shaking off American responsibility for that kind of escalation." Oren argued that Washington wants "to remind the Iranians that their bluff in the nuclear poker game is liable to fall apart in the face of a card not part of the European deck -- the Israeli joker. " What Iran lacks, warn commentators in Iran's reformist press, is a political strategy to thwart President Bush's emphasis on democratic reform. The Iranian reformists, led by President Khatami, were popular back in the late 1990s but have been steadily marginalized in recent years by the hard-liners in control of the courts and security agencies. "The unavoidable reality . . . [is that] different policies and multilateral viewpoints are required for confronting America," said the reformist daily Shargh (in Farsi). "More effective behavior patterns and moral justifications are required for coming face to face with hostile idealists" in the White House." A front-page editorial for the Iran Daily was even more explicit. "What can prevent the American hawks from flying in the Iranian skies is full-scale public participation on the political scene. This will only materialize when the people are assured that Iranian officials are committed to respect their rights and fulfill their demands. " Left unsaid was the point that the religious hard-liners who refused to cede power to Khatami are hardly likely to liberalize in the face of explicit threats from the United States and Israel. The growing impasse between Washington and Tehran, concluded Munich's Sueddeutsche Zeitung, "has a whiff of war." -------- German FM urges closer US cooperation on Iran nuke talks WASHINGTON (AFP) Jan 25, 2005 http://www.spacewar.com/2005/050125215430.sddoifbt.html German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer urged Tuesday closer cooperation between the United States and its European allies in efforts to negotiate a dismantling of Iran's suspected nuclear arms program. "We have to make progress in the diplomatic efforts," Fischer told German reporters before meeting here with outgoing Secretary of State Colin Powell and his designated successor Condoleezza Rice. Germany, France and Britain have been negotiating with Tehran to persuade the Iranians to renounce their nuclear weapons ambitions, with the United States remaining largely on the sidelines. Fischer said the Europeans and the Americans "are not very far apart" on the danger that a nuclear-armed Iran would represent, and he appeared to call for greater US involvement in dissuasive efforts. "I think if we can bring forward diplomacy in a closely coordinated manner between Europe and the United States, this would be an important step forward," the chief German diplomat said. "For us it is important that we do all we can to bring together the positions in an intense dialogue across the Atlantic so that we can make diplomatic progress." Washington insists that after a quarter century of sanctions against Iran that has wiped out bilateral trade and investment, it has little diplomatic or economic leverage left with the Islamic Republic. President George W. Bush and his administration have ratcheted up their rhetoric, refusing to rule out military action. Vice President Dick Cheney last week said Iran topped the list of global trouble spots. Fischer said after meeting with Rice that they had a "very constructive discussion and a very open discussion" in preparation for Bush's tour of Europe next month that was likely to include talks on Iran. He made the rounds in Washington a day after British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw also had talks with Rice and Powell. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher would not comment on the substance of the diplomatic meetings here but reiterated Washington's hope that the Europeans' negotiations with Iran would succeed. "We hope that the Iranians agree to take the steps that the EU is looking for and to take the steps that would be required to satisfy the international community of Iran's intentions," Boucher said. ---- Straw emollient on Iran rift after US talks Ewen MacAskill Tuesday January 25, 2005 The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,12858,1397942,00.html The foreign secretary, Jack Straw, played down a rift with the US about possible military action to prevent Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon after talks yesterday with the incoming secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice. Last week the White House identified Iran as topping its list of foreign policy trouble spots for George Bush's second term. Mr Bush has refused to rule out military action, while Mr Straw has said he can conceive of no circumstances in which he would back force. Together with his French and German colleagues, he has been pursuing negotiations with Iran that have resulted in a tentative deal suspending Iranian uranium enrichment. Yesterday, Mr Straw said a military option was not mentioned in his talks with Ms Rice, the national security adviser who is awaiting Senate confirmation this week as the new secretary of state. "I think it was indicative that in the discussions I had, the issue was not raised once by either side. It was not on the table," Mr Straw said. The foreign secretary noted that the US had a "different historical perspective on Iran" because of the hostage crisis in the late 1970s and early 1980s, but added that US officials "have been active in their engagement" with the European negotiators and the International Atomic Energy Agency in support of the Iran talks. The Iranian government denies it is intent on building a nuclear bomb and hinted yesterday that it might be prepared to make the concession of allowing the IAEA unfettered access to the Parchin military base. After his talks yesterday, Mr Straw also welcomed Mr Bush's inaugural address last week, in which the president declared America's global mission to be the spread of democracy to "the darkest corners of the world". Mr Straw added: "I expressed support for what President Bush had said. After all, what he was saying was endorsing the very eloquent central tenets of the UN charter - democracy." The Foreign Office said the main issue of Mr Straw's visit was not Iran but the Israeli-Palestinian conference which Tony Blair will chair in London on March 1-2. One of the biggest issues exercising the US is an EU proposal to lift its arms embargo on China, imposed after the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989. Mr Straw, trying to bridge the gap, told US officials yesterday the embargo would be replaced by the EU code of conduct on arms. -------- israel Dagan: Egypt, Syria have nuclear programs, as well as Iran By Gideon Alon, Haaretz Correspondent and Haaretz Service 24/01/2005 http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/531273.html The head of the Mossad intelligence service, Meir Dagan, warned Monday that there are signs that several Middle East states other than Iran - including Egypt and Syria - are at varying stages of development of nuclear programs. Dagan, reviewing the security situation for the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, also warned that the atomic threat posed by Iran will soon reach the point of no return in a nuclear arms race. The Mossad chief told committee members that Iran is attempting to lead the International Atomic Energy Agency astray. According to Dagan, Russia is still helping Iran build its nuclear reactor in Bushehr. In addition, Dagan said Iran is encouraging Hezbollah to carry out terror attacks in Israeli territory, and giving assistance to Palestinian terror organizations. Peres: Iran is the central problem of the Mideast Vice Premier Shimon Peres, responding to reports that Tehran sought to foment terrorist attacks in order to foil a Israeli-Palestinian truce, said Monday that Iran constitutes the principal problem of the Middle East, and the center for terrorism in the region. "Iran is the problem of the Middle East," Peres said. "It is a group of people who have freed themselves from speaking the truth, who think that the means justify the ends, and who hide everything they do," he told Army Radio. "It is the center of terrorism in the Middle East. It is trying to create a nuclear option with a religious coloration." But Peres cautioned against Israel taking on the burden of confronting Tehran. "The Iran issue is a global one. Let the world conduct the war. How much do we need to take upon ourselves." In any event, Peres continued, diplomatic solutions must be explored by Washington and others before any decision for military action should be taken. -------- japan Living With the Bomb: The Atomic Bomb in Japanese Consciousness by Mark Selden January 25, 2005 Z-Net http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=17&ItemID=7105 [To commemorate the sixtieth anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the dawn of the nuclear age, Japan's defeat in World War II, and the start of the U.S. occupation, Japan Focus is initiating a series of occasional pieces on Japan in war and peace in the nuclear age. These are brief essays that seek to capture the times, looking backward and forward. These snapshots provide brief introductions to several signature issues of the epoch: the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and Japanese memories and responses to the bomb; the Hibakusha and the anti-nuclear movement; the US occupation; and the decade that ended and began the millennium.] Until the last six months of World War Two, the home islands of Japan were virtually untouched by the ravages of war. That changed definitively on the night of March 9 1945, as the full fury of U.S. firebombing was unleashed on Tokyo. The raid turned a fifteen square mile area of Tokyo into an inferno. Police Cameraman Ishikawa Koyo described the streets as "rivers of fire. Everywhere one could see flaming pieces of furniture exploding in the heat, while the people themselves blazed like match sticks. . . . Immense vortices rose in a number of places, swirling, flattening, sucking whole blocks of houses into their maelstrom of fire." 100,000 civilians died. More than one million homes were destroyed. Yet this was but a prelude of the hell that was to come. At 8:15 a.m. on August 6, 1945 a fireball with a temperature of several million degrees centigrade formed in the sky above Hiroshima. On the ground, the temperature at the hypocenter rose to 3,000-4,000 degrees centigrade -- far higher than the temperature at which iron melts. The Enola Gay had dropped the world's first atomic bomb over Hiroshima. Victims in Hiroshima, and three days later on August 9 in Nagasaki, provided vivid personal descriptions of the hellfire unleashed by the bomb. A young sociologist described "a park covered with dead bodies waiting to be cremated. . . . some girls, very young girls, not only with their clothes torn off but with their skin peeled off as well." The force of the blast and the heat of the thermal flash tore away the clothing and peeled away the skin from many of the victims. A Hiroshima girl who was five at the time of the blast recalled, "I had a terrible lonely feeling that everybody else in the world was dead and only we were still alive." A twenty-year old entering Hiroshima two hours after the blast encountered "a painting of hell." The devastation was cataclysmic. In both Hiroshima and Nagasaki, half of all those within three quarters of a mile of Ground Zero died on the day of the explosion; more than 80 percent eventually died from wounds or radiation inflicted by the bomb. By the end of 1945, the atomic bomb had claimed the lives of 140,000 Hiroshima people and 70,000 in Nagasaki. The legacy of the bomb in the form of blast injuries, burns, and radiation continues to inflict death and suffering on its victims to the present day. Although 64 Japanese cities were firebombed, with immense destruction and loss of life, Hiroshima and Nagasaki became the central symbols of war, overshadowing the events elsewhere. This was a product not only of the special features of the bomb, its power and radioactivity, but also of parallel efforts by Japanese and American rulers, reinforced by their respective media, to highlight the power of the bomb. In the case of the US, the goal was to convey awe at the unique power the US possessed and was prepared to use. The Japanese state sought to foster victim consciousness centered on the inhumanity of the bomb, thereby shifting attention away from Japan's criminal aggressive acts. The worldwide anti-nuclear movement similarly dramatized the effects of the atomic bomb, but in hope of abolishing nuclear weapons. The depth and nuance of feeling of the victims is well conveyed in the poetry, stories and art created by citizens of the two cities in the wake of the atomic bombing. Sakamoto Hatsumi, a primary school student, wrote in 1952: "When the atomic bomb drops day turns into night people turn into ghosts." Nakamura On, a survivor, also remembered "Under a pale blue glow, the black sun, dead sunflowers, and a collapsed roof, people lifted their faces voicelessly: bloody eyes that exchanged looks then loosely peeling skin lips swollen like eggplants heads impaled with shards of glass -- 'how can this be a human face' everyone thought at the sight of another yet each who so thought had the same face. . . . Without even uttering a cry of horror toward a place without flames from the west and from the east naked figures their skin loosely peeling you couldn't tell men from women a procession of ghosts continued; in the middle of all this suddenly an old woman in the process stopped pulling in something like a sash that was coming off when the flames had already come so close! Someone, unable to take it any longer, said 'come, throw that away, let's hurry'; then she answered 'these are my intestines.'" The memories of that day were literally burned into the consciousness of survivors. Writing about the bomb was strictly censored during the U.S. occupation of Japan as bigger bombs were stockpiled and readied for use. The literature and art that has emerged since that time helped to fuel a worldwide anti-nuclear movement that has been among the most important Japanese responses to the war and the bomb. And, as part of a broader anti-nuclear movement, may have contributed to the prevention of nuclear war. The torment inflicted by the bomb -- together with deep anger at the Japanese state for embarking on a brutal and senseless war and callously failing to protect its soldiers and citizens -- nurtured a widely shared pacifism and hatred of war among Japanese. That sentiment was in harmony with the U.S.-imposed Constitution whose Article Nine goes further than does any other constitutional provision in committing a nation to a peaceful future. "Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order," it states, "the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes." Memories of the carnage that Japanese armies had wrought throughout China and Asia, and of war crimes associated with the Nanjing Massacre and the enslavement of the comfort women, were long suppressed by the postwar Japanese state. Since the 1980s, however, they have reemerged through efforts by researchers and activists, and been reinforced by court cases and demonstrations by the victims. Textbook treatment of these issues has generated sharp debate in Japanese domestic politics and has given rise to continuing disagreements between Japan and its victims in the era of colonialism and war, particularly China and Korea. Reflecting on Japanese atrocities and war crimes committed during the colonial era and the Pacific War can provide the occasion for Americans, whose government vigorously criticized earlier Japanese and German bombing of cities, to reflect on our own war crimes in firebombing 64 Japanese cities and using nuclear weapons to destroy Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as subsequent deployment of weapons of mass destruction targeting civilian victims. For Japan, an epoch of perpetual war from 1895-1945 gave way to half a century in which that nation at peace achieved unprecedented economic growth and prosperity. In the new millennium this course is being challenged by a leadership that has sent Japanese military forces to Iraq in support of U.S. war aims. Japan's leaders are also pressing to revise the peace provisions of the constitution at a time of mounting tensions with North Korea and China. Yet memories of war, and particularly of the bomb, and its relevance to the contemporary age, continue to surface, particularly among older generations. Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba warns that "Worship of nuclear weapons is rapidly leading us toward a crisis. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the primary international agreement for the abolition of nuclear weapons, is on the verge of collapse. The United States, the nuclear superpower, has publicly reserved the option of a preemptive first strike with nuclear weapons. It has openly stated its intention to develop small "useable" nuclear weapons and is seeking to resume production of plutonium pits, the atomic bomb triggers for hydrogen bombs." At a time when Japanese neonationalists and American neoconservatives are on the offensive, and when new nations seek to acquire nuclear power, and more sophisticated nuclear weapons are being developed by the powers, the surviving victims of the bomb, the hibakusha, are among the most powerful symbols of the belief in a vision of peace predicated on the abolition of nuclear weapons. They hold out the hope that reconciliation can prevail over retaliation in human affairs. Mark Selden is a coordinator of Japan Focus. Kyoko and Mark Selden are the editors of The Atomic Bomb: Voices From Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Translations in this article by Kyoko Selden. -------- mideast Moscow welcomes nuclear free zone initiative for Mideast Jan 25 2005 12:00PM (Interfax) http://www.interfax.ru/e/B/0/28.html?id_issue=10742642 MOSCOW. Jan 25 - Moscow welcomes an initiative to create a nuclear free zone in the Middle East, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in an interview with Syrian News Agency, the text of which was published on the ministry's website on Tuesday. Syria was one of the authors of the initiative. "We welcome the creation of a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East," Lavrov said, adding that the realization of this initiative would serve the cause of maintaining regional and global security. ---- Egypt Says Failed to Tell UN Watchdog of Research Tue Jan 25, 2005 04:45 PM ET (Reuters) http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=7427942 CAIRO - Egypt acknowledged on Tuesday it failed to tell the U.N. nuclear watchdog about some of its research, after Western diplomats said the agency was investigating an Egyptian laboratory designed to process plutonium. Plutonium can be used in nuclear weapons. The official Middle East News Agency (MENA), quoting an unnamed Egyptian official, repeated the government's position that its nuclear program was peaceful. It said Egypt was "completely committed to its agreements" with the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). It added: "The difference in interpreting some aspects of the safeguards agreement... led to a failure to inform the IAEA about some experiments and research activities which were undertaken and which are allowed to be undertaken. "This issue is being dealt with to settle it through complete cooperation and transparency between Egypt and the IAEA, and Egypt is showing good intentions in dealing with the agency in this regard," MENA said. Western diplomats said on Friday that inspectors from the IAEA were in Egypt to inspect a laboratory designed to reprocess plutonium. They said the IAEA sent the inspectors after learning Egyptian scientists had been conducting undeclared experiments with uranium. The safeguards agreement between member states and the IAEA, which is headed by Mohamed ElBaradei, an Egyptian, requires disclosure of nuclear materials and periodic inspections to verify compliance. MENA said most of the experiments and activities concerned were carried out a long time ago. "We have felt during our discussions with the agency understanding from its side about the limited extent of this issue," it said. Aly Islam, president of the Egyptian Atomic Energy Authority, on Monday denied inspectors were in Egypt on the date reported by the diplomats. He said all activities in Egypt conformed with the safeguards agreement. The diplomats said the undeclared experiments with uranium partly came to light after some of the scientists involved in the project published their research. They said the laboratory, located near Cairo, may never have been used, but added the IAEA was inspecting the laboratory to determine whether any work with plutonium had been done there. -------- terrorism Radiation Detectors Placed to Catch Nuclear Smugglers WASHINGTON, DC, January 25, 2005 (ENS) http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jan2005/2005-01-25-09.asp#anchor1 U.S. customs officials have announced plans to use new high-tech radiation detection devices to stop any attempt to smuggle radiological materials used in nuclear weapons into the United States. In a statement on Friday, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency, part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, said that the ground-mounted devices, known as Radiation Portal Monitors, will be used at the California city of Calexico on the U.S.-Mexico border to increase CBP's "already formidable detection capabilities" to screen cars and trucks entering the United States. The portals are being installed at car and truck lanes at the Calexico border crossing and will start operation at the end of January 2005, the CBP said. The equipment will act as extremely sensitive receiving antennas to detect radiation sources. Al Miramontes, assistant port director at the Calexico border station, said the portals are "passive devices." This means, he said, that the portals "do not emit any radiation and are completely safe." He added, "The best way to prevent a terrorist attack is by preventing terrorists or terrorist weapons from entering the nation. These portals now being deployed at the Calexico port will help ensure that our border and our nation is secure." The CBP said the portal monitors are capable of detecting various types of radiation emanating from nuclear devices, dirty bombs, special nuclear materials, and isotopes commonly used in medicine and industry. The devices will sense any radiation sources as each car and truck passes and alert CBP officers, if necessary. In addition to the portal monitors, CBP officers currently use hand-held radiation isotope identifier devices and belt-mounted personal radiation detectors at major airport, seaport, and land border crossings in the United States. Together, these devices, when fully deployed, will passively screen each person, car, and truck entering the United States to ensure that any radioactive sources are identified, said the CBP. Calexico is also where a new express lane for cargo trucks was opened January 17, as part of a U.S.-Mexico bilateral program to counter terrorism and promote trade. Calexico, across the border from the Mexican city of Mexicali, is the sixth U.S.-Mexico border port of entry to dedicate a FAST lane. -------- u.s. nuc facilities -------- california San Luis Obispo group working to shut nuclear plants Spokeswoman for Mothers for Peace has formed an offshoot organization dedicated to stopping the relicensing of Diablo Canyon and San Onofre David Sneed The San Luis Obispo Tribune Tue, Jan. 25, 2005 http://www.sanluisobispo.com/mld/sanluisobispo/10728675.htm Rochelle Becker, longtime nuclear-issues activist and spokeswoman for the San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace, has formed a new statewide organization to stop the relicensing of California's two nuclear power plants. Becker has been named executive director of the Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility, based in San Luis Obispo. The group's goal is to change California law to prohibit the relicensing of Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant and San Onofre nuclear generating station near San Clemente. Nuclear power plants are licensed for 40 years and can apply to renew their licenses for another 20. Licenses for the two reactors at Diablo Canyon will expire in 2023 and 2025. Diablo owner Pacific Gas and Electric Co. is studying whether to seek license renewal. "This is really an exciting opportunity to inform people that states have some rights when it comes to the licensing of these plants," Becker said. Other states, including Minnesota and Vermont, have limited the amount of spent nuclear fuel that can be stored at plants. Becker said she decided to start the new group because taking on a statewide effort would be too much for Mothers for Peace volunteers, who are busy with a federal lawsuit and proceedings before the state Public Utilities Commission. One of Becker's first public appearances in her new job will be at a Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensing conference March 8 at the agency's Rockville, Md., headquarters. The agency's rules for issuing various licenses to nuclear utilities have angered local activists who feel left out of the decision-making. "My theme will be that the agency ignores communities and there is no trust in the process," she said. Becker said the new group's first job is to line up support from various groups and local governments, particularly in Los Angeles and San Diego, where much of the state's political influence lies. She will then recruit state lawmakers to craft legislation to ban nuclear plant license renewal. To this end, the group is forming a board of directors, with members from many parts of the state. They include Jonathan Parfrey, executive director of the Los Angeles chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility; Shirley Vaine, a San Diego real estate broker; and David Weisman, a Morro Bay filmmaker and Mothers for Peace activist. The group's main argument is that Californians never bargained on having high-level nuclear waste storage facilities associated with the two plants. They were built with the assumption that a national nuclear waste dump would be available to take the plants' used fuel assemblies. "It is irresponsible for California to continue to allow production of high-level radioactive waste that could severely impact our health, safety, environment and economy," Becker said. A national waste repository is proposed at Yucca Mountain near Las Vegas, but that facility will not open for years, if ever. As a result, PG&E will open an above-ground facility at Diablo Canyon in 2006. The nuclear power industry argues that the nation needs more nuclear plants, not fewer. The state and the nation get 20 percent of their power from nuclear plants. "The United States faces a critical need for investment in emission-free, next-generation nuclear power plants to relieve pressure on natural gas supply, to help preserve fuel and technological diversity, to help make our air cleaner and to strengthen U.S. energy security," said John Kane, a vice president with Nuclear Energy Institute in testimony Monday before the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. -------- michigan Leak forces Michigan nuclear plant shutdown (CNN) Tuesday, January 25, 2005 Posted: 3:31 AM EST (0831 GMT) http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/01/25/nuclear.plant/index.html A water leak at the Fermi II nuclear power plant outside Monroe, Michigan, forced a shutdown of the facility Monday, but no radioactivity was reported to have escaped and no evacuations have been ordered, authorities said. Lorie Kessler, a spokeswoman for Detroit Edison, which operates the plant, said the plant shutdown around 4:20 p.m. after water began leaking into the containment vessel at a rate of about 50 gallons per minute. "There's no indication of a radioactive release," she said. She said inspectors have yet to enter the area where the leak is occurring, but they expect to have a team in there Tuesday to inspect the leak and conduct the necessary repairs if possible. The plant, located about 40 miles south of Detroit, employs about 900 people and won a top safety award from state officials in July. In Detroit, a statement from Wayne County Executive Robert Ficano said the incident "is closely being monitored." "The plant is stable and represents no threat to the public or surrounding area at this time," Ficano said. -------- nevada NRC nominees not on level playing field on Yucca issues By Suzanne Struglinski Las Vegas SUN WASHINGTON BUREAU January 25, 2005 http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/text/2005/jan/25/518180019.html WASHINGTON -- The two newest members of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission have to play by different rules, at least for a year, when it comes to work related to Yucca Mountain, and that has the critics of the nuclear dump crying foul. Peter Lyons, was sworn in as an NRC commissioner today after serving eight years as a nuclear adviser to Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., one of the Senate biggest proponents of nuclear power and storing nuclear waste at Yucca, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Lyons, a Nevada native, has a two-year term on the commission as part of a deal struck late last year among Domenici, Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and the White House to get Greg Jaczko, Reid's science adviser, a seat on the commission. Commissioners usually serve five-year terms, but Lyons and Jaczko will each serve two years and will have to be re-nominated by the White House to retain their seats. Jaczko was sworn in last week, but will have to recuse himself from Yucca matters for one year, based on the deal made in the Senate. Domenici spokeswoman Marnie Funk said Lyons has no restrictions on Yucca-related work. She said Jaczko's nomination was "very controversial" and senators who opposed his nomination made clear the whole Senate would not confirm him. "Mr. Lyons nomination has not been controversial, there was no such request from senators or the White House and he will be dealing with Yucca Mountain issues," Funk said. But Yucca critics question the double standard, particularly because they feel Lyons worked as closely with Domenici in favor of nuclear power as Jaczko worked with Reid against it. "That is immensely unbalanced and unfair," said Michele Boyd, an analyst with the watchdog group Public Citizen, who follows Yucca. She said time will tell if Jaczko will emerge as an influential Yucca critic. "It's not clear to me yet what one person can do in a group of five," Boyd said, referring to the fact that there are five commissioners. The Nuclear Energy Institute, which opposed Jaczko's nomination, has no problem with Lyons on the commission without restrictions, spokesman Mitch Singer said. Singer has said all along the group feels it would be inappropriate for a former nuclear industry executive to get a seat on the commission or anyone with a clear bias one way or the other, such as Jaczko, to be in charge of regulating the industry. "We don't feel Lyons falls into that category," Singer said. Singer said Lyons has been involved in overall energy issues for some time and has never really taken a position on Yucca Mountain. There wasn't much time for Reid to offer an objection to the conditions of Lyons' appointment even if he had wanted to, Reid spokeswoman Tessa Hafen said. The White House on Wednesday tapped Lyons to fill the second vacancy after the other Republican nominee former Navy Vice Admiral Albert Konetzni withdrew his name. "It happened very quickly," she said. But Reid isn't too concerned about the different set of rules for Lyons because the senator has a lot of respect for Lyons as scientist and as a fair arbiter of Yucca issues, Hafen said. Reid aides also have noted that it is unlikely that the NRC will be acting much on Yucca this year, given that the Energy Department project is behind schedule and given that its application to construct the repository has not yet been submitted. -------- new york Constellation Cuts 51 Non-Union Jobs At NY Nuclear Plants Tuesday January 25, 12:09 PM EST (AP) http://money.iwon.com/jsp/nw/nwdt_rt.jsp?cat=USMARKET&src=704&feed=dji§ion=news&news_id=dji-00063220050125&date=20050125&alias=/alias/money/cm/nw SCRIBA, N.Y.--Constellation Energy (CEG) has cut 51 non-union jobs at its two Lake Ontario nuclear plants and plans to eliminate more, according to The Syracuse Post-Standard. Company spokeswoman Jill Lyon said no decision was made on how many more workers at the Nine Mile Point plants could be eliminated. Those who lost their jobs were non-union workers, she said. The company will meet soon with union officials to discuss further layoffs, she said. "We're looking to get leaner everywhere," Lyon said. Baltimore-based Constellation also laid off 34 workers at its Calvert Cliffs nuclear plants in Maryland. Constellation acquired the Nine Mile Point nuclear plants in 2001 from Niagara Mohawk, which employed 1,330 people at the facilities, located 45 miles north of Syracuse. Constellation has spent more than $50 million to upgrade the plants and is seeking permission to extend their 40-year operating licenses by 20 years. The company also recently acquired the Ginna nuclear plant near Rochester. -------- vermont New England Coalition backs off on Vermont Yankee construction claim By CAROLYN LORIÉ BRATTLEBORO Reformer Staff Tuesday, January 25, 2005 http://www.reformer.com/Stories/0,1413,102~8862~2672341,00.html The New England Coalition filed a letter on Monday with the Vermont Public Service Board alleging that construction for dry cask storage may have started at the Vermont Yankee nuclear power station. The nuclear watchdog group, however, may have acted on misinformation and plans to submit another letter today modifying its position. In Monday's letter, Raymond Shadis, technical advisor to the coalition, wrote that "Entergy personnel have recently shown site visitors a concrete pad, a prepared perimeter exclusion area, fencing, and security equipment and identified the whole as the facility intended to house spent nuclear fuel casks." Shadis did not reveal who provided the group with the information but referred to them as "reputable witnesses." The most recent tour of the plant was taken by the Vermont House Committee on Natural Resources and Energy. Any construction at the plant must first be approved by the Public Service Board. While Entergy officials are hoping to have on-site dry cask storage for the spent fuel, they have not yet submitted an application to the board. If construction at the plant has in fact begun, Entergy would be in violation of state law and subject to a fine by the board. The company is already facing an $85,000 fine for beginning work on another project without approval in 2003. In response to the coalition's filing, Entergy officials said that the coalition's accusation was "absolutely untrue." "The New England Coalition is showing reckless disregard for the facts. These irresponsible tactics needlessly waste time and resources," said Entergy spokesman Rob Williams. By Monday evening, Peter Alexander, executive director of the coalition, said that the group could no longer corroborate that any concrete had been poured and the information received may have been a miscommunication. Rep. Steve Darrow, D-Putney, was part of the recent tour. He said that he did not see any signs of construction at the plant. -------- MILITARY -------- africa At Least 14 Killed as Kenyan Tribes Clash over Scarce Water Supplies January 25, 2005 — By Associated Press http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=6991 NAIROBI, Kenya — Kikuyu and Maasai tribal fighters armed with machetes and spears clashed over scarce water supplies in central Kenya, killing at least 14 people in two days of fighting, police said Monday. Thousands of people fled the fighting that broke out Saturday in Mai Mahiu, about 60 kilometers (37 miles) northwest of Nairobi, said police spokesman Jaspher Ombati. Scores were injured in the clashes and dozens of houses were burned, he said. An Associated Press reporter saw fighters from both sides walking around Mai Mahiu with machetes, spears, bows and arrows. At least 14 people were killed in the fighting before reinforcements arrived and restored order Monday, Ombati said, adding that tensions remained high. The fighting started Saturday when Maasai herders destroyed pipes used to pump water from a river into farms belonging to Kikuyu. The Maasai said the irrigation scheme denied them water for their livestock, Ombati said. In retaliation, Kikuyu farmers attacked the Maasai, sparking the clashes. A drought last year in Kenya dried up seasonal rivers important to cattle, goat and sheep herders, such as the Maasai. The drought also led to food shortages in parts of the country. -------- arms U.S. still opposes EU arms sales to China January 25, 2005 By Nicholas Kralev THE WASHINGTON TIMES http://www.washtimes.com/world/20050124-113821-7874r.htm A strict "code of conduct" meant to regulate European arms sales to China when a 15-year embargo is lifted later this year is not satisfactory to Washington, which continues to oppose the move, U.S. officials said yesterday. A meeting between National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, who is expected to become secretary of state this week, and visiting British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw did little to bridge the differences, the officials said. Miss Rice and Mr. Straw, they said, agreed to seek a solution acceptable — or at least less objectionable — to both the United States and the European Union before President Bush visits the continent next month. "The EU is working on a code of conduct, but we don't think the time is right" to lift the embargo, a senior administration official said. "We take their point, but it still sends a political signal that doesn't need to be there." China's poor human rights record, he said, does not merit ending the embargo, which was imposed after the bloody 1989 military crackdown in Tiananmen Square. Whatever rules the European Union adopts, arms sales to China will take place and that would be against U.S. interests in the Far East, another administration official said. One of Washington's main concerns has been that those weapons could potentially be used against Taiwan. But European officials argue that lifting the embargo will change neither the size nor quality of China's arsenal. On another issue, Miss Rice assured Mr. Straw that the administration is "committed to Iran diplomacy" to deal with Tehran's nuclear weapons programs, the British diplomat told reporters after the meeting. Mr. Straw made clear London's position that military force in Iran is not a viable solution. "We agree," the administration official said. "It is our policy to resolve the issue diplomatically. At the same time, we never take any option off the table." On Sunday, a London newspaper reported that Mr. Straw had prepared a paper for the House of Commons laying out the case against military action. The document touted ongoing negotiations with Iran led by Britain, France and Germany as being "in the best interests of Iran and the international community," the Sunday Times said. It also referred to "safeguarding Iran's right to the peaceful use of nuclear technology," the paper said. Last week, Miss Rice said that the administration doubts the European effort would succeed. "We are skeptical that this is going to work, but we certainly hope that it's going to work, and we will see how far the Europeans get," she told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee during her confirmation hearing. "Someone needs to test the Iranian willingness to live up to their international obligations, and that's what the EU is going to be doing," she said. The Europeans last week became worried about a U.S. attack on Iran, when Vice President Dick Cheney suggested in a TV interview that Israel might strike specific nuclear facilities in Iran. "You look around at potential trouble spots. Iran is right at the top of the list," Mr. Cheney said. Yesterday, Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres said the world must take action against Iran's nuclear ambitions because they threaten the stability of the Middle East. "The world must mobilize against the Iranian nuclear option," Mr. Peres said in an interview with Israeli army radio. "Iran has become the focal point of all the dangers of the Middle East." -------- asia Baker's advice January 25, 2005 Washington Times Embassy Row By James Morrison http://www.washtimes.com/world/embassy.htm Ambassador Howard H. Baker Jr. yesterday urged Japan to repair its tense relations with China as he addressed a political forum in one of his final acts before retiring as the U.S. envoy in Tokyo. "The real challenge for Japan, in my view, comes from how you arrange your relationship with China. Japan and China have a mutual responsibility, I think, to find ways to work together productively," he told the audience at the headquarters of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, according to Tokyo press reports. He urged Japan to face the reality that China "is growing in economic and political interest." The relationship between the two Asian powers has grown tense since a Chinese submarine entered Japanese waters in November, and Japan drew up defense plans in December against Chinese aggression. Mr. Baker, who plans to leave Japan next month, discussed U.S.-Japanese relations and praised Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi in an article last week in Japan's Asahi Shimbun newspaper. He noted that Mr. Koizumi and President Bush held three meetings last year in a sign of the importance Washington places on its friendship with Tokyo. Mr. Baker praised Mr. Koizumi for his "particular brand of energy, decisiveness and imagination" and thanked the prime minister for his support of the United States in Iraq and in the war on terrorism. "Prime Minister Koizumi has, through active foreign diplomacy, made Japan a powerful player on the world stage," he said, adding that the United States supports Japan's goal of a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council. "The prime minister's determination to contribute to the war on terrorism, including billions of dollars in reconstruction assistance for Iraq and Afghanistan, will help build peace in those lands," Mr. Baker said. He recalled that Mr. Koizumi's decision to send troops to Iraq to help rebuild the country met strong domestic opposition, but he predicted "history will judge it to be the right choice." Mr. Baker, who has served in Tokyo since June 2001, will be replaced by Thomas Schieffer, ambassador to Australia. Mr. Bush announced the nomination last week, after his inauguration to a second term as president. Mr. Schieffer, a former member of the Texas House of Representatives, was a business partner of Mr. Bush's in the Texas Rangers baseball team. Mr. Schieffer, whose brother is CBS News correspondent Bob Schieffer, has served in Australia since September 2001. Defense Business Boosts CACI Profit 44% By Ellen McCarthy Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, January 25, 2005; Page E05 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33915-2005Jan24.html CACI International Inc., an Arlington government contractor, said recent acquisitions of companies doing business with the Defense Department and intelligence agencies helped boost its second-quarter profit. The company earned $20.5 million (67 cents a share) in the three months ended Dec. 31, up 44 percent from the profit of $14.3 million (48 cents) it recorded in the same period the previous year. CACI's revenue rose 48 percent, to $389.7 million from $263.4 million. CACI provides a range of services for government clients, including the integration of technology systems, development of advanced communication networks and analysis of human intelligence. In 2004, CACI acquired four companies, including the defense and intelligence group of Fairfax-based American Management Systems Inc. for $415 million in May. That purchase helped CACI strengthen its foothold with defense-related agencies, said chief executive J.P. "Jack" London. The company will continue buying companies in the year ahead, he added. "We are right now emphasizing what we have perceived as national priorities -- there is a concern on national security, there is a concern on intelligence," London said. "The companies in those sectors are those that I'd be most interested in." Contracts with defense and intelligence agencies brought in 73 percent, or $284.6 million, of the company's second-quarter revenue, up from 65 percent, or $172 million, in the year-earlier quarter. Revenue for work for federal civilian agencies also grew, though at a much slower rate, to $81.9 million from $75.1 million. CACI said that for fiscal 2005, it expects to earn $81.8 million to $84 million on revenue of $1.58 billion to $1.6 billion. In the previous fiscal year, the company earned $63.7 million and posted $1.1 billion in revenue. Shares of CACI rose $1.10, or 1.9 percent, to close at $60.40 yesterday. -------- haiti A teetering bridge for Haiti's poor January 25, 2005 By Reed Lindsay THE WASHINGTON TIMES http://www.washtimes.com/world/20050124-103536-7766r.htm THOMONDE, Haiti - Despite political conflict that led to the ouster of elect-ed President Jean-Bertrand Aristide last February and the freezing of international aid, microfinance initiatives flourish in Haiti. None has been as successful as Fonkoze, Haiti's leading microfinance institution, which gives loans to more than 25,000 street vendors and other small-business owners, 98 percent of them women, at a default rate of less than 2 percent. Fonkoze's growth has been part of a worldwide boom in microfinance in the past decade, leading the United Nations to declare 2005 the "International Year of Microcredit." Microcredits are defined as small loans to people, and microfinance refers to a range of financial services, including microcredit, savings accounts, money transfers and insurance targeted at low-income clients. The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) says the number of poor people with access to microcredit more than tripled from 1997 to 2001, rising from 7.6 million to 26.8 million. Now, with international aid flowing once again toward an interim government that has the blessing of the United States and the backing of more than 7,000 U.N. peacekeeping soldiers and police officers, aid organizations are looking to microfinancing as a key to rebuilding this devastated nation. But at Fonkoze — an acronym for Fondasyon Kole Zepol, or Shoulder-to-Shoulder Foundation, whose sound also means "make cause," or "common cause" — the prevailing mood is one of caution, not optimism. Anne Hastings, director of Fonkoze, says she would be the first to warn of the limits of microfinance, especially in Haiti, a country beset by staggering poverty and crippling natural disasters. "We're really reaching primarily the upper half of those who are in poverty," Mrs. Hastings said. "For the poorest of the poor, which is a majority in Haiti, we now know that microcredit alone is not the solution. Instead, it ends up being a burden." Struggling to survive Even as political violence rages on in Port-au-Prince and the economy plummets, business is brisk at Solange Derose's open-air market stall in the tree-lined town of Thomonde, in the heart of Haiti's parched Central Plateau region. "Things are great today," says Miss Derose, 45, as she scoops rice from her cluttered table of bars of soap, tomato paste, dried fish, bouillon cubes, salt and cooking oil, as a customer waits in the shade of the stall's thatched banana-leaf and stick roof. "I don't know how much I'm making, but it's more than I used to." Miss Derose says she is grateful for a small loan she received from Fonkoze, which allowed her to expand her inventory and buy a donkey to transport her products from home to the market at a cheaper price. But in Haiti, people with even modest resources like Miss Derose are the exception. Down a dirt and rock road from the market, Rene Jacob stacks a 4-foot sack of charcoal against a tiny faded green wood-plank house. Mr. Jacob, 40, a wiry man with soft eyes and a gentle demeanor, says he makes the charcoal by cutting down branches from the seven trees that are spread around the small piece of property that his family has rented for 30 years at the edge of Thomonde. Mr. Jacob says he can sell the charcoal for $2.70, but has to wait for the branches to grow back before he can make more. Asked how he survives, he dashes behind the house and returns with a plastic gallon jug containing a red liquid. "This is my hope for tomorrow," he says with an earnest smile. "This gallon of alcohol is my whole life. When I see my wife, my baby, my mother are hungry, I must sell this alcohol to get money so we can survive. ... I do this because I have nothing else to do." Mr. Jacob buys kleren, a home-brewed alcohol made from sugar cane, mixes it with a concoction made from roots he has scavenged and sells glass flasks of the finished product to men who believe it is an aphrodisiac. He can make up to $1.35 if he sells a whole gallon, he said, but he rarely does so in one day. His 8-year-old daughter recently was sent home from school because he did not have $8 to pay for her three months of tuition, a common burden of the poor in Haiti, where public education is underfunded and most students go to private schools. He says he usually makes enough to buy medicine for his mother, who has tuberculosis, or to provide one meal a day of rice or corn to the seven members of his family who are crammed into his house. Sometimes, friends give them something to eat if profits from his alcohol sales are slim. Mr. Jacob has heard of Fonkoze, but is not interested in applying for the $ 81 startup loan because he fears going into debt. Not for everyone "The last thing you want to do is make a poor person even poorer by giving them a loan they can't pay back," said Lauren Mitten of Development Alternatives Inc., a private contractor that runs a microfinance project in Haiti for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). "There are lots of microfinance institutions trying to reach the same people with the same products. But no one is reaching the extreme poor." Under a law passed by the U.S. Congress in 2003, USAID must ensure that 50 percent of the money it provides in microfinance is targeted to the "very poor," defined as those living on less than $1 a day or the bottom 50 percent of all those living under the poverty line in that country. But some analysts say the problem is not that microcredits are not reaching the extreme poor, but that they are ill-suited for them. "The poor are not homogenous," said Rabeya Yasmin, who has pioneered a program based on grants targeted to the most poor for BRAC, formerly known as the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee, which lends money to nearly 4 million women in Bangladesh, making it one of the largest microfinance institutions in the world. "Microfinance has been incredibly successful at poverty reduction among moderately poor groups. But the extreme poor have been neglected, and it's high time we start treating them differently. Until now, they have been absolutely hidden from view." Mrs. Yasmin is at the forefront of a growing number of microfinance analysts who believe that giving cash loans of any size to the most poor can be counterproductive. Extreme poverty has varying definitions, but it often is used to refer to people who live on the equivalent of less than one U.S. dollar a day. In Haiti, 65 percent of the population fit this definition, the UNDP says. Instead of loaning money, BRAC's ultra-poor program provides beneficiaries with a mixture of handouts, productive assets — often farm animals — and training, in the hope that after two years, they will be able to join the institution's regular microcredit program. Mrs. Yasmin visited Haiti at the request of Mrs. Hastings in November, and Fonkoze hopes to match the grant-based program, beginning in the Central Plateau, with the help of Zanmi Lasante, the Haitian branch of the Boston-based health-care organization Partners in Health. Plenty to be done Fonkoze and Zanmi Lasante have their work cut out for them. Far from the violence of Port-au-Prince, the more than half-million people who live on the Central Plateau trudge through the same grinding poverty as their parents and grandparents did. Some say conditions have grown even worse as arable land has shrunk because of deforestation and the 1956 flooding of farmland to build a dam that provides electricity to Port-au-Prince. Many families survive by growing subsistence crops in the dry, rocky soil typical in many parts of Haiti, where massive deforestation has left the land barren, creating conditions for floods and mudslides. International aid organizations provide services that in many developing nations would be expected to come from the government, whose presence in the region is negligible. With almost no public spending on health care, Zanmi Lasante alone treats more than 1,000 patients a day. Roads in the region are deeply rutted and often impassable after heavy rains. Telephone communication ranges from sparse to nonexistent, and Hinche, the provincial capital, has had less than a month of electricity in the past two years. The former military, which had been disbanded by Mr. Aristide, has defied the police and U.N. peacekeepers and acts as the de facto law enforcement in the region. "Some donors are uncertain about this project, because Haiti doesn't have a stable government and it has a failing economy and there's too much insecurity," Mrs. Hastings said. "But I say this is exactly the place to test what we're trying to do. If we can do it here in Haiti, here in the Central Plateau, we can do it anywhere." -------- israel / palestine IDF reviving psychological warfare unit By Amos Harel Tue., January 25, 2005 Haaretz International http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/531436.html The Israel Defense Forces is reestablishing its psychological warfare unit, after a lengthy period in which the unit was dormant. It operates mostly in the Palestinian arena. Lately, dozens of new job slots have been approved for it, and the unit commander has begun filling officer's positions. The psychological warfare unit was dramatically reduced five years ago, but during the war with the Palestinians, the army grew frustrated with the difficulty of influencing Palestinian opinion in the territories - indeed, of even finding a way of communicating with the population. Chief of Staff Moshe Ya'alon often spoke about the need to "sear into the consciousness" of the Palestinians that terror would not lead to achievements. But the army found it difficult to get the message across in the territories and rarely spoke directly with the residents. Lately, as part of the "battle for the consciousness," Ya'alon decided to grant the status of a company to the unit. Heading it will be a veteran intelligence officer holding the rank of colonel. He was given about 70 positions to fill with officers and soldiers, with emphasis on Arabic speakers. The doctrine for the unit is still in development, based on consultation with veteran intelligence officers in reserves. The overall intention is to conduct "awareness operations" to influence Palestinian public opinion, mostly through propaganda, psychological warfare and sometimes disinformation. It will be under the command of the Operations Branch in the general staff, but will get professional guidance from Military Intelligence. MI had reservations about the unit in the past, when at various times it was located in the field security unit, and MI's research department has been opposed to including in its purview psychological warfare in its various incarnations. Lately, the psychological warfare department has been involved in IDF propaganda efforts in Gaza. A senior military source told Haaretz that the air force distributed some 250,000 leaflets in the last two weeks, in which the army explained its reasoning in the war against terrorism, emphasizing that non-combatant civilians are paying the price for Hamas terrorism. At the Karni and Rafah crossings, which the army closed after deadly attacks, the army hung huge signs reading "Closed because of the Hamas." The unit's activities have been controversial for years. In October 1999, Aluf Benn revealed in Haaretz that members of the unit used the Israeli media to emphasize reports initiated by the unit that it managed to place in the Arab press. He reported that the news reports focused on Iranian and Hezbollah involvement in terror activity. Psychological warfare officers were in touch with Israeli journalists covering the Arab world, gave them translated articles from Arab papers (which were planted by the IDF) and pressed the Israeli reporters to publish the same news here. That was meant to strengthen the perception of the Iranian threat in Israeli public opinion. The MI chief at the time, Amos Malka, was not enthusiastic about MI's responsibility for the unit and he used the embarrassing reports to reduce its activity. Most of the officers who served in the unit were transferred elsewhere. A lieutenant colonel was left in charge but the unit's activities were frozen. ---- Army to disband 'ideological' units By UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL Published January 25, 2005 http://www.wpherald.com/Middle_East/storyview.php?StoryID=20050125-095735-7916r TEL AVIV, Israel -- The Israeli army is planning to disband formations of soldiers who combine rabbinical studies with shortened military service, a spokesman said. Those soldiers are usually nationalistic and more likely to oppose orders to evacuate settlers, but the army denied any political connotations to its new policy. National Religious Party leaders criticized the plan. Those soldiers are exceptionally good and "there is no reason to disband units known for their quality," NRP leader and retired Brig. Gen. Effie Eitam said. Rabbis have also opposed the move. The head of the army's Manpower Directorate, Maj. Gen. Elazar Stern, told Israel radio there was no reason to preserve "ideological sectorialism" of soldiers since there are enough such soldiers in regular units to ensure religious services. The army's plan was devised before religious and settler groups called on soldiers to disobey orders to evacuate settlers, Stern said. He was not aware of units that are more likely to oppose orders to evacuate settlers, he said. The army is preparing to cope with such refusals and at the moment addresses the issue in commanders' courses, Stern said. The pullback is expected this summer. -------- mideast Russia, Syria strike deal on Soviet-era debt AFP 01-25-2005 http://www.turkishpress.com/world/news.asp?id=050125160832.1k8u1pxf.xml Syrian President Bashar al-Assad (L) and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin exchange documents during their meeting in Moscow. Russia and Syria have reached a deal on restructuring debt owed by Syria left over from the Soviet era. Sergei Zhukov - (AFP/Itar-Tass) MOSCOW (AFP) - Russia and Syria have reached a deal on restructuring debt owed by Syria left over from the Soviet era, the Syrian and Russian presidents announced after talks at the Kremlin. "We have resolved the debt issue on mutually acceptable terms, which gives us the basis for long-term cooperation in the future," Russian President Vladimir Putin was quoted as saying Tuesday by news agencies. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad confirmed the agreement, saying the two sides had "reached an agreement on Syria's debts to Russia". Syria owes Moscow just over 13 billion dollars (10 billion euros), debts mainly incurred from arms purchases during the Soviet era. Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin was quoted as saying by Interfax that Moscow had agreed to forgive 73 percent of the total, leaving a debt of 3.6 billion dollars. Of this, 40 percent or 1.5 billion dollars is to be repaid in cash over 10 years, and the remainder would be available in Syrian currency for purchases of goods and investments in Syria, he added. -------- prisoners of war Pentagon confirms transfer of four British detainees from Guantanamo Jan 25, 2005 WASHINGTON (AFP) http://www.spacewar.com/2005/050125154641.go6ifi0q.html The Pentagon confirmed Tuesday that four British detainees were transferred to British custody from a US military detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Earlier, London police said the four -- Moazzam Begg, Richard Belmar, Martin Mubanga and Feroz Abbasi -- boarded a Royal Air Force plane and flew home. In a statement announcing the transfer, the Pentagon said it had been requested by the British government, which accepted responsibility for the men. "It has assured the US government that the detainees will not pose a continuing security threat to the United States or its allies," the statement said. "The Department of Defense has strong confidence in the UK's commitment and ability to fulfill this responsibility," it added. Begg, Abbasi and Belmar were all arrested either in Afghanistan or Pakistan in 2001 and 2002, while Mubanga was picked up in Zambia, having been in Afghanistan previously. All four have rejected US accusations that they are connected to Al-Qaeda or other extremist groups. ---- 23 at Guantanamo Tried Mass Suicide in '03 By PAISLEY DODDS Associated Press Writer Jan 25, 5:22 AM EST http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/G/GUANTANAMO_HANGING_PROTESTS?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) -- The U.S. military said 23 Guantanamo Bay terror suspects carried out a coordinated effort to hang or strangle themselves in 2003 during a week-long protest in the secretive camp in Cuba. The military, which had not previously reported the protest, called the actions "self-injurious behavior" aimed at getting attention rather than serious suicide attempts. The coordinated attempts were among 350 "self-harm" incidents that year, including 120 so-called "hanging gestures," Lt. Col. Leon Sumpter, a spokesman for the detention mission, said Monday. In the Aug. 18-26, 2003, protest, nearly two dozen prisoners tried to hang or strangle themselves with clothing and other items in their cells, demonstrating "self-injurious behavior," the U.S. Southern Command in Miami said in a statement. Ten detainees made a mass attempt on Aug. 22 alone. Last year, there were 110 self-harm incidents, Sumpter said. The 23 prisoners were in steel mesh cells and they can talk to neighbors. It would not have been possible to pass notes, and they are allowed to exercise only one at a time. Only two of the 23 were considered suicide attempts - requiring hospitalization and psychiatric treatment. Officials said they differentiated between a suicide attempt in which a detainee could have died without intervention, and a "gesture" aimed at getting attention. Sixteen of the 23 remain at Guantanamo; seven have been transferred to other countries. The military has reported 34 suicide attempts since the camp opened in January 2002, including one prisoner who went into a coma and sustained memory loss from brain damage. The 2003 protests came as the camp suffered a rash of suicide attempts after Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller took command with a mandate to get more information from prisoners accused of links to al-Qaida or Afghanistan's ousted Taliban regime, which had sheltered Osama bin Laden. Critics linked the two and criticized the delay in reporting the incidents. "When you have suicide attempts or so-called self-harm incidents, it shows the type of impact indefinite detention can have, but it also points to the extreme measures the Pentagon is taking to cover up things that have happened in Guantanamo," said Alistair Hodgett, a spokesman for Amnesty International in Washington, D.C. "What we've seen is that it wasn't simply a rotation of forces (guards) but an attempt to toughen up the interrogation techniques and processes," he added. Dr. Daryl Matthews, a forensic psychiatrist at the University of Hawaii, said he believed he was misled during a visit to Guantanamo in June 2003 to investigate and make recommendations about detainees' mental health care, at the request of the Army surgeon general. "There were many things I wanted to see that I was precluded from seeing, particularly with the interrogation issues," Matthews told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. "In no way did I get honest or accurate information. I feel like I was being systematically misled." He criticized some practices, and said it was "appalling" that medical professionals shared detainees' medical records with interrogators. Some 558 prisoners are at Guantanamo Bay, many held for more than three years without charge or access to attorneys. The latest report comes against a backdrop of recently revealed abuse allegations and mistreatment at Guantanamo Bay, much of which allegedly occurred under Miller. In a letter obtained by AP, a senior Justice Department official suggested the Pentagon didn't act on FBI complaints about four incidents at Guantanamo: a female interrogator grabbing a detainee's genitals and bending back his thumbs; a prisoner who was gagged with duct tape; and two incidents involving the same man - a dog being used to intimidate him and later putting the man in isolation until he showed signs of "extreme psychological trauma." In other information about alleged abuses, the American Civil Liberties Union said Monday that Navy e-mails dated August 2003 - the month of the mass protest - asked what should be done if a detainee dies. "Personally, I suspect that remains should probably NOT be brought to the U.S. for legal reasons," says the response. Names were redacted from the messages, among thousands of documents provided to the ACLU only after a court order on its Freedom of Information requests. "The question that needs to be asked is what was the connection between the events and the interrogation techniques or circumstances of detention," said Leonard Rubenstein, director of Physicians for Human Rights in Cambridge, Mass. Army Gen. Jay Hood, who succeeded Miller last year, has said the number of incidents has decreased since 2003, when the military set up a psychiatric ward. Lt. Col. Pamela Hart, who was a spokeswoman for the detention mission in August of 2003 said she knew nothing of the mass protest. She is now a Pentagon spokeswoman for the Army. On the Net: http://www.defenselink.mil http://www.phrusa.org/ -------- russia Putin Tries to Soothe an Irate Military By Nabi Abdullaev Moscow Times Tuesday, January 25, 2005. Issue 3091. Page 1. http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2005/01/25/002.html Apparently concerned by growing discontent in the military over his social reforms, President Vladimir Putin ordered the Cabinet on Monday to quickly raise military wages. When Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin told the president at the meeting that the government will give servicemen a 10 percent salary increase in September, a stern-faced Putin called the move "too slow and insufficient." "Considering the hike in tariffs, this increase should be a minimum of 20 percent and take place much earlier," Putin said in televised remarks, referring to the fact that servicemen lost their right to free public transportation as of Jan. 1, under a law that replaced Soviet-era benefits with meager cash payments. The social reform, which was overwhelmingly supported by the United Russia-dominated State Duma, has prompted widespread protests, mostly by pensioners and war veterans. The protesters call the cash compensations inadequate and are demanding that the benefits be returned. Brewing discontent in the armed forces, however, could pose a more serious threat to the Kremlin. More than 80 percent of servicemen oppose the reform, Interfax reported late last week, citing a source in the Federation Council. The number of servicemen satisfied with their well-being has plummeted from an already low 20 percent in 2003 to just 5 percent this month, according to a survey conducted by the Defense Ministry. Servicemen said they were most irritated by low wages, the cancellation of free public transportation and the replacement of food rations with meager compensation. Defense Ministry officials declined to comment immediately about the numbers Monday. Just after the benefits were canceled, commanders of military garrisons began complaining to their superiors that they could not afford to transport servicemen to their posts of duty and that the servicemen themselves were refusing to pay fares out of their own pockets, Nezavisimaya Gazeta reported Monday, citing an unidentified senior military official. The complaints rose through the chain of command until they recently reached the Defense Ministry offices in Moscow, the newspaper said. Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov defended the new law last week, saying it was good but had been poorly implemented. The authorities, including the military, had more than enough time to prepare for a smooth transition, said Vitaly Tsymbal, a defense analyst with the Institute for Economics in Transition. "It has been clear since the law on benefits was approved last summer that the Defense Ministry had to come up with a way to provide servicemen with transportation passes and had to allocate money for this in its budget," Tsymbal said. "Talking about the problem now as if it came up unexpectedly -- like a tsunami -- is just gross impudence." Some Russian media are speculating that military officers are resigning in frustration. Even if that's the case, the longer-term impact of the benefits reform will be even more painful for the military, said Vladimir Dudnik, a military specialist with Generals for Democracy and Humanism, a nongovernmental organization. "In the past two to three years, young Russian men, seeing the relatively secure well-being of the military, began entering military colleges, and there was even a bit of competition to win admission," he said. "Now, many of them will start quitting, leaving the Army without young educated officers and making military reforms all but impossible." He noted that free military benefits have always brimmed with symbolism, highlighting the prestige of military service in public eyes. As part of the reform, servicemen's salaries were raised by 770 rubles ($27) as of Jan. 1, but their pay remains less than their counterparts in some other former Soviet republics -- despite the fact that the average national salary is higher than in those countries. For example, a Russian lieutenant who does not participate in combat takes home about $160 per month, while a lieutenant in Kazakhstan or Belarus gets about $220, Vedomosti reported last week. Also Monday, Kudrin reported to Putin that the Cabinet over the weekend had urgently signed agreements with 67 of the country's 89 regions to make sure that all pensioners receive subsidized travel passes. Other regions will sign similar agreements in a matter of days, he said. In many regions, the amount of cash payments for travel did not cover the cost of a monthly pass. Large protests continued Monday in a number of cities, including Stavropol in the south and Novosibirsk in western Siberia. Five members of the nationalist Rodina faction, including its leader, Dmitry Rogozin, continued a hunger strike over the law in Rogozin's office in the Duma building. The deputies started the strike Friday. ---- Russian Liberals, Students Rally Against Conscription Created: 25.01.2005 1 MosNews http://www.mosnews.com/news/2005/01/25/anticonscription.shtml Members of the liberal parties Yabloko and the Union of the Right Forces protested outside the building of the Russian General Staff against military conscription. About 50-70 people are taking part in the rally including human rights activists and students. Jan. 25, the day of Saint Tatyana, is traditionally a student holiday in Russia. The protestors are demanding that students be exempted from military service. Reforms stipulating that students must serve in the army were recently prepared by the Defense Ministry. The protesters have called for the Russian defense minister, Sergei Ivanov, to resign. The head of the Moscow branch of Yabloko, Ilya Yashin, who shaved his head in protest at the changes to conscription, was quoted by Interfax news agency as saying “We demand the Defense Ministry abandon conscription immediately and move the army on to contracts.” -------- spies Pentagon Battles Politics Over New Spy Teams January 25, 2005 By Mark Mazzetti Times Staff Writer http://fairuse.1accesshost.com/news2/latimes498.html WASHINGTON — Defense Department officials acknowledged Monday that the Pentagon planned to deploy new clandestine military intelligence teams with U.S. troops on counter-terrorism missions worldwide, but denied that the department had kept lawmakers in the dark about the existence and purpose of these units. Defense officials said that the intelligence units, known as Strategic Support Teams, were created to improve human intelligence for U.S. conventional and special operations troops, not to grab power from the CIA, which historically has been the Pentagon's main source of battlefield intelligence. On Capitol Hill, senior lawmakers responding to a Washington Post article Sunday said they had not been told about the program and threatened congressional hearings to determine whether the Pentagon was improperly entering a cloak-and-dagger realm once reserved for the CIA. Yet two senior officials said Monday that members of Congress had been briefed last year on the plans for the Defense Intelligence Agency's Strategic Support Branch, which oversees the teams. They said money for the intelligence gathering was approved for the 2005 budget year, which began in October. The two officials, speaking on condition that their identities not be revealed, said a name change could be one reason for the confusion. When lawmakers were first briefed, the Pentagon called the groups Human Augmentation Teams. The officials said that unlike CIA operatives, members of the Strategic Support Teams would not be engaged in "covert" actions — missions that the U.S. government denies knowledge of and that require presidential approval. The officials would not reveal how much money was directed toward the new program, which they said was paid for with Defense Department funds in the National Foreign Intelligence program, which is controlled by the CIA director. On Monday, the Pentagon dispatched its two senior intelligence officials, Undersecretary for Intelligence Stephen A. Cambone and DIA head Vice Adm. Lowell E. Jacoby, to speak with top lawmakers about the program. At least one powerful senator was satisfied after the meetings. "In my opinion, these intelligence programs are vital to our national security interests, and I am satisfied that they are being coordinated with the appropriate agencies of the federal government," said Armed Services Committee Chairman John W. Warner (R-Va.) in a statement. Nevertheless, the teams are likely to face renewed scrutiny from lawmakers concerned that the Pentagon has ventured too far into the clandestine world. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's push to exert greater Pentagon control over battlefield intelligence is well-documented. Several articles in The Times and elsewhere in recent months have described efforts by the Pentagon to become less dependent on the CIA. As the Pentagon drew up plans to invade Afghanistan after the Sept. 11 attacks, Rumsfeld was angry that the CIA was able to suggest so few targets for U.S. bombers to strike. He also bemoaned the fact that CIA paramilitary units were the first U.S. operatives inside the country, arriving ahead of special operations troops. After assessing events in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Pentagon decided to create the Strategic Support Branch under the Defense Intelligence Agency to form intelligence-gathering teams from the ranks of DIA employees. Instead of continuing to dispatch what a senior military official called ad hoc "pick-up teams" of DIA intelligence operatives to be deployed with troops, the Strategic Support Teams are composed of civilian and military operatives with various skills, such as analysts, interpreters and interrogators. The move is being made with the full knowledge and participation of the CIA, the senior military official said. The CIA will still deploy operatives overseas. It wasn't clear how they would work with the Pentagon teams. None of the new teams has yet been sent abroad, the officials said. Denying one aspect of the Post report, they said the units in the field would report directly to theater commanders, not Rumsfeld. ---- Defense Espionage Unit to Work With CIA By Josh White and Barton Gellman Washington Post Staff Writers Tuesday, January 25, 2005; Page A03 http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A33798-2005Jan24?language=printer Defense Department officials acknowledged yesterday that the Pentagon has created new clandestine teams to gain better human intelligence for military commanders but emphasized that the program was developed with the cooperation of the Central Intelligence Agency, not to bypass it. The Strategic Support Branch, housed within the Defense Intelligence Agency, was created to give high-level military officers more control over "actual intelligence" that they can use while making operational military plans, according to two defense officials who briefed reporters on the condition that their names not be used. They said that the program is a joint effort between officials at the Pentagon and CIA and that its organization has been running in its current form since October under funding authorized for this fiscal year. The existence of the Pentagon's new espionage arm was first disclosed publicly in a Washington Post article on Sunday, which said the program grew out of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld 's desire to end his dependence on the CIA for intelligence gathering. The article reported that officials said that elements of the new unit have been operating in secret for two years in Iraq, Afghanistan and in some undisclosed countries, and was designed to improve Pentagon abilities in what is called human intelligence -- activities such as prisoner interrogation, scouting and recruiting foreign spies. At the CIA, an official who declined to be named said of Pentagon intelligence initiatives that "they've got the same objectives we do." Defense intelligence units, the official said, are especially well suited to collecting battlefield information on "bridges and tunnels and things like that, and frankly we don't always want to be pulling the CIA resources to do those." On broader missions not directly related to combat operations, the official emphasized that the CIA has to have the final say. New Pentagon internal guidelines say a mission will be deemed "coordinated" with the CIA after 72 hours' notice to the agency. "It's critical not only to have coordination, but . . . we strongly believe the [CIA] chief of station has to be responsible" for intelligence activities in each country, the official said. The disclosure of the program evoked widespread discussion on Capitol Hill yesterday, with some legislators unsure whether the program is something they had authorized, and others defending the merits of the effort. The defense officials said confusion arose because the program was authorized within the FY05 budget under a different name -- Humint Augmentation Teams -- and was later changed. The chairmen of both the House and Senate Armed Services committees said yesterday they support the programs. "In my opinion, these intelligence programs are vital to our national security interests, and I am satisfied that they are being coordinated with the appropriate agencies of the federal government," Sen. John R. Warner (R-Va.) said in a statement released after a private briefing with Stephen A. Cambone, undersecretary of defense for intelligence. "The committee records indicate that the appropriate budget documents were sent up by the department, reviewed by the committee, and authorizations relative to these programs were incorporated in the FY05 bill." Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) agreed. "The war on terrorism has made it clear that we need to urgently improve our nation's human intelligence capabilities, including those of the Department of Defense when conducting military operations," he said in a statement. Some Democrats, however, said the new intelligence program should be the subject of hearings. Rep. Ellen O. Tauscher (D-Calif.), a member of the House Armed Services Committee, said lawmakers have a duty to examine the program. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) asked the Senate intelligence committee to look into the issue. "I've been asked a number of questions, questions which I cannot answer, about reports that the Department of Defense has created new intelligence special forces and has changed the guidelines for reporting to Congress," Feinstein said. "I think that it is within the oversight responsibility of the intelligence committee to have answers to these questions." Staff writer Chuck Babington contributed to this report. -------- us Microwaving Iraq 'Pacifying' Rays Pose New Hazards In Iraq William Thomas January 25, 2005 Rense.com http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m9177&l=i&size=1&hd=0 On the rooftop of a shrapnel-pocked building in the ruins of Fallujah, a team of GI's stealthily sets up a gray plastic dome about two-feet in diameter. Keeping well back from the sight lines of the street and nearby buildings, they plug the cable connectors on the side of the "popper" into a power unit. The grunts have no clue what the device does. They are just following orders. "Most of the worker-bees that are placing these do not even know what is inside the "domes" just that they were told where to place them by Intel weenies with usually no nametag," reports my source, a very well informed combat veteran I will call "Hank". The grunts call the plastic devices "poppers" or "domes". Once activated, each hidden transmitter emits a widening circle of invisible energy capable of passing through metal, concrete and human skulls up to half a mile away. "They are saturating the area with ULF, VLF and UHF freqs," Hanks says, with equipment derived from US Navy undersea sonar and communications. But its not being used to locate and talk to submarines under Baghdad. After powering up the unit, the grunts quickly exit the area. It is their commanders, fervent hope that any male survivors enraged by brutal American bombardments that damaged virtually every building in this once thriving "City of Mosques", displacing a quarter-million residents while murdering thousands of children, women and elders in their homes -- will lose all incentive for further resistance and revenge. A dedicated former soldier, whose experiences during and after Desert Storm are chronicled in my book, Bringing The War Home, Hank stays in close touch with his unit serving "in theater" in Iraq. When I asked how many "poppers" are being used to irradiate Iraqi neighborhoods, he checked and got back to me. There are "at least 25 of these that have been deployed to theater, and used. Some have conked out and been removed, so I do not know how many are currently active and broadcasting." Hank is still losing friends in Iraq, where front-line soldiers put their current casualty figures from all causes -- combat, accidents, psychological crackups and suicides -- at 5,000 dead and 22,000 to 30,000 injured. Hank also blames those at the top for hospital counts of upwards of 65,000 children killed since the 2003 invasion. He is concerned that innocent Iraqi families and unsuspecting GIs alike are being used as test subjects for a new generation of "psychotronic" weapons using invisible beams across the entire electromagnetic spectrum to selectively alter moods, behavior and bodily processes. "The "poppers, are capable of using a combo of ULF, VLF, UHF and EHF wavelengths in any combination at the same time, sometimes using one as a carrier wave for the others," Hank explains, in a process called superheterodyning. The silent frequencies daily sweeping Fallujah and other trouble spots are the same Navy "freqs that drove whales nuts and made them go astray onto beaches." MICROWAVING IRAQ The Gulf War veteran observes that occupied Iraq has become a "saturation environment" of electromagnetic radiation. Potentially lethal electromagnetic smog from high-power US military electronics and experimental beam weapons is placing already hard-hit local populations-particularly children -- at even higher risk of experiencing serious illness, suicidal depression, impaired cognitive ability, even death. American troops constantly exposed "up close" to their own microwave transmitters, battlefield radars and RF weapons are also seeing their health eroded by electromagnetic sickness. It's common, Hank recalls, for GIs to warm themselves on cold desert nights by basking in the microwaves radiating from their QUEEMS communications and RATT radar rigs. Constant microwave emissions from ground-sweeping RATT rigs and SINGARS mobile microwave networks are much more powerful than civilian microwave cell phone nets linked in many clinical studies to maladies ranging from asthma, cataracts, headaches, memory loss, early Alzheimer's, bad dreams and cancer. Even more powerful US military radars, radios and "jammers" blasting from ground bases and overflying aircraft add to this electromagnetic din. This is bad enough. But this is also Iraq, Hank says, where ever-present sand acts as miniature quartz reflectors, unpredictably amplifying the ricocheting electronic smog so thick that if it were visible, every vehicle in Baghdad and the surrounding Sunni Triangle would be driving blind with their headlights on. THE GIFT THAT KEEPS ON GIVING This is grim news to friend and foe alike -- already overloaded by constant adrenal stress, waterborne pollutants, infectious sand fleas, dehydration, pharmaceutical drugs and exposure to radioactive Uranium-238 fired in "hose "em down" exuberance by US ground and air cannons and cruise missiles. As Hank puts it, DU is "the gift that keeps on giving." For the next four billion years, medical investigators say, large populated expanses of Kosovo, Afghanistan, Puerto Rico and Iraq will remain lethally radioactive from Made In America depleted uranium dust. What kind of people would do this? Clinical tests have repeatedly shown how microwaves "rev up" incipient cancer cells several hundred times. Triggered by nuclear radiation, and turned rogue by electromagnetic warfare unleashed by US forces, human cancer cells have been found to continue proliferating wildly -- even after the power source is turned off MICROWAVING WOMBS AT GREENHAM COMMON While the mobile microwave weapons currently deployed in Iraq may or may not lead to lasting harm, rooftop "poppers" and "domes" left to radiate for days at a time are irradiating unsuspecting families already coping with illness, wounds, hunger and the stress of losing homes and loved ones, whose rotting corpses cannot be buried under the sights of marine snipers. A preview of what lies in store for long-suffering families in Iraq can be gleaned from Greenham Common, where the British Army reportedly used an electromagnetic weapon against 30,000 women who had camped for nearly two decades around that UK military base to protest the deployment of nuclear-tipped US cruise missiles. One day in the summer of 1984, more than 2,000 British troops suddenly pulled back, leaving the fence unguarded. Peace mom Kim Besley recalls that as curious women approached the gate, they "started experiencing odd health effects: swollen tongues, changed heartbeats, immobility, feelings of terror, pains in the upper body." Besley found her 30-year-old daughter too ill to stand. Other symptoms typical of electromagnetic exposure included skin burns, severe headaches, drowsiness, post-menopausal menstrual bleeding and menstruation at abnormal times. Besley's daughter's cycle changed to 14 days and took a year to return to normal. Two late-term spontaneous miscarriages, impaired speech, and an apparent circulatory failure prompted the women to begin monitoring for a directed-energy beam, Using an EMR meter, they measured beams sweeping their camp at 100-times normal background levels. Another harrowing example involves the sudden illness and cancer deaths of US embassy staff in Moscow after being deliberately targeted with very weak pulsed microwaves by Soviet experimenters and fascinated CIA onlookers running "Project Phoenix" in 1962. Very Low Frequency (VLF) weapons include the dozens of "poppers" currently deployed in Iraq, which can be dialed to or "long wave" frequencies capable of traveling great distances through the ground or intervening structures. As air force Lt Col. Peter L. Hays, Director of the Institute for National Security Studies reveals, "Transmission of long wavelength sound creates biophysical effects; nausea, loss of bowels, disorientation, vomiting, potential internal organ damage or death may occur." Hays calls VLF weapons "superior" because their directed energy beams do not lose their hurtful properties when traveling through air to tissue. A French weapon radiating at 7 hertz "made the people in range sick for hours." GI's "DRIVEN NUTS" BY ELECTROMAGENTICS IN IRAQ Like so many other American blunders among the ruins of Babylon, the intended microwave "pacification" of rebellious neighborhoods is having unintended effects. In actual "field-testing" in the Sunni Triangle, Hank has learned that the hidden, dome-shaped devices "are removing inhibitions". Armed individuals, already highly motivated to kill American forces are reportedly "losing all restraint" when exposed to the electromagnetic beams. According to Hank's buddies in Baghdad, the frequency-shifting "poppers" "are having some remarkable effects on the locals as well as our own people." But these effects differ. Possibly, Hank surmises, because Americans come from daily domestic and military environments saturated with electromagnetic frequencies, while many Iraqis still live without reliable electricity in places largely free from electromagnetics before the American invasion. According to members of Hank's former unit, constant exposure to invisible emissions from radar and radio rigs -- as well as to their own microwave weapons -- is backfiring. "Our people are driven nuts," Hank says. "It makes them stupid for two or three days." The Desert Storm veteran compared the emotional effects of constant exposure to military microwaves to a lingering low-pressure weather system that never goes away. "You feel way down for days at a time," he emphasizes As a consequence, AWOL rates among "spaced out" US troops are as high as 15%, Hank reports. For many deserters, it is not cowardice or conscience that is causing them to absent themselves from duty. "They are feeling so depressed," Hank explains. "They don't feel good. So they leave." According to Hank's front-line buddies, Iraqis exposed to secret beam weapons "get laid back, confused and mellow, and then blast out in a rage, as opposed to our folks going on what could only be called a "bender" and turning into a mean drunk for a while." Once they wander away from direct electromagnetic-fire, startled GIs come to their senses. They return to their units, Hank explains, saying, "What was I thinking?" The recovery rate among US troops "seems to be about a day or so, where the locals are not getting over it in less than a week or more on average," Hank has learned. It is Hank's hope that his revelations will prompt public debate over the secret use of electromagnetic weapons in Iraq. But lost in the arguments over these supposedly "non-lethal" weapons is a much bigger question: What are Americans doing there? Whether soldier or civilian at home, it is our imperative duty to stop supporting those responsible for ongoing "weapons tests" in Iraq. As electrochemical "beings of light," the strongest electromagnetic force on Earth is human conscience, acted upon. Author's Bio: After resigning his US Navy Reserve commission and refusing to participate in the Vietnam slaughter, William Thomas subsequently served five months with a three-man environmental emergency response team in the Gulf during and immediately after Desert Storm. He has written about military electromagnetics in Scorched Earth and Bringing The War Home, and has documented other microwave hazards in huis new ebook, "Dialing Our Cells." To read more on electromagnetic weapons "tests" in Iraq in the complete 4,500 article, including full references and illustrations, http://www.willthomas.net/ :: Article nr. 9177 sent on 26-jan-2005 01:42 ECT :: The address of this page is : www.uruknet.info?p=9177 :: The original address of this article is : www.rense.com/general62/mciro.htm -------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE -------- courts / tribunals Justices Order Review Of 400-Plus Sentences Court Also Backs Searches by Sniffer Dogs By Charles Lane Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, January 25, 2005; Page A07 http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A33666-2005Jan24?language=printer The Supreme Court yesterday announced the first consequences of its landmark decision to give federal judges greater freedom in sentencing, ordering federal appeals courts to reconsider more than 400 criminal sentences in light of the Jan. 12 ruling. Separately, the justices ruled that police may use a trained sniffer dog to check a car for illegal drugs during a routine traffic stop, as long as the inspection does not unreasonably prolong the stop. Yesterday's 87-page list of orders in the federal sentencing cases was expected. The justices had been flooded with petitions from defendants who wanted their sentences reviewed after the court struck down a state sentencing guidelines plan in June, putting the federal sentencing guidelines in jeopardy. The court was holding those cases pending the result in the two cases decided Jan. 12, United States v. Booker and United States v. Fanfan. Still, the sheer volume of cases demonstrated the wide and still largely unresolved ramifications of the Booker-Fanfan decision. "It's the tip of the iceberg," said Douglas A. Berman, an expert on federal sentencing law at the Moritz College of Law at Ohio State University. In its Booker-Fanfan decision, the court said that the Constitution forbids the practice, common under the guidelines, of using facts found by a judge to tack extra years onto criminal sentences. Every defendant is entitled to a jury trial on the facts that could affect his punishment, the court ruled. At the same time, the court ruled that the guidelines, created by a congressionally authorized judicial commission to ensure that similar criminals receive similar prison terms, may remain in use as long as they are "advisory," not mandatory. That means district judges are free to impose the sentences they deem appropriate, as long as they consult the guidelines and as long as the sentences are found "reasonable" by the appeals courts. Among the cases sent back to the lower courts yesterday is that of Mohamad Hammoud, who was convicted in 2002 of smuggling cigarettes to raise money for the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah. He faced a 57-month sentence for that crime, but because of the terrorism connection and other findings by the judge, he was sentenced to 155 years. But since the appeals courts were divided over the constitutionality of federal sentencing before the Booker-Fanfan ruling, it is unlikely that they will produce a uniform definition of "reasonableness" now, Berman said. "No one has completely come to terms with it," he said. "There will be mountains of work for everyone." Already, Berman noted, the New York-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit and the San Francisco-based 9th Circuit have asked scores of litigants not to send in supplemental briefs on the Booker-Fanfan ruling. In the dog case, the court ruled that an Illinois state trooper's use of a drug-sniffing dog to investigate Roy I. Caballes's car after he was stopped for speeding did not violate the Fourth Amendment prohibition on unreasonable searches. The dog detected a shipment of marijuana in the trunk. Caballes was convicted of drug trafficking and sentenced to 12 years in prison and fined more than a quarter-million dollars. In 2003, the Illinois Supreme Court overturned his conviction, ruling that the marijuana evidence should have been excluded from his trial because the dog search was illegal. But, as Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for a six-member majority of the Supreme Court yesterday, a "dog sniff conducted during a concededly lawful traffic stop that reveals no information other than the location of a substance that no individual has any right to possess does not violate the Fourth Amendment." Racial profiling was a background issue in the case. Caballes was supported by the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, which told the justices in a friend-of-the-court brief that "controlling the discretion of the police may well be the most effective way to address this [profiling] problem." Caballes had been pulled over for driving six miles per hour over the posted 65-mph speed limit. The officer who stopped him testified that his suspicions increased when he saw that Caballes seemed nervous and said he was moving to Chicago but had no luggage other than a pair of sport coats. But the majority did not directly address the validity of the officer's deductions or racial profiling generally. Stevens noted that the state courts had already found that "the duration of the stop in this case was entirely justified by the traffic offense and the ordinary inquiries incident to such a stop." Stevens was joined by Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Stephen G. Breyer. Justices David H. Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissented. Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, ill with cancer, did not vote. "A drug-detection dog is an intimidating animal," Ginsburg wrote. "Under today's decision, every traffic stop could become an occasion to call in the dogs, to the distress and embarrassment of the law-abiding population." But both Ginsburg and Souter said they might not have objected to a warrantless dog sniff to discover explosives or other possible terrorist weapons. The Bush administration had urged the justices to uphold the dog sniff because such searches are a major part of the federal government's homeland security efforts. The case is Illinois v. Caballes, No. 03-923. -------- drug war Narcotics searches in traffic stops OK January 25, 2005 By Jerry Seper THE WASHINGTON TIMES http://www.washtimes.com/national/20050125-121237-9080r.htm Police who use drug dogs to sniff vehicles during routine traffic stops are not violating motorists' constitutional right to privacy if contraband is discovered, the Supreme Court ruled 6-2 yesterday. In setting aside a ruling by the Illinois Supreme Court in a 1998 case in which marijuana was found by a dog after the driver was stopped for exceeding the speed limit by 6 miles an hour, Justice John Paul Stevens — in the majority opinion — said a lawful search that discovers contraband "compromises no legitimate privacy interest." "Conducting a dog sniff would not change the character of a traffic stop that is lawful at its inception and otherwise executed in a reasonable manner, unless the dog sniff itself infringed respondent's constitutionally protected interest in privacy," Justice Stevens said. "Our cases hold that it did not. "We have held that any interest in possessing contraband cannot be deemed 'legitimate' and thus, governmental conduct that only reveals the possession of contraband 'compromises no legitimate privacy interest,' " he said. Justice Stevens was joined by Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Stephen G. Breyer. The dissenting opinion was written by Justice David H. Souter, joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Justice Souter called the use of the dog to determine the presence of marijuana in the car's trunk a "search unauthorized as an incident of the speeding stop and unjustified on any other ground." "The argument goes, because the sniff can only reveal the presence of items devoid of any legal use, the sniff 'does not implicate legitimate privacy interests' and is not to be treated as a search," Justice Souter said. Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist took no part in the decision. The case involved the 1998 arrest of Roy Caballes, who was stopped by Illinois State Trooper Daniel Gillette on Interstate 80 for speeding. While Trooper Gillette was writing a warning ticket, a second trooper, Craig Graham, a member of the Illinois State Police Drug Interdiction Team, responded with his narcotics-detection dog, who was walked around the vehicle. Caballes had refused to give Trooper Gillette permission to search his vehicle, a request made after Caballes appeared to be nervous and after an air freshener was found in the car, the trooper reported. When the dog alerted to evidence of drugs in the trunk, the troopers searched the trunk, found $250,000 worth of marijuana and arrested Caballes. He was charged with one count of marijuana trafficking, convicted and sentenced to 12 years in prison. At trial, a judge denied Caballes' motion to suppress the seized evidence, ruling that the dog had provided sufficient probable cause for the troopers to conduct the search. An appeals court panel upheld the trial judge, but the Illinois Supreme Court reversed the decision, saying there were "no specific and articulable facts to suggest drug activity" and that use of the dog "unjustifiably enlarged a routine traffic stop into a drug investigation." In the majority opinion, Justice Stevens said a dog search conducted during a concededly lawful traffic stop that "reveals no information other than the location of a substance that no individual has any right to possess" did not violate Caballes' Fourth Amendment rights against unlawful search and seizure. But Justice Souter argued that the "infallible dog" was a "creature of legal fiction." "Although the Supreme Court of Illinois did not get into the sniffing averages of drug dogs, their supposed infallibility is belied by judicial opinions describing well-trained animals sniffing and alerting with less than perfect accuracy, whether owing to errors by their handlers, the limitations of the dogs themselves or even the pervasive contamination of currency by cocaine," he said. Justice Ginsburg wrote that the Illinois Supreme Court "correctly apprehended the danger in allowing the police to search for contraband despite the absence of cause to suspect its presence." "Today's decision, in contrast, clears the way for suspicionless, dog-accompanied drug sweeps of parked cars along sidewalks and in parking lots," she said. "Nor would motorists have constitutional grounds for complaint should police with dogs, stationed at long traffic lights, circle cars waiting for the red signal to turn green." -------- homeland security / national intelligence Bush Nominates Deputy At Homeland Security By John Mintz Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, January 25, 2005; Page A13 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33674-2005Jan24.html President Bush yesterday nominated an executive with a leading engineering company to be the second-in-command at the Department of Homeland Security. The executive, Michael P. Jackson, also served as the deputy secretary at the Transportation Department from 2001 to 2003. Jackson would replace James M. Loy, deputy secretary to outgoing Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge. Meanwhile, Asa Hutchinson resigned yesterday from his high-ranking job at Homeland Security, and associates said he is strongly considering running for governor in his home state of Arkansas. Jackson, who has bounced between the government and the private sector since the 1980s, has a reputation as an effective manager. If confirmed, he would be the top deputy to the nominee for homeland security secretary, Michael Chertoff, a federal appeals court judge in New Jersey and former top Justice Department official. White House officials and members of Congress have said they want Chertoff and his team to make management of the 180,000-employee department, created by a merger of 22 agencies, more rigorous and businesslike. Jackson, a former political science professor at Georgetown University, worked for President George H.W. Bush, first as Cabinet liaison at the White House and later as chief of staff at the Transportation Department when now-White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. was transportation secretary. During the Clinton administration, Jackson ran a division of Lockheed Martin Corp. that worked on transportation issues. In the current president's first term, Jackson was the Transportation Department's deputy secretary. After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, he helped create the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), which is now part of Homeland Security. In 2003, he became a Washington-area representative of AECOM Technology Corp., a firm with 19,000 employees that handles engineering and construction management for large projects by companies and government agencies. A 2003 book about homeland security called "After," by Steven Brill, said Jackson is "whip smart when it came to budget and operational details, a real manager who everyone seemed to think was destined for bigger things." Ridge is leaving the job Feb. 1, while Loy and Hutchinson are staying until March 1. Ridge said he is mulling what to do in private life, and Loy said he is looking forward to living in a home he and his wife are finishing in Williamsburg. Hutchinson, a former Republican House member and administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration, has run Homeland Security's biggest division, the Border and Transportation Security directorate, which includes TSA and the thousands of customs and immigration inspectors at the nation's airports and borders. -------- justice Soaring Mightily Into Retirement At Justice Department Farewell, a Salute to the Lighter Side of Ashcroft By Dana Milbank Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, January 25, 2005; Page A13 http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A33675-2005Jan24?language=printer At John D. Ashcroft's farewell ceremony yesterday at the Justice Department, acting Solicitor General Paul D. Clement rose to thank the outgoing attorney general "for the steady stream of work he's provided" to government lawyers. He listed just a few cases: Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, Eldred v. Ashcroft, Ashcroft v. ACLU, Ashcroft v. ACLU (another one), Georgia v. Ashcroft, Leocal v. Ashcroft, Ashcroft v. Raich. And coming soon to a court near you: Ashcroft v. Oregon. "I literally wonder what we in the solicitor general's office will do without the attorney general around," Clement deadpanned. It is a common lament. Love him or hate him, everybody in official Washington will miss John Ashcroft. Fellow conservatives will miss a reliable ally. Liberals will miss the best demon they've had since Newt Gingrich. And reporters will miss the torrent of copy he inspired. Remember his installation of a blue curtain in the Justice Department's Great Hall to cover the exposed right breast of the "Spirit of Justice" statue? (Her modesty was still intact during yesterday's ceremony.) His warning that those who questioned the Bush administration's strategy were aiding and abetting terrorists? His sensational announcement that the FBI had "disrupted an unfolding terrorist plot to attack the United States by exploding a radioactive dirty bomb"? (Other officials quickly made it clear he dramatically overstated the threat.) His departing boast that "the objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved"? (A month later, Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson marveled that "it is so easy" to attack the nation's food supply.) Ashcroft's radioactivity was just beneath the surface during his send-off yesterday, and occasionally broke into the open. Daniel Bryant, director of the Office of Legal Policy, allowed that the "caricature" of Ashcroft "has served as a full-employment program for cartoonists and pundits." He then cited David Letterman's quip: "They say Attorney General John Ashcroft may be stepping down. Apparently he wants to spend more time spying on his family." With Ashcroft on the stage, occasionally nodding in agreement, eight of his subordinates rose to tell the world that his fire-and-brimstone reputation was undeserved. Bryant testified that Ashcroft is a "warm and lighthearted man" who loves the St. Louis Cardinals baseball team and leaves "basketball bruises" on his colleagues. "Dare I say it?" Bryant ventured. "He's been known to let loose with a not infrequent bad pun." The rascal! And there's more: "He wiggles his toes, slips off his loafers . . . and balances them against each other pointing up toward the ceiling like a teepee." Bryant continued to expose the happy-go-lucky attorney general. "He rides motocross dirt bikes and he has been known to ski, well, like a maniac." This parting portrait of the attorney general is somewhat at odds with the image of Ashcroft as father of the Patriot Act, champion of expanded government eavesdropping powers and of holding "enemy combatants" without charges. On the contrary, speaker after speaker declared yesterday, Ashcroft was a champion of liberty. A commemorative booklet celebrating Ashcroft's tenure was titled "Preserving Life and Liberty." In his benediction, the Rev. Roswell T. Flower, an Ashcroft friend, spoke of "liberty and justice" four times. A speaker called him "passionate about freedom." Though controversial in office, the departing attorney general, in his valedictory, compared his department to a symphony orchestra where the workers "embrace one another in unity." Recalling the story of the Creation, he said that "form was given life when God breathed into it." Likewise, each Justice employee has "devoted yourself to breathing life into one part of this department or another." A beaming Ashcroft acknowledged the effusive praise -- he even got credit for the new Justice cafeteria and for "a big picture contest" -- and accepted a pile of souvenirs: plaques, medals, a sculpture and his leather chair from the White House Cabinet Room. "You only missed two flattering speeches," he told his wife, who had arrived late because of the weather. "And I figured you've heard about as much flattery as you could take, so maybe God sent the ice storm just to spare you the indignity." -------- torture Torture treaty doesn't bar `cruel, inhuman' tactics, Gonzales says Tue, Jan. 25, 2005 By Frank Davies Knight Ridder Newspapers http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/10732654.htm WASHINGTON - Alberto Gonzales has asserted to the Senate committee weighing his nomination to be attorney general that there's a legal rationale for harsh treatment of foreign prisoners by U.S. forces. In more than 200 pages of written responses to members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who plan to vote Wednesday on his nomination, Gonzales told senators that laws and treaties prohibit torture by any U.S. agent without exception. But he said the Convention Against Torture treaty, as ratified by the Senate, doesn't prohibit the use of "cruel, inhuman or degrading" tactics on non-U.S. citizens who are captured abroad, in Iraq or elsewhere. Gonzales, White House counsel and a close Bush adviser, described recent reports of prisoner abuse as "shocking and deeply troubling." But he refused to answer questions from senators about whether interrogation tactics witnessed by FBI agents were unlawful. He warned that any public discussion about interrogation tactics would help al-Qaida terrorists by giving them "a road map" of what to expect when captured. He also said the administration was conducting a comprehensive legal review of all practices and that the Justice Department, so far, had concluded that the tactics were lawful. The committee, with 10 Republican and eight Democrats, is expected to send Gonzales' nomination to the full Senate on Wednesday. He would replace Attorney General John Ashcroft, who bade farewell to the department Monday. Several Democrats on the committee are leaning against Gonzales, saying he's been evasive and unwilling to consider that administration decisions in 2002 may have contributed to abuse by U.S. soldiers. Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the committee's ranking Democrat, called Gonzales' written responses to senators' questions after his Jan. 6 hearing "vague, unresponsive or AWOL." As he did at the hearing, Gonzales said President Bush had ordered that torture not be used by the U.S. military or the CIA. He used the definition of torture in U.S. statutes: an act "specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering." But he drew a distinction between U.S. anti-torture statutes and the international Convention Against Torture, which calls on nations to prevent acts of "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment" that may fall short of torture. When the Senate ratified the treaty, it defined such treatment as violations of the Fifth, Eighth and 14th Amendments. Because of that provision, Gonzales said, the Justice Department decided that the convention applies only to actions under U.S. jurisdiction, not "treatment with respect to aliens overseas." He refused to be drawn into a discussion of tactics that might constitute torture. Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., asked him about reports from FBI agents, recently released, that some detainees were bound hand and foot to lie in their own urine and feces for 18 to 24 hours. "I found those e-mails to be shocking and deeply troubling," Gonzales responded. "I do not think it would be appropriate for me to address reports of interrogation practices discussed in the press and attempt to analyze whether such reported practices are lawful." Asked about a key 2002 Justice Department memo that narrowly defined torture as pain that led to organ failure or death, Gonzales said he couldn't recall if the CIA sought it or if he had asked the department to produce it. He conceded that the memo from the department's Office of Legal Counsel, which was addressed to him, began, "You have asked for our office's view." Cal Jillson, a constitutional scholar who's followed the careers of Gonzales and Bush since they were in Texas, said Gonzales was following basic Bush administration policy: Don't admit mistakes or re-evaluate decisions. "They are very loath to reconsider actions in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks," said Jillson, a professor at Southern Methodist University. "The message is, the president never approved of torture, but the question is, did you play with the definition so that almost nothing qualified as torture?" Scott Silliman, a former Air Force lawyer who heads the Center on Law, Ethics and National Security at Duke University, said Gonzales made an important point about keeping some discussion classified. But he said recent reports of widespread abuses should require congressional oversight. "With all the reports out now, and all the confusion and ambiguity over what is allowed, Congress has to find a way to deal with this," Silliman added, suggesting closed hearings to examine what's allowed and what isn't. In a recent interview, Bush deflected a question about which interrogation methods he'd reviewed and approved, or whether he'd authorized the transfer of prisoners to countries that use torture. "The only thing I issued was, don't torture. That's the policy of the government," he told a Knight Ridder reporter. "And we don't torture. And if there is torture, we will bring people to account." (Davies reports for The Miami Herald.) ---- Torture in Iraq Still Routine, Report Says Detainees Beaten, Hung by Wrists, Shocked by Security Forces, Rights Group Finds By Doug Struck Washington Post Foreign Service Tuesday, January 25, 2005; Page A10 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33349-2005Jan24.html BAGHDAD, Jan. 24 -- Twenty months after Saddam Hussein's government was toppled and its torture chambers unlocked, Iraqis are again being routinely beaten, hung by their wrists and shocked with electrical wires, according to a report by a human rights organization. Iraqi police, jailers and intelligence agents, many of them holding the same jobs they had under Hussein, are "committing systematic torture and other abuses" of detainees, Human Rights Watch said in a report to be released Tuesday. Legal safeguards are being ignored, political opponents are targeted for arrest, and the government of interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi "appears to be actively taking part, or is at least complicit, in these grave violations of fundamental human rights," the report concludes. A spokesman for Allawi declined to comment, Monday and said "I will put this report on the prime minister's desk tomorrow to see if he has any reaction." Ibrahim Jafari, an interim vice president, said in an interview that security forces needed to be tougher to combat the campaign of violence by opponents of the election. "I think the security people are not arresting enough and are releasing them too quickly," Jafari said. "And many of the security people are cooperating with the criminals. I think we have to put security as our priority." The Human Rights Watch report acknowledged that Iraq was "in the throes of a significant insurgency" in which 1,300 police officers and thousands of civilians were killed in the last four months of 2004. But it argued that "no government, not Saddam Hussein's, not the occupying powers and not the Iraqi Interim Government, can justify ill-treatment of persons in custody in the name of security." The report was based on interviews with 90 current and former detainees in Iraq conducted between July and October last year, many of them interviewed when they were brought to court for initial proceedings. Of those, 72 said they were "tortured or ill-treated," the report says. It recounts numerous individual cases of torture, and says the victims often had fresh scars or bruises. "I was beaten with cables and suspended by my hands tied behind my back," Dhia Fawzi Shaid, 30, a resident of Baghdad, told the human rights investigators, according to the report. "I saw young men there lying on the floor while police [stepped] on their heads with boots. It was worse than Saddam's regime." Another, identified in the report as Ali Rashid Abbadi, 21, said he was arrested by police after the bombing of a liquor store on July 11. "The police came and started hitting us," he told Human Rights Watch. "They shouted at us to confess. . . . We were blindfolded and our hands were tied behind our backs. They poured cold water over me and applied electric shocks to my genitals." Abbadi was later released by a judge for lack of evidence, the report says. The report deals with the conduct of Iraqi authorities but not that of U.S. military forces at three U.S.-run detention facilities in Iraq, including Abu Ghraib. The three sites currently hold about 9,000 prisoners. The Washington Post contacted several people whose cases were included in the report. They declined to speak to a reporter, saying they feared retaliation by police. "The majority of detainees . . . stated that torture and ill-treatment during the initial period was commonplace" in jails run by the Interior Ministry, the report says. The abuses included "routine beatings . . . using cables, [rubber] hosepipes and metal rods . . . kicking, slapping and punching, prolonged suspension from the wrists," as well as electric shocks to the genitals and long periods spent blindfolded and handcuffed. Hania Mufti, the Baghdad director of Human Rights Watch and chief author of the report, said she did not find examples of abuses that were on a par with the worst atrocities committed under Hussein's rule, such as mock executions, disfigurement with acid or sexual assaults on family members in front of prisoners. But in many other respects, she said, treatment of those swept up by police had changed little. "Many of the same people who worked in Saddam's time are still doing those jobs today. So there is a continuity of personnel and of mind-set," she said in an interview. "I think the Iraqi people themselves thought there was going to be a different system. Every day, they are finding it is not so different." The report also says authorities made a mockery of legal safeguards. People said they were arrested without warrants and held without charges for days, weeks or months. Police officials ignored summonses from judges, and judges who became too demanding of authorities were removed from their jobs. "The message has not gone out from the government that torture will not be tolerated," Mufti said. And foreign advisers hired to assist the Iraqi police have failed to object, she said. The report relates "the only known case in which U.S. forces intervened to stop detainee abuse." It said scouts from an Oregon Army National Guard unit saw Iraqi guards at an Interior Ministry compound abusing detainees on June 29. A soldier took pictures through his rifle scope of detainees who were blindfolded and bound. According to an account related in the report by Capt. Jarrell Southal of the National Guard, his soldiers entered the compound and found bound prisoners "writhing in pain" and complaining of lack of water. They gave water to the men, moved them out of the sun and then disarmed the Iraqi police. But when the Oregon soldiers radioed up their chain of command for instructions, they were ordered to "return the prisoners to the Iraqi authorities and leave the detention yard." ---- Iraq: Torture Continues at Hands of New Government Police Systematically Abusing Detainees (Baghdad, January 25, 2005) Human Rights Watch http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2005/01/26/iraq10053.htm Iraqi security forces are committing systematic torture and other abuses against people in detention, Human Rights Watch said in a new report released today. The 94-page report, The New Iraq? Torture and Ill-treatment of Detainees in Iraqi Custody, documents how unlawful arrest, long-term incommunicado detention, torture and other ill-treatment of detainees (including children) by Iraqi authorities have become routine and commonplace. Human Rights Watch conducted interviews in Iraq with 90 detainees, 72 of whom alleged having been tortured or ill-treated, particularly under interrogation. While insurgent forces have committed numerous unlawful attacks against the Iraqi police, this does not justify the abuses committed by Iraqi authorities, Human Rights Watch said. “The people of Iraq were promised something better than this after the government of Saddam Hussein fell,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa Division. “The Iraqi Interim Government is not keeping its promises to honor and respect basic human rights. Sadly, the Iraqi people continue to suffer from a government that acts with impunity in its treatment of detainees.” Methods of torture cited by detainees include routine beatings to the body using cables, hosepipes and other implements. Detainees report kicking, slapping and punching; prolonged suspension from the wrists with the hands tied behind the back; electric shocks to sensitive parts of the body, including the earlobes and genitals; and being kept blindfolded and/or handcuffed continuously for several days. In several cases, the detainees suffered what may be permanent physical disability. Detainees also reported being deprived by Iraqi security forces of food and water, and being crammed into small cells with standing room only. Numerous detainees described how Iraqi police sought bribes in return for release, access to family members or food and water. The Human Rights Watch report details serious and widespread human rights violations since 2003, against both alleged national security suspects, including insurgents, and suspected common criminals. It also highlights serious violations committed by Iraq’s national intelligence service since mid-2004, principally against members of political parties deemed to constitute a threat to state security. Human Rights Watch said its investigations in Iraq over a four-month period between July and October 2004 found the systematic use of arbitrary arrest, prolonged pre-trial detention (up to four months in some cases) without judicial review, torture and ill-treatment of detainees, denial of access by families and lawyers to detainees, improper treatment of detained children, and abysmal conditions in pre-trial facilities. The report does not address the mistreatment of persons in the custody of U.S. or other multinational forces in Iraq. “The Iraqi security forces obviously face tremendous challenges, including an insurgency that has targeted civilians,” Whitson said. “We unequivocally condemn the insurgents’ brutality. But international law is unambiguous on this point: no government can justify torture of detainees in the name of security.” With rare exception, the Iraqi authorities have failed to investigate and punish officials responsible for violations. International police advisers, primarily U.S. citizens funded through the United States government, have turned a blind eye to these rampant abuses. “In the name of bringing security and stability to Iraq, both Iraqi officials and their advisers have allowed these abuses to go unchecked,” Whitson said. “We have not seen the Iraqi police held accountable for their actions.” The Human Rights Watch report examines the cases of suspected members or sympathizers of Shi’a cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army who were arrested during and in the aftermath of the armed clashes in the city of Najaf in August 2004. Several members of a political party, Hizbullah, were arrested at the same time. In these cases, security forces, including intelligence personnel, arrested persons unlawfully, subjected them to torture and a variety of abuses, and later released them without charge. Their cases never reached the courts. Human Rights Watch’s interviews included over 60 criminal suspects, most of them referred to the Central Criminal Court in Baghdad and accused of serious felonies, including terrorism, abduction, money laundering, drug trafficking and acts of sabotage. A smaller number accused of less serious offenses were held in police stations and referred to Baghdad’s other criminal courts. “They poured cold water over me and applied electric shocks to my genitals. I was also beaten by several people with cables on my arms and back,” said a 21-year-old man arrested in July 2004 and accused of links with the Mahdi Army. Another detainee arrested in June 2004 on charges of possession of drugs said: “During the first three days there was continuous torture. I was beaten with an aluminum rod and with cables. … Then I was told to sign a statement with my hands tied behind my back, so I didn’t even see the paper and I don’t know what I signed.” “A new Iraqi government requires more than a change of leadership – it requires a change of attitude about basic human dignity,” Whitson said. Human Rights Watch called on the Iraqi government to promptly investigate all allegations of torture and ill-treatment and bring to justice officials responsible for the abuse of detainees. The government should take urgent steps to ensure compliance with its domestic and international legal obligations that would afford better protection for detainees from abuse, and give serious consideration to granting access to detention facilities under Ministry of Interior authority to independent human rights monitoring groups. The United States and other donors should ensure that international advisers working with the Iraqi authorities on policing and detentions should give immediate priority to assisting in the establishment of a mechanism for the prompt reporting and investigation of allegations of torture and ill-treatment, including the setting up of an independent complaints body. -------- POLITICS -------- propaganda wars Gore Vidal on Bush's Inaugural Address: "The Most Un-American Speech I've Ever Heard" Democracy Now Tuesday, January 25th, 2005 http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/01/25/1458238 We take a look at President Bush's inaugural address with Gore Vidal, one of America's most respected writers and thinkers and the author of more than 20 novels and 5 plays. Vidal says, "If the United States does go abroad to slay dragons in the name of freedom, liberty and so on, she could become dictatress of the world, but in the process she would lose her soul." [includes rush transcript] As we continue our discussion of President Bush's inaugural address. Let's hear a portion of that speech. * President Bush, inaugural address January 20, 2005. We are joined now by Gore Vidal. He is one of America's most respected writers and thinkers. He is the author of more than 20 novels and 5 plays. He is author, most recently, of the national bestsellers "Dreaming War" and "Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace." His latest book is called "Imperial America: Reflections on the United States of Amnesia." * Gore Vidal AMY GOODMAN: As we continue our discussion of President Bush's inaugural address, let's hear a section of that speech. PRESIDENT BUSH: America will not impose our own style of government on the unwilling. Our goal, instead, is to help others find their own voice, attain their own freedom, and make their own way. The great objective of ending tyranny is the concentrated work of generations. The difficulty of the task is no excuse for avoiding it. America's influence is not unlimited; but fortunately for the oppressed, America's influence is considerable, and we will use it confidently in freedom's cause. AMY GOODMAN: President Bush, his second inaugural address. Today we're joined by Gore Vidal, one of America's most respected writers and thinkers. Author of more than twenty novels, five plays. Author most recently of, Dreaming War and Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace. His latest book is, Imperial America: Reflections on the United States of Amnesia. Yesterday we caught up with Gore Vidal and I asked him his reaction to the inaugural address. GORE VIDAL: Well, I hardly know where to end, much less begin. There's not a word of truth in anything that he said. Our founding fathers did not set us on a course to liberate all the world from tyranny. Jefferson just said, “all men are created equal, and should be,” etc, but it was not the task of the United States to “go abroad to slay dragons,” as John Quincy Adams so wisely put it; because if the United States does go abroad to slay dragons in the name of freedom, liberty, and so on, she could become “dictatress of the world,” but in the process “she would lose her soul.” That is what we -- the lesson we should be learning now, instead of this declaration of war against the entire globe. He doesn't define what tyranny is. I’d say what we have now in the United States is working up a nice tyrannical persona for itself and for us. As we lose liberties he’s, I guess, handing them out to other countries which have not asked for them, particularly; and what he says -- The reaction in Europe-–and I know we mustn’t mention them because they're immoral and they have all those different kinds of cheese–but, simultaneously, they're much better educated than we are, and they're richer. Get that out there: The Europeans per capita are richer than the Americans, per capita. And by the time this administration is finished, there won't be any money left of any kind, starting with poor social security, which will be privatized, so that is the last gold rush for (as they say) men with an eye for opportunity. No, I would have to parse this thing line by line and have it in front of me. It goes in one ear and out the other as lies often do, particularly rhetorical lies that have been thought up by second-rate advertising men, which are the authors of this speech. It is the most un-American speech I’ve ever heard a chief executive give to the United States; and thanks at least to television, we were given every inaugural from Franklin Roosevelt on (and it's quite interesting to see who said what), and only one was as gruesome and as off-key as this, and that guy is Harry S. Truman, who’s being made into a hero because he fits into the imperial mode. He starts out his inaugural -- we're on top of the world we’re the richest country, the most powerful militarily, and what does he do? Within three lines Harry Truman is starting the Cold War, which the Russians were not starting. They thought they could live in peace because of their agreement at Yalta with his predecessor, Franklin Roosevelt, whose unfortunate death gave us Harry Truman and gave us the Cold War, which is now metastasized into a general war against any nation that this president of ours, if he is -- was elected, wants to commit us to, and we -- preemptive wars. That’s just never existed in our history, that a president – “Well, I think I'm going to take on Costa Rica. There may be some terrorists down there one day. Oh, they aren't there yet, but they're planning for it. And they’ve got bicarbonate of soda. Once you have that, you know, you can build all sorts of biochemical weapons.” This is just blather. Blather. And that an American audience would sit there beside the capitol or reverently in front of their TV screens and watch this and not see the absurdity of what was being said -- absolute proof of a couple of things that I have felt, and most of us who are at all thoughtful feel: We’ve got the worst educational system of any first world country. We are shameful when we go abroad, because we know nothing. Just to watch the destruction of the archaeologists’ work at Babylon. Babylon is a center of our culture. Nobody knows that. Nobody knows what it is, except it's a wicked city that the lord destroyed. Well, it was the center of our civilization, the center of mathematics, of writing, of everything. And apparently our troops were allowed to go in and smash everything to bits. Why did they do it? Was it because they are mean bad boys and girls? No. They're totally uneducated. And their officers are sometimes mean and bad, and allow them to have a romp, as they also had in the prisons, none of which we heard about in the last election. We were too busy with homosexual marriage and abortion, two really riveting subjects. War and peace, of course, are not worth talking about. And civilization, God forbid that we ever commit ourselves to that. AMY GOODMAN: We're talking to Gore Vidal. He -- President Bush said in his speech: “Across the generations, we’ve proclaimed the imperative of self-government, because no one's fit to be a master, and no one deserves to be a slave. Advancing these ideals is the mission that created our nation. It's the honorable achievement of our fathers. Now it's the urgent requirement of our national security, and the calling of our time.” GORE VIDAL: Well, proof of his bad education -- he seems not to know that the principle founders of the United States, from George Washington to Thomas Jefferson to Madison, were all slave holders. So, we started a country with half of the country quite prosperous because of black slaves, African slaves, who were not in the least happy about being slaves, but they had been captured, brought over here and sold back and forth around the country. So, I don't see how the founding fathers could have committed us to the principle that ‘no man should be a slave, and every man should be a master,’ or whatever the silly-Billy said. Well, this is a country based on slavery, is also based upon the dispossession of what we miscall the Indians. They were the native Americans, at least before -- long before our arrival. So, we were not dedicated to any of these principles. We were dedicated to making as much money and stealing as much land as we could and building up a republic, not a democracy. The word democracy was hated by the founding fathers. It does not appear at any point in the constitution, nor does it appear in any pleasant sense in the Federalist Papers. So, we are not a democracy, and here we are exporting it as though it were just something -- well, we just happened to make, a lot of democracy, and cotton and tin and stuff like that. So, let’s --let's do some exports of democracy. We don't have it, and most countries don't have it, and not many countries want it. Democracy was tried only once, and that was in the Fifth Century B.C., at Athens, and finally, they were overcome by an oligarchy from Sparta, and nobody ever tried again to establish a democracy in any country on earth. And if any history had been taught to the cheerleader from Andover -- I'm ashamed that I even went to the brother school Exeter nearby, where at least we were taught enough history not to make gaffs like that in public. AMY GOODMAN: Gore Vidal, President Bush also said, “All who live in tyranny and hopelessness can know the United States will not ignore your oppression or excuse your oppressors when you stand for your liberty, we will stand with you. Democratic reformers facing repression, prison or exile can know America sees you for who you are-- the future leaders of your few [free] country. The rulers of outlaw regimes can know that we still believe, as Abraham Lincoln did, ‘Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves and under the rule of a just God, cannot long retain it.’” GORE VIDAL: Oh, what bull. I notice all the help that we gave Mandela before he himself extricated his people from the white rule of the Boers and the English in South Africa. We went to great lengths to see that he was silenced, that he was not helped at any time. And we were -- Is that how we stood up for other countries trying to liberate themselves? We’ve never done that. We went into the first two world wars for self-aggrandizement. We did very well out of it. We’ve gone into Latin America, and every time that there's been a democratically elected government, from Arbenz in Guatemala in 1953 to Allende in Chile, we have played a vicious game. Sometimes we assassinate the president, sometimes we overthrow him. Sometimes -- all the time, eventually, we establish a military dictatorship. We’ve been doing that for 200 years. But, for a people that knows no history, does not want to know history, with a corrupt media that will not tell you the truth about anything going on in the world, what else could we have, but a dumb, cheerleader president? AMY GOODMAN: But if it was Franklin Delano Roosevelt who said, “democratic reformers facing repression, prison, or exile can know, America sees you for who you are, the future leaders of your free country,” would you object? FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT: I can only tell you that I feel your pain, and I know that you will be rulers one day. But meanwhile, I'm staying here in Washington, and you must look to your own future, and your own freedom. AMY GOODMAN: Yes. GORE VIDAL: That's Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The fact he said that meant that he was on the side of that; but we never did anything about it. Roosevelt never made a move, even when it came to the time of great tyranny, when his state department–I must say he didn't like it–but his state department turned away the infamous ship in which the Jews trying to escape Europe and Hitler were sent back. That's how we helped out. AMY GOODMAN: What is your hope for the future, as President Bush inaugurated his second term with this speech? GORE VIDAL: I don't see much future for the United States, and I put it on economic grounds. Forget moral grounds. We're far beyond any known morality, and we are embarked upon a kind of war against the rest of the world. I think that the thing that will save us, and it will probably come pretty fast, when they start monkeying around with Social Security, that will cause unrest. Meanwhile, the costs of the wars the cost of rebuilding the cities immediately after we knock them down, if we didn't knock them down, we wouldn't have to put them back up again, but that would mean that there was no work for Bechtel and for Halliburton. We are going to go broke. The dollar loses value every day. I live part of the year in Europe, which is always held against me. What a vicious thing to do, to have a house in Italy; but I also have one in Southern California. We are a declining power economically in the world, and the future now clearly belongs to China, Japan, and India. They have the population, they have the educational systems. They have the will. And they will win. And we will -- we only survive now by borrowing money from them in the form of treasury bonds which very soon we won't have enough revenue to redeem, much less service. So, I put it down to economic collapse may save the United States from its rulers. AMY GOODMAN: President Bush in this inaugural address, and in his second term, can you make comparisons to Richard Nixon, and won by a landslide, much more than Bush, in terms of how he beat his opponent, and yet ultimately is forced to resign? GORE VIDAL: Well, let us hope history repeats itself, and there's a possibility that the American people will get fed up with endless war, and endless deaths coming out -- American deaths. That's all we care about. We don't care about foreigners dying. But that is getting on people's nerves. I think that he thinks, and many of the American people appear to think, that we're in a movie. Lousy movie, but it's just a movie. And, once the final credits run, all those dead people, who were just extras anyway, will stand up and come home, or go back to the old actors’ home. It isn't a movie we're in. It's real life. And these are real dead people. And there are more and more of them, and the world won't tolerate it. So, he might very well end up like Mr. Nixon. Nixon at least when he ran again, curiously enough, was rated among the most liberal and progressive of our presidents in the 20th century. Not that he really was; it's just that he felt domestic affairs were best left alone. Let labor unions and capital worry about that while the president prosecuted foreign wars. He loved foreign affairs because it was fun. You got to make a lot of trips and see people in fancy uniforms and hear “Hail to the Chief” in various tunes. That was Nixon's take. And then, of course, once he got in -- into war, he couldn't get out. Didn't try very hard to get out. He wanted to be victorious. Well, he wasn't victorious. Then he lied and cheated. This one lies and cheats, too. So far he’s not had his Watergate. Let us hope that there is one looming. AMY GOODMAN: Do you take heart from the opposition, from the resistance on the ground, from the grassroots protests? GORE VIDAL: Well, you know, I spent three years in the second world war in the Pacific, and I was born at West Point, and I have some affinity for the army; and what I am hearing, the tom-toms that are coming not only from those who have returned to the United States, particularly reservists, but what I also hear from overseas, is that there’s great distress and dislike of this government, and certainly of this war, which is idly done. And everybody is at risk with insufficient armature -- arms, and no motivation at all except the vanity of a -- of the lowest grade of politicians that we’ve ever had in the White House. They are disturbed, and I can see that there may be suddenly something coming from them once they get back home, if they can get back home. They may turn things around. AMY GOODMAN: And, in general, young people in this country protesting the inauguration, for example. More than 10,000 people out in the streets, almost -- although there was almost no coverage except for Pacifica and independent media of those voices. People -- hosts on CNN saying they didn't want to ‘over-exaggerate’ the images that would be so easy to go to, so they just didn't. GORE VIDAL: Or be honest about them. The famous February, a year ago, when everybody demonstrated. I spoke to 100,000 people in Hollywood Boulevard. And the L.A. Times, which is better than most of the establishment papers, said there's just hardly anybody there. However, they were undone by the photograph taken of -- when I was up on the platform at very end of Hollywood Boulevard with La Brea in back of me and way up ahead Vine Street, you saw 100,000 people. You saw what they looked like, unlike New York where they got everybody into side streets so you couldn't see them at all in a photograph, because they just didn't show up. So, out here, a makeup man at the Times helped the cause. AMY GOODMAN: As the Democratic Party chooses a new leader, do you have words of advice for the direction? GORE VIDAL: Remember that the United States -- the people of the country have always been isolationists, a word which has been demonized, thrown out, an isolationist is somebody who believes in a flat earth and is racist and so forth and so on. Well, none of that is true. Isolationists -- Most of the left in the second world war, from Norman Thomas on to Burton K. Wheeler, were progressive Americans, the very best liberal Americans were anti-war. We have never been for imperial foreign wars. We have to be dragged screaming into them, as we were after Pearl Harbor and there was a lot of machinations going on to make sure that that happened. And it goes on all the time. Events are made so horrible people like Saddam and so on are demonized, and we all have to immediately begin by saying how awful he is for 25 minutes before we can get down to the fact that he was no threat to the United States, no threat at all. He was not involved with al Qaeda. He was not involved with 9/11. He was not. He was not. You can say it a million times, but there you have a president with the help of the most corrupt media in my lifetime bouying his words across the land and telling lies about the – ‘We're 45 minutes away from being blown up by the weapons of mass destruction that this master of evil has in his hands.’ To which the answer is: Why? Why would he do that? There must be some motivation. You see, they are now beyond motivation, and that is insanity. So, an insane government is not one that you can look to with any confidence. AMY GOODMAN: Gore Vidal, speaking to us from California. His latest book, Imperial America: Reflections on the United States of Amnesia. -------- us politics Closing the Neocon Circle George W. Bush has unveiled a new vision for U.S. foreign policy. His inspiration: Israel’s Natan Sharansky Jan. 25, 2005 WEB EXCLUSIVE By Michael Hirsh Newsweek http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6867187/site/newsweek/ Jan. 25 - Natan Sharansky can bestow no higher praise than to call George W. Bush an honorary “dissident.” And the Israeli cabinet minister says he is elated that the U.S. president, in his second inaugural speech last week, appeared to fully embrace Sharansky’s vision of foreign policy. “It’s clear to me that he read my book,” Sharansky, a squat cannonball of a man with a heavy Russian accent, told NEWSWEEK. “I only wish that my mentor, Andrei Sakharov, were alive to see this,” Sharansky added, referring to the Soviet nuclear scientist who risked his life and career to help open up the Soviet Union. Bush, in his Jan. 20 address, did prove himself a dissident in one sense. When the president declared that “the survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands,” he was delivering a dissent from traditional U.S. foreign policy, one that could have been lifted whole from the pages of Sharansky’s new book, “The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror.” (Public Affairs; New York). Bush, in fact, has been pressing the book on aides and friends in recent weeks and urging them to read it. And it is clear that Bush’s speech—as well as Sharansky’s influence—could have huge consequences for America in the coming years. In Bush’s speech, drafted by chief White House speechwriter Michael Gerson with input from an old Sharansky ally dating to the Reagan years, National Security Council official Elliott Abrams, Bush in effect declared an end to a three-decade-old debate in foreign-policy circles. Fittingly, it is a debate that dates back to the fights over détente versus confrontation with the Soviet Union—and, not coincidentally, to Sharansky’s earlier incarnation as a jailed Soviet dissident. In a single, eloquent line, Bush sought to declare a truce to the old ideological struggle between U.S. government “realists”—those who believe protecting vital national interests has little to do with spreading democracy and freedom—and the so-called neoconservatives, who crusaded for these values. “America's vital interests and our deepest beliefs are now one,” he said. In practice, of course, this battle of ideas will go on as U.S. officials wrangle over how to deal with recalcitrant regimes like Iran and North Korea. Administration officials were quick to play down the practical impact of Bush’s rhetoric, noting that the president declared the policy of spreading freedom to be “the concentrated work of generations.” But it is hard to avoid the conclusion that U.S. policy toward Iran and North Korea has now been resolved in favor of regime change--just as Bush once signed onto Sharansky’s goal of “regime change” in the Palestinian Authority in June 2002 when, in another speech heavily influenced by the Israeli, he said he would negotiate not with the autocratic Yasir Arafat but only with a newly elected Palestinian leadership. At the very least, Bush’s rhetoric strengthens the hand of hardliners from the Pentagon and the office of Vice President Dick Cheney who see no way around the use of force or covert activity against such tyrannical regimes. As Sharansky’s old friend, onetime Pentagon advisor Richard Perle, told NEWSWEEK on Jan. 24, the current policy toward Iran has been one of “paralysis.” And, he says, the president’s speech “caused elation among dissidents in Iran. You read those words and the reaction is likely to be similar to Sharansky’s reaction when [as a dissident] he read Ronald Reagan’s words calling the Soviet Union an ‘evil empire.’” Thanks to Bush’s speech, there may now be less willingness to cut a deal with the recalcitrant Iranian mullahs or the autocratic Kim Jong Il. A senior U.S. official denies this. He says the Bush team continues to hope for “behavioral change” like they got from Libya’s Mohammar Khaddafi--who’s off the regime change list since giving up his WMD. But in reality they don’t expect much from Tehran or Pyongyang. The danger is that yet more drift and paralysis in U.S. policy will ensue as Iran and North Korea get closer to becoming nuclear powers. Just as the hardline Sharansky has been criticized from his left for setting an impossibly high threshold for negotiating with the Palestinians—he opposes Ariel Sharon’s disengagement plan for Gaza—Bush could turn the totem of “democracy” into a convenient excuse for persisting in his stony refusal to talk directly to Iran and North Korea. There is also a danger of unintended consequences. Will the soaring rhetoric of freedom help bring regime collapse—an outcome few would mourn—or will it help to harden the nuclear ambitions of two regimes that Bush has declared to be moribund (the mullahs and Kim) but which have proved to have greater staying power than many thought? Why is Sharansky’s influence so deep? In part because he didn’t pop out of nowhere. Sharansky has been speaking out in neocon forums for years, stiffening the spines of his former allies from the Reagan era. Chief among them is Perle who, in an interview, identified Sharansky as one of his two “heroes,” together with his old mentor, Sen. Henry “Scoop” Jackson. Their relationship is decades old. Back in the 1970s, when the Israeli was still a Russian named Anatoly Sharansky, Perle was the notorious attack dog for Jackson, fighting for Jewish emigration from the Soviet Union by pushing through the famous 1974 Jackson-Vanik bill, the opening shot fired against Cold War détente. That was the first big battle over human rights in American foreign policy. Until then, the Cold War had been about realpolitik and detente, mainly “managing” the Soviet Union. Both men had been irrevocably changed by the experience of taking on what their mutual hero, Ronald Reagan, called the “evil empire.” Now each is in the midst of a new incarnation, fighting against Arab terror, yet they are animated by the same ideas as in the old days. Sharansky’s personal suffering under tyranny—and triumph over it—has made him a zealous campaigner for democracy in the Arab world, to the right even of his fellow Likudnik hawks in Israel. Perle and a small group of fellow neoconservatives have made it their mission to drag along Washington’s remaining “realists.” In his book, Sharansky makes a powerful case that there is a common thread tying together the anti-Western hostility of old regimes like the Soviet Union and that of new enemies like the Islamist terrorists and their sponsors, including the Iranian mullah state and the Palestinian Authority under the late Arafat. “While the mechanics of democracy make democracies inherently peaceful, the mechanics of tyrannies make nondemocracies inherently belligerent,” he writes. Whether they are communist or Islamist, he argues, they must achieve legitimacy by creating external enemies, he argues. That’s a recipe for eternal conflict, he argues--as the autocratic Arafat proved by consistently sidestepping a peace deal. So Sharansky’s influence represents a closing of the circle for the neocons who began battling for their ideas in the late ’70s and early ’80s. Sharansky himself says it is all a continuum, including the cast of characters, among them Abrams, Perle, Defense Department senior officials Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith and Cheney’s chief of staff, Scooter Libby. “If you check their background, most of them were connected either to Senator Jackson or to the Reagan administration or to both,” says Sharansky. “And that’s why, by the way, many of them are my friends from those years. And in the last 15 years, we kept talking to one another.” It is possible that America’s new embrace of Sharanskyism will also prove to be a recipe for eternal conflict. America will now be accused of hypocrisy every time it fails to live up to Bush’s promise “to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture.” In China, Russia and Taiwan, in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, Washington has shrunk from pursuing that policy too forthrightly, mainly because it needs friends. And Bush is unlikely to depart dramatically from this cautious course. That means, in turn, that his new statement of American policy is certain to come back to haunt him, just as Woodrow Wilson’s promise of self-determination haunted American foreign policy-makers after World War I. Especially when Natan Sharansky is out there, reminding him of his promise. With Dan Ephron in Jerusalem ---- Senate to Begin Debate on Rice Nomination By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS January 25, 2005 Filed at 9:23 a.m. ET http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Senate-Rice.html?pagewanted=print&position= WASHINGTON (AP) -- In a daylong debate, Democratic senators are using President Bush's nomination of Condoleezza Rice as secretary of state to rake his Iraq war policy over the coals. Rice's confirmation as Colin Powell's replacement appears not to be in doubt. Still, Sens. Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia and Barbara Boxer of California and eight other Democrats are lined up to get their licks in Tuesday, even though many of them may wind up in Rice's column when the vote is taken. Republicans, by contrast, are expected to rally behind Rice -- and President Bush -- with briefer speeches. Nine hours have been set aside for the debate, divided equally between the two parties. Byrd and Boxer, opponents of the war from the outset, have one-hour speeches scheduled. They consider the war a mistake and Bush's postwar strategy inadequate as determined insurgents take a rising toll of American casualties. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., also scheduled to speak, issued a statement Monday criticizing Rice as being involved in ``the shameful decision by the administration to authorize the torture of detainees in Guantanamo and Iraq.'' On Wednesday, a brief series of statements by senators is expected, setting up the vote to put Rice in charge of U.S. diplomacy. ``We are talking about the safety and security of this country, so I very much and very quickly want to move with Secretary Rice,'' Senate Republican leader Bill Frist of Tennessee said Tuesday. Frist said he was disappointed by the delay and was confident the Senate would confirm her on Wednesday. The White House had been confident that Rice would be approved last week, and State Department officials were alerted to show up Friday morning to greet her with smiles and applause. But Democratic critics insisted on an opportunity to air their views on the Senate floor. On the Republican side, Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, which recommended confirmation last week with a 16-2 vote, was scheduled to speak and to summon other Republican senators make speeches in Rice's behalf. The Republican statements probably will be briefer than those of the Democrats and may not consume the 4 1/2 hours allotted to the GOP side. Last week, White House chief of staff Andrew Card said the Democrats' decision to have a day or more of debate on the nomination amounted to ``petty politics.'' ``She certainly is qualified and ready to be the secretary of state,'' Card said. ``We're anxious to have her there, and there's not a doubt in my mind that she will be confirmed, and she should be confirmed quickly.'' In the meantime, Secretary Powell, who gave his a farewell speech at the State Department on Wednesday, remains on the job. Powell has shuttled between his home in McLean, Va., and his seventh-floor office while Undersecretary Marc Grossman, who also has submitted his resignation, takes care of day-to-day matters. Powell represented the United States at Sunday's inauguration in Kiev, Ukraine, of that former Soviet republic's Western-leaning president, Viktor Yushchenko. During two days of sometimes testy hearings last week, Rice acknowledged some bad decisions on Iraq by the Bush administration and that desertions and poor leadership within Iraqi security forces were hampering the country's defense. At the same time, she bristled at accusations by Boxer that she had constantly shifted ground on why it was right to invade Iraq to depose President Saddam Hussein. As Bush's national security adviser, Rice channeled intelligence to the president, including the assertion, which proved in error, that Saddam had hidden arsenals of chemical and biological weapons. Also, her contention that Iraq was trying to develop nuclear weapons has become debatable. ``Condoleezza Rice may have been in the chair, but some may have seen President George Bush sitting there, so there was a face-to-face confrontation, some important questions,'' Lugar said Sunday on CNN's ``Late Edition.'' Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada denied Republican suggestions that Democrats were playing politics with Rice's nomination. Rice is a chief architect of Bush administration policies in Iraq and in the overall fight against terrorism, and her record has to be reviewed with care, Reid and Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., said in a statement Friday. --------- OTHER -------- environment Report Says Global Warming at Critical Point January 25, 2005 — By Ed Johnson, Associated Press http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=6997 LONDON — Global warming is approaching the point of no return, after which widespread drought, crop failure and rising sea levels will be irreversible, an international climate change task force warned Monday. It called on the Group of 8 leading industrial nations to cut carbon emissions, double their research spending on technology and work with India and China to build on the Kyoto Protocol for cuttings emissions of carbon dioxide and other "greenhouse gases" blamed for global warming. The independent report was made by the Institute for Public Policy Research in Britain, the Center for American Progress in the United States and the Australia Institute. "An ecological time bomb is ticking away," said Stephen Byers, who was co-chairman of the task force with U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine. "World leaders need to recognize that climate change is the single most important long-term issue that the planet faces." Byers is a close confidant of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and the report was timed to coincide with Blair's commitment to advance international climate change policy during Britain's presidency of the G-8 this year. Byers said it is vital that Blair secure U.S. cooperation in tackling climate change. President Bush has rejected the Kyoto accord, arguing that the carbon emission cuts it demands would damage the U.S. economy and that it leaves out emerging polluters like China and India. "What we have got to do then is get the Americans as part of the G-8 to engage in international concerted effort to tackle global warming," said Byers. "If they refuse to do that then other countries will be reluctant to take any steps." According to the report, urgent action is needed to stop the global average temperature rising by 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above the level of 1750 -- the approximate start of the Industrial Revolution when mankind first started significantly adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. Beyond such a rise, "the risks to human societies and ecosystems grow significantly," the report said, adding that there would be a danger of "abrupt, accelerated, or runaway climate change." It warned of "climatic tipping points" such as the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets melting and the Gulf Stream shutting down. No accurate temperature readings were available for 1750, the report said, but since 1860 the global average temperature has risen by 0.8 percent to 15 degrees Celsius (59 degrees Fahrenheit). The report said a 2-degree Celsius rise in the average temperature could be avoided by keeping the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere below 400 parts per million. Current concentrations of 379 parts per million "are likely to rise above 400 parts per million in coming decades and could rise far higher under a business-as-usual scenario," it said. The task force urged G-8 countries to agree to generate a quarter of their electricity from renewable sources by 2025 and shift agricultural subsidies from food crops to biofuels. The task force of senior politicians, scientists and business figures was formed last March. Its chief scientific adviser was Dr. Rajendra K. Pachauri, chairman of the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The British government welcomed the report, which mirrors many of the suggestions already floated by Blair in the leadup to Britain's G-8 presidency. Blair has acknowledged the importance of U.S. cooperation, but concedes Washington is unlikely to sign on for the Kyoto Protocol and is instead pursuing international commitment to developing new environmentally friendly technology. -------- ACTIVISTS Nader Preaches Continuous Activism on Anti-War Tour Tuesday, January 25, 2005 By JOSH KELLER Daily Californian http://www.dailycal.org/article.php?id=17358 After a Bush victory, endless criticism from the left and nearly falling behind the Libertarian candidate in the presidential race, no one would blame Ralph Nader for getting a little pessimistic, or at least stopping to catch his breath. Not a chance. Just three months after ending his third run for the presidency, Nader kicks off a national tour against the US occupation of Iraq this week, visiting St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Berkeley this evening. In an exclusive interview with The Daily Californian, Nader said that on a host of issues, from the drug war to Iraq, the nation could easily go in a more progressive direction if liberals were more vocal. “The anti-war movement took off in deference to Kerry,” he said. “We have to do our part to end the war and occupation movement in this country.” Nader challenged students, saying they often get ignored because they are politically apathetic. Politicians are not addressing issues like rising tuition and the possibility of a military draft, he said, and part of the responsibility rests with students themselves. “The promise of student advocacy is not being fulfilled,” he said. “These guys hardly hear from you people.” UC Berkeley is a good example, he said. While he acknowledged that student activism on campus is less than it used to be, the possibility of more political participation is still there. “It’s a very fluid campus in the sense that the right students come around and suddenly the campus can come alive,” he said. “There’s a fertile plain, fertile soil for significant activism.” Nader is no stranger to rousing student participation in politics. His successful 1960s campaign against unsafe cars like the GM Corvair drew hundreds of students to Washington to work on public-interest projects. More recently, Nader’s strongest support in his last two presidential campaigns came from college students. But he has predicted a surge in student advocacy as the job market worsens. “(Students) still think they will be in the top 5 percent when they get out of Berkeley,” he said. “They’re majoring in engineering, but all the engineering jobs are going to India or China. That’s just beginning to hit them.” He said the same possibility for liberal change is within reach in Iraq, citing growing public support in major polls for US troops to leave. “The majority (of Americans) think it was a mistake to send troops there,” he said. “There’s growing opposition to the war in the diplomatic and intelligence circles.” Nader’s tour focuses on Northern California, incorporating stops in San Francisco, Davis and Santa Cruz, in addition to Cambridge, Mass. and Seattle. His last visit to Berkeley was in October. The tour comes at time when Nader is losing substantial public support. He collected 400,000 votes in 2004, down from 3 million in 2000. And out of the 113 prominent liberals in his “Nader 2000 Citizens Committee,” 74 members partially defected, encouraging voters in swing states to support John Kerry. Still, Nader said staying in the political fight is a matter of principle. “It’s not your choice,” he said. “If tort reform comes on, you have to react to the assault on democratic principles.” In addition to trying to rebuild the anti-war movement, the national tour is also an effort to reestablish Nader’s relationship with liberals. Nader said he wanted to renew ties with Californians after failing to get on the 2004 presidential ballot. He will appear later in the tour with author Howard Zinn, one of the 74 liberals who partially defected and urged swing voters to vote for Kerry. Underlying Nader’s determination is the belief that activism—even for the largest of issues—can work. “Part of a vibrant democracy is the sense by citizens that it doesn’t take a massive effort to get through,” he said. “It just takes a sustained effort from a small amount of people.” Contact Josh Keller at jkeller@dailycal.org. ---- D.C. Settles With Mass Arrest Victims 7 Rounded Up in 2002 IMF Protest to Get $425,000 and an Apology By Carol D. Leonnig and Del Quentin Wilber Washington Post Staff Writers Tuesday, January 25, 2005; Page A01 http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A33527-2005Jan24?language=printer The District government agreed yesterday to pay a total of $425,000 to seven people caught up in a mass arrest at a downtown park in September 2002, acknowledging that they were wrongfully arrested and promising to adopt changes in police procedures. The agreement settles a lawsuit in which the seven alleged that D.C. police violated their constitutional rights and department policy during the roundup of about 400 protesters and bystanders in Pershing Park. The settlement also requires D.C. Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey to send a personal letter of apology to each of the plaintiffs. The monetary award raised questions about the settlement's effect on three lawsuits that make similar claims against the city, including a class-action suit filed on behalf of all 400 people arrested that day. "It's too bad the taxpayers have to pay for the wrongful actions of our police department," said D.C. Council member Kathy Patterson (D-Ward 3), who issued an investigative report last year that said Ramsey and other police officials had conspired to cover up evidence of wrongdoing during the mass arrest. "What do you pay people for taking away their liberty for 24 hours, 36 hours? . . . I think we're probably looking at the city paying out another huge amount of money." Ramsey said yesterday that city attorneys have instructed him not to comment on the settlement because of the ongoing litigation. The arrests occurred Sept. 27, 2002, during demonstrations against the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. With Ramsey's approval, Assistant Police Chief Peter J. Newsham ordered officers to corral demonstrators and anyone else within the boundaries of the park, on Pennsylvania Avenue NW, and to charge them with failing to obey police. Those arrested were put in plastic handcuffs, taken away on buses and detained on floors for as long as 36 hours. A subsequent internal investigation by police, made public by a federal judge in September 2003, found that Newsham never gave an order for the crowd to disperse and that police, therefore, had no justification for making the arrests. In approving the settlement with the seven plaintiffs at a hearing yesterday, U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan hailed the deal as "historic," noting that it marked a major turnabout by city officials in accepting blame and offering to make amends for the police actions. Sullivan, who previously had criticized Ramsey and D.C. Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D) for not publicly admitting the errors made at Pershing Park, said he was proud of Ramsey for agreeing to issue an apology. "A real man can admit that problems can occur. . . . that the arrests in this matter were flawed," Sullivan said. "I think it's a great agreement. I applaud it." The seven plaintiffs were five protesters and two bystanders. Each will receive about $50,000 after paying the legal expenses of the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Lawyers Guild and the law firm of Covington & Burling, which teamed up to represent the seven. In interviews yesterday, the plaintiffs said they decided not to take the case to trial because of the city's agreement to adopt police procedures intended to prevent improper arrests in the future. "I've said all along that I would withdraw my name from this lawsuit if Chief Ramsey resigned or was fired. That's what should have happened here," said Adam Eidinger, 31, a protest organizer and one of the plaintiffs. "But I accepted this agreement because the changes the police are going to have to make in their arrest procedures are substantial." Under the terms of the agreement, a high-ranking police commander must issue a warning to disperse before police can begin arresting protesters. Officers must be able to prove that individual protesters broke the law and cannot arrest people simply for protesting without a permit. All officers must have clearly displayed badge numbers. Police must also provide phones so that detainees can call attorneys, friends or family members. Eidinger said he would use some of his cash award to promote the antiwar and anti-globalization message and some to pay for his daughter's education. Legal experts said it was unlikely that District officials would offer similarly large awards to the 400 plaintiffs who are involved in the class-action lawsuit. "The settlement of the larger group may run into some real money, and there may be some resistance by the government to do that," said Paul Rothstein, a Georgetown University law professor. A year ago, the city agreed to a much smaller settlement -- $7,000 to $10,000 per person -- with three students of the Corcoran College of Art and Design who were taking pictures for a photojournalism class when they were arrested in the mass roundup. Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, an attorney who helped file the class-action suit, said yesterday's cash settlement was "just a floor" for future negotiations on behalf of her clients. She also said her clients are seeking more substantive changes in police procedures and will not be satisfied until the department eliminates "contemptuous" policies that block and silence demonstrators. Late last year, the council passed a bill, introduced by Patterson, that would prohibit police from encircling protesters unless they plan to arrest them and would limit the use of physical restraints. It also would prohibit the deployment of officers wearing riot gear unless there was a danger of violence. Williams has not signed the bill. Immediately after the mass arrest in Pershing Park, the mayor praised Ramsey for his handling of the protesters. For many months afterward, Ramsey rejected claims from protesters, civil liberties groups and D.C. Council members that police had violated people's rights. One of the plaintiffs, Mindy Mancuello, 30, a physician's assistant who was caught in the protest on her way to a class, said she was disappointed that the judge praised Ramsey for acknowledging his error. She said that she was detained for 17 hours and that the handcuffs were so tight that tears streamed down her face. "At one point, he was only going to say he was sorry we were arrested," she said. "Now, finally, he says he's sorry his department made a mistake and that we did absolutely nothing wrong." ---- Marching for Life by Anne Rao January 25, 2005 LewRockwell.com http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/rao1.html My involvement in the pro-life movement began when I was in high school and continued until my own maternal duties demanded my full attention. For more than ten years, I worked in crisis pregnancy centers, prayed and counseled in front of abortion clinics, marched, petitioned, picketed, and visited pro-lifers in jail. Though it was small potatoes by comparison to what others have sacrificed, it was some of the most difficult, heart-wrenching, and spiritually rewarding work I have ever done. But none of my dealings with pro-lifers during those years prepared me for the near complete indifference of so many fellow pro-lifers and co-religionists to the outrageous injustice of the war in Iraq, or their elevation to the status of a demigod of a president whose public harangues are redolent of those of every tyrant or dictator who has ever promised to bring his own brand of peace, equality, and justice at the point of a sword; a man who now brazenly claims that his actions are no longer to be subjected to scrutiny because he won the election. Have years of circulating photographs of aborted babies hardened us to the photographs of dead or hooded, naked and leashed inmates in American military prisons? Has listening to the ugly shouts from mobs of pro-aborts outside of clinics deafened us to the screams of Iraqi mothers mourning their children and husbands, of children mourning their parents? Will the hungry, thirsty, and naked who are imprisoned in George Bush’s gulag, or the homeless, sick, and dead in American-occupied Iraq and Afghanistan, not have their angel-advocates at the Last Judgment? Is Arab life less sacred? Are the born worthy of no pity? Why do pro-lifers not speak out against the use of chemical weapons, napalm and napalm-like bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan? Why do pro-lifers not condemn the use of depleted uranium weapons which will continue to deform unborn Arab babies long after the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are forgotten by Americans? Shame on pro-lifers for allowing the pro-choice Left to claim these issues for themselves. What do we get in exchange for our support, anyway? Alberto Gonzales, who supported the "right" of underage girls to get abortions without their parents’ consent in Texas. Have you ever heard him criticize Roe vs. Wade as vocally as he does the Geneva Convention? It’s a twisted sort of calculus that dictates that we swap support of George Bush’s unjust and unjustly fought war for some gutless rhetoric against abortion. God will never prosper our work so long as we are so parsimonious with our compassion, and willing to barter in this way with our feelings of outrage. Anne Rao [send her mail], who lives in Manhattan, is a homeschooling mother of three.