NucNews - January 30, 2005




-------- NUCLEAR 

The Nuclear War We Nearly Had in 1983

Torn Curtain: Secret History of the Cold War, Episode 1

30 January 2005 Australian Broadcasting

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/history/hindsight/features/torn/episode1.htm

Tom Morton: Welcome to Hindsight on Radio National, and the first episode of our special series, Torn Curtain, The Secret History of the Cold War. Come with me for a moment to the Berlin Wall, on a crisp, chilly afternoon in the spring of 1990. The sound you're listening to is the sound of Turkish guest workers chipping bits off the wall with the hammers and chisels to sell to tourists.

When I heard that sound I was in Berlin for the ABC, to report on the first stirrings of German reunification. It suddenly struck me then that that clinking of the hammers and chisels was the sound of history itself tiptoeing through that everyday afternoon. Because the Berlin Wall was the most potent symbol of the cold war. It was ideology made visible in steel and concrete, and suddenly it was no more than a souvenir.

Fifteen years on from then, bulldozers and piledrivers have finished the work that those hammers and chisels started. The wall is no more, but the bitter ideological battles of the cold war still haunt our politics and our history like the aching of a phantom limb. So over the next few weeks here on Hindsight, we'll be shining a new light on some of those battles. A whole secret history has emerged from the shadows of the cold war. It's a history pieced together from the Soviet and eastern European archives, from declassified sources in the United States, and from the testimonies of cold war warriors on both sides of the Iron Curtain. Stay with us and you'll hear about Richard Nixon's secret nuclear alert in 1969 when he tried to convince the Soviets that he was about to drop the atomic bomb on North Vietnam. And you'll hear about the Australian physicist who stumbled into the murky world of spies and atomic diplomacy in the late 40s.

But today, in the first episode of Torn Curtain, the most terrifying secret of them all.

[From The Day After: … Wanna confirm, is this an exercise? ... Ronald Reagan: Let us pray for the salvation of all of those who live in that totalitarian darkness. … James Buchan: Every Soviet official one met was running around like a chicken without a head, talking in the most ghastly and dire terms of real hot war, of the fighting war, of nuclear war.]

Tom Morton: Conventional wisdom has it that the most dangerous moment of the cold war was the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, when the United States and the Soviet Union came within a hair's breadth of mutually assured Armageddon. But there was another, scarcely less perilous crisis, much closer to the present – the nuclear war we nearly had in 1983.

[From The Day After: ... Roger, copy. This is not an exercise! ... Roger, understand. Major Rheinhardt, we have a massive attack against the US at this time. ICBMs. Numerous ICBMs ...
Ronald Reagan: Let us be aware that while they preach the supremacy of the state, they are the focus of evil in the modern world...
James Buchan: ...they were extremely frightened of some kind of large military exercise by NATO in the autumn of '83...]

Tom Morton: Most Australians remember 1983 as the year we won the America's Cup. But as we were basking in the glow of victory and sleeping off our hangovers, half a world away in Europe the last great confrontation of the cold war was moving towards its climax.

Today we tell the extraordinary story of how that confrontation nearly ended in catastrophe. It's a story that was shrouded in secrecy at the time-known only to a handful of politicians, spies and military leaders in east and west.

Paul Dibb: There was a fear in Moscow that the NATO exercise Able Archer in November 1983, which was an exercise which escalated from a conventional conflict with the Soviet Union and Europe to simulated nuclear release; that this exercise was being used, if you like, as a cover for an actual nuclear attack.

[Oleg Gordievsky: The fact was that during the Able Archer, that period of autumn '83 – September, October, November – when the attitude of the Soviet leadership to that idea that America was preparing a sudden nuclear attack outside context of a conflict – that hysteria was very high. And so in a way we were very close to a nuclear conflict.]

Tom Morton: Oleg Gordievsky, the former chief of the KGB stationed in London. Gordievsky defected to Britain in the mid-1980s, but it was only after the end of the cold war that he spoke publicly about what's come to be known as the 1983 war scare.

According to Gordievsky, the world came closer to the brink of the nuclear abyss in November 1983 than at any time since the Cuba crisis.

To understand just how we got to that point, we need to go back first to the early months of 1981. Ronald Reagan has just become president of the United States, and already he's calling for a crusade for freedom. Negotiation and dialogue with the Soviets are out. Confrontation is back; and dιtente is dead.

[Archived recording of Ronald Reagan: They're squealing like they're sitting on a sharp nail, simply because we, now, are showing the will that we're not going to let them get to the point of dominance where they can some day issue to the free world an ultimatum of 'surrender or die'. And they don't like that.]

Jack F Matlock Jr: You know, Reagan had looked at the dιtente period of the 1970s as having been a one-way street – to the Soviet advantage. And he felt he had to balance things a bit before he could go in to effective negotiation. He was feeling that the United States at that point was too week to negotiate directly at that time. It was significant to Reagan psychologically, because as long as he felt weak, he felt that he really was not strong enough to go to the negotiating table effectively.

Tom Morton: Jack F Matlock Jr, principal adviser to Ronald Reagan on the Soviet Union, and later, US ambassador to Moscow.

Jack F Matlock Jr: They were supporting insurgencies in Africa and Latin America; and then of course they had invaded Afghanistan. That was the big one, before Reagan came to office. And then when they deployed the SS20s, the intermediate range missiles in Europe, it tended to upset what had been declared as a balance before.

[Archive Recording: The American Defense Secretary Mr Weinberger, at his first news conference at the Pentagon, has sounded the bugle call this way: 'It is essential that we commence now, I think, on a very definite goal of substantially increasing the strength of America and out ability to respond to situations that may occur simultaneously in different parts of the world. And that's essentially what I have in mind when I say it's time to re-arm America.']

James Hershberg: Ronald Reagan promised to counter what he called the unilateral disarmament of America during the 1970s. So when Reagan came into office in early 1981, there was not only calls to build up military forces, but also much more scepticism for his arms control and also a lot more loose talk on the part of some Reagan administration incoming officials about the possibility of fighting and even winning-or 'prevailing', in the terms of the military document that was released (leaked) to the press in 1982-prevailing in a nuclear war with the Soviet Union.

Tom Morton: James Hershberg, founding director of the cold war International History Project, and now associate professor at George Washington University.

One of Ronald Reagan's first actions as president was to bring in a massive boost in defence spending. The United States began the largest peacetime military build-up in its history. President Reagan and his key advisers argued that America was failing to keep pace with the Soviet Union.

[Archived Recording of Caspar Weinberger: One of our highest priorities has to be the modernisation of our strategic nuclear forces, and to restore our nuclear deterrents. For the deterrents to continue to be successful in the future, we have to work to offset the Soviet military build-up and restore the nuclear balance. I refer to them as these terrible equations that we have to work with and re-cast every day.]

Tom Morton: Caspar Weinberger, Ronald Reagan's first secretary of defence. Weinberger, and other key officials such as Richard Perle, argued that unless drastic action was taken, a window of vulnerability would open in the mid-1980s. At that point the Soviets would achieve overwhelming military superiority – a position of such strength that they could bring the United States to its knees.

[Archived recording of Caspar Weinberger: The United States must restore that nuclear dominance and if we fail to do so, the Soviet Union could, within a few years, be in a position to threaten us; blackmail our allies, or even launch a nuclear attack with the assurance that we would not be capable of responding in a way that would constitute effective deterrence. ... It's enough to make you wonder, sometimes, if you're on the right planet.]

Raymond Garthoff: The Soviet Union – Soviet leaders – had of course contributed to the fact that there would be a time of tension, but Reagan was also inclined, for political reasons – I'm not saying he didn't believe it – to overstate Soviet superiority.

Tom Morton: One man who spent a lot of the cold war studying the Soviet military is Raymond Garthoff. In the late 50s he worked for the CIA preparing national intelligence estimates-top-secret evaluations of Soviet military strength. He was an adviser to President Kennedy during the Cuba crisis. So I asked Raymond Garthoff, was the doomsday scenario of Soviet military superiority, which Caspar Weinberger and Ronald Reagan talked about in the early 80s, a realistic one?

Raymond Garthoff: Well, you described it very well. It wasn't realistic at all. In fact the United States was moving forward with programs which greatly increased our own counterforce capability, and the Scowcroft Commission, by 1983, had also, even in the Reagan administration, had reached the conclusion that the so-called window of vulnerability wasn't there. And that it was clearly exaggerated with respect to the prognoses of Soviet superiority.

[Archived recording of Caspar Weinberger: Military strength is most successful if it's never used, and if we're to avoid that use of force, we have to be prepared to use it and use it successfully. And in doing so, we're confronted with an age-old and fundamental paradox: to ensure the peace we must be prepared for war...]

Tom Morton: Caspar Weinberger, speaking at the National Press Club in Canberra in 1982. Earlier that year, Weinberger had declared that the United States must be prepared to fight and win a nuclear war against the Soviets. But a top secret Defense Department document spelled out America's new nuclear policy:

Should deterrents fail and strategic nuclear war with the USSR occur, the United States must prevail and be able to force the Soviet Union to seek earliest termination of hostilities on terms favourable to the United States.

James Hershberg: There was talk about a nuclear warning shot, there was talk about a need to build civilian shelters for nuclear war – so in general all this rhetoric started heating up quite a bit, and there was also a much more gung-ho attitude in Washington about supporting anti-Soviet and anti-communist forces around the world. So in general, Moscow perceived accurately a more aggressive posture in Washington when Reagan came into office.

Tom Morton: Take the M out of M-A-D and let's all make a bomb. When the British pop group Heaven 17 wrote the chorus to that 1981 release, they didn't know that Caspar Weinberger would soon be following their advice. Weinberger revoked the doctrine of MAD-mutually assured destruction – a doctrine which had kept the nuclear peace for a generation.

Raymond Garthoff: Military establishments are always inclined to see an objective victory if war should come. But to treat it in the way that many figures in the Reagan administration, and particularly Cap Weinberger, did, was clearly, again, building more of a sense of danger and crisis than was at all warranted. And this underlay the buildup of forces, but it also had the effect of alarming the Soviets, who were aware that they did have superiority and were not about to achieve it, and that they could only therefore judge that the United States was doing this in order to provide a greater superiority to itself – and that that, in turn, was exceedingly dangerous from their standpoint.

Tom Morton: In the corridors of the Kremlin, voices were being raised which were no less hawk-like than those issuing from the Pentagon. Here's what the Soviet military's chief of staff, Marshal Nikolai Ogarkov, told his counterparts in the Warsaw Pact in September 1982:

[translation]: The US has in effect already declared war on us. The material preparations for war, as shown also by the current manoeuvres of the NATO states, are no game but deadly serious. The danger of war has never been so great.

From the late 1970s Marshal Ogarkov had argued that the Soviet Union should be prepared to strike first with nuclear weapons if war seemed unavoidable. Ogarkov's views were regarded as extreme by more moderate elements in the Kremlin. But in 1981 a special intelligence operation code-named Operation RYAN was set up by the KGB chief, Uri Andropov, to look for signs that the United States or its allies were preparing for war.

Raymond Garthoff: Indeed, in the beginning of 1981 the Soviet intelligence services instituted a special state of warning to be on the alert for a possible western initiation of war at any time. That seems preposterous to us but it didn't to Soviet leaders, and particularly that wing of the Soviet leadership at the time that was most alarmed and concerned about the United States' actions and most inclined to interpret our actions as not only unwarranted, but as deriving from a hostile intention.

'KGB Centre pushes Operation RYAN - February 1983'. (Excerpt from KGB cable translated by Oleg Gordievsky): Top Secret. Copy Number 1. London. Comrade Yermakov. Strictly Personal. Permanent operational assignment to uncover NATO preparations for a nuclear missile attack on the USSR. In view of the growing urgency of the task of discovering any preparations by the adversary for a nuclear missile attack (RYAN), on the USSR, we are sending you a permanently operative assignment (POA) and briefing on this question.

The objective of the assignment is to see that the residentura work systematically to uncover any plans in preparation by the main adversity, the United States, for RYAN, and to organise a continual watch to be kept for indications of a decision being taken to use nuclear weapons against the USSR or immediate preparations being made for a nuclear missile attack.

Oleg Gordievsky: The first point I would like to make is that Australia was on the list of the countries which were supposed to be watched by the KGB. As well from the KGB were supposed to send each fortnight a report about the preparation to a sudden nuclear attack on the Soviet Union. So in the '82, '83, '84, the KGB in Canberra and in Sydney was watching the so-called preparation-preparation to a nuclear war.

Tom Morton: Oleg Gordievsky, former KGB chief in London, in an interview recorded especially for this series by ABC TV's Andrew Fowler.

By 1983 all of the Soviets' anxieties were focused on Germany. For four years the Soviets and the United States had been playing a game of nuclear poker. At stake were hundreds of new missiles – missiles which NATO was planning to deploy in West Germany in the autumn of 1983.

This new generation of nuclear armed, medium-range missiles would be able to reach targets in the Soviet Union in eight minutes. Now naturally enough, the Soviets were distinctly nervous about the arrival of these missiles in West Germany. But NATO claimed it was simply playing catch-up – matching a new fleet of Soviet missiles aimed at Europe, the SS20s.

In the 1970s and 80s James Buchan was correspondent for the Financial Times in Bonn-closely following the controversy surrounding the deployment of the Euromissiles:

James Buchan: In the course of the 1970s the Soviets started deploying a medium-range missile which NATO called the SS20, which was capable of hitting targets all over western Europe but not reaching the United States. And the purpose of this weapon, as became very clear at the end of the 70s and the beginning the 80s, was to detach western Europe from the US and eventually to clear the Americans out of the European continent.

Tom Morton: How would it do that?

James Buchan: By so encouraging dissension and splitting public opinion in West Germany – which was the most sensitive and the most vulnerable country in the western alliance – which would then reject any counter-deployments by the United States and drift into neutrality.

[Reading from Heart's Journey in Winter: In 1983 I knew these would be the capital events of my life. I couldn't know that the missiles deployed in West Germany that November would be the final shots of the last action of the Cold war. The Germans, who had rebuilt cities turned to rubble by British and American bombers in the second world war, knew that they had most to lose from any deterioration in the balance of terror between the two great powers. Both Germanys were military camps overflowing with armed men of all nationalities, bristling with nuclear weapons, churned up by tank manoeuvres, deafened by low-flying fighter aircraft.]

Tom Morton: From James Buchan's novel, Heart's Journey in Winter, a spy thriller set in Germany during the war scare of 1983.

[Reading: The rivalry between the two great powers which transferred from the real continent to the cities and fields onto battle fields of the imagination. Ideology, though this had become degenerate by 1983, subversion – and the accumulation of nuclear weapons whose power to terrify and persuade depended not on their detonation, for that was too terrible even for the game at issue, but on their value as entries, as my father wrote in the 1960s, in some imaginary ledger of terror and might.

The chief theatre of this mental war was Germany.

[archived recording: Bernd Schaefer : It was a desire for peace and extreme fear of war ...

Petra Kelly: Germany is the only country which gets Pershing 2s and you must ask the question why, of all places only Germany? Why is it not shared with all the other countries? ...

Bernd Schaefer : I think the Germans – or most of the Germans – realised for the first time that nuclear war might come to their territory ...

Petra Kelly: There is a certain creative fear in people. Not fear that you manipulate, but fear that Germany, which this already filled to the brim, east and west, by nuclear weapons, by chemical weapons, by conventional weapons – has an overkill on both sides of forty times – begins to say, why any more, what is this? For what reason?]

Tom Morton: Petra Kelly, one of the leading figures in the West German peace movement, in a rare archival interview with Harry Kreisler at the University of California, Berkeley. It's part of their series, Conversations with History.

[Archived recording: Petra Kelly: And Germany is, of course, in the position where many people don't want any other war to start again on German soil, so there was a strong appeal by old people, elderly people, supporting us; and a strong appeal by many occupational groups – doctors, lawyers, scientists, professors, academic people, which also make up a big part of the Green party – and people begin questioning, why in fact do they have no say over these decisions?]

Tom Morton: What Petra Kelly called 'creative fear' took hundreds of thousands of Germans on to the streets in the early 1980s. In 1979 the key NATO allies had moved to counter the Soviet SS20s with missiles of their own. NATO declared that it would deploy American Cruise and Pershing missiles in Germany by the end of 1983-unless the Soviets removed their SS20s. But what the NATO leaders hadn't bargained for was a revolt from their own populations.

James Buchan: What the deployment of Cruise and Pershings gave them was a mass movement – millions strong – and mass movements always claim to be millions strong, but in the big, popular demonstrations in the autumn of '83 there were millions of people going out on to the streets to demonstrate against the Pershings.

[archive recording of protest: …the whole bloody, grotesque, barbarous carnival is still there on the road! I'm ready! It's getting darker in Europe. The night starts drawing in! Time is not on our side!]

Tom Morton: That was English historian, EP Thompson, founder of the European Movement for Nuclear Disarmament, speaking in London to an estimated quarter of a million campaigners for nuclear disarmament.

If the Soviets had set out to sow dissension in Europe, by early 1983 they'd certainly succeeded. The campaign against Cruise and Pershing had spread to Britain. Meanwhile, in West Germany, the Social Democrat government had collapsed, deeply divided over the whole issue. Public opinion in Germany was split 50-50 on whether or not the deployments should go ahead. But there was one question which Germany's allies in Washington found perplexing. The Germans seemed a whole lot more frightened of the NATO missiles which were supposed to protect them than the Soviet missiles aimed at them.

Jack F Matlock Jr: The argument we kept making was that, you know, we don't like them either. But unless we show the Soviets that we can counter the SS20s, we won't get rid of them, and they're in a position to hold Europe hostage. Because the SS20 – each of them had three warheads, highly accurate, and they could hit every NATO capital on the continent of Europe within about four minutes.

[Archived recording of Caspar Weinberger: The United States must restore that nuclear balance, and if we fail to do so, the Soviet could, within a few years, be in a position to threaten us – blackmail our allies, or even launch a nuclear attack – with the assurance that we would not be capable of responding in a way that would constitute effective deterrent.]

[Archived recording Gert Bastian: This argument that we can be blackmailed if we give not a new answer to the SS20 on the other side is completely wrong. We cannot be blackmailed. We have enough weapons now existing. We have the potentials of the French nuclear power [unclear], of the United Kingdom, of the United States – we have three nuclear armed countries in the Western Alliance and [unclear] Soviet Union nuclear power, and there is no possibility for the Soviets to blackmail a non-nuclear armed country in Europe – the Netherlands or the Germans or the Belgians or the Scandinavian countries – how could you work such a blackmailing? I couldn't see it.]

Tom Morton: General Gert Bastian. Bastian was commander of the 12th Panzer division of the German Bundeswehr, but he resigned his commission in protest over the plans to deploy Cruise and Pershing. Together with Petra Kelly, Bastian became an important spokesperson for the West German peace movement.

Gert Bastian: It is impossible to think that the Soviets can say, if Germany is not willing to leave the NATO we will destroy Frankfurt or Hamburg with SS20 missiles. I think it's crazy to come to such a...

Petra Kelly: I think, in fact, we're being blackmailed by the United States in an opposite… I think nuclear blackmail does exist – not in your case – when the United States says, we're going to forfeit Hamburg and perhaps Frankfurt because we don't want to forfeit New York, we scream and say we don't want to be the sacrifices because you don't use your intercontinental potential. So the whole idea of deterrence is an idea of keeping people hostages on both sides. In fact we are hostages. And people begin questioning why in fact do they have no say over these decisions.]

[Reading from Heart's Journey in Winter: Two women stood with their backs to the kitchen sink. One was Caroline Bachard, the wife of the British head of Chancellery. The other woman had a strikingly slim waist. She had her eyes down and her hand out. 'Hi, I'm Polina.'
'How d'you do? Richard Fisher.' I shook her cold hand.
'You're with MI6, right?'
'You must be joking.'
Polina pinched my right sleeve, took the bottle of wine, put it to her mouth and drank. She handed the bottle back to me and said, 'So what are you doing here?'
I said that for thirty-five years Britain, France and the United States had been fighting the Soviets, and one another, for control of West German public opinion. Suddenly it was as if a shell had burst overhead and exposed this dreary struggle to blinding light. I went on a bit about Pershings and SS20s; missile throw weights and explosive yield. I said we were now in the midst of a pitched engagement, the first since Cuba in 1962. The Soviets would again be beaten. But I just wished...
'I meant here, Lennestrasse 43.]

Bernd Schaefer: I think most of the Germans realised for the first time that nuclear war might come to their territory. As long as there was this American nuclear umbrella far in the distance with the threat of massive retaliation in case of an outbreak of war in Europe, the Germans felt more secure. They thought the United States was willing to risk its own fate in order to save West Germany from being overrun by the Soviets, or to be more precise, the city of Berlin from falling into Soviet hands. And of course this strategy was not all that popular in the United States, and of course in the United States there were a lot of voices saying "Why should we risk our territory and our country for the sake of West Germany or Berlin, if we have the chance to limit it to the European theatre of war in case there would be an escalation."

Tom Morton: Bernd Schaefer, senior fellow with the German Historical Institute in Washington. As one British politician once put it, the NATO alliance was all about keeping the Americans in, the Germans down, and the Russians out. In the late 1970s, West German chancellor, Helmut Schmidt, had grown increasingly concerned that the Americans were taking their eyes off the European ball. The US was preoccupied with covert wars against the Soviets in Africa, Central America and Afghanistan. And they didn't seem overly concerned, at least to begin with, about the Soviet SS20s pointed at Europe.

Schmidt saw the deployment of Cruise and Pershing as a way of getting the Americans to recommit to the defence of Europe. What Schmidt failed to see was that the new missiles changed the rules of engagement between the superpowers. Now the United States could fight a nuclear war in Europe by remote control, without a single missile being fired from the American mainland.

Bernd Schaefer: Actually I think it increased the risks for the Europeans. This aggravated the tension between the United States and Germany and other parts of western Europe to quite some extent, and the Soviets tried to exploit it and then the Germans indeed became very anxious – what the Americans call Germans' Angst – -that the nuclear war might actually annihilate Germany and German territory.

[Archived recording Gert Bastian: In my opinion, these two weapons, Pershing and Cruise, are significant for the change in the nuclear strategy. In former time nuclear weapons have been only available to prevent war. They were effective deterrents with their revenge potential, and nobody could fire the first hit without the risk to be killed. But with these new weapons, which are more accurate and more precise and with the very short fly and warning time – this makes a new situation for the European allies of the United States, I think. The entrance in a nuclear war is much more easier when such weapons are available.]

Tom Morton: General Gert Bastian, talking to Harry Kreisler in the series Conversations with History.

Vojtech Mastny: The Soviets themselves, they did not see themselves as having developed their own SS20s as a threatening weapon. They just did it because they could do it. They were in a position to build this sort of weapon, so they did it without really thinking that much of what the consequences might be.

Tom Morton: Vojtech Mastny, coordinator of the Parallel History Project. the project is an ambitious attempt to tell the story of the cold war from both sides of the Iron Curtain, using the material from the Soviet and eastern European archives and from declassified NATO sources.

Vojtech Mastny: And when the consequence was the western decision to build the same sort of missiles to match the Soviet ones and checkmate their possible use, then the Soviets were surprised and annoyed, and in fact threatened.

Bernd Schaefer: The Soviets played quite stupid propaganda again to use the peace movement against the western alliance, because they thought they could split Europe from the United States by actually supporting the peace movement and avoiding the deployment without having to make any Soviet concessions. Some people today make the argument that what we knew all along that basically they are Soviet dupes and it's all actually directed by the Soviet Union. But that's quite ridiculous and in quantitative terms it was such a massive movement that the Soviet interests which were expressed by a very few people in the movement really were not the most decisive ones.

Tom Morton: In early 1983 air raid sirens [like these] weren't an uncommon sound in West Germany. I used to hear them regularly at breakfast time in the sleepy university town where I was a student. Close by was a large American military base, and up in the woods behind the town, a key NATO communications centre. Well, like most of the locals, when I heard the sound, I'd just assume it was another exercise and go back to my coffee and the newspaper. The news from Geneva wasn't promising. The Soviets and the Americans were locked in arms negotiations. The Soviets were refusing to scrap their SS20s and NATO was preparing to deploy Cruise and Pershing in the autumn. Both sides were fighting a war of nerves on the battlefield of the imagination.

Then, in early March, Ronald Reagan gave a speech at an Evangelical convention in Florida:

[Archived recording of Ronald Reagan: Let us pray for the salvation of all those who live in that totalitarian darkness. Pray they will discover the joy of knowing God. But until they do, let us be aware that while they preach the supremacy of the state, declare its omnipotence over individual man and predict its eventual domination of all peoples on the earth, they are the focus of evil in the modern world.]

Oleg Gordievsky: The ideologically aggressive speeches by Reagan, secretary of state Schultz and other members of that Reagan administration frightened the Soviet government immensely, because they believed, for example, Nixon was not dangerous because he didn't make strong ideological attacks on the Soviet Union. That's why it was easy to sign agreements of all kinds with Nixon. But they were frightened by Reagan in the beginning, and that's why they took Reagan very, very seriously as a potentially aggressive president who could unleash a nuclear war just because he had the idea to destroy the communist system.

Tom Morton: Former KGB London chief, Oleg Gordievsky. Just three weeks after Ronald Reagan had called the Soviet Union an 'evil empire', he gave another speech which frightened the Soviets even more:

[Archived recording of Ronald Reagan: What if free people could live secure in the knowledge that their security did not rest upon the threat of instant US retaliation to deter a Soviet attack, that we could intercept and destroy strategic ballistic missiles before they reached our own soil or that of our allies. Let me share with you a vision of the future which augurs hope. It is that we embark on a program to counter the awesome Soviet missile threat with measures that are defensive.]

Vojtech Mastny: Then of course there came the 'Star Wars' speech by Reagan, which introduced a new strategy.

[Archived recording of Ronald Reagan: Some say it will bring war to the heavens, but its purpose is to deter war in the heavens and on earth.]

Oleg Gordievsky: And the Russians believed that it was possible for the United States to create that defence in space against nuclear missiles in a relatively short time – like they prepared the flight to the moon, the landing on the moon, in a historically short time...

Vojtech Mastny: It was interpreted by some on the Soviet side as an attempt to put the United States into a position of being able to create the first strike, that would cripple the Soviet Union and thereby win a major war.

James Buchan: I paid a visit to Moscow in the summer of that year and it was a time when Andropov was still theoretically general secretary of the Communist party but was dying. And every Soviet official one met was running around like a chicken without a head – sometimes talking in conciliatory terms and sometimes talking in the most ghastly and dire terms of real hot war – of fighting war, of nuclear war.

Tom Morton: So that was the summer of 1983…

James Buchan: Yes.

Tom Morton: So then they were really talking about it then, when you were in Moscow.

James Buchan: Yes, yes.

Tom Morton: They believed that it was a real possibility…

James Buchan: Yes, and they were extremely frightened of some kind of large military exercise by NATO in the autumn of '83, after the Bundestag had approved the missile deployments.

[Archived recording: A vote for deployment came after 26 hours of debate – two days of often impassioned and emotional argument-even though the result, given Chancellor Kohl's assured majority, was not in doubt. The decision is the signal for the United States to start moving the first batch of Pershing II missiles to West Germany. Reports in Bonn indicate that parts may be flown in as early as tomorrow…]

James Buchan: I was sitting outside the Bundestag after the key debate at which the West German parliament decided to accept the deployment of Pershing II missiles. I was sitting on a bench outside the Bundestag. And it occurred to me then that this was a historic event; that I could see the end of the Cold war unfolding before me. I wasn't sure who had won it, but I could see who had lost it. We had a loser and that was the Soviet Union.

[Reading from Heart's Journey in Winter ... . So, how does it end?
'Richard, please don't.'
The birds started, which filled me with sadness.
'I mean, the missiles.'
'Oh, yes.'
'What about the Soviets …?'
'What about the Soviets?'
'They could go to war.'
'Why would they do that? The war has been fought. They lost. This is their last shot. they've got nothing else except a rebellion in Afghanistan they can't put down, and a population they can't feed.' 'Please, Polina…']

Tom Morton: As the Pershing II missiles were being flown in to bases in West Germany, the Russians walked out of the arms talks in Geneva. Within days, NATO began a major military exercise code-named Able Archer. Normally such exercises would have been routine, but the build-up of tension during 1983 had now reached its crescendo and Moscow's nerves were stretched to breaking point.

Professor Paul Dibb, former director of the Joint Intelligence Organisation in Canberra, and a specialist on the Soviet Union:

Paul Dibb: There was a fear in Moscow that the NATO exercise Able Archer in November 1983, which was an exercise which escalated from a conventional conflict with the Soviet Union in Europe to simulated nuclear release – that this exercise was being used, if you like, as a cover for an actual nuclear attack.

[Reading from: Heart's Journey in Winter: I've just had a call from General Guthrie in Meindela, to confirm to me, as a courtesy, that the RYAN army has successfully deployed onto launch on warning. Do you know what that means, Richard?]

Vojtech Mastny: A simulation of release of nuclear weapons entailed the use of encrypted codes, so we can assume that the Soviets, being unable to figure out what these codes meant, did not throw out the possibility that it might be the real thing.

James Hershberg: And of course keep in mind that this was a stake in the Cold war where there were hundreds of thousands of NATO and Warsaw Pact forces lined up on both sides of the Iron Curtain down the heart of Germany and down the heart of central Europe.

[Reading from Heart's Journey in Winter: It reminded me that the armed forces had not attempted, let alone completed a manoeuvre since 1948. And never with nuclear weapons.]

Oleg Gordievsky: The Russians, [unclear] that military people took it as a sign of the…indeed, you see, they're preparing an attack on us!

James Hershberg: The Soviets really thought World War III was about to happen.

Paul Dibb: the Soviets were reacting to hair-trigger alert in reaction to the NATO exercise, Able Archer.

Oleg Gordievsky: And the military commanders, including people sitting at the-ready to launch a nuclear missile-they were very nervous. They were sitting there believing that this might be true. That's why it was so dangerous.

[Roger, copy…this is not an exercise!]

Paul Dibb: And to give you a dramatic example, the group of Soviet airforces in East Germany was forward-loading tactical nuclear weapons on to Sukhoi 17 long-range strike aircraft to strike West Germany.

[Reading from Heart's Journey in Winter: We are trying to contain the most dangerous crisis in the war.]

Paul Dibb: They were tactical nuclear weapons to bomb military and other targets just across the border from East Germany in West Germany. Their flight time, 18 minutes.

[Archived recording of Ronald Reagan: Let us pray for the salvation of all of those who live in that totalitarian darkness. Pray they will discover the joy of knowing God. But until they do, let us be aware that while they preach the supremacy of the state, declare its omnipotence over individual man and predict its eventual domination of all peoples on the earth, they are the focus of evil in the modern world.]

[Archived recording of Petra Kelly: Why, of all places, only Germany?]

Tom Morton: We know now, of course, that the cold war ended not with a bang, but with the popping of champagne corks here at the Berlin Wall in 1989. But as today's story shows, it could have ended very differently. Raymond Garthoff experienced the other near-catastrophe of the cold war at first hand, as an adviser to President Kennedy during the Cuba crisis. Garthoff believes that the war scare of 1983 was scarcely less perilous.

Raymond Garthoff: It was a matter of rather – I would say – greater danger than almost any other period in the cold war, if only because the most, shall we say extreme, or hard-line elements in the Soviet intelligence and military leadership might have at some point either misconstrued some developments in the west or chosen to act on the basis of evaluations that were greatly exaggerated. And that's why I think there was such great danger involved.

Tom Morton The most comprehensive and carefully documented account of the 1983 war scare comes from the CIA.

The CIA declined our request for an interview with CIA historian Benjamin Fischer. But you can find a link to his article, and a wealth of information about our series on the cold war, on the Radio National website.

Now you may be wondering by now – if the Soviets really got that close to pressing the button during the Able Archer exercise in 1983, what was it that stopped them? Well, the ultimate answer to that question lies in the former Soviet military archives in Moscow – archives which are still closed both to Russian and to foreign researchers. But Vojtech Mastny thinks we can draw a tentative conclusion from what we do know from the archives of the former Warsaw Pact allies such as East Germany. The fact that Able Archer didn't end in nuclear holocaust is probably down to some anonymous KGB analysts in Moscow who decided that the evidence that NATO was about to launch a first strike just wasn't strong enough. In other words, it may be that the world was saved by middle management.

Vojtech Mastny: Well, what was different in the Cuban missile crisis is that this was really managed by the top leadership, and in that instance by Kruschev in particular, who was a gambler. So that was what made the Cuban crisis so important and so dangerous. In 1983 they didn't get that far. They didn't get to the upper level. Either there wasn't time to pass it on to the leadership, or they decided that it was not worth it. Or they attached qualifications to it; that it was not certain. In any case, one can assume that fortunately they used their common sense rather than being alarmist or panicking. So that, I think, is encouraging. What is disconcerting is that it may have been a close call, and maybe, well, a crazy guy some place along the line really could have created in a moment havoc.

Scott Sagan: If you look at the history of the cold war you should recognise that nuclear weapons were not controlled by statesmen. They're not controlled by states. They're controlled by military organisations and normal, frail, all-too-human military operators. It seems to me that our successful experience during the cold war blinds us all too often to the dangers that existed at that time.

Paul Dibb: These were serious times. And you know, Tom, if I might just make a comment, that brings us back down to the current times, when we have ministers in the current Howard government who I presume were in short trousers or diapers at the time, proclaiming that the war on terror is more dangerous than the period you and I are talking about. How can it be? The terrorists, as nasty as they are, and even if they get their hands on some chemical or biological or a limited nuclear capacity – they won't have the capacity with intercontinental ballistic missiles to deliver 12,000 strategic nuclear warheads and take out (and these were our calculations at the time) the total global deaths in the Soviet Union and its allies and in the United States and its allies, putting to one side what the fallout would do to the rest of the world – would have been, in a full-scale nuclear war, 100 million on each side in something like a day or two. That really puts the war on terror into context. As serious as it is at the moment, it is not comparable.

Tom Morton: But isn't the argument that in a sense we had a situation for 45 years where the threat of mutually-assured destruction prevented the use of nuclear weapons and that we're now living in a situation where because there is no longer that balancing of mutually-assured destruction, the possibility of a nuclear weapon being used, for example by a terrorist group, has actually increased.

Paul Dibb: Yes. Look, there's truth in that. Even so, we will not be at full-scale nuclear war. And although mutually-assured destruction worked, we've just been discussing, Tom, that the views on both sides now are we came precious close in '83 to the buttons being pressed.

[Reading from Heart's Journey in Winter: 'I haven't got words for it. Nobody has. All I can think of is that shadow that was somehow burned into the steps of the Sumitomo Bank in Hiroshima. Something out of this world, beyond comprehension. Maybe it would come out differently. Maybe even in their favour or…'
Polina came up on her elbow. She said, 'Does the name Edmund Fischer mean anything to you?' 'He's a name to me, that's all.' 'He was one of my professors at Georgetown. Ed used to say that the nuclear arms race, far from being the diabolical enterprise of popular imagination, is an appropriate, even benign form of competition between two great powers. He used to talk like that. The purpose of the cold war is – I guess you should make that was – to save blood, not to spill it, he said. Years from now it will seem as quaint and harmless as the tournaments of medieval chivalry.']

Tom Morton: You've been listening to Hindsight, and the first episode of our series Torn Curtain, the secret history of the cold war. Technical production on today's program was by Judy Rapley.

The original music was composed by Stuart Brown, and readings were by Mark Kilmurry, Rachael Szalay, Tony Macgregor, James Carleton and Andrei Shabunov.

Additional music:

Heaven 17, Let's All Make a Bomb
Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Two Tribes
Fehlfarben, Militurk
Faust, Exercise with Voices




-------- iran

Pakistan pressing Iran to compromise on nuclear dispute

DAVOS, Switzerland (AFP) Jan 30, 2005

http://www.spacewar.com/2005/050130061503.4efx6qn6.html

Pakistan is exerting behind the scenes pressure on Iran to compromise in its acrimonious dispute with Europe and the United States over its nuclear programme, Pakistani diplomatic sources say.

Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri passed on their concerns during a meeting at the weekend with Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi.

Kasuri, for his part, said Pakistan supported negotiations led by Britain, France and Germany, to reach a lasting deal that would allay US charges that Iran is covertly developing nuclear weapons.

"We feel the role the (EU three) are playing is positive, because we feel that a peaceful resolution to this dispute is highly desirable," Kasuri told AFP on the margins of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

"Being their neighbours, and already with the Iraq situation being what it is, we wouldn't want another turmoil on our border," he said. "We paid a big price" in Afghanistan.

"We don't want a similar destabilisation on our border again, so we have a vested interest in a peaceful resolution of this dispute."

Pakistan is worried about a spike in tensions on its western border, after becoming embroiled in the conflict in Afghanistan on its eastern side.

The sources said the ministers "tried to convey the European position" to Kharazi during Friday's meeting.

Pakistani officials say that Tehran has been warned "bluntly, bordering on rudeness," of their concerns and urged "not to make the mistake" of ignoring the Europeans.

"We have not minced our words," a diplomatic source said.

The UN atomic energy agency has been investigating Iran for two years. US President George W. Bush warned earlier this month that he would not rule out using military action if European diplomacy fails to secure Iran's agreement not to seek nuclear weapons.

Iran has suspended uranium enrichment, the key process that makes fuel for nuclear reactors but also the explosive core of atomic bombs, under an accord clinched by the EU three in November.

Talks between the trio and Tehran on a more comprehensive plan that would include economic ties are continuing, amid reports that the bloc has hardened its stance to urge Iran to dismantle its nuclear fuel programme totally.

Underlining the complexities, Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned the EU three Saturday to take the negotiations seriously, threatening otherwise to reconsider what the IAEA has said is "good cooperation."

"We were recently in Brussels and we had lengthy discussions on the entire regional situation" with EU leaders, Kasuri said, alluding to a January 24-26 visit by a Pakistani delegation led by Aziz.

"We support the European approach."

"We have very good relations with Iran," he went on. "We have been telling our Iranian friends of the concerns of the international community, but they themselves are aware of it. We can't play a bigger role."

Nevertheless, Tehran's top nuclear negotiator, Hasan Rowhani, told Iran's conservative Mehr news agency Saturday that "under no circumstances" would it give up uranium enrichment for peaceful purposes.

He said negotiators "know that Iran is firm on its decisions and I do not think the Europeans want the negotiations to reach a dead end."

Earlier this month, Pakistan denied a report in a US magazine that it was helping US special forces target suspected weapons sites in Iran for possible air strikes.

----

Australian PM adopts 'wait and see' approach on Iran

Sunday, January 30, 2005 Australian Broadcasting

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200501/s1291895.htm

Prime Minister John Howard says he hopes the issue of Iran's nuclear weapons capacity will be resolved after a meeting with Iran's Foreign Minister Dr Kamal Kharrazi.

At the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, Mr Howard encouraged Iran to work closely with the three European countries involved in the negotiations.

He says he made the point that there should be full cooperation and full compliance by Iran.

"He told me Iran's motives were positive and I think we have to wait and see," Mr Howard said.

----

Iran 'ready' to repel any US attack

TEHRAN (AFP) Jan 30, 2005

http://www.spacewar.com/2005/050130074838.c0zmwbxe.html

Iran's top national security official Hassan Rowhani has said the armed forces are fully prepared for any military attack by the United States, press reports said Sunday.

"Our plans are ready, and although an attack is very unlikely the plans have been approved by the Supreme National Security Council and given to the military forces," Rowhani was quoted as saying.

"We will not react to an attack with diplomacy. We are ready to cut off the aggressor's hand," added Rowhani, secretary of Iran's top national security body.

His comments came against a backdrop of an escalating war of words between Iran and the United States, which has hinted at possible military action over Tehran's nuclear programme.

The United States and Israel accuse Iran of using an atomic energy programme as a cover for weapons development, a chrage the Islamic republic denies.

----

Officials: U.S. Rebuffs Europe on Iran Nuke Talks

By REUTERS
Published: January 30, 2005

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-iran-usa-talks.html

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States has
rebuffed pleas to join a European diplomatic drive
to persuade Iran to give up any ambitions to add
nuclear bombs to its arsenal, U.S. officials and
foreign diplomats say.

For months, Britain, France and Germany have
hoped to improve their bargaining power with the
Islamic republic by involving Washington in a
proposed accord over an end to its uranium
enrichment activities.

That effort has intensified since President
Bush's re-election in November, culminating last
week with ministerial visits to Condoleezza Rice
days before she took up her new post as secretary
of state, they said.

So far, the Americans show no sign of giving
ground.

``It's what they (the Europeans) have always
wanted to do,'' a senior Bush administration
official said. ``(British Foreign Secretary) Jack
(Straw) came over hoping Condi would change our
policy and she didn't.''

A senior State Department official said
Straw, who visited on Monday, one day before
Germany's Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer came on
a similar mission, outlined European hopes for the
negotiations.

The idea of getting the Bush administration
into the talks ``is in the air,'' he said.

``But we have not been (formally) asked yet
and when we are, we will say, 'What good would it
do?'''

The United States takes a harder line than
the Europeans and wants Iran, which Bush grouped
in an ``axis of evil'' with pre-war Iraq and North
Korea, to be reported to the U.N. Security Council
for possible international sanctions.

U.S. officials say that would increase
pressure on Iran and push council members China
and Russia to curtail arms and energy deals,
respectively, which Washington believes could
boost the Islamic republic's nuclear capability.

Iran denies U.S. charges it is pursuing a
nuclear bomb and says its programs are only for
peaceful power generation needed to keep up with
its growing population.

EURO LOBBYING COMES UP EMPTY

A European diplomat acknowledged the
lobbying had failed to overcome U.S. skepticism
about the talks, but Europe hoped Washington would
eventually be persuaded if Iran kept to the
agreement that offers energy, technology and trade
incentives.

``The Europeans believe that the U.S.
position will evolve in accordance with how Iran
lives up to its commitments.

``But frankly there remains skepticism
within the administration as to whether Iran is
willing or capable of the transformation
required,'' the diplomat said.

The Europeans -- with reluctant U.S.
acquiescence -- have negotiated a freeze of Iran's
uranium enrichment in an accord similar to one
that broke down last year. Enrichment, which Iran
has refused to give up permanently, can help
generate power or make bombs.

The head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog on
Friday urged the United States to look to join the
talks.

The United States has mixed tough talk with
a few modest hints that diplomacy may yet work,
but few analysts see any fundamental change in
Bush administration policy.

``The administration is pleased with its
policy and sees no reason to change,'' said
Patrick Clawson, an Iran expert at the Washington
Institute for Near East Policy, which has close
ties to Iran's arch-foe Israel.

The stance was a ``gamble'' that Iran's
hard-line rulers would be overthrown before they
acquired a bomb, he said.

On Sunday, Rice told CBS' Face the Nation:
``We really do believe ... that this is something
that can be dealt with diplomatically. What is
needed is unity of purpose, unity of message to
the Iranians, that we will not allow them to skirt
their international obligations and develop
nuclear weapons under cover of civilian nuclear
power.''

Her remarks came after the president refused
to rule out a military strike and his hard-line
vice president said Iran was top of the world's
trouble spots and warned the region's biggest U.S.
ally, Israel, could hit its facilities.

-----

U.S. Official Consults Arabs on Iran Nukes

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: January 30, 2005
Filed at 9:56 p.m. ET

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Gulf-US-Iran.html

MANAMA, Bahrain (AP) -- A senior U.S.
official said Monday he was consulting Arab states
in the Persian Gulf to coordinate policies in
light of the perceived threat of Iran's nuclear
ambitions.

John Bolton, the State Department's top
international security official, said countries in
the region were ``well aware'' of the threat posed
by Iran, which maintains its nuclear activities
are for peaceful energy purposes.

``Their repeated support for terrorism makes
it particularly dangerous if they were to acquire
a nuclear weapon,'' Bolton told reporters.

``Whether they would use it directly as the
government of Iran or whether they would transfer
it to a terrorist group leaves us very
concerned,'' said Bolton, undersecretary of state
for arms control and international security.

Bolton said he has explained to leaders in
the Gulf America's stance on the ``Iranian problem
and how we've been dealing in the past and how we
proposed to deal with in the future.''

The United States alleges that Iran's
nuclear program is aimed at producing weapons.
Earlier this month, President Bush reaffirmed his
support for a diplomatic settlement of Iran's
nuclear program but said he would not take any
option off the table, including a possible
military strike.

Bolton, who arrived here from Kuwait, also
was scheduled to visit the United Arab Emirates.

``There are a series of things that we have
discussed in which additional diplomatic pressure
can be put on Iran to prevent them from acquiring
the necessary material and technology that they
need for their nuclear weapons program,'' he said.

Bolton stressed that the United States
advocated a Middle East free of nuclear weapons
and dismissed the possibility of nuclear threats
from Israel.

``Israel has a particularly close
relationship with the United States and I think
that more than anything else is what convinces us
that there is no threat from use of Israeli
nuclear weapons,'' Bolton said.

Israel maintains a policy of deliberate
ambiguity about its nuclear program, neither
confirming nor denying that it has nuclear
weapons. It has said its reactor is used only for
peaceful purposes.

In 1986 former technician Mordechai Vanunu
gave information and pictures of a reactor
facility to London's Sunday Times. On the basis of
his revelations, experts concluded that Israel has
the world's sixth-largest stockpile of nuclear
weapons, consisting of hundreds of warheads.

``We don't see Israel as a threat to use
nuclear weapons anywhere in the region, in part
because it's a democratic state and in part
because it's allied with the United States and we
have made it very clear where we stand on their
capabilities,'' Bolton said.

France, Germany and Britain have been in
talks with Iran to persuade it to indefinitely
suspend or scrap its uranium enrichment program in
exchange for technological, financial and
political support of Tehran's efforts to break out
of isolation.

Iran has suspended enrichment activities --
which can produce both nuclear fuel and the core
of atomic weapons -- during the talks, but has
repeatedly insisted the freeze would be of short
duration.

Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International
Atomic Energy Agency, on Saturday suggested
European efforts to persuade Iran to limit its
uranium enrichment program may fail if the United
States refuses to get involved in the
negotiations.

The U.S. administration has suggested taking
Iran to the U.N. Security Council.

``If Iran can ... either acquire weapons or
develop them indigenously, it will be a signal
that the international community is powerless to
stop a very determined country that wants to
acquire nuclear weapons,'' Bolton said. ``That
would be a bad lesson indeed.''



-------- russia

Weapons reduction program reviving
Spending rules crippled plan

*Ken Guggenheim*
Associated Press
Jan. 30, 2005 12:00 AM

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0130USnukes30.html

WASHINGTON - Momentum is building in Congress to revamp and expand a program credited with destroying thousands of nuclear weapons from Soviet stockpiles and keeping them out of terrorists' hands.

For 14 years, the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction program has paid for the dismantling of Cold War-era nuclear warheads and other weapons of mass destruction. But bureaucratic logjams have resulted from rules set by Congress to ensure the billions of dollars spent on the program are used properly.

Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., who co-sponsored the original bill with then-Sen. Sam Nunn, D-Ga., said he will introduce legislation to loosen those restrictions and make it easier to use the program outside the former Soviet Union. Lugar is also proposing a separate program to destroy stockpiles of conventional weapons.

While prospects for passage are uncertain given the vagaries of the legislative process, Lugar has some powerful allies.

President Bush has backed the Nunn-Lugar program and, in last fall's presidential debates, said the prospect of nuclear weapons falling into the hands of terrorists represented the single most serious threat to the United States.

The independent commission that investigated the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks recommended the United States do all that it can to support Nunn-Lugar.

At her confirmation hearing to become secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice said she supports Lugar's proposals and would push for their approval.

"I really can think of nothing more important than being able to proceed with the dismantlement - safe dismantlement of the Soviet arsenal," she said under questioning from Lugar, who chairs the Foreign Relations Committee that was considering her nomination.

Some House Republicans have had reservations about the program, saying millions have been spent on facilities that couldn't be used or projects that had little to do with weapons of mass destruction.

But a leading House Republican on national-security issues, Rep. Heather Wilson of New Mexico, said the question is: "Is it worth the risk of possible wasting of some dollars to achieve an end which is the greater control of nuclear materials in other countries?"

"There are people who think we shouldn't do any of these programs unless we have a great audit trail," she said. "Well, there are some places where we are never going to have a great audit trail, where it might still be worth pursuing the program."

House Republicans have released a broad nuclear non-proliferation strategy that included support for expanding Nunn-Lugar "while seeking to improve business practices where needed."

Separately, three House Democrats offered their own bill to step up non-proliferation efforts. That bill calls for an expansion of cooperative threat-reduction programs.

Lugar's proposal would eliminate requirements that the president certify that Russia and other participants meet certain criteria, such as investing their own money in destroying weapons, allowing U.S. verification of weapons destruction, and meeting human rights standards. Presidents have often waived those requirements.

The proposal by Lugar would also eliminate additional conditions affecting the construction of a chemical weapons destruction facility in Shchuchye, Russia. The construction has been hampered by disputes between the United States and Russia.

It also would lift the $50 million cap on funds that can be used on Nunn-Lugar projects outside the former Soviet Union. Last year, Nunn-Lugar money was used to destroy chemical weapons in Albania, the first time it was used outside the Soviet Union.




-------- terrorism

Ashcroft says nuclear threat remains greatest danger from global terrorism

January 30, 2005 Associated Press

http://www.kctv5.com/Global/story.asp?S=2867325

WASHINGTON -- The possibility that al-Qaida or its sympathizers could gain access to a nuclear bomb is the greatest danger facing the United States in the war on terrorism, Attorney General John Ashcroft said Thursday.

U.S. officials "from time to time" uncover evidence terrorists are trying to develop nuclear capability, Ashcroft said without providing any specifics. It is not clear whether they have made any progress, but the United States must take the threat seriously, he said in an interview with The Associated Press.

"If you were to have nuclear proliferation find its way into the hands of terrorists, the entire world might be very seriously disrupted by a few individuals who sought to impose their will, their arcane philosophy, on the rest of mankind," he said.

Ashcroft, 62, is ending four years as the nation's chief law enforcement officer, much of the period devoted to a war on terrorism that began with the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. He will leave office when his successor, Alberto Gonzales, is confirmed by the Senate and sworn in, possibly next week.

Since the 2001 attacks, the staunchly conservative Ashcroft has been vilified by political opponents, civil liberties groups and privacy advocates for pushing controversial counterterrorism policies, which critics say undermine freedoms. They include the Patriot Act, which bolstered FBI surveillance and law enforcement powers in terror cases; increased use of material witness warrants to hold suspects incommunicado for months; and secret proceedings in immigration cases.

Ashcroft made no apology for his actions, saying he has enjoyed full support from President Bush.

"The president understands that this is almost mission impossible, to keep winning every day," he said. "To be always the winner and never be the loser is a very difficult task. The world is not absent terror. But the United States has been absent terror."

His greatest failure, Ashcroft said, was in not fully explaining to the American people early on just how the Patriot Act has helped in that war. Time will prove that the law has not been the threat to the Constitution seen by some, he said.

"Rights have not been infringed. Human dignity has not suffered. It's been enhanced and it has not carried a cost or toll on the civil liberties of America," Ashcroft said.

More than 375 people have been charged in terror-related prosecutions in the United States since the 2001 attacks, with 195 either convicted or entering guilty pleas. Yet Ashcroft said officials continue to receive reports of "individuals who are sympathizers" with al-Qaida or other terror groups coming into the United States after meeting with people overseas with links to terrorism or attending events that include "inappropriate extremist or terrorist instruction."

"We have to remain on guard. America, as open and free as it is, is going to have to pay a price in terms of understanding and being vigilant about potentials that freedom and openness are associated with," he said.

Ashcroft also said the Justice Department deserved praise for handling some 400 corporate malfeasance cases, helping drive the nation's crime rate to 30-year lows and making strides in civil rights prosecutions _ all while dealing with the terror threat.

As for his own future, Ashcroft would not reveal detailed plans. But the two-term Missouri governor and one-term senator said flatly, "I don't expect in any way to run for office again."

Ashcroft said he would remain in the Washington area, probably make some speeches and take a private-sector job advising corporations on such things as "integrity in the marketplace." He also might work in academia.


-------- u.n.

Q&A: ElBaradei, Feeling the Nuclear Heat

Washington Post Company
Sunday, January 30, 2005; Page B01

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A46420-2005Jan29?language=printer

It is no secret that the Bush administration does not want to see Mohamed ElBaradei win a third term as director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the nuclear watchdog. The administration views ElBaradei as too soft on Iran and too hard on Israel. But the real source of the administration's irritation may be ElBaradei's correct assessment before the war that there were no nuclear weapons in Iraq. In an interview with The Washington Post-Newsweek's Lally Weymouth at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland last week, ElBaradei, 62, discussed his frosty relationship with the administration and his goals for a third term -- curbing Iran's nuclear program, possibly engaging with North Korea and making sure that nuclear equipment has not fallen into terrorist hands.

Excerpts:

Weymouth: Are you going to run for a third term?

ElBaradei: I am. I am the only candidate.

Why does the U.S. want to get rid of you?

They say they believe in a two-term policy for heads of international organizations, but most other countries have asked me to continue because we are in the middle of a war and we have a lot of important issues: Iran is still a major issue, and as for North Korea -- I'd like to see some progress there before I go.

Before the war, you said Iraq had no nuclear weapons. Is this what the administration has against you?

I don't know. Someone told me it is dangerous to be wrong but even more dangerous to be right. Frankly, I think we can ill afford to be distracted by the issue of who is going to be director general.

Now the Bush administration is arguing that you are not tough enough on Iran. Your reaction?

It depends how you define soft. The results in Iran are something I am quite proud of. Eighteen months ago, Iran was a black box -- we didn't know much about what was happening. Now, we have a fairly good picture of what is happening. We understand how complex and extensive that program is. Through our tenacity, Iran's facilities that could produce fissile material are frozen. And we are still going everywhere we think we need to go to be sure there are no undeclared activities in Iran. Between our tenacious verification and the diplomatic process, I hope we will be able to get a package solution in Iran, which is what we want to have with North Korea.

U.S. experts say that Iran has cheated and lied about its nuclear program, and continues to do so.

Iran has clearly cheated in the past -- that is something we reported. Corrective action was taken. Now, they say they are embarking on a new path of cooperation and since then they are cooperating. If they are still cheating, we haven't seen any evidence of that. . . . When they cheated, we said so. When they are cooperating, we say so. We have been supervising their suspension of fuel cycle activities. Recently, we got access to a partial military site.

How can Iran justify its full nuclear fuel cycle as part of a peaceful program?

They gave the Europeans a presentation on this, [saying] they plan for a large nuclear power program. They probably can make a technical justification. The argument they also make is that they have been isolated so they have to be self-sufficient. That's why the European dialogue is important. If a country felt its needs were going to be satisfied, they might not have to go for an independent fuel cycle.

What is the timeline for Iran getting a nuclear weapon?

It depends on whether they have been doing weaponization. We haven't seen signs of that. But they have the know-how. If they resume the fuel cycle, they should be able to get the fissile material within a year or two. If they have that, they are a year away from a weapon. It's a matter of time, because they have the know-how and the industrial infrastructure.

What is the best way to stop Iran from going nuclear?

You need inspections, but you need to also work with them diplomatically. If a country is suspected of going nuclear, you need to understand why. Why does it feel insecure? You need to address [Iran's] sense of isolation and its need for technology and economic [benefits]. They have been under sanctions for 20 years.

What role should the U.S. play?

I'd like to see the Americans join a dialogue either with the Europeans or directly with the Iranians. I don't think you will get a permanent solution of the Iranian issue without full U.S. engagement. The U.S. can't afford to sit on the fence. There's a lot at stake having to do with security of the [Persian] Gulf and the Middle East. The U.S. engages with North Korea so I don't see why they can't engage with Iran.

There is talk of a U.S. strike against the Iranian nuclear program.

The Europeans are engaging Iran. Thus, talk about military activities at this stage is very unhelpful. I cannot see how a military solution can resolve the Iran issue. In my view, with Iran having [reached] almost self-sufficiency in the technology, the Iranians will go underground. . . . You might delay them, but they will rebuild it with the objective of having a weapon.

Does the fact that Israel has a nuclear weapon drive Iran to acquire one?

They say there is a security imbalance, but Iran also looks at Pakistan, Russia and Iraq. . . . More and more countries are trying to acquire nuclear weapons or nuclear know-how. So [either] there are going to be 20 or 30 countries with nuclear weapons, or we must move to say nuclear weapons are a recipe for disaster and we need a security system that does not rely on them.

You have an idea on how to stop countries from getting complete fuel cycles -- the key to a nuclear program?

I argue that for every country to have an independent fuel cycle is the wrong way to go. Because any country which has a complete fuel cycle is a latent nuclear weapons country, in the sense that it is not far from making a nuclear weapon. What I propose is to give countries that need nuclear energy for peaceful purposes both the reactors and the necessary technology, but to have the fuel cycles controlled through international entities to make sure that the spent fuel is removed [so it couldn't be enriched or reprocessed to make nuclear weapons].

It has been reported that the U.S. Department of Defense has teams on the ground in Iran. Should they be turning over their intelligence information to you?

We have not been getting any new information on Iran recently. We have followed up all intelligence that came to us. Without intelligence, we have to rely only on our activities on the ground and in a large country like Iran, it is difficult.

The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty comes up for review in May. Negotiations are said to be in disarray. Your view?

I am discouraged that I have not seen much substantive preparation for that conference. People are tinkering around the edges, but we have not seen serious discussions on substance.

The U.S. Department of Energy wasinterested in doing research on nuclear bunker busters and other nuclear equipment.

That sent the wrong message -- you can't tell everyone "don't touch nuclear weapons" while continuing to build them.

Egypt has been reported as engaging in experiments with nuclear materials.

As the Egyptian government said recently, there was a failure in reporting certain experiments, but they do not have a weapons program. . . . It comes back to a sense of frustration -- a sense of instability. As part of the peace process, we must engage in a parallel security dialogue. You will not get peace simply by saying here is a Palestinian state. You need a security structure undergirding the peace process, dealing with weapons of mass destruction.

Are you saying that frustration over the Palestinian issue has led to Egypt's experimenting in nuclear technology?

No, I am saying there is a sense of a security imbalance in the Middle East.

Because Israel has a nuclear weapon?

There's a lot of frustration because Israel is outside the [nuclear nonproliferation] regime. Egypt should not have done this. South Korea also did some undeclared experiments recently.

Do you believe some terrorist groups have actually acquired nuclear materials?

It is a real possibility. If it were to happen, it would have disastrous consequences -- a terror group could acquire a stolen nuclear weapon, or enough material to develop a crude nuclear weapon. We know there has been a lot of illicit trafficking of nuclear materials -- even some kilogram quantities of highly enriched uranium.

Do you think a terror group actually has a nuclear device?

I cross my fingers . . . but I cannot say 100 percent that it hasn't happened. Remember, after the Cold War, there was a period of time when lots of nuclear material was not adequately protected in the former Soviet Union. I hope nothing significant went to a terrorist group, but it would be irresponsible for me to exclude it.

Has al Qaeda acquired these weapons?

We know they were interested. In Afghanistan, there were documents looking at the possibility of developing or acquiring a nuclear device. It is unlikely, but it is a scenario one cannot exclude.

What are the prospects of the IAEA getting into North Korea?

I'd like to go back and dismantle the program -- if they have nuclear weapons. Time is not in favor of the international community. North Korea has plutonium for sure -- enough to make at least six to eight bombs. Like Iran, we should discuss their security concerns and their sense of isolation and bring a generous offer which would enable them to give up their nuclear ambitions. North Korea has been in noncompliance for 12 years, and that has given them time to develop nuclear capability.

Do you think it is unfair that the Bush administration is trying to kick you out?

If reelected, I will continue to do things the way I see best. It's very important to me that this multinational institution continue to be impartial and independent. I will not compromise on this. I don't know who wants me out. They say they want a rotation policy. I have spent almost 30 years of my life doing this, and before I cross to the other side, I want to get the Iran issue out of the way and get to the bottom of the A.Q. Khan [former head of Pakistan's nuclear program] network -- he provided the complete kit [for a nuclear weapon] to Libya.


-------- u.s. nuc facilities



-------- california

Sen. Barbara Boxer steps into spotlight

Posted 1/30/2005 8:02 AM (AP)
	
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-01-30-boxer_x.htm

WASHINGTON — Sen. Barbara Boxer has always spoken up, but the California Democrat seems to have gotten a lot louder lately. Her opposition to Condoleezza Rice's secretary of state nomination was so combative that it was parodied on Saturday Night Live. That came on the heels of her decision to sign onto a House member's complaint about Ohio voting problems, forcing Congress to debate them before certifying President Bush's re-election victory.

She's being touted on liberal blogs as the Democrats' best hope for president in 2008. Conservatives are excoriating her as — in House Minority Leader Tom DeLay's phrase — the leader of the '"X-Files' wing" of the Democratic Party.

But Boxer says she is just standing up for what she believes.

"I've always been this way," she says, "and I'm trying to figure out exactly why people suddenly find this to be interesting, you know. Somehow I have touched something inside people, and I have not ever had this happen before. The only thing I can think, after reading what people said, is a feeling that I'm asking the kind of questions and saying the kind of things that they are feeling."

Maybe she's becoming a spokeswoman, or even a symbol, for voters who oppose the Iraq war or feel shut out by the Bush administration. Maybe, with the Democratic Party at sea after November's election losses, some people sense a leadership void and are looking to her to fill it.

Maybe it's not that Boxer's gotten louder but that other Democrats can barely be heard at all. At least, that's what some of her supporters are saying.

Whatever the explanation, Boxer, 64, has never been more in the spotlight. At a time when Republican dominance of Washington politics is nearly complete, a Marin County liberal who drives a hybrid car and opposes almost everything the GOP does has become a newly prominent face of the Democratic Party.

"She seems to be assuming the position of being an outspoken voice for, as someone else said, the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party," says Los Angeles Democratic strategist Darry Sragow, echoing a phrase adopted by former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean.

"In the wake of the losses in November ... there is a vacuum, there's handwringing, there's self-reflection, and she seems to have pretty sure footing as a determined, committed spokesperson for the liberals in the party," Sragow says. "Part of the handwringing will be over whether that's a good thing or a bad thing."

Barely five feet tall, Boxer must stand on a box — which she sometimes refers to as "the Boxer Box" — to see over the podium at press conferences. Fond of gold jewelry and colorful, occasionally mismatched outfits, she's energetic and aggressive, given to dressing down government officials at hearings, especially when reporters are within earshot.

That rankles Republicans, who say she's more show horse than work horse in the Senate. But sometimes, she can make even fellow Democrats squirm.

In the ongoing Democratic debate about how to effectively oppose the Republicans, Boxer represents a solution not everyone can embrace: She simply opposes, often without bothering to compromise. To some, she's too extreme and risks alienating moderate voters without producing legislative results.

Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska, perhaps the most conservative Senate Democrat, is diplomatic in describing Boxer's role in the party: "You don't get a center if you don't get a left or right."

Sen. Mark Dayton of Minnesota, a fellow liberal who stood with Boxer in opposing Rice, criticized her on the Senate floor over her decision to bring the November election certification to a halt. He called it "seriously misguided."

But the combative qualities that turn some people off endear her to others.

"Democrats are so afraid of being criticized, or so afraid that they'll be accused of being too liberal, that they don't really act with the courage of their convictions. And then comes Barbara Boxer," says Madeleine Begun Kane, a writer from Queens, N.Y., who created a "President Boxer" blog. "She's been a shining light during an otherwise very depressing period."

For the record, Boxer says she has no interest in running for president. But she's gratified by the blogs and the Boxer for President bumper stickers selling for $3.95 on the Internet.

If she did ever want to try for president, she could point to some compelling evidence of electability.

In winning her third Senate term in November, Boxer was the nation's third-highest vote-getter, behind only Bush and Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry. She squashed Republican opponent Bill Jones by 20 percentage points, scoring a bigger share of the electorate than Dianne Feinstein, the state's other Democratic senator, got in her last election.

Since she left the House to run for Senate, Republicans have targeted Boxer as too liberal for California. She had tough races in 1992, when she beat a conservative television commentator by 5 percentage points, and 1998, when she defeated a former state treasurer by 10.

Republicans talked tough about taking her on in 2004 as well, but in the end they hardly even tried. Jones, a social conservative and former California secretary of state, was endorsed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger; but he ran a weak campaign and never raised enough money to air a single television commercial.

"It's impossible for my opponents to say, 'Well she just squeaked by, she doesn't really represent a lot of people, she's a fluke.'" Boxer says. "Which is what they said the first two times."

Since Boxer and Feinstein joined the Senate in 1992's Year of the Woman, Feinstein has been the more prominent. Although they have cooperated on initiatives and vote together more often than not, they do not have a close relationship and part ways on some issues, including the Iraq war and the Rice nomination.

Republicans say they can work with Feinstein. Her advice and endorsement are courted by Schwarzenegger and others on issues while Boxer, whom they generally despise, is left on the sidelines.

"I don't think attack dogs are ever useful," said Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., who lost a 1998 GOP primary election for the chance to run against Boxer.

But lately it's been Boxer in the headlines, sought out by reporters from The New York Times and Rolling Stone, and parodied on SNL.

In the skit that aired Jan. 22, Boxer, as portrayed by actress Amy Poehler, used a series of props to interrogate Rice — among them a packet of baloney, a poster of the number zero (representing weapons of mass destruction found in Iraq), and a bar graph with one barely visible bar ("the truth") and another bar stretching the length of the chart ("what you say").

Boxer, who did arm herself with several enlarged maps and quotations during Rice's confirmation hearing, loved the skit. "They really nailed me," she says. "It was the funniest thing I've ever seen."

Leading the charge for the opposition isn't new for Boxer. As a Brooklyn newlywed, she once organized fellow apartment building tenants to petition for carpeting. As a House member in 1991, she led fellow congresswomen up the steps of the Senate to demand hearings into Anita Hill's sexual harassment claims against Clarence Thomas. She led recent opposition to drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (successfully), and against the ban on what opponents call partial birth abortion (unsuccessfully).

Some Republicans have suggested that Boxer should have accepted Bush's re-election victory as a sign of acceptance for his secretary of state nominee, and kept her mouth shut on the Rice nomination.

She's in no danger of doing that — on any issue.

"Bush got 60 million votes plus and Kerry got 57 million votes plus, so you can't say it isn't a sizable portion of the country that doesn't deserve to be heard," Boxer said. "They do deserve to be heard; and even if they are far left, they deserve to be heard." 



-------- new mexico

Missing Lab Disks Never Existed, Says Energy Dept.
School Is Fined for Los Alamos Mix-Up

Associated Press
Sunday, January 30, 2005; Page A13

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A47883-2005Jan29?language=printer

ALBUQUERQUE -- Two computer disks that supposedly disappeared last summer, prompting a virtual shutdown of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, in fact never existed, according to the Energy Department and the FBI.

In a harshly worded review that described severe security weaknesses at the nuclear lab, the Energy Department concluded that bar codes were recorded for the disks, but the disks themselves were never created. A separate FBI investigation supported that finding, according to the report released Friday.

As punishment for the problems, the Energy Department slashed by two-thirds the management fee it paid to the University of California for running the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Out of a possible $8.7 million, UC will get $2.9 million; it is the largest fee reduction ever imposed on a national laboratory.

"Although multiple investigations have confirmed that the 'missing' disks never existed, the major weaknesses in controlling classified material revealed by this incident are absolutely unacceptable, and the University of California must be held accountable for them," Linton F. Brooks, administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration, said in a statement.

The NNSA is a branch of the Energy Department that oversees the nation's nuclear labs.

UC officials accepted responsibility for the problems but pointed to the months of work they and lab officials have done reviewing Los Alamos's safety and security procedures since the initial shutdown.

"We got walloped. Unfortunately, we deserve this," UC spokesman Chris Harrington said. "But what we have done is correct the problems and put the right system in place so that we don't have to take this type of hit again."

After the supposed disk disappearance and a laser accident involving an intern, four Los Alamos workers were fired and one resigned. The problems also drew criticism from Congress and senior officials at the Energy Department.


-------- MILITARY 



-------- spies

The Russians Are Coming

The FBI is concerned about Moscow's growing number of spies. What secrets are they looking for?

Sunday, Jan. 30, 2005
By TIMOTHY J. BURGER AND BRIAN BENNETT
TIME magazine

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1022559,00.html

At Los Angeles International Airport two weeks ago, FBI agents arrested an Irish businessman they had spent a week tailing all over California's Silicon Valley, from the offices of two electronics manufacturers in Sunnyvale to a hotel in Mountain View and down a quiet cul-de-sac to a suburban house in San Jose. The technology exporter, according to court papers, had purchased sophisticated computer components in the U.S. to send to Russia through Ireland. He now stands to be charged in mid-February with "unlawful export of 'defense articles.'" U.S. officials point to this little-noticed case as one manifestation of a troubling reality: although the cold war is long over, Russia is fielding an army of spooks in the U.S. that is at least equal in number to the one deployed by the old, much larger Soviet Union.

Russia runs more than 100 known spies under official cover in the U.S., senior U.S. intelligence and law-enforcement officials say. And those are just the more easily spotted spies working under the classic guise of diplomat. An unknown number of so-called nocs—who work under nonofficial cover as businessmen and -women, journalists or academics—undoubtedly expand the Russian spy force. "They're baaaaack," says a former senior U.S. intelligence official who worked against Moscow during the cold war. "They're busy as hell, but I don't think we've really got what it is that they're doing." The number of Russian spies in the U.S. is especially surprising, given that it was less than four years ago that the Bush Administration expelled 50 of them in retaliation for the humiliating discovery that FBI counterintelligence agent Robert Hanssen had been spying for Russia for 21 years.

In a high-level meeting late last year, officials tell TIME, the National Security Council instructed the FBI, CIA, State Department and other agencies to get a better handle on the Russian espionage threat. While the U.S. might like to eject suspect diplomats to force the Russians to send in their "rookies," as a U.S. official put it, Moscow would probably respond in kind, denting the CIA's corps in Russia.
	
As the FBI has remade itself in the wake of 9/11 into a counterterrorism agency, the bureau's long-standing counterintelligence mission has been bumped down a notch on the priority list. During this time, Russia has been among the U.S.'s rivals most aggressively exploiting the opening to build up its spying capabilities. Also, it has been using liberalized immigration rules for Russians, instituted after the cold war, to install nocs.

Officials say the Russians are after secrets about American military technology and hardware, dual-use technology such as the latest lasers, and the Administration's plans and intentions regarding the former Soviet states, China, the Middle East and U.S. energy policy, among other matters. Russia also wants to learn as much as possible about its biggest strategic worry: the U.S.'s ramped-up commitment to missile defense, which could eventually threaten Moscow's nuclear deterrent. Asked about the Russian spy surge, Russian embassy spokesman Yevgeniy Khorishko replied, "We do not comment on any of the issues concerning intelligence."

In addition to embassy-based spies, Russia—along with China, Pakistan, Iran and any number of other countries, including U.S. allies—relies on many hard-to-trace front companies, often run through third-party countries, to acquire secrets and dual-use technology. "We think there are thousands of these companies," a senior U.S. official said.

David Szady, the FBI's assistant director for counterintelligence, who is in charge of keeping tabs on foreign spies on U.S. soil, told TIME that in the next five years he wants to double the number of agents chasing spooks. Already, the FBI has placed counterespionage squads of at least seven agents in all 56 of its field division offices over the past year. What about the chance that damaging U.S. moles are helping Russia today? Says one U.S. senior intelligence official: "There's always evidence of another mole because there are always unexplained events. There are always unexplained losses. There are always enough dots that look strange."

— With reporting by Massimo Calabresi, Michael Duffy and Elaine Shannon/Washington

----

C.I.A. Said to Rebuff Congress on Nazi Files

By DOUGLAS JEHL
January 30, 2005 NY Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/30/international/europe/30nazis.html?ei=5070&en=c6749feea9981fdf&ex=1108098000&pagewanted=print&position=

WASHINGTON, Jan. 29 - The Central Intelligence Agency is refusing to provide hundreds of thousands of pages of documents sought by a government working group under a 1998 law that requires full disclosure of classified records related to Nazi war criminals, say Congressional officials from both parties.

Under the law, the C.I.A. has already provided more than 1.2 million pages of documents, the vast majority of them from the archives of its World War II predecessor, the Office of Strategic Services. Many documents have been declassified, and some made public last year showed a closer relationship between the United States government and Nazi war criminals than had previously been understood, including the C.I.A.'s recruitment of war criminal suspects or Nazi collaborators.

For nearly three years, the C.I.A. has interpreted the 1998 law narrowly and rebuffed requests for additional records, say Congressional officials and some members of the working group, who also contend that that stance seems to violate the law.

These officials say the agency has sometimes agreed to provide information about former Nazis, but not about the extent of the agency's dealings with them after World War II. In other cases, it has refused to provide information about individuals and their conduct during the war unless the working group can first provide evidence that they were complicit in war crimes.

The agency's stance poses a sharp test between the C.I.A.'s deep institutional reluctance to make public details about any intelligence operations and the broad mandate set forth in the law to lift the veil about relationships between the United States government and Nazi war criminals.

The dispute has not previously been made public. Critics of the C.I.A.'s stance, including all three private citizens who are members of the working group, said they were disclosing the dispute now in hopes of resolving the impasse by March, when the working group's mandate is to expire.

"I think that the C.I.A. has defied the law, and in so doing has also trivialized the Holocaust, thumbed its nose at the survivors of the Holocaust and also at Americans who gave their lives in the effort to defeat the Nazis in World War II," said Elizabeth Holtzman, a former congresswoman from New York and a member of the group. "We have bent over backward; we have given them every opportunity to comply."

At the request of Senator Mike DeWine, Republican of Ohio, the Senate Judiciary Committee plans to hold a public hearing on the matter early next month, and is planning to call C.I.A. officials and members of the working group as witnesses, Congressional officials said.

A C.I.A. spokesman said the agency had already declassified and released 1.25 million pages of documents under the law, including those related to 775 different name files.

"The C.I.A. has not withheld any material identified in its files related to the commission of war crimes by officials, agents or collaborators of Nazi Germany," he said.

The spokesman acknowledged that the C.I.A. had refused to disclose other material "that does not relate to war crimes per se" and that the agency was working on a report to Congress to justify its actions under exemptions spelled out in the law.

A spokeswoman for the panel, formally known as the Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency Working Group, said it would not comment on the dispute. The group is led by a representative of the National Archives, and includes representatives of the C.I.A., the F.B.I., the Defense Department and other government agencies, and has taken no formal stand on the matter, people involved in the issue said.

But in interviews, all three public members of the group, including Ms. Holtzman; Richard Ben-Veniste, a Washington lawyer; and Thomas H. Baer, a former federal prosecutor, made plain their opposition to the C.I.A.'s position. Congressional officials said the three had a sympathetic hearing from Senator DeWine, a sponsor of the 1998 law, known as the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act.

The 1998 law that established the working group directed that it "locate, identify, inventory, recommend for declassification and make available to the public at the National Archives and Records Administration, all classified Nazi war criminal records of the United States."

Under the law, the heads of government agencies have the power to exempt from release nine categories of national security information. But to assert such exemptions, agency heads are required to submit a report to Congressional committees, a step the C.I.A. has not yet taken, the Congressional officials said.

"I can only say that the posture the C.I.A. has taken differs from all the other agencies that have been involved, and that's not a position we can accept," Mr. Ben-Veniste said. In a separate interview, Mr. Baer said: "Too much has been secret for too long. The C.I.A. has not complied with the statute."

A book, "U.S. Intelligence and the Nazis," that was released by the working group in May provided a partial picture of those dealings. It has shown that the American government worked closely with Nazi war criminals and collaborators, allowing many of them to live in the United States after World War II.

Historians who have studied the documents made public so far have said that at least five associates of the Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann, the architect of Hitler's campaign to exterminate Jews, had worked for the C.I.A. Eichmann, who was arrested by the Allies in 1945, escaped and fled to Argentina. He was captured by Israeli agents in 1960, tried and hanged. The records also indicate that the C.I.A. tried to recruit two dozen more war criminals or Nazi collaborators.

American officials have defended the recruiting of former Nazis as having been essential to gaining access to intelligence after World War II, particularly about the Soviet Union and its cold war allies. Among former Nazis who were given refuge in the United States was Wernher von Braun, the German scientist who developed the V-2 rocket in World War II for the Nazis and played a major role in the development of the American space program.

After World War II, the Allied powers who occupied Germany defined war crimes broadly, declaring the Nazi SS to be a criminal organization guilty of exterminating and persecuting Jews and killing prisoners of war and slave laborers. They identified as a war criminal anyone who was a principal, accessory to, or consented in the commission of war crimes, or anyone who was a member of an organization or group connected with the commission of such crimes.

Exactly how many pages of documents the C.I.A. is still withholding is not clear, according to people involved in the dispute. But they said that at minimum, they believed it amounted to hundreds of thousands of pages.

A report made public by the working group in 1999 said an initial survey by the C.I.A. estimated that more than two million pages of documents among records in the agency's files for the years 1947 to 1998 included "operational, personality, country, and project files; analytical products, source material, and biographic reports" related to Nazi war criminals. The agency estimated that an additional 2.1 million pages among the files of its predecessor organizations, including the O.S.S., from 1941 to 1947, could be covered by the group's mandate.

The group outlined its objections to the C.I.A.'s position in a letter sent to the agency in February 2004, according to Congressional officials. The group's mandate to examine intelligence documents related to the Nazi war criminals was to expire last year. But Congress agreed to extend it until the end of March 2005, in a step that Congressional officials from both parties said was intended in large part to allow more time to resolve the impasse.



-------- us

Iraq War Deaths

The Washington Post 
Sunday, January 30, 2005; Page A22

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A47461-2005Jan29?language=printer

Total number of U.S. military deaths and names of the U.S. troops killed in the Iraq war as announced by the Pentagon recently:

1,411 Fatalities

In hostile actions:

1,087

In non-hostile actions:

324

Pfc. Kevin M. Luna, 26, of Oxnard, Calif.; 1st Battalion, 63rd Armor Regiment, 1st Infantry Division, based in Vilseck, Germany. Died Jan. 27 in Muqdadiyah of noncombat-related injuries.

The following 29 Marines were killed in a helicopter crash near Rutbah, Anbar province, on Jan. 26:

Capt. Paul C. Alaniz, 32, of Corpus Christi, Tex.;

Capt. Lyle L. Gordon, 30, of Midlothian, Tex.;

Lance Cpl. Tony L. Hernandez, 22, of Canyon Lake, Tex;

Staff Sgt. Dexter S. Kimble, 30, of Houston;

These four Marines were assigned to Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 361, Marine Aircraft Group 16, 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, based at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, Calif.

Staff Sgt. Brian D. Bland, 26, of Weston, Wyo.;

Lance Cpl. Jonathan E. Etterling, 22, of Wheelersburg, Ohio;

Sgt. Michael W. Finke Jr., 28, of Huron, Ohio;

1st Lt. Travis J. Fuller, 26, of Granville, Mass.;

Cpl. Timothy M. Gibson, 23, of Hillsborough, N.H.;

Cpl. Richard A. Gilbert Jr., 26, of Montgomery, Ohio;

Cpl. Kyle J. Grimes, 21, of Northampton, Pa.;

Lance Cpl. Brian C. Hopper, 21, of Wynne, Ark.;

Lance Cpl. Saeed Jafarkhani-Torshizi Jr., 24, of Fort Worth;

Cpl. Stephen P. Johnson, 24, of Covina, Calif.;

Cpl. Sean P. Kelly, 23, of Gloucester, N.J.;

Lance Cpl. Allan Klein, 34, of Clinton Township, Mich.;

Lance Cpl. Fred L. Maciel, 20, of Spring, Tex.;

Cpl. James L. Moore, 24, of Roseburg, Ore.;

Cpl. Nathaniel K. Moore, 22, of Champaign, Ill.;

Lance Cpl. Mourad Ragimov, 20, of San Diego;

Lance Cpl. Rhonald D. Rairdan, 20, of San Antonio;

Lance Cpl. Hector Ramos, 20 of Aurora, Ill.;

Lance Cpl. Gael Saintvil, 24, of Orange, Fla.;

Cpl. Nathan A. Schubert, 22, of Cherokee, Iowa;

Lance Cpl. Darrell J. Schumann, 25, of Hampton, Va.;

1st Lt. Dustin M. Shumney, 30, of Vallejo, Calif.;

Cpl. Matthew R. Smith, 24, West Valley, Utah;

Lance Cpl. Joseph B. Spence, 24, of Scotts Valley, Calif.;

Lance Cpl. Michael L. Starr Jr., 21, of Baltimore;

These 25 Marines were assigned to 1st Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, 3rd Marine Division, 3rd Marine Expeditionary Force, based at Marine Corps Base Hawaii.

Total fatalities include three civilian employees of the Defense Department.

A full list of casualties is available online at www.washingtonpost.com/nation

SOURCE: Defense Department's www.defenselink.mil/news


-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE


-------- courts / tribunals

To Some, 'Chief Justice Scalia' Has a Certain Ring

By Charles Lane
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, January 30, 2005; Page A07

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A47527-2005Jan29

Justice Antonin Scalia struck a pessimistic note when he spoke at the right-of-center Ethics and Public Policy Center here last Sept. 20. Lamenting his inability to stop the Supreme Court's slide away from the principles of judicial restraint he espouses, Scalia said he felt like "Frodo in 'The Lord of the Rings,' soldiering on."

Scalia's mood was much brighter on Jan. 13, when he appeared at the American University's Washington College of Law for an unusual televised "conversation" on international law with his liberal colleague Stephen G. Breyer -- a frequent target of Scalia's barbs in written opinions. The two traded quips and generally disagreed without being disagreeable. "Stephen and I do not fight," Scalia joshed. "We do not fight at all."

Some Scalia-watchers think they know what accounts for his sunnier public face of late: On Nov. 2, President Bush was reelected and Republicans captured 55 seats in the Senate. They believe that Scalia -- seeing an opportunity to move up to chief justice if the current chief, William H. Rehnquist, who is 80 and seriously ill, leaves -- is fine-tuning his image.

Scalia has launched a "charm initiative," said Ralph G. Neas, president of the liberal organization People for the American Way, which would strongly oppose a Scalia promotion.

Friends and associates of Scalia see it differently. He is just being himself, they said, and not encouraging Scalia-for-chief talk even though he would take the job if it were offered.

"You can't beat the symbolism of being chief justice of the United States," said American Civil Liberties Union president Nadine Strossen, who has been on good terms with Scalia for years despite differences on many issues. "Especially if you have such strong ideological beliefs, it would be a great platform."

What no one doubts is that the Bush administration would at least consider Scalia for chief justice. He would be nominated for the court's top slot while a conservative jurist from the lower courts would be selected to replace him as an associate justice, the scenario goes.

"It's entirely possible," said C. Boyden Gray, White House counsel in the George H.W. Bush administration who now heads the Committee for Justice, which supports Bush administration federal court nominees.

That is how the Reagan administration handled the retirement of Chief Justice Warren E. Burger in 1986, naming then-Associate Justice Rehnquist to succeed Burger and picking Scalia to replace Rehnquist. While Democrats in the Senate pounded Rehnquist over his record on the court, Scalia skated to a 98 to 0 confirmation vote, in part because liberal advocacy groups had only enough time, money and energy to attack one nominee at a time.

Some Republicans think the same play would work in 2005. "Scalia's a very, very big blocker," one knowledgeable source said.

For the White House, promoting Scalia, an opponent of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that established a constitutional right to abortion, would be a large political plus with the Republican Party's conservative base.

The downsides of a Scalia appointment are his age, 68, which might mean his tenure would be relatively brief, and the prospect that the Democrats, prodded by abortion rights constituencies, could mount a filibuster, making it impossible to confirm either Scalia or a new associate justice.

Given those uncertainties, Scalia "is probably ambivalent. He wouldn't mind the vindication and the recognition, but he is probably much more concerned with getting other justices on the court he can work with," said William P. Barr, who served as attorney general in the George H.W. Bush administration.

Still, Scalia's presumed willingness to take the job contrasts with the reported attitude of Justice Clarence Thomas, another conservative sometimes mentioned as a potential Bush pick for chief justice, Republican sources said.

According to Thomas's friends, he has let it be known he does not relish a repeat of the 1991 confirmation hearing at which opponents aired charges that he had sexually harassed a female staffer.

"It would be another ordeal. What does he need that for?" said one close friend, who asked not to be identified. "If the president asked him, he'll say yes, but he'd much rather not be asked."

Scalia's chances for confirmation may have received a boost when Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said in interviews after the election that he might not oppose him for chief justice "if he can overcome the ethics problems that have arisen since he was selected as a justice of the Supreme Court." That was a reference to criticism Scalia faced a year ago for going duck hunting with Vice President Cheney while the court was considering a case involving Cheney.

Reid ruled out Thomas, whom he termed an "embarrassment" to the court. Earlier this month he retreated slightly, telling ABC's "This Week" that he should merely have said that he voted against Thomas's nomination the first time and would do so again.

The Cheney controversy was the low point of a difficult period for Scalia that began in June 2003, when the court abolished state laws against private consensual homosexual conduct, over a Scalia dissent in which he accused his colleagues of bowing to the fashionable views of a legal and academic "culture."

The butt of jokes on late-night TV because of the duck-hunting trip, Scalia fired back at the media in an unusual 21-page memo explaining that he would not recuse himself from the Cheney case.

But Scalia's appearance with Breyer, who voted in the majority in the 2003 case on homosexual conduct, showed that, however sharp his printed words may seem, he and a liberal can still get along.

That he permitted C-SPAN to cover the event live also may mean a thaw in the relationship between Scalia and the media, which turned frosty in April 2004 after a federal marshal guarding him accosted two reporters and ordered them to erase their audiotapes, citing a Scalia policy. The justice, who did not order the seizure, apologized.

Scalia had reached out to the media even before Nov. 2. Reporter Tony Mauro of American Lawyer Media, whose articles on the Supreme Court are widely read in the legal community, confirmed that he received a friendly letter Oct. 29 from Scalia, thanking him for publishing an essay by his son, Matthew Scalia, an Army captain who served in Iraq.

It was quite unlike a letter to the editor Scalia wrote in 2000 referring to Mauro as "Mauronic" for writing a story Scalia considered unfair.

How much Scalia's elevation, if it were to happen, would change the court is an open question. Neas says Scalia would use the office "to radically transform the court."

Other than the power to assign opinion-writing duties when in the majority, and to preside at conference and oral arguments, the chief justice has few formal means of controlling his colleagues. Scalia might even tone down his dissents in the interest of court unity, as did Rehnquist, who was known as the "Lone Ranger" for his frequent dissents as an associate justice.

"It doesn't make a bit of difference who is the chief justice, except symbolically," Strossen of the ACLU said.


-------- drug war

Prisoners Undercut Mexican Drug Crackdown
Lenient Penal Policies, Corruption Allow Cartel Leaders to Thrive Behind Bars

By Kevin Sullivan and Mary Jordan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, January 30, 2005; Page A23

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A47598-2005Jan29

MEXICO CITY -- The drug traffickers' wives clicked through the halls of Congress in high-heeled boots, glowering behind designer sunglasses. For several days, they had been barred from entering La Palma federal penitentiary, and they were upset that their usual privileges -- including conjugal visits -- had been suspended.

The visits were halted when the government sent hundreds of army troops, backed by tanks and helicopters, to take control of La Palma on Jan. 14, after federal officials learned that drug traffickers were running criminal empires from their cells in the maximum-security prison and ordering executions both inside and outside its walls.

But Gilberto Ensastiga, a congressman who listened to the wives' complaints, agreed that all prisoners had the legal right to family visits, and accompanied them to a meeting with the national human rights commission. The next day, the privileges were restored.

Even as President Vicente Fox vows to wage the "mother of all battles" against drug traffickers, many criminal justice analysts here say his efforts are being undermined by outdated laws, lenient penal policies and corruption inside the jails. As a result, one of Fox's proudest accomplishments in four years in office -- putting an unprecedented number of drug cartel leaders behind bars -- is turning into a crisis.

Drug-related violence, much of it directed by powerful inmates in La Palma, has claimed more than 100 lives this month, according to federal officials. The war started when Benjamin Arellano Felix and Osiel Cardenas Guillen, two of the biggest traffickers in Mexico and leaders of competing drug cartels at the two ends of the U.S.-Mexico border, joined forces behind bars. Once archrivals, they became partners in La Palma, working out of adjoining cells.

Mexico's top organized crime prosecutor, Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos, said the two inmates plotted against a third trafficker, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, who had escaped from another maximum-security prison in 2001 by hiding in a laundry truck. The resulting turf war has led to scores of executions, prompting U.S. officials to warn Americans of the "deteriorating security situation" along the Mexico border.

An especially brazen crime was the Jan. 20 slaying of six prison employees in the border city of Matamoros, which led Fox to pledge all-out war on drug traffickers in and out of prison. Officials said a team of killers set up a roadblock near the prison and seized the workers from their vehicles. They were found blindfolded, handcuffed and shot to death. Mexican soldiers have since taken control of that prison and a third maximum-security facility near Guadalajara.

As a result of the violence and intimidation, Fox has stepped up his own personal security, spokesman Agustin Gutierrez Canet said. Mexican drug traffickers have a long history of killing lawyers, judges, police officers and politicians who challenge them. Gutierrez Canet said the size of Fox's security detail has been increased, agents are being more vigilant about guests at his events and Fox is being more careful about wading into crowds to shake hands.

Miguel Angel Yunes, a top federal public security official, said sweeping changes were also taking place at La Palma, just west of Mexico City. New employees were brought in after 105 of 148 guards flunked lie detector and drug tests. Yunes also said federal officials had found cocaine and 27 cell phones inside the prison, an ultramodern facility that had been the pride of Mexico's penal system.

More broadly, the disclosures of lax security and unusual privileges inside Mexican prisons have fueled a growing debate about the overall approach to criminal punishment. Mexico's justice system stresses rehabilitation; the death penalty and life sentences are outlawed on the theory that even the most violent offenders can be redeemed.

"Mexico should continue to fight for true social rehabilitation of criminals," said Ensastiga, who serves on the justice and human rights commission in the lower house of Congress. "It's been proved in countries with life sentences or the death penalty that those don't lead to lower crime rates. On the contrary, they generate resentment that leads to higher crime rates."

Nearly 200,000 inmates are housed in 454 federal, state and local prisons across Mexico, and at some facilities, inmates' wives and children are allowed to stay overnight. Some prison yards resemble villages, with children riding bicycles and prisoners earning money by selling tacos or renting out videos.

Even visits with prostitutes are allowed at certain prisons, according to Moises Moreno Hernandez, director of the Center for the Study of Criminal Science and Politics. Such privileges, he said, are believed to make sexual violence among inmates "virtually nonexistent."

To the dismay of many law enforcement officials, escaping from prison is not a crime in Mexico. As long as the escapee does not commit another crime while escaping -- such as assaulting a guard -- there is no penalty. As one Supreme Court justice has explained, "the person who tries to escape is seeking liberty, and that is deeply respected in the law."

A growing number of critics, however, are questioning whether current laws and prison regulations, many dating back 70 to 80 years, are tough enough to deal with the extreme violence caused by sophisticated modern-day drug cartels that ship billions of dollars worth of marijuana, cocaine and heroin into the United States.

Fox has proposed an overhaul of the prison and criminal justice system that would give police broader authority to investigate crime, rein in the excessive power of federal prosecutors and reduce the system's notorious reliance on confessions obtained by torture. It would also give judges more flexibility to order restitution or community service for minor offenders. The plan is now before Congress.

"The whole system has to be changed to be more in favor of the people, and against the enemies of the people," said Alejandro Gertz Manero, who resigned last year as Fox's secretary of public safety. He said those who favor reform are often "seen as against human rights. But you have to change the law so that the most important thing is the human rights of victims rather than criminals."

Gertz said that if those who commit minor offenses were given alternatives to jail, prison officials could focus on the most violent and dangerous criminals.

Despite La Palma's impressive array of metal detectors, X-ray machines and video surveillance technology, federal officials said Arellano and Cardenas were able to communicate freely enough to arrange several killings of Guzman's associates, including a brother who was shot dead Dec. 31 inside La Palma.

One way to reduce security breaches, Gertz suggested, would be to speed up criminal trials. Many drug bosses inside La Palma, including Cardenas and Arellano, have been awaiting trial for many months or even years, during which they are allowed daily visits by their attorneys. Some were spending up to 12 hours a day with their lawyers; the new limit is one hour per day.

In some cases, federal officials said the lawyers were acting as messengers, passing on orders for murders or drug shipments. Leonardo Oceguera Jimenez, a lawyer for several drug traffickers who accompanied the inmates' wives to Congress last week, was shot to death two days later.


-------- homeland security / national intelligence

Homeland Security Policies To Bring Big Changes

By Stephen Barr
Washington Post
Sunday, January 30, 2005; Page C02

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A47817-2005Jan29

It looks like federal employees are about to take a ride on the reform roller coaster.

The Department of Homeland Security has nailed down its policies for a new personnel system that will markedly change the way 110,000 civil service employees are paid, promoted, deployed and disciplined. The system will launch this spring, with curbs on union rights and a tighter process for appealing disciplinary action. There will be dramatic changes in how employees are rated on job performance, starting with about 10,000 employees later this year, and gradually phasing in more.

The Defense Department selected 60,000 employees last month for the first phase of its new personnel system -- which will eventually cover 300,000 employees -- and hopes to announce proposed rules in the next few weeks. The Pentagon estimates that revamped pay and workplace rules will be in place by 2008, affecting all of the department's 746,000 civil service employees.

Shortly after Homeland Security unveiled its new personnel system, PresidentBush's administration said it will propose legislation to give other agencies the ability to restructure their pay, personnel, labor relations and related systems.

It's probably safe to say that 2005 is shaping up as one of the most dramatic years for changes in civil service policy since 1978, when Congress approved the Civil Service Reform Act.

That law locked in the 15-grade General Schedule for pay, encouraged bonuses to reward good performance and created agencies to administer personnel rules, hear labor-management disputes and provide due process for employees faced with discipline or management reprisal.

Although Homeland Security and Defense pledge to retain employee protections and continue to give veterans a preference in hiring, it seems clear that major parts of the civil service framework, only 27 years old, will soon be dismantled and rebuilt.

For example, Homeland Security will phase out the General Schedule and the annual raise approved by Congress. Recommendations on pay raises will come from a Compensation Committee, made up of 14 members, with four seats reserved for unions. Final decisions on pay will be made by the secretary.

The General Schedule will be replaced with a pay system based on occupation, national and local labor markets and job performance.

The GS grades will be converted into "pay bands," which have wider salary ranges than the GS provides. Salaries in the bands will vary by occupation and by labor market, potentially allowing the department to pay more to a Border Patrol agent in Southern California, which has a competitive job market, than an agent working on Montana's border with Canada.

The pay bands will likely group occupations into common categories -- such as new hires, full performance employees, senior experts and supervisors.

Most Homeland Security employees will receive two annual pay adjustments -- a market adjustment, which keeps them on a par with similar jobs in the private sector and GS increases, and a performance raise, which will vary in size according to job rating. Employees who are turning in unacceptable performance at work will not receive any annual pay increases.

The department also will create a Homeland Security Labor Relations Board, with three members appointed by the secretary, to sort out union and management disagreements. The department will establish a separate panel to hear cases of employees who are being fired because of serious infractions and gross violations of duty.

Under the current system, unions take their complaints to the Federal Labor Relations Authority, and employees turn to the Merit Systems Protection Board when appealing stiff disciplinary actions. The two independent agencies will continue to handle some Homeland Security matters, but on a diminished and more expedited basis.

The department has worked on the regulations for the new system for two years, sparking employee complaints that the framework for the new system is too vague, too difficult to understand and looks open to abuse by managers.

The employees are not far off point. Department officials say much work remains ahead -- such as defining occupational clusters, setting up pay bands, establishing rigorous job performance standards and figuring out what should be mandatory firing offenses.

E-mail: barrs@washpost.com 

----

Experts Weigh Costs, Benefits of Inauguration Security

By Sari Horwitz and Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, January 30, 2005; Page C01

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A47668-2005Jan29.html

Before dawn on Inauguration Day, U.S. Capitol Police Chief Terrance W. Gainer put on his ceremonial blue uniform, several gold badges, a row of ribbons and polished black shoes. But as he dressed in the dark, his thoughts turned to what might be happening in another darkened bedroom in the city.

"Was a terrorist somewhere putting on his suicide belt?" Gainer thought. "Was he getting out his uniform? Was he putting on the clothes he would die in?"

Gainer relaxed only as the sun set, some 13 hours later, after no terrorist had slipped through the 13,000 police, federal agents and military troops gathered at a cost of tens of millions of dollars for the most secure inauguration in history.

The chief is back in his everyday uniform, but the threat remains. For all the months of preparation, Jan. 20 was the easy part in the war against terrorism. Law enforcement officials said they believe that the threat of a terrorist attack is greater on an ordinary day, when the eyes of the nation's homeland security apparatus are not focused on a single event or possible target.

But despite the enduring risk, much of the inaugural security is dismantled. High-tech command centers have been shut down; air, rail and boat restrictions are lifted. And the millions in extra security dollars -- much of it in the form of pay and overtime -- are gone and can never be recouped.

In a world where authorities say the shadowy threat of domestic terrorism is always present, some officials and homeland security analysts say the massive one-time expenditure of time and resources on a single event is unjustified without credible risk information, when so much remains to be done to secure Washington and the nation the other 364 days a year.

Homeland security officials said they had no choice. The extraordinary cost is a form of insurance against a calamity that, in the worst-case scenario, would be far more costly. The question of tradeoffs lingers as a bedeviling catch-22 for security planners. In addition, administration officials said there are residual benefits to the inaugural buildup -- the region's law enforcement officers learned to work together during a real, live event.

"It's easier to protect and defend a special event than to be on alert 364 days a year," said terrorism analyst Bruce Hoffman, director of Rand Corp.'s Washington office. "That's the trouble with the post-9/11 environment. You can't ignore the one or two special days a year. . . . [But] the bigger threat may be today . . . when we let down our guard and let out this collective sigh of relief."

Almost all of the $17.3 million in local inauguration costs went to operational, one-time expenses. More than half -- $9.2 million -- went to personnel, such as overtime, according to a D.C. government estimate. An additional $3 million covered transportation, lodging, food, water and per-diem expenses for 3,000 police officers recruited from 67 other agencies, and $3 million went to build and remove parade viewing stands.

"I don't think there's any residual benefit directly to the region or to the District of Columbia," said Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), a member of the House Select Committee on Homeland Security.

"In place of a finely honed sense of security -- which they do not know how to do yet, apparently -- they went with 'more security,' " Norton said. "And who paid that price, of course, were people of the District and the region."

The $17.3 million doesn't count what federal agencies spent for the inauguration.

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said a federal cost estimate would be calculated, but as of Friday, his spokesman said no figure was available. Federal security expenses for major events in recent years have ranged as high as $310 million for the 17-day 2002 Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City.

State and local security costs last year, by contrast, for briefer events, such as the political conventions in Boston and New York and the Sea Island, Ga., summit of world economic leaders, ranged from $20 million to $50 million. One federal security official doubted the federal inaugural cost would ever be released because it would be too controversial.

But administration officials said a host of other benefits will outlast the event -- benefits that are among the most important in honing the response of government to massive emergencies.

Such gains include on-the-job training, forging critical relationships among military and security decision-makers, and practice using federal emergency management plans and sophisticated sensor and surveillance technology in a super-sensitive urban environment.

Thomas J. Lockwood, head of the Department of Homeland Security's Office for National Capital Region Coordination, likened the event to a giant training exercise. A key benefit of the extensive security planning was that the expertise and relationships developed this month will survive, even though thousands of law enforcement personnel have gone home and the high-technology equipment is packed and sent away, he said.

Only a massive, live operation such as the inauguration demands full participation of federal, state and local players, from the Pentagon to the D.C. Department of Health to the Metro transit system.

"What you want to build on is core expertise and knowledge that you can't get in daily exercises here," Lockwood said. "The big takeaway is . . . all the events that came up in preparation for this, all the day-to-day training. . . . People can't just put that in a box and ship it away."

Analysts have identified bureaucratic rivalries and infighting that have hobbled past counter-terrorism efforts.

Jamie S. Gorelick, deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration and a member of the commission that investigated the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, recalled that in the run-up to the 1996 national party political conventions, conference calls between the Secret Service and FBI revealed palpable tensions between the two agencies.

"There are benefits to the kind of coordination that has to take place before an event, because you find out where the agencies are and are not working together well. I think, actually, it's a helpful thing," Gorelick said.

Ridge said the cooperation of more than 70 federal, state and local agencies for the inauguration was a model for what his department is trying to do nationally. Department officials said the inauguration was the first event run under a national emergency incident management system, which streamlines chains of command under a principal federal officer and field office.

"What America has to learn . . . is there is no single government jurisdiction and no single agency that can deal with the threat we face," said Joseph W. Trindal, national capital regional director of the Federal Protective Service, which polices federal buildings. "We get better every time we do it."

Besides greater teamwork, authorities said there are other residual benefits. Gainer pointed to technology that was developed or improved in the months leading up to the inauguration and will remain in place: radar equipment, enhanced air monitoring and a hazardous-material response vehicle.

But others have noted tradeoffs when the government focuses security on big, one-time events.

When security costs start to outstrip the costs of the underlying event, "that may cause us to have to rethink whether or not to hold the entire event, what parts are essential and worth preserving, and what parts need eliminating or restructuring," said Gov. Mitt Romney (R-Mass.), who oversaw preparations for last year's Democratic convention in Boston. He also headed the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics Committee, commenting afterward that security escalated public costs and limited the economic benefits to the area.

In his office near the Capitol, FBI Supervisory Special Agent Jim Rice's National Capital Response Team receives numerous terrorist threat tips of unknown quality each day. Historically, none of al Qaeda's attacks around the globe -- the 1998 truck bombings of U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, the 2000 attack on the USS Cole off Yemen, the airliners piloted into the World Trade Center and Pentagon in 2001 -- occurred on "anniversary dates" or special occasions, such as the inauguration, Rice noted.

"They will wait until we relax," Rice said. "They won't hit when we're looking for them. On the inauguration, everyone is cocked and locked with the big bulldog in the front yard. But on a Tuesday at 9 o'clock, it's just Tuesday at 9 o'clock and we're on our second cup of coffee." 

----

Security efforts a work in progress

Blethen Maine Press Herald
Sunday, January 30, 2005
	 	
http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/insight/stories/050130bartcolumn.shtml

As the Department of Homeland Security emerges from its infancy, the 2-year-old toddler continues to stumble in making the country safer.

The consensus among experts and lawmakers is that the country is more secure than it was before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. But that leaves a lot to be desired.

Take the directorate for Border and Transportation Security, for example. The agency federalized airline security, hiring 60,000 passenger and baggage screeners. Many more armed marshals fly on planes nowadays. Customs inspectors and Border Patrol officers now work under the same agency, which is supposed to increase their cooperation to deter terrorism.

But ABC News was able to ship 15 pounds of depleted uranium into the country from Europe on the first anniversary of the attacks.

Computer systems for the FBI, which collects fingerprints of all 10 fingers, and the immigration bureau, which collects prints of only two fingers, still can't communicate with each other to share information.

Meanwhile, a tight budget might prevent the hiring of 2,000 additional Border Patrol officers each year for the next five years, as envisioned in the intelligence reform legislation Congress adopted last year.

Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, the just-departed head of the Appropriations Committee, predicted the department would get no increase in funding in the budget President Bush will release Feb. 7.

"I don't think there's going to be more money," Stevens said.

REFORM 'UNDER CONSTRUCTION'

The problems are more than academic.

"There will almost certainly be attempts to carry out catastrophic terrorist attacks on U.S. soil in the next five years," said Stephen Flynn, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and retired Coast Guard commander. "At the same time, dependable U.S. intelligence capabilities to detect and foil such an attack will not be in place for a decade or more."

Congress created the Department of Homeland Security two years ago, in the aftermath of Sept. 11. The department merged 22 agencies with 180,000 workers. But concerns remain, which the Senate Homeland Security Committee explored at a hearing Wednesday.

"The precise route toward that destination, however, remains under construction," said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, committee chairwoman. "We are here to continue building a road that is as efficient, effective and durable as possible."

The committee scheduled a confirmation hearing Wednesday for Michael Chertoff, President Bush's nominee to succeed Tom Ridge in leading the department.

The department covers a lot of ground, but perhaps none as important to Mainers as border security. Leaving aside for the moment the notion of home-grown terrorists, the goal is to prevent another 19 hijackers from slipping into the country.

The issue is of particular concern in Maine because of the long border with Canada and the coast. But even if tighter security is within reach, the hitch arises in keeping borders porous enough for fishermen and forestry workers to ply their trades.

In 2002, 52 million Canadians entered the United States without visas, for 12 percent of all admissions. The government doesn't always check their names, check them against databases, although license plates are checked. Twenty-seven countries have agreements so that their citizens don't need visas, which require extra scrutiny, to visit for tourism or business for up to 90 days.

Richard Skinner, acting inspector general, called many of the problems daunting - such as the limited coordination among federal agencies - but said the government must make decisions.

"No one designing a border security system from the ground up would create such a hodge-podge of processes with so many potential security gaps," he said. "If we are to be serious about border security, we will need to rationalize our border crossing processes."

COSTS KEEP ADDING UP

Fixing problems at the Homeland Security Department could get expensive. The Rand Corp. released a study Wednesday that found it would cost $11 billion to install defenses against shoulder-fired missiles for the country's 6,800 commercial airliners. Oh, yeah, and another $2 billion a year to operate. For comparison, the federal government now spends about $4.4 billion a year on transportation security.

Another example involves equipment already in use. Too much use.

Coast Guard mishaps involving HH-65 helicopters losing power during flight grew from a dozen before 9/11 to 150 in 2004.

The agency suffered 676 unscheduled days of repairs for cutters in 2003, which was a 41 percent increase from the previous year. That's the equivalent of losing three and a half cutters out of a fleet of 90.

The Coast Guard would like to replace its aging fleet, but estimated the cost at $17 billion by 2022.

Yikes. So, the department needs to organize itself better and it needs to find some more money to accomplish its goals.

The concern is that unless the department rights its course, problems could become entrenched. The example cited is when the four branches of military were consolidated into the Defense Department in 1947, but didn't really begin to work cooperatively until 1986 reform legislation.

"The lesson is clear," said James Jay Carafano, senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. "Fix it at the beginning or live with the mistakes for a long time."

Staff Writer Bart Jansen can be contacted at 202-488-1119 or at:

bjansen@pressherald.com



-------- human rights

Survey Details Claims of Afghan War Crimes

Washington Post
Sunday, January 30, 2005; Page A24

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A47599-2005Jan29

KABUL, Afghanistan, Jan. 29 -- About 70 percent of the 6,000 Afghans responding to a recent survey said they had been victims of crimes against humanity, and more than 40 percent favored the prosecution of suspected war criminals in their country, according to a report released by an Afghan rights watchdog group Saturday.

The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, an internationally mandated body, found that 500 of 2,000 people interviewed in focus groups said they had relatives who had been killed and 400 said that they or a relative had been tortured.

The group's chairwoman, Sima Simar, and the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, presented the report to Afghan President Hamid Karzai and called for greater accountability.

"Proper attention has not been paid to a fundamental element of peace and stability," Samar said in a statement. "We at the commission believe that it is impossible to achieve peace without justice."

It is estimated that more than 1 million Afghans were killed and 6 million fled their country during the period of turmoil that began with a communist coup in 1978 and continued with the Soviet invasion in 1979 and ensuing civil wars that ended when U.S.-led forces defeated the extremist Taliban militia in 2001.

Separately, a land mine exploded near a truck carrying Afghan soldiers close to the Pakistani border Saturday, killing nine soldiers, an Afghan commander said, according to the Associated Press. It was one of the bloodiest attacks in months.

-- N.C. Aizenman



-------- terrorism

Attacks in Baghdad and Elsewhere Reportedly Kill Several Dozen

By DEXTER FILKINS
and JOHN F. BURNS
NY Times
January 30, 2005

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/30/international/middleeast/30cnd-iraq.html?ei=5094&en=562b2d104653f499&hp=&ex=1107147600&oref=login&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print&position=

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Jan. 30 - After a slow start, voters turned out in very large numbers in Baghdad today, packing polling places and creating a party atmosphere in the streets as Iraqis here and nationwide turned out to cast ballots in the country's first free elections in 50 years.

American officials were showing confidence that today was going to be a big success, despite attacks in Baghdad and other parts of the country that took at least two dozen lives. The Interior Ministry said 36 people had been killed in attacks, Agence France-Presse reported.

But the violence did not seem to have deterred most Iraqis. In Baghdad, Basra in the South, the holy Shiite city of Najaf and even the restive Northern city of Mosul, Iraqi civilians crowded the polling sites, navigating their way through tight security and sometimes proudly displaying the deep blue ink stain on their fingers that confirmed they had voted.

The chairman of the Independent Election Commission of Iraq, Fareed Ayar, said as many as 8 million people turned out to vote, or between 55 percent and 60 percent of those registered to cast ballots. If 8 million turns out to be the final figure, that would represent 57 percent of voters.

The figure was based on national returns, Mr. Ayar said, and included the provinces of Anbar and Nineveh, which have large Sunni populations. The predicted low turnout in Anbar, a hotspot of Sunni resistance to the American occupation, was exceeded to such an extent that extra voting materials had to be rushed to outlying villages, where long lines were formed at polling stations, Mr. Ayar said.

Polling stations closed at 5 p.m. Iraqi time, or 9 a.m Eastern time.

Preliminary voting figures are expected to be known Monday or Tuesday, although final results will not be available for about 10 days.

In Washington, President Bush called the election a "resounding success" and asserted that "by participating in free elections, the Iraqi people have firmly rejected the anti-democratic ideology of the terrorists."

A sobering note came later in the day. A British C-130 Hercules military transport plane crashed near Balad, 35 miles northwest of Baghdad, a Ministry of Defense spokesman in London said. The spokesman said the plane crashed at 5:25 p.m. Iraqi time.

Prime minister Tony Blair said that British military personnel were killed, but he did not specify how many."This country and the wider world will never forget them," he said.

The streets of Baghdad were closed to traffic, but full of children playing soccer, and men and women walking, some carrying babies. Everyone, it seemed, was going to vote. They dropped their ballots into boxes even as continuous mortar shells started exploding at about noon.

Thirty civilians and six police officers died in mortar attacks and suicide bombings around the country, the Interior Minister reported, according to A.F.P. Twenty-two of the deaths occurred in Baghdad, Reuters reported, where mortar attacks took three lives and 19 people were killed by suicide bombers. At least 29 were wounded in the attacks in the capital, Reuters said.

But if the insurgents wanted to stop people in Baghdad from voting, they failed. If they wanted to cause chaos, they failed. The voters were completely defiant, and there was a feeling that the people of Baghdad, showing a new, positive attitude, had turned a corner.

No one was claiming that the insurgency was over or that the deadly attacks would end. But the atmosphere in this usually grim capital, a city at war and an ethnic microcosm of the country, had changed, with people dressed in their finest clothes to go to the polls in what was generally a convivial mood.

"You can feel the enthusiasm," Col. Mike Murray of the First Cavalry Regiment, said outside a polling station in Karada, who added that the scene in Karada was essentially true for the whole area.

In Khadamiya, a mixed area in northwest Baghdad, the turnout was also large, with some representatives of political parties saying the turnout could approach 80 percent.

Even in the so-called Sunni Triangle people voted, too. In Baquba, 60 miles north of Baghdad, all the polling stations that reported indicated a huge turnout.

In Mosul, the restive city to the north, large turnouts were reported, even in the Sunni Muslim areas, and despite threats and scattered attacks with bombs, mortars and small arms fire.

"They didn't hit," Brig. Gen. Carter Ham, the American commander in Mosul, said after he arrived at the election coordination center. "But that is what we think they were trying to do."

By late afternoon, Maj. Anthony Cruz, the American liaison officer with the electoral commission in Mosul, said that there were thousands of voters appearing at each polling center "across the board."

There were no reports of violence in Najaf, the holiest city to Shiites, where turnout appeared to be good and there was also a festive air. The city is home to Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, and posters of the Ayatollah beseeching people to vote could be seen all over the city.

One voter, Musel Aziz, 36, said: "I and my people have taken part in this election. We want to lead a normal life, just like people in neighboring countries."

In Ramadi, only six people had voted after seven hours at a polling station on the south side of the Euphrates River across from the town. Many people were apparently intimidated at crossing the bridge over the river, because potential voters would make themselves highly visible.

Lieut. Col. Joseph Southcott, of the 1/9 Battalion of the Second Infantry Division, which has been brought in from South Korea, said he and his men would judge their success not by the turnount, which appeared to be less than 1 percent, but whether they had created safe conditions to vote.

Units of the division, which crossed the bridge into the city, found men and boys on street corners, who shouted "Inshallah!" but showed no signs of hostility.

Several explosions broke out across Baghdad this morning, especially in the southwestern section of the city. American attack helicopters circled over the city center, and the roar of fighter jets could be heard from high above.

Qasim Muhammad Saleh, 45, walking with his two sons, Sajad, 5, and Jowid, 12, had just come from voting at Lebanon High School in Karada. The boys were carrying Iraqi flags, and Mr. Saleh's right index finger carried the ink marks showing he had cast his ballot.

"We now have our freedom," he said. "After 35 years, we finally got rid of Saddam and now we can vote for whoever we want.

"After casting my ballots, I'm hoping that the situation will improve."

Nearby, at the Nawfal primary school in Karada, there was a steady stream of people lining up to go through the barbed wire checkpoint in order to vote. Inside, people were shrugging off the sounds of explosions, and the mood was upbeat, even enthusiastic, as they went through the voting process.

Voters appeared to be turning out in large numbers in the Kurdish area of northern Iraq, especially in Sulaimaniya, where attacks have been muted, news agencies reported. But there were complaints from four Kurdish districts outside of Mosul that they did not receive ballot boxes or supplies, fueling the suspicion among Kurds in those areas that the government was trying to suppress their influence on the vote.

In the Southern city of Basra, where Shiites dominate, and where violence has been minimal, voting went smoothly. People filled the streets expressing pride and defiance as they headed to vote. Election officials there predicted roughly a two-thirds turnout among eligible voters.

The election will create the basis here for the rise to power of a Shiite-dominated government for the first time in the country's 85-year history. But the chaotic situation on the ground seemed to render most predictions about the future composition of the government tenuous at best.

The turnout, and the ease with which the election is carried off, are regarded as major tests of the Bush administration's goal of planting a democratic government in the heart of the Middle East, and for its hopes to stabilize this country and eventually bring 155,000 American troops home. Mr. Bush, in his weekly radio address on Saturday, said he expected the insurgents to do everything possible to thwart the voting because free elections would "expose the emptiness of their vision for Iraq."

The election is one of a number of landmarks intended by Iraqi leaders and American officials to set up a democratic state here, following the destruction of Saddam Hussein's government in the spring of 2003. Iraqi voters will elect a 275-member national assembly, which will be empowered to write the country's permanent constitution. After that task, to be completed in the autumn, voters will choose a full-term national assembly in December.

Iraqi voters will also be selecting provincial parliaments, and the Kurds in the north will be voting for candidates to the regional government there that was set up after the Persian Gulf war in 1991.

John F. Burns and Iraqi employees of The New York Times contributed reporting from Baghdad for this article, Christine Hauser contributed from Mosul, Edward Wong from Najaf and James Glanz from Basra.



-------- OTHER



-------- environment

U.S. Brushes Aside N.M. Drilling Protests

By SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN
Associated Press Writer
January 30, 2005

http://ap.washingtontimes.com/dynamic/stories/O/OTERO_MESA?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) -- Despite protests by the governor and environmentalists, the federal government decided to open nearly all of New Mexico's vast Otero Mesa for exploratory drilling but vowed that the oil and gas industry won't have a "free-for-all."

The decision Monday by the Bureau of Land Management permanently protects about 124,000 acres of the roughly 2 million-acre mesa, one of North America's largest remaining pieces of Chihuahuan desert grassland.

Gov. Bill Richardson and environmentalists, including the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance and Denver-based Earthjustice, promised a court battle.

"The state is going to fight this with everything we've got," Richardson said.
	
The opponents argue the plan fails to consider the effect on groundwater and grassland at the mesa, extending about 40 miles north of the Texas-New Mexico line.

Richardson - who once called the mesa "sacred" and wanted to set aside 640,000 acres as a national conservation area - accused the federal government of ignoring its policy of working with states on major land management decisions.

"By failing to compromise, the federal government might have taken two steps backward, tying this issue up for years," the Democratic governor said.

In 1998, a test well indicated enough natural gas reserves to justify a pipeline, and a rush on drilling permits began, prompting the BLM, which owns the land, to revise the area's 1986 management plan. There have been thousands of public comments and two formal protests by the governor's office.

The plan allows for only 1,589 acres of surface disturbance from well pads, roads and pipelines. At most, there will be 141 exploratory wells drilled and no more than 84 producing wells.

"It's very methodical, very strategic," said Linda Rundell, director of the BLM in New Mexico. "It's not going to be a wide-open free for all."

Rather than having the gas and oil industry nominate lease areas, she said, the agency will carefully choose which parcels to lease. It will lease only small blocks, and then assess the environmental impact on those areas before leasing more.

Rundell said the plan is one of the most restrictive ever developed by the BLM and that it was designed to prevent a spiderweb of roads and pipelines from destroying the fragile grasslands, dotted with cholla cactus and yucca and grazed by antelope.

"I know that it was a big concern for the governor, ranchers and environmentalists," she said. "They have looked at how development was done in other areas and they didn't want to see it happen like that on Otero Mesa."

The Bush administration has pushed for increased development on public lands across the country - notably in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge - and the Otero Mesa became a lightning rod during last year's presidential campaign.

Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., and New Mexico Land Commissioner Patrick Lyons applauded the plan, saying the BLM balanced the need to protect the environment with the need to develop new sources of oil and gas.

Lyons said the plan could create 500 jobs and bring millions of dollars to Otero and Sierra counties over the next 20 years.

Stephen Capra of the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance acknowledged there were novel parts to the BLM plan, but declared: "The protection the BLM is talking about, it's window dressing."

"These are some of the last unfragmented desert grasslands anywhere in the world and they're just essential to protection of numerous desert species, from the pronghorn antelope to the endangered Aplomado falcon," said Mike Harris, an attorney with Denver-based Earthjustice.


On the Net:

Bureau of Land Management: http://www.nm.blm.gov .

Earthjustice: http://www.earthjustice.org

New Mexico Wilderness Alliance: http://www.nmwild.org 




-------- imf / world bank / wto (economics)

World Forum Ends After High - Powered Talks

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
January 30, 2005
Filed at 1:36 p.m. ET

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-World-Forum.html?pagewanted=print&position=

DAVOS, Switzerland (AP) -- More than 2,000 of the world's rich and powerful decamped from this luxurious Swiss ski resort Sunday after five days of talks on how to improve the world, particularly by stamping out poverty, fighting disease and bringing peace to the Middle East and elsewhere.

They left with a message of optimism from South Korean unification minister Chung Dong-young, who said he was hopeful there would be ``substantial resolution'' in nuclear talks with North Korea.

``The time for diplomacy is now,'' he said.

Whether any of the lofty goals set forward at the World Economic Forum will take root in the global trouble spots far from this idyllic Alpine village will not be known for some time. But there was hope among many social activists here, including U2 frontman Bono, that the world leaders were doing more than just blowing smoke.

``I think we can be the generation that ends extreme poverty, I really do, and I think I will spend the rest of my life pledged to that commitment,'' Bono said, heaping praise on British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Microsoft Corp. chairman Bill Gates and others he said were committed to ``getting it right'' in fighting poverty, particularly in Africa.

The Davos summit has been going on for decades, mostly as a place for billionaires and millionaires to mingle. Businessmen pay $12,000 each for the privilege of rubbing shoulders with each other and political heavyweights such as German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, former President Clinton and newly elected Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko.

But the summit has become increasingly socially conscious in recent years, partly in response to anti-globalization protesters who have denounced the gathering as elitist and disconnected.

Blair and French President Jacques Chirac challenged world leaders to finally address grinding poverty in Africa, where 300 million people lack safe drinking water, 3,000 African children under the age of 5 die every day from Malaria, and 6,000 people die daily of AIDS.

``We know all of this. So what can be done?'' Blair said in the forum's keynote address.

American leaders, normally a strong presence at the summit, were notably absent this year amid a rise in anti-U.S. sentiment. The highest-ranking Bush administration official to attend was Labor Secretary Elaine Chao.

Talks at the summit echoed sentiment around the world.

There was optimism over Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation since the death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in November.

Shimon Peres, Israel's vice premier, said the ``magic has returned to the mountain'' of Middle East peace after many years of violence and hopelessness.

Far less optimism was expressed over Iraq, which a senior analyst at RAND Corp. described as a ``clarion call'' for Islamic militants that may spark terrorist attacks far from its borders.

``In terms of perception, we've already lost the war,'' said Bruce Hoffman, chief of the think tank's Washington office. ``I believe that a cult of the insurgent has emerged from Iraq.''

Other Mideast issues were given a positive spin, with a senior Saudi ambassador predicting that women in the strictly segregated Islamic nation will be allowed to vote in future elections, and the Iranian foreign minister suggesting informal contacts with the United States over nuclear issues were achievable through European intermediaries.

On the economic front, Chinese Vice Premier Huang Ju said per capita income will triple during the next 15 years and there was no reason for the world to fear his country's emergence as a global giant.

``China will by no means pose a threat to others. The Earth is a common home to all of us,'' he said.

Another celebrity activist, actress Sharon Stone, made headlines when she stood up during a weighty talk on African poverty, pledged $10,000 to fight malaria and urged others in the room to do the same. She raised $1 million in about 10 minutes.

Stone said later she was hopeful about what was accomplished at the summit, but at times she grew tired of all the talk.

``I would recommend that next year they reserve one room for people who are ready for action,'' she said.



-------- POLITICS


-------- china

Thousands Mourn Chinese Ex-Leader

By Philip P. Pan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, January 30, 2005; Page A23

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A46528-2005Jan29

BEIJING, Jan. 29 -- They came from the walled compounds of the Communist Party elite and the shantytowns of the disgruntled and dispossessed, from universities and office towers, from villages and cities across China. They came to mourn the death of a man the party had hoped they would forget.

Arriving in sleek sedans and battered taxicabs, by subway and on foot, thousands of Chinese defied a vast cloak of security in the capital and gathered in and around a state cemetery Saturday to honor Zhao Ziyang, the party leader ousted in 1989 for opposing the military assault on pro-democracy demonstrations in Tiananmen Square.

There was Cathy Yang, 56, a doctor who treated the student protesters in 1989 and never forgot how Zhao visited them on the eve of martial law with tears in his eyes. Now she was the one crying, explaining that after years of silence about the massacre, she could no longer stay quiet and wanted to bid farewell to "a man of conscience and courage."

There was Wang Songkui, 38, a low-level party functionary from a distant province who took a train to Beijing for the funeral. He never met Zhao or participated in the Tiananmen protests but said he always believed the former party general secretary did the right thing in refusing to order troops to clear the square. "He spent his last 15 years under house arrest for that, and I wanted to show my gratitude," he said.

And there were many like Liu Huiling, 68, a resident of the slums that have sprouted around Beijing for people who have traveled here with complaints about abuse of power by local officials. "Zhao was a symbol of the democratic spirit, and if he were in power today, things would be better," said Liu, who said she has been petitioning authorities to address her grievances for 26 years without success.

Zhao died Jan. 17 at the age of 85, and the Chinese government adopted extraordinary measures to prevent his death from stirring memories of the Tiananmen massacre and provoking new protests or demands for democratic reform. It ordered a virtual news blackout, detained dozens of dissidents and others involved in the 1989 movement and seized control of his funeral from his family, insisting on only a modest, invitation-only service.

Uniformed and plainclothes police officers fanned out around the Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery, the main resting ground for senior party leaders, and set up a perimeter of checkpoints before dawn. They turned away hundreds of mourners, but as many as 3,000 made it in, many of them ordinary Chinese who obtained invitations from Zhao's family after visiting them to express condolences.

Lining up in freezing cold under a clear blue sky, the guests included old colleagues of Zhao's and retired party officials who have urged political liberalization, as well as a cross-section of China's emerging civil society. There were environmentalists, scholars, journalists, lawyers, businessmen and AIDS activists, as well as students too young to remember the events that led to Zhao's fall in 1989.

"Look at all these people," said one of the guests, an entrepreneur from eastern Jiangsu province, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "This is an affirmation of everything Zhao did in his life."

He and the others stood in rows of four or five, and filed into a small memorial hall where 50 funeral wreaths were placed along the walls and a photo of Zhao in a blue denim shirt was displayed at the front of the room. Zhao's body lay on a dais surrounded by evergreen leaves, dressed in a traditional, high-collared jacket and covered by the red-and-yellow Communist Party flag.

As loudspeakers played an orchestral dirge composed for a party martyr in 1936, the mourners, many of them weeping, bowed three times before Zhao's body. Then they shook hands with Zhao's five children and other relatives, and were briskly ushered out of the room as others entered and repeated the ceremony.

There was no eulogy, but the official New China News Agency issued a brief report on the funeral and Zhao's cremation later in the day. The dispatch failed to mention his tenure as premier from 1980 to 1987 and then as party leader until 1989, and said he "committed serious mistakes" during the "political turbulence" of 1989.

The report also played down Zhao's pioneering role in launching the market reforms that have transformed China's economy, saying only that he made "useful contributions to the party and the people" in the early years of the country's reform efforts. The report was read on state television without any video footage and was the first mention of Zhao's death by a Chinese broadcaster.

Zhao's successors -- the retired party chief, Jiang Zemin, and the current president, Hu Jintao -- were absent from the funeral, as was Premier Wen Jiabao, who once served as an aide to Zhao. State media said Jia Qinglin, a Politburo member who ranks fourth in the party hierarchy, attended the service on behalf of the leadership.

It was unclear whether any party elders, some of whom had urged the leadership to hold a state funeral for Zhao, attended the ceremony. Among the wreaths visible in the memorial hall was one sent by Qiao Shi, a retired member of the Politburo Standing Committee.

Bao Tong, a former aide to Zhao and the highest-ranking party official jailed in the 1989 crackdown, was permitted to view Zhao's body at the hospital before the funeral and pay his respects in private, according to a person familiar with the arrangements.

Many guests complained loudly about the scaled-down service, saying it was insulting to Zhao's memory. Some shouted and scuffled with the dozens of plainclothes officers present.

There were also clashes outside the cemetery. Several people attempted to break through a police cordon and were dragged away.

"The Chinese people have not forgotten him," said Zheng Xuguang, who was on the government's most wanted list of student leaders in 1989 and attended Zhao's funeral. "The people are very patient. We refuse to forget what happened."


----

Beijing cremates Zhao, refuses to bury past

By Audra Ang
ASSOCIATED PRESS
January 30, 2005

http://www.washtimes.com/world/20050129-103824-6722r.htm

BEIJING — China cremated Zhao Ziyang yesterday after a heavily guarded farewell ceremony and issued its first official obituary on the deposed Communist Party leader, accusing him of making "serious mistakes" during the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.

    Thousands of mourners, many of them weeping, filed through a memorial hall at Beijing's Babaoshan Cemetery, the main burial site for revolutionary heroes. They stood in rows and bowed before Mr. Zhao's body, which lay on a bier without a coffin and was surrounded by evergreen leaves. He wore a blue, high-collared Chinese jacket and was covered in the Communist Party flag.

    "People still feel very strongly about him," said Shi Yijun, a family friend. Lu Tongjing, another attendee, said Mr. Zhao looked "so pale."

    "Even some policemen were crying," Mr. Lu said.

    Mr. Zhao died Jan. 17 at age 85.

    He helped to launch reforms in the 1980s as prime minister and then party leader under then-supreme leader Deng Xiaoping, opening China to the world and letting millions lift themselves out of poverty.

    Mr. Zhao spent his last 15 years under house arrest after being ousted for sympathizing with the Tiananmen Square protesters — an action that made him a symbol of democratic change.

    The government has said little about Mr. Zhao since his death, apparently in an attempt to avoid stirring up memories of the leader who helped to launch China's economic boom but later was accused of "splitting the party."

    Following the memorial, the government issued the first official obituary for Mr. Zhao, praising him as an economic reformer even as it criticized him. The obituary released by the Xinhua news agency was read on state television and was the first mention of Mr. Zhao's death by a Chinese broadcaster.

    "During the political disturbance, which occurred in the spring and summer period of 1989, Comrade Zhao Ziyang made serious mistakes," Xinhua said, without elaborating.

    A member of the party's ruling Standing Committee, Jia Qinglin, attended and expressed condolences on behalf of President Hu Jintao and other leaders, Xinhua said.

    Inside the hall, mourners walked around the body, bowing three times in line with Chinese tradition. A photo above it showed Mr. Zhao dressed casually in a blue denim shirt. Photos and filming were banned during the ceremony, which lasted about two hours.

    Mr. Zhao's children — four sons and a daughter — shook hands with passing mourners. The family also issued a card with an autographed photo of Mr. Zhao on the front and "Thank you everyone" written inside.

    Xinhua said Mr. Zhao's body was cremated after the ceremony.

    Dissidents — kept under tight watch — were barred from the event, whose timing was uncertain until two days before. Security was even more severe yesterday, with about 10 miles of the main road leading up to the cemetery lined with hundreds of policemen and plainclothes officers at regular intervals. 



-------- us politics

McGovern's New Heading Over Auschwitz

Washington Post
Sunday, January 30, 2005; Page D03

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A47470-2005Jan29

As world leaders gathered at Auschwitz last week to mark the 60th anniversary of its liberation, a former U.S. pilot reopened a decades-old debate over whether the Allies should have bombed the death camp to shut down Nazi gas chambers. The pilot: George McGovern, now 82, who for the first time is publicly telling the story of his mission over occupied Poland in a B-24 Liberator in December 1944.

"There is no question we should have attempted . . . to go after Auschwitz," the former Democratic senator and presidential nominee says in a taped interview shown at a forum on Capitol Hill. "There was a pretty good chance we could have blasted those rail lines off the face of the Earth, which would have interrupted the flow of people to those death chambers, and we had a pretty good chance of knocking out those gas ovens."

McGovern, whose squadron bombed Nazi oil facilities less than five miles from Auschwitz, spoke on camera with interviewers from Israel Television and the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies. "He was a rare eyewitness to the fact that the Allies could have bombed the camps," the institute's director, Rafael Medoff, told us. Medoff and former congressman Steve Solarz wrote an op-ed article that appeared in several newspapers Thursday quoting McGovern and questioning U.S. rationale for not bombing Auschwitz in the summer, fall and winter of 1944.

The issue of Allied capability and willingness to take out the rail lines to Auschwitz and its death chambers remains contentious. "Given the way we look at it now, with eyes of 2005, it would have been a gesture to have bombed," Peter Black, a senior historian at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, told us. But had the rail lines been destroyed, he points out, the Nazis might simply have resorted to shooting Jews slated for deportation.

As for the gas chambers, "at that time we just couldn't pinpoint individual buildings with strong success," Black says. "In order to bomb and make sure of knocking them out, we would have had to carpet-bomb the place, like Hamburg or Dresden" -- thus killing thousands of prisoners. "If bombing would have killed the people who are alive today, it's almost a nonsensical question. It's really an issue of how many people would we have saved."

But McGovern argues "it was certainly worth the effort, despite all the risks" and notes that prisoners were already "doomed to death." While calling President Roosevelt "my political hero," McGovern faults him for the decision "not to go after Auschwitz. . . . God forgive us for that tragic miscalculation."

(Note: We tried to reach the former South Dakota senator, but his office said he was driving cross-country last week to Florida with his wife and dog -- but no cell phone.)
Larry Summers, Dumping a Little Noise Pollution

• Harvard President Larry Summers has issued three increasingly lengthy explanations to quiet the clamor over his recent remarks suggesting that "innate" differences between the sexes might explain why fewer women pursue science and math careers. The flap prompted one Washingtonian with a long memory -- Ralph Nader -- to call us and point out that it's not the first time the former treasury secretary has suffered from foot-in-mouth disease.

For years the Nader-founded Multinational Monitor magazine has issued a "Lawrence Summers Memorial Award" for ill-considered statements. It references a memo that Summers, then at the World Bank, wrote in 1991. "I think the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest-wage country is impeccable and we should face up to that," he wrote, adding, "I've always thought that under-populated countries in Africa are vastly under-polluted." The memo was leaked and Summers quickly apologized, saying it was meant to be "sardonic."
For the High-Gloss Lifestyle, a High-Gloss Magazine

• Jason Binn publishes slick city mags that cater to glamorous people: He's behind Ocean Drive in Miami, Gotham in New York, Hamptons on Long Island, Aspen Peak and Los Angeles Confidential. Now he's wagering that his formula will work in Washington. During inauguration week, Binn, 37, came here to schmooze and talk up Capitol File, a quarterly that he says will launch in the fall.

"We're going to bring together some of the biggest boldface names in Washington as contributors," Binn tells us. "We're looking to give Washington a really luxe, full-color, glossy, comprehensive read. It'll be like a coffee-table book." The fast-talking, name-dropping Binn, a fixture on the New York party circuit, says Capitol File won't just focus on pretty faces, social climbers and fashionistas but also will cover politics, business and art. (Local angle: Binn's older brother, Jonathan P. Binstock, is curator of contemporary art at the Corcoran; he uses the family's original name.)

In competing with Washington Life and the monthly Washingtonian, Binn says his mag will be mailed free "to all the homes valued at over $1 million." He's also craving another rich market: Capitol File's promo for advertisers boasts of "a unique distribution partnership with NetJets," a private jet outfit. "With an average customer's net worth of $25 million, you will be in good company." Lofty targets indeed.
Squibs

• Former first lady Betty Ford has handed over control of the Betty Ford Center to daughter Susan Bales but will remain on the board of the famed substance-abuse treatment center in Rancho Mirage, Calif. "She'll still be there, and she'll be working with the patients," Bales told the Dallas Morning News last week. "But she's 86 years old, and my father is 91. She's wanting to relax and enjoy her life, and she's earned that." Bales, 47, led the family intervention in 1978 that resulted in her mother's treatment for alcohol and prescription drug addiction.

----

The Newt Deal
A Decade After the Old 'Contract,' Gingrich Is at It Again

By Hanna Rosin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, January 30, 2005; Page D01

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A47838-2005Jan29

Newt Gingrich is back on the Hill. Peek through a door on the first floor of the Capitol one recent morning and see that familiar double-wide head, the white cap of hair, the loopy grin. Peek again, though, and notice what's missing. There is no Democrat losing his cool. None of the weird Newt accessories -- no dinosaur skull, no ice bucket. There is no scrum of scribbling reporters, no bank of cameras. (Unless you count the one his daughter carries around to take souvenir photos.)

There is no frenzy or tension at all -- only the pleasant hum of a lecture hall, presided over by one avuncular type, pushing his glasses back on his nose, taking sips from his Dixie cup, signing copies of his new book. And right now giving a sort of motivational speech to the handful of freshman Republican House members seated at the table before him, assuring them that although this may not be the year of the House Republican revolution, their jobs are "still real" and their votes still count.

True, he's handed out one of those flow charts recognizable from his heady days as House speaker, that special Newtonian blend of corporate team jargon and dada zoology. ("Vision"! "Strategies"! "Projects"! "Antelope theory"! Lots of big arrows pointing every which way!) But he is no longer their leader, so the representatives are free to regard the chart quizzically and then tuck it beneath their breakfast plates.

A scant decade ago, Newt Gingrich was Time's Man of the Year, "the man who would remake America." So large was Newt that Bill Clinton was once forced to point out that yes, the Constitution mandated that he, as president, was still "relevant." Gingrich reigned as the Robespierre of Republicans. His name recognition was as high as Madonna's.

As with all revolutions, his left him behind. In planning the fifth anniversary of the Contract With America, the manifesto he wrote to remake the House, his shock troops debated whether to invite him. One stood up and said Gingrich had just left his wife for another woman, so was unsuitable as a conservative leader. Another said Gingrich had alienated too many people. What had once looked like brilliance and eccentricity suddenly seemed more like madness, or at least lack of control. The anniversary party took place without him.

Earlier this month, the same crew gathered in Arizona to mark the 10th anniversary of their freshman class that took office in 1995. The Friday night opening dinner featured Gingrich, now 61, as the keynote speaker. "He reminded us of the spirit of that 1994 election, that we were all history makers," says Rep. J.D. Hayworth (R-Ariz.). "He's a historian and a thinker. There was nothing controversial about him at all."

Nothing at all. Time passes, people forget. Madness mellows into "spirit." The memory of Gingrich is not exactly faded like that of House speakers past -- Jim Wright or Tip O'Neill. Instead he shares space in our collective brain with someone like Gorbachev, faces that are instantly recognizable but now distant enough not to do any harm. At the last phase of their lives they turn into "statesmen," "thinkers." Even their erstwhile enemies line up to pay homage. When they appear in public they still draw a crowd and everyone claps. They've lost their sting. They are, well, Newtered.

On tour promoting his latest book, "Winning the Future: a 21st Century Contract With America," Gingrich is once again everywhere -- on Fox, CNN, the radio, quoted in papers. Hearing his voice again has all his old associates reminiscing about those electric years. Joe Scarborough, former congressman from the class of rebels, wrote once that Gingrich "broke the back of the Republican revolution," but now he finds himself thinking fondly about his favorite Newt moments -- Gingrich's nationally televised speech the night the last key piece of the Contract With America passed the House, the time Gingrich homed in on those daily ice deliveries to congressional offices as the perfect visual symbol of government waste.

Sure, many of the loftier goals of the Contract -- term limits on members of Congress, a balanced budget amendment, truth-in-sentencing crime measures -- died in the Senate. But at least he dreamed bigger than anyone else. Which is why when Scarborough saw Gingrich's new book at the store he bought it right away. "I knew if he came up with a second Contract it would be a significant piece of work, not a vanity piece," he says.

Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform found himself dragging out old tapes Gingrich recorded for aspiring Republican House members and listening to them in his car. "He was talking back then about where we'd be now, and his analysis was right on," says Norquist. "You can count on no fingers the number of ex-congressmen who are still interesting to talk to, and he is the exception.

"We can't stay in revolution mode all the time," Norquist says. "But we need someone to create the ideas. We need another wave, maybe every 10 years. We need a new Gingrich." Freshman Republicans today may call themselves mini-Newts, or rebels, or revolutionaries. But "none of them even approach him," Norquist says.

Meanwhile Gingrich beavers away, creating a whole Newtonia: Gingrich Enterprises, which houses the Center for Health Transformation, a for-profit consulting group dedicated to modernizing health care; and a new Institute for Safety, Health, Prosperity and Freedom to spread his ideas. He writes a book about every six months -- installments of his Civil War novels, public policy manifestos. He gives speeches for hire, serves on advisory boards. Sends a constant stream of e-mails to Karl Rove, Donald Rumsfeld, Dennis Hastert, sometimes typed at 3 in the morning. Gingrich Communications, his personal public relations firm, exists to "handle Newt's celebrity," explains Kathy Lubbers, Gingrich's daughter from the first of his three marriages, who along with her sister makes up a third of that particular venture's employees.

"We're number 20!," says the ever-peppy Lubbers, who gets constant BlackBerry updates on the book's ranking on Amazon.

On the first full-blast day of Gingrich's book tour, he's keeping up what for the average person would seem a pretty ridiculous schedule. The day begins at 5:45 with a radio interview and goes on until 9 at night. It's divided into half-hour segments with one-minute breaks. Lunch is eaten while doing radio interviews, during commercial breaks. Lubbers, in from Florida for a couple of days, watches the clock. "Remember, Dad, one minute to smile and dial," she says.

Yet Gingrich doesn't look especially pressed. He shuffles from make-up room to recording studio at a leisurely pace. He muses about his upcoming vacation to Florida, about golfing. He stops to look up celiac disease on MedlinePlus because one of his employees has just been diagnosed with it. Back at his K Street office, he bounces out to her desk to inform her that she can still eat chocolate. "She loves chocolate," he explains.

The weekend before his book tour, a wire story headlined "Gingrich Open to 2008 Presidential Run" ran and now everyone's asking, will he run? Gingrich knows he's a nonstarter as a candidate and says so, but he also knows that while on a book tour one must be coy.

"I think you're always willing to be ambitious, but it's relatively impractical. I'm not a governor, I'm not a senator, I'm a private citizen with ideas," he says. "It's very hard to get off the ground if I don't have a natural machinery to raise the resources. Under the right circumstances would I consider it? Sure. Do I think it's at all likely? No."

Of the five priorities he grapples with in his new Contract With America -- terrorism, God in the public arena, immigration, science and Social Security and health savings accounts -- most interviewers linger on No. 2.

Plenty of Republicans readily bare their inner preacher, but Gingrich was never one of them. In his book he writes about God in purely impersonal terms. It's the one chapter where his old combative side shows: "There is no attack more deadly and more historically dishonest than the secular Left's unending war against God in American public life," the chapter begins. The decision by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to rule the phrase "one nation under God" unconstitutional was to him "the last straw," he writes, particularly since 91 percent of the country supports it. Here he loves to tell the story of how, in 1802, Thomas Jefferson's supporters abolished half the federal courts -- not by impeaching judges but just by firing them -- when they felt the courts had overruled the will of the people. He suggests, totally seriously, that the president do the same with the Ninth Circuit.

Is Gingrich born again? This was Dick Armey's thought when he read about this part of the book. As House majority leader under Gingrich, Armey recalls, he once "tried to approach Newt about the Lord one morning at breakfast. He wasn't very interested. He just kind of ignored me." Armey recalls Gingrich's then-wife Marianne poking him in the ribs and saying, "See, that's what I've been talking to you about" and Gingrich saying nothing, just pushing around his eggs. "I've never thought of Newt as a particularly spiritual guy," Armey says.

Gingrich says there's a difference between personal religiosity and the centrality of God in history. But he also says the Armey story is wrong, that he says a "private prayer" before every speech and always has. His devoutness, he says, comes from the time his mother was going through a divorce and left him in the care of his grandmother and a great aunt. The aunt had stopped being a schoolteacher and made the rightness of Gingrich's mind and soul her full-time project.

Name any current national priority and Gingrich will have presaged it, five or 10 years ago, as he is happy to point out. Osama bin Laden? He spoke about him in 1995. Personal savings accounts? Ditto. But Gingrich spoke about virtually everything. He was such an open hydrant of prophetic musings back then that Rich Galen, his press secretary at the time, took it upon himself in 1996 to follow Gingrich around and "make sure when he came back with another idea no one acted on it or took him at all seriously," Galen recalls.

Gingrich and his associates agree on what caused his downfall: He never got used to being in power. He was always that same guerrilla fighter from Georgia, holed up in his office in 1978, plotting a takeover on graphs and maps. Tony Blankley, another former Gingrich spokesman, recalls the first speech his boss gave in Washington after the Republicans had won a House majority in 1994. Blankley hadn't thought much about press logistics. When he got to the room where Gingrich was going to speak, "it was a mob scene, hundreds of reporters and boom mikes in his face, I had to physically with my 230 pounds force my way through the crowd.

"We'd never prepared for that level of intensity. We'd never prepared for all the top leaders in the world coming to kiss his ring, and at the same time all the vicious attacks. Overnight he went from 20-something name recognition to 90-something. A newly elected president gets a slower rise than that, but Newt shot up like a skyrocket. It was disorienting, and it couldn't sustain itself."

Gingrich, too, is reflective about that era. "There are times when it's better for speakers to shut up. That the behavior of a minority whip is not appropriate when you're speaker of the House. It's like the difference between a Broadway stage and a movie. On a Broadway stage you need to make big gestures so people in the back row can see you. But the same gesture in a movie looks grotesque."

His friends say he's happier now that the pressure's off. "More comfortable with himself," is how his daughter puts it. He works 80 hours a week but stays late only on the two nights that his wife, Calista, is at French horn practice or choir.

Right now, though, he looks beat. He's been hawking his new book for nine hours and there are six more to go. He's sitting at his desk at the Center for Health Transformation on K Street. The office is curiously empty. The only thing on the walls is a hook to hang up his coat. On his desk is one photo, of his staff.

By now he's told that story about Jefferson and the courts in 1802 dozens of times, and he's getting giddy. In the latest version, this one for G. Gordon Liddy's radio show, Gingrich is suggesting the judges "go belly up. We should just send them to the beach." He's rubbing his eyes, taking off his glasses. Finally he leans back in his chair and closes his eyes. In this half-sleep, he just keeps on talking.


-------- voting

A Taste of Democracy, a Hunger for Security
The promise of safety and stability has mass appeal in a nation beset by violence and fear.

By Alissa J. Rubin
LA Times Staff Writer
January 30, 2005

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-fg-democracy30jan30,0,5658360,print.story?coll=la-home-headlines

BAGHDAD — Today, Iraqis are summoning their courage and casting their ballots in a bold act of suffrage. But it remains unclear whether their bravery will put Iraq on the road to democracy, much less whether the election heralds a new era of participatory government in the Middle East as promised by the Bush administration.

Iraqis and international observers alike are divided in their expectations of today's balloting. Some see the election as a superficial event that cannot bring the things that citizens want even more than a vote: security, water, electricity and economic improvement.

Others view the election as illegitimate because U.S. troops remain on Iraqi soil and thus the vote, they say, is being held at the point of an American gun.

Still others believe that it is the beginning of a grand march that will lead to a fully democratic society. Indeed, there are real signs of the beginnings of a society in which opposing views are tolerated in a way that is rare in the region and was unheard of under Saddam Hussein.

In the coming months, skeptics are likely to carry the day. For these Iraqis, true democracy is dependent on security. They are more than willing to trade away some of the freedoms associated with democracy indefinitely if they can get a guarantee of safety and stability.

From this vantage point, it is the strength of the insurgency, not an election, that will determine whether Iraq will become a stable society.

Without security, Iraqi government officials will be reluctant to end the state of emergency and are likely to continue to rely disproportionately on force to accomplish their goals.

Eventually, many observers believe, there will be a confrontation between the security forces, which are mostly Shiite and Kurd, and the largely Sunni Arab insurgency.

"In a country like this with zero respect for human rights, no colonial experience of rule of law, no Magna Carta, how are you going to build a democracy?" a Western official said.

Iraq, like many Middle Eastern countries, has been ruled by a succession of despots, kings and invaders. Even the British, who dominated the country briefly in the years after World War I, did not install the kind of complete governmental system they set up in colonies such as India. For the last 35 years, Iraq has been run by one ruthless man and his corrupt family and cronies, meaning that the majority of the population has experienced only the fear-filled atmosphere of a dictatorship.

Some of those cronies are believed to be supporting the insurgency. But they aren't alone in believing that the election is illegitimate. Many Iraqis do not support the violence but also do not believe true democracy can develop while U.S. troops are the dominant force in the country.

The fear of observers is that this latter community will not vote and then will drift closer to the insurgency, prompting the government to turn to ever more repressive measures to get control of the rebellion.

Those who believe that the election is a crucial part of Iraq's journey toward becoming a First World country include many in Iraq's political class, who sincerely believe that an elected government will have newfound influence both in the country and with neighbors.

"The elections are an important step toward a democratic system of government. This will be a legitimate mandate from the people…. This will be very different from the previous government," said Barham Salih, the interim deputy prime minister, referring to the U.S.-backed government now in power.

Salih is a fervent proponent of the democratic process, though he is also realistic about the hardships ahead. "Elections are not the magic solution, they are not a panacea for Iraq's problems, but the government will have to be responsive to this new parliament," he said, referring to the national assembly that Iraqis are electing today. The assembly will choose a presidency council and prime minister.

Almost since Hussein's fall in April 2003, Iraqis, especially in Baghdad, the capital, have said they want a leader who is strong enough to get a handle on the security situation. Because the insurgency is strong in the capital, it is a crucial point of reference for those who run the country.

Polls show that a declining percentage of Iraqis believe the country is headed in the right direction and that the main reason is the deteriorating security situation. A poll by the International Republican Institute taken in the first week of January found that for the first time in six months the percentage of Iraqis who believed the country was headed in the right direction had dipped below 50%.

The numbers are startlingly lower in Baghdad, home to 6 million Iraqis. Here, just 37% believe the country is headed in the right direction. And in Baghdad more than elsewhere, the sense of imminent violence is a constant reality, with car bombs, shootings, mortar shells, rockets and assassinations part of daily life. Here, there is a clamor for law and order above all else.

Fear stalks the wealthy as well as the vulnerable and poor.

"I am a contractor, I have three companies, and I am well known here and I am afraid," said Mushtaq Juboori, an architectural engineer who lives in the wealthy Mansour neighborhood of Baghdad. He has stopped going to his spacious downtown office because he fears being killed in one of the bombings.

Juboori is also afraid that he could become a target because he is building a part of a hospital in Tikrit. Although his contract is with the International Committee of the Red Cross, he thinks insurgents might believe he is being paid by the Americans.

"Freedom or democracy should not be the goal," he said. "Look at what the results have been: we lost our security and our water, our electricity."

His son listened, nodding. "Security is more important than the election," he said. "What is freedom if we can't walk to the end of the road in safety?"

The members of the Juboori family are hardly alone in their sense that their lives are constrained by the violence. The politicians on every one of the major lists competing in today's election have heard the concerns and are running either overtly or more quietly on the promise to work to improve security.

Implicit, however, is that the freedoms and human rights associated with democracy will have to wait.

In many respects, such compromises already have been made. One of interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's first acts was to ensure that he had the power to enact a state of emergency, including the right to impose curfews, cordon off cities and call in troops. Human rights organizations accuse the Interior Ministry of stepping over the line in its treatment of suspected insurgents and torturing them to extract confessions.

Allawi has run almost entirely on a security platform, promising to get still tougher with the insurgents.

The United Iraqi Alliance, the political slate most likely to win the largest share of votes, avoids the "get tough" language of Allawi, but a major plank of its platform is an overhaul of the security services. Its leading candidates believe Allawi and his top appointees have let in too many former Baath Party members, and they want to see them purged.

The goal is to improve security, said Hussein Shahristani, one of the leading alliance members. "Our two main concerns about the current police, national guard and other armed forces is that there is high-level corruption and that some of them are collaborators with the terrorists," Shahristani said.

"If we have much to say in the next government, we'll insist on cleaning up the security services, the police and the national guard from all these elements," he said.

The leading Kurdish list is also heavily focused on security. Known for having a highly efficient armed militia, the peshmerga, and considerable experience with terrorists, the Kurds have operatives at top levels in many of the security ministries.

For the foreseeable future, the country's authorities will be focused on security. The language of democracy, such as respecting human rights and the rule of law, may have to wait its turn.

----

Iraqis Cast Ballots Amid Explosions and Anxiety
Suicide bombers and mortar rounds kill at least 17 people. Hours earlier, a rocket hit the U.S. Embassy, killing two Americans.

By Patrick J. McDonnell and Edmund Sanders
LA Times Staff Writer
January 30, 2005

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-fg-iraq30jan30,0,4269458,print.story?coll=la-home-headlines

BAGHDAD — As Iraqis began heading to the polls this morning in the nation's first free election in decades, insurgents launched mortar rounds and sent suicide bombers to attack voting places across the country, killing at least 17 people.

Early turnout varied widely, with strong participation in Kurdish-dominated northern Iraq and the Shiite Muslim south. Steady streams of voters were seen in parts of Baghdad, but hundreds of polling places, mainly in Sunni cities north and west of the capital, did not open on time because of security concerns.

In western Baghdad, four suicide bombers — three wearing explosive vests and one in a car — struck polling places, killing a total of 14 people and wounding at least 23. Three people died and seven were injured when mortar fire hit a house near a polling center in the capital's Sadr City district.

Despite the violence, Iraqi officials said the vote was proceeding smoothly and that 3,000 of a planned 5,000 polling stations had opened by 10:30 a.m. Fareed Ayar, a spokesman for the Iraqi Electoral Commission, held out hope more polling stations would open as the day went on. Voters are selecting a national assembly.

Scattered blasts were reported outside the capital, in Baqubah to the northeast, Basra in the south, Mosul in the north and near a U.S. air base in the northern city of Kirkuk. The violence this morning came hours after a rocket struck the U.S. Embassy compound in the capital's heavily fortified Green Zone, killing two Americans.

Interim Iraqi President Ghazi Ajil Yawer, a Sunni Muslim who at one point expressed reservations about the timing of the vote, was one of the first Iraqis to cast his ballot in front of television cameras at a VIP polling center inside the Green Zone. Yawer called the election "our first step toward joining the free world."

Interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi voted shortly afterward.

Many voters were expected to wait to see whether insurgent attacks materialized before heading out to vote, but in the overwhelmingly Shiite Muslim city of Najaf, the mood was jubilant.

"I'm proud of this ink," said resident Jabber Hajer, 65, proudly waving an index finger soaked to the knuckle in purple ink to prevent multiple voting. "To me, it represents freedom. We want the elections like the thirsty want water. Those who do not participate are the losers."

Long lines were reported in the Kurdish city of Sulaymaniya. Excitement was palpable as dawn broke today and the long-awaited national election finally became a reality.

"We Kurds have been shedding our blood for more than 80 years," said Karim Abdulla Marif, a cigarette factory worker in traditional baggy pants and a black and white headdress who had just cast his vote. "I wasn't concerned about voting.... This means something good will finally happen to us. It's the happiest moment of my life."

In Baghdad, Jassim Mohammed, 60, arrived at his polling station with his three grown children and passed through the various searches and checks before entering.

"The searches are annoying, but it's for all of our safety and it is better this way," he said. "This is our duty."

As part of a plan to put Iraqi security forces out front, U.S. troops pulled back their positions away from polling centers but maintained a strong presence on the streets. Quick-response units stood by to deal with potential attacks and American jets and helicopters zoomed overhead.

The attack on the embassy Saturday marked a rare direct hit for insurgents, who frequently target the sprawling complex but had never before killed anyone inside.

Elsewhere in the country Saturday, several bombings and attacks on polling places marred the day before elections. But the kind of large-scale insurgent offensive that some had feared did not materialize. Authorities expected violence to worsen as voters ventured to polling places.

"I think we'll see millions of people across Iraq vote tomorrow," Lt. Gen. Thomas F. Metz, operational chief for the more than 150,000 coalition troops here, said Saturday.

During his weekly radio address Saturday, President Bush hailed Iraqi voters, who he said were "standing firm" despite threats. His remarks were aired shortly before the embassy was struck.

"Tomorrow's elections will happen because of their courage and determination," Bush said. "In the face of assassination, brutal violence and calculated intimidation, Iraqis continue to prepare for the elections and to campaign for their candidates."

In addition to choosing a 275-member transitional national assembly, voters are also selecting 18 provincial councils and, in three northern provinces, a Kurdish parliament. The national assembly will write a constitution and form a new government.

U.S. and Iraqi security forces spent Saturday setting up cordons around polling stations in an effort to protect voters.

"We are on the lookout," said Brig. Gen. Adil Molan Ghaidan, police chief in Diyala province northeast of Baghdad.

More than 14 million Iraqis are eligible to vote, but turnout remains unpredictable amid the violence that has swept across large swaths of Iraq and the deep fissures among the nation's three major groups — Shiite Muslim Arabs, Sunni Muslim Arabs and ethnic Kurds.

The campaign has been marked by a climate of fear, insecurity and scant information, with public appearances by candidates rare, and many refusing to give their names because of the threat of assassination.

This tense capital, its streets devoid of most civilian traffic but bristling with edgy U.S. soldiers and Iraqi forces in black ski masks, was oddly quiet through most of Saturday.

Iraqi army tanks and armored personnel carriers rumbled through the capital for the first time since the fall of Saddam Hussein. At one major intersection, an Iraqi carrier offered free rides to children.

Security measures included restrictions on driving, a shutdown of Baghdad's international airport and the closure of the country's borders.

Reports circulated that insurgents had stolen police trucks, ambulances and uniforms and were planning to launch suicide attacks from those vehicles.

A U.S. soldier was killed in a roadside explosion in western Baghdad, authorities reported.

After nightfall, military trucks rolled through Baghdad's streets shining high-powered spotlights and using loudspeakers to warn residents to stay indoors during the new curfew hours and heed the ban on driving.

Sporadic bursts of gunfire resounded through the darkened streets.

The rocket attack on the embassy compound occurred shortly before 8 p.m., triggering a wail of sirens from the Green Zone, a sealed-off swath of central Baghdad that is home to Western diplomats, contract workers, U.S. troops and others. The Iraqi Independent Electoral Commission, which is conducting the elections, is also housed there.

The rocket struck a building connected to the U.S. Embassy's annex in Hussein's former Republican Palace, an official statement said. The huge palace houses much of the embassy's office space. A State Department spokesman in Washington said a Defense Department civilian and a Navy sailor were killed and four other Americans were wounded in the attack.

With the help of surveillance video, 1st Cavalry Division soldiers were able to trace and arrest seven suspects believed to have taken part in the attack.

The embassy in Baghdad, one of the largest U.S. missions in the world, sits behind two cordons of concrete blast walls and a series of security barriers, checkpoints and body searches — all testament to its location in one of the world's most hostile environments for U.S. personnel.

Outside the capital, a suicide attack earlier in the day in the small Kurdish town of Khanaqin, near the Iranian border, heightened fears that insurgents might try to infiltrate polling stations with bombs or suicide belts. The bomber killed eight people near a police station after detonating an explosives-laden vest. Six others were injured, according to a source at the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, a leading Kurdish political party.

Despite the increased security presence, insurgents hit five polling centers around Baqubah, an ethnically divided regional capital northeast of Baghdad.

In and around the city of Kirkuk in the north, seven election centers were attacked with small-arms or mortar fire, Lt. Col. Yadgar Mohammed said, operations room director for the Iraqi national guard in Kirkuk.

In southern Basra, U.S. and Iraqi troops sealed off borders, padlocking gates leading to Iran, blocking roads to Kuwait and closing the Umm al Qasr seaport leading to the Persian Gulf.

In Baghdad, hundreds of young men showed up near the cavernous Convention Center for $200-a-day jobs guarding polling stations.

"I've been without a job ever since the war, so I signed up for this job because it seems to be honorable and I'd like to be a part of it," said Abbass Mihseen, 42, a former Iraqi army officer.

At a schoolhouse being used as a polling center in Baghdad's Sadr City neighborhood, election workers cleared metal desks and set up cardboard voting booths.

"Everything is ready for tomorrow," said Dhia Fakhir, 38, manager of the voting center. "Nobody resigned."

By late afternoon, Carlos Valenzuela, a Colombian who is the top U.N. advisor to the electoral commission, declared that matters were proceeding apace.

"So far, things are going ahead of schedule," he said.

But election preparations were not as smooth in other parts of the country, particularly in Iraq's Sunni Arab heartland to the north and west of the capital.

Sunnis dominated Iraq for decades but lost power following the U.S.-led toppling of Hussein, also a Sunni. Many Sunni clerics and politicians have vowed to boycott the vote, seeing it as another step toward their minority community's marginalization.

Mohammed Jobouri, head of the electoral commission in the largely Sunni province of Salahuddin, predicted that only 10% of voters would turn out in Tikrit, Hussein's birthplace. It is possible that no one will vote in the restive city of Samarra, he added.

"It's all because of the bad security, violence and terrorist attacks recently," he said.

Some Shiite clerics have preached that anyone who does not vote today will face the wrath of God, and the country's leading Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, has pushed hard for a strong turnout. Shiite leaders see the election as a means of gaining their long-denied place of power in Iraq, where Shiites are in the majority.

Times staff writers Alissa J. Rubin in Baghdad, Jeffrey Fleishman in Sulaymaniya, Ashraf Khalil in Najaf and Tom Hamburger in Washington and special correspondents in Samarra, Basra, Kirkuk and Baghdad contributed to this report.



-------- washington dc
 
Behind Closed Doors, a Broad Agenda Takes Shape

By Eric M. Weiss
Washington Post
Sunday, January 30, 2005; Page C05

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48220-2005Jan30.html

From all accounts, it was the city's elected leaders doing their best to discuss the most pressing problems facing the District.

All 13 members of the D.C. Council gathered in a windowless room at the Georgetown University Conference Center on Jan. 21 to hash out solutions. By all reports, it was a high-minded, sober discussion about schools, affordable housing and the best way to spend billions of tax dollars.

The council's retreat was held in private, and as in previous years, no members of the public or the media were allowed to observe. City officials maintain that the retreat, like the weekly closed council breakfasts, is an informal meeting that does not violate a city law mandating open meetings. The open-meetings law, which dates to 1973, requires the council, and for that matter any agency, board or commission, to open all meetings to the public in which "official action of any kind is taken."

Over a tasty catered lunch, members reportedly spoke about their hopes and priorities.

"It's a good opportunity to talk about goals for the upcoming session," said Jack Evans (D-Ward 2). "I don't know how lofty it gets, but it gives people a chance to focus. Everyone has their own take on things."

In the morning, chairmen of council committees told their colleagues what issues they plan to emphasize and then took questions and suggestions, according to several participants.

Then, after lunch, members talked about areas they want the council to explore, brainstorming ideas from reviewing special education to demanding the "local appointments of judges" to "eliminate nuisance properties."

As fast as members tossed out the ideas, Secretary to the Council Phyllis Jones wrote them on large pieces of paper with markers. There were 55 priorities.

"It wasn't unhelpful," said Adrian M. Fenty (D-Ward 4). "Most of the stuff, everybody agreed on, like more affordable housing or better community policing. The priority list becomes like a campaign platform where nobody disagrees. The real question is how are they going to get done."

Affordable housing issues were placed at the top of the agenda. Members say they will push for inclusionary zoning, which would require that affordable housing be included in every new or renovated development, because the city needs to increase the number of units while keeping revitalized neighborhoods economically diverse.

Youth issues also appeared frequently on the list of priorities, from a summer jobs program to reducing juvenile crime to improving juvenile justice. The council also pledged to increase oversight of the government's contracting and buying operations and to monitor the implementation of council legislative and budget priorities.

And, nestled in the middle of the priority list of big-ticket government programs and initiatives, the council called for "responsible fiscal management."

But members cautioned that this was just a wish list that will be whittled down. And, in the end, participants said, the retreat was a good way to consider the things that really matter.

"Affordable housing, schools, and policing," Fenty said. "Those are the things that are driving people out of the city."


-------- OTHER


-------- environment

Tribe Fights Dams to Get Diet Back
Karuks Trying to Regain Salmon Fisheries and Their Health

By Blaine Harden
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, January 30, 2005; Page A03

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A47525-2005Jan29?language=printer

HAPPY CAMP, Calif. -- Centuries before federal nutritional guidelines told Americans how to eat healthfully, the Karuk Indians had figured it out.

They ate wild salmon at every meal -- about 1.2 pounds of fish per person per day. Isolated here in the Klamath River valley in the rugged mountains of northwest California, the Karuk stuck with their low-carb, low-cholesterol, salmon-centered diet longer than perhaps any Indians in the Pacific Northwest. It was not until the late 1960s and the 1970s, when dams and irrigation ruined one of the world's great salmon fisheries, that fish mostly disappeared from their diet.

Salmon are now too scarce to catch and too pricey to buy. The tribe caught about 100 chinook salmon last fall, a record low. Eating mostly processed food, some of it federal food aid, many Karuks are obese, with unusually high rates of heart disease and diabetes.

"You name them, I got them all," said Harold Tripp, 54, a traditional fisherman for the tribe. "I got heart problems. I got the diabetes. I got high cholesterol. I need to lose weight."

On his first day as a fisherman for the tribe in 1966, Tripp remembers catching 86 salmon. Last fall, he caught one. "I mostly eat hamburger now," he said.

To reclaim their salmon -- and their health -- the Karuks are using the tribe's epidemic of obesity-related illness as a lever in a dam re-licensing pending before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. In what legal experts say is an unprecedented use of the regulatory process, the tribe is trying to shame a major utility company and the federal government into agreeing that at least three dams on the Klamath River should be knocked down.

The dams are quite literally killing Indians, according to a tribe-commissioned report that was written by Kari Marie Norgaard, a sociologist from the University of California at Davis. The report links the disappearance of salmon to increases in poverty, unemployment, suicide and social dissolution.

"We can't exist without our fish," said Leaf Hillman, vice chairman of the Karuk, whose 3,300 members make up the second-largest Indian tribe in California. "We can only hope that this will be one of those rare instances where a true look at the cost and benefits of those dams will be a compelling argument."

The tribe's demand for nutritional justice presents a prickly new problem to federal regulators at a time of major upheaval in the hydropower industry.

Federal licenses for private dams, valid for 30 to 50 years, are expiring in droves, especially in the Northwest, where hydropower accounts for about 80 percent of the electricity supply. In the next decade or so, licenses are due to expire at more than half of the country's non-federal dams -- 296 projects that provide electricity to 30 million homes in 37 states.

The Karuks "have raised something that is novel, and FERC commissioners will have to grapple with it," said Mary Morton, a legal adviser to Nora Mead Brownell, one of President Bush's four appointees to the commission that rules on license renewals for private dams.

Politically, it is hardly a propitious moment for Native Americans to demand that dams come tumbling down. Power rates have soared in California and across the Northwest in recent years. Bush has repeatedly spoken out against the breaching of federal dams on the nearby Snake River, saying it would be bad for the economy. His appointees as FERC commissioners are considered unlikely to force any utility to remove a dam, and his administration recently granted dam owners a special right -- denied Indian tribes, environmental groups and local governments -- to appeal Interior Department rulings about how dams should be operated.

Still, the aging dams on the Klamath River are, at best, marginal producers of power. They were built without fish ladders (unlike most major dams in the Northwest), and there is widespread scientific agreement that their removal would revive several salmon runs.

California, which could block a renewed federal license for the dams under provisions of the Clean Water Act, seems decidedly unenthusiastic about keeping the dams in the river. The state Energy Commission has said removing them "would not have significant impact" on the regional supply of electricity and that replacement power is readily available.

The State Water Resources Control Board, which regulates water quality and could veto a renewed license, blames warm, sluggish reservoirs behind the dams for "horrible" algae blooms in the river, said Russ Kanz, a staff scientist for the board.

In addition, the National Academy of Science and local officials in Humboldt County agree that dam removal is an option that should be examined to bring salmon back to the Klamath.

But PacifiCorp, the company that owns the dams, did not list dam removal as an option in its application last year for a new long-term license.

In the Clinton era, when tribes and environmental groups used the relicensing process to force utilities to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to retool or remove dams, PacifiCorp agreed to remove a hydro dam from the White Salmon River in Washington state -- at a cost of $20 million. The company, which is owned by Scottish Power, has 1.6 million electricity customers in six western states.

As part of its relicensing application for dams on the Klamath, PacifiCorp is trying to negotiate a separate settlement with the Karuks and other stakeholders along the river. Dam removal is now "on the table" in those talks, said Jon Coney, a company spokesman, adding that the tribe's health argument is part of the negotiations.

Coney, though, said that the tribe's health claims are difficult to substantiate in a scientific or legal way.

"How do you separate the health problems out from all the other societal things that have happened to the tribe?" Coney asked.

To make their case, the Karuk Tribe offers tribal health statistics and stories of its people who have grown ill in the years without salmon.

Diabetes and heart disease were rare among tribal members before World War II. Part of the reason was the super-abundance in their salmon-rich diet of omega-3 fatty acids, which research has linked with reduced risk of heart disease, stroke and diabetes.

"We do know that the nutritional values of subsistence fish are superior to processed foods and convenience foods," said William Lambert, an environmental epidemiologist at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland.

With subsistence fish all but gone from the Karuk diet, the percentage of tribal members with diabetes has jumped from near zero to about 12 percent, nearly twice the national average, according to the tribe. The estimated rate of heart disease among tribal members is 40 percent, about triple the national average.

A number of studies of Native Americans across the United States have shown that the loss of traditional foods is directly responsible for increasing rates of obesity-related illnesses.

Steve Burns, a physician for three years in the tribal clinic in Happy Camp, said that diabetes and other obesity-related illness are "a huge and growing problem."

"What is happening to the Karuk people is like something you would read about in a book on the destruction of a minority group in the old Soviet Union," he said.

The change in the tribe's diet in the past generation has been so great that many Karuk concede that it will be difficult -- even if the dams are knocked down and salmon runs are revived -- for them to return to their traditional healthful diet.

"Of course, we won't be able to eat salmon all the time like we did," said Ron Reed, a traditional fisherman and tribal representative to FERC hearings on the dams. But he said everyone in the tribe would eat vastly more than they do now and that children would once again be able to grow up with the staple food that has traditionally kept the bodies and spirits of the Karuk healthy.

Last year, because of the record-low catch, tribal elders did not have enough salmon for religious ceremonies. So they bought some.


-------- ACTIVISTS

Environmental movement has lost its way 
  	
Scare tactics, disinformation go too far

Sunday, January 30, 2005
By Patrick Moore

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/opinion/10761673.htm

http://www.checkbiotech.org/root/index.cfm?fuseaction=news&doc_id=9574&start=1&control=207&page_start=1&page_nr=101&pg=1

I am often asked why I broke ranks with Greenpeace after 15 years as a founder and full-time environmental activist. I had my personal reasons, but it was on issues of policy that I found it necessary to move on.

By the mid-1980s, the environmental movement had abandoned science and logic in favor of emotion and sensationalism. I became aware of the emerging concept of sustainable development: balancing environmental, social and economic priorities. Converted to the idea that win-win solutions could be found by bringing all interests together, I made the move from confrontation to consensus.

Since then, I have worked under the banner of Greenspirit to develop an environmental policy platform based on science, logic and the recognition that more than six billion people need to survive and prosper every day of the year. The environmental movement has lost its way, favoring political correctness over factual accuracy, stooping to scare tactics to garner support.

We're faced with environmental policies that ignore science and result in increased risk to human health and ecology. To borrow from the vernacular, how sick is that?

Genetic enhancement: Activists persist in their zero-tolerance campaign against genetically enhanced food crops. There is no evidence of harm to human health or the environment, and benefits are measurable and significant. Genetically enhanced (GE) food crops reduce chemical pesticides, boost yield and reduce soil erosion. Enriched with Vitamin A, Golden Rice could prevent blindness in 500,000 children per year in Asia and Africa if activists would stop blocking its introduction. Other food crops contain iron, Vitamin E, enhanced protein and better oils. The anti-GE campaign seeks to deny these environmental and nutritional advances by using ''Frankenfood'' scare tactics and misinformation campaigns.

Salmon farming: The campaign against salmon farming, based on erroneous and exaggerated claims of environmental damage and chemical contamination, scares us into avoiding one of the most nutritious, heart-friendly foods available. The World Health Organization, the American Heart Association and the Food and Drug Administration say that eating salmon reduces the risk of heart disease and fatal heart attack. Salmon farming takes pressure off wild stocks, yet activists tell us to eat only wild fish. Is this how we save them, by eating more?

Vinyl: Greenpeace wants to ban the use of chlorine in all industrial processes. The addition of chlorine to drinking water has been the greatest public-health advance in history, and 75 percent of our medicines are based on chlorine chemistry. Greenpeace calls for a ban on polyvinyl chloride (PVC or vinyl), claiming it is the ''poison plastic.'' There is not a shred of evidence that vinyl damages human health or the environment. Apart from lowering construction costs and delivering safe drinking water, vinyl's ease of maintenance and its ability to incorporate anti-microbial properties is critical to fighting germs in hospitals. Banning vinyl would raise the cost of an already struggling healthcare system, denying healthcare to those who can least afford it.

Hydroelectricity: International activists boast to have blocked more than 200 hydroelectric dams in the developing world and are campaigning to tear down existing dams. Hydro is the largest source of renewable electricity, providing about 12 percent of the global supply. Do activists prefer coal plants? Would they rather ignore the needs of billions of people?

Wind power: Wind power is commercially feasible, yet activists argue that the turbines kill birds and ruin landscapes. A million times more birds are killed by cats, windows and cars than by all the windmills in the world. As for aesthetics, wind turbines are works of art compared to some of our urban environments.

Nuclear power: A significant reduction in greenhouse gas emissions seems unlikely given our continued heavy reliance on fossil fuel consumption. Even UK environmentalist James Lovelock, who posited the Gaia theory that the Earth operates as a giant, self-regulating super-organism, now sees nuclear energy as key to our planet's future health. ''Civilization is in imminent danger,'' he warns, ``and has to use nuclear -- the one safe, available energy source -- or suffer the pain soon to be inflicted by our outraged planet.''

Yet environmental activists, notably Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, continue lobbying against clean nuclear energy and for the Band-Aid Kyoto Treaty. Renewable energies, such as wind, geothermal and hydro are part of the solution. Nuclear energy is the only nongreenhouse gas-emitting power source that can effectively replace fossil fuels and satisfy global demand.

Forestry: Activists tell us to stop cutting trees and to reduce our use of wood. Deforestation is caused by clearing forests for farms and cities. Forestry operations are geared toward reforestation and the maintenance of forest cover. Forests are stable and growing where people use the most wood and are diminishing where they use less. Using wood sends a signal to the marketplace to plant more trees and produce more wood. North Americans use more wood per capita than any other continent, yet there is about the same forest area in North America as there was 100 years ago.

Trees are the most abundant, renewable and biodegradable resource in the world. If we want to retain healthy forests, we should be growing more trees and using more wood, not less. This logic seems lost on activists who use chilling rhetoric and apocalyptic images to drive us in the wrong direction.

Prognosis: Environmentalism has become anti-globalization and anti-industry. Activists have abandoned science in favor of sensationalism. Their zero-tolerance, fear-mongering campaigns would ultimately prevent a cure for Vitamin A deficiency blindness, increase pesticide use, increase heart disease, deplete wild salmon stocks, raise the cost and reduce the safety of healthcare, raise construction costs, deprive developing nations of clean electricity, stop renewable wind energy, block a solution to global warming and contribute to deforestation. How sick is that? Patrick Moore is chairman and chief scientist of Greenspirit Strategies Ltd. in Vancouver, Canada.

http://www.greenspirit.org Copyright 2005 Knight Ridder