NucNews - February 15, 2005 -------- NUCLEAR -------- depleted uranium The Doctor, the Depleted Uranium and the Dying Children By Judy Adamson February 15, 2005 Sydney Morning Herald http://www.smh.com.au/news/Review/The-Doctor-the-Depleted-Uranium-and-the-Dying-Children/2005/02/14/1108229917886.html?oneclick=true The Cutting Edge: The Doctor, the Depleted Uranium and the Dying Children, SBS, 8.30pm This documentary follows the efforts of a German professor and Canadian medical researcher to prove that depleted uranium shells and bullets, used in two Gulf wars, have contributed to a range of appalling health problems in Iraqi locals as well as veterans. The pregnancy stories of veterans is heartbreaking, but worse still are the pictures of countless deformed and cancer-stricken Iraqi children. These experiences have also been mirrored in Kosovo. Remarkably, while the US and British governments persist in saying there is no proof that depleted uranium is to blame for what is known as "Gulf War Syndrome", doctors in Iraq say that malignant cancers have increased eightfold since the first Gulf War in 1991. Geiger counters used by the researchers still go into the red when brought close to abandoned tanks - tanks that children now play in. Men who fought in areas that were heavily bombarded have 400 times more depleted uranium in their urine than control subjects. And the 79-year-old German professor was arrested and fined for bringing just one "safe" bullet home for radioactivity testing. It's not pretty viewing, but it's very informative. ---- EPA places Vieques on track for cleanup By Ray Quintanilla Sentinel Staff Writer Posted February 15 2005 http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/caribbean/orl-asecvieques15021505feb15,0,4606066.story?coll=sfla-news-caribbean SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO -- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has placed the island of Vieques -- once a warfare-training ground for the U.S. Navy -- on its National Priorities List of toxic sites slated for cleanup. A section of the island, which lies seven miles east of the island of Puerto Rico, has been contaminated by more than 50 years of bombings and other training operations carried out by the U.S. military, said Kathleen C. Callahan, the EPA's acting regional administrator. The EPA lists a variety of dangerous chemicals as possible contaminants on Vieques and in waters surrounding the former training ground. Included are napalm, TNT, depleted uranium, PCBs, solvents, mercury and other dangerous compounds. Some of the same chemicals were discovered on the island of Culebra, which is about 10 miles north of Vieques. The EPA continues to assess whether Culebra might be slated for a cleanup. "The listing is a critical step in the cleanup of this magnificent island, so important to Vieques residents and its visitors alike," Callahan said in a prepared statement. The announcement culminates years of work by former Gov. Sila Calderón, who championed the cleanup of the two islands. Before leaving office in January, she described her work on the issue as "critical and effective" and suggested the sites be put on the government's Superfund priority list of toxic sites in need of a cleanup. The U.S. military has used the two islands for exercises for some 100 years. In Vieques, the east portion was home to training exercises dating back to the 1940s. A swarm of public protests, including acts of civil disobedience by activists -- including celebrities and some members of the U.S. House of Representatives -- in the late 1990s, resulted in the Navy halting its operations in the region on May 1, 2003. Ray Quintanilla can be reached at 787-729-9071 or rquintanilla@orlandosentinel.com. -------- india / pakistan US nuclear report angers Pakistan By Zaffar Abbas BBC News, Islamabad Tuesday, 15 February, 2005 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4267885.stm Pakistan says it is a responsible nuclear state Pakistan has dismissed a report by a US intelligence agency which predicts that the country will be riven by political instability in the next decade. The foreign ministry said the National Intelligence Council's conclusions were "speculative and irresponsible". The council says there is a possibility of Pakistan's nuclear assets being stolen by Islamic extremists. Its worldwide report is posted on the Central Intelligence Agency's website, with a detailed chapter on Pakistan. One assessment in the council's report - updated every five years - is that by the year 2015 there could be political instability in Pakistan, with the possibility of civil war. It says there could also be inter-provincial rivalry, a sharp rise in Islamic extremism and a struggle for possession of nuclear weapons. 'Baseless' The council says that attempts could be made to steal nuclear weapons, which could even land in the hands of Islamic extremists. Describing these assessments as "highly speculative", a spokesman for Pakistan's foreign office, Masood Khan, said a responsible institution like the Central Intelligence Agency should not have put them on its website. Under plausible scenarios Pakistan might use nuclear weapons to counter success by the larger Indian conventional forces Central Intelligence Agency Global Trends report Mr Khan said Pakistan was a responsible nuclear weapons state, and has a complete mechanism in place to guard its nuclear assets. He also described as "irresponsible" the assessment about the country's political future. It was baseless and out of place, he said. Mr Khan criticised a section of Indian media for its reporting of the assessment, and said nowhere in the American intelligence report had Pakistan been described as a "failed state". -------- iran Iran Says Needs Practical Results in EU Nuke Talks Tue Feb 15, 3:40 PM ET By Douglas Bakshian (Reuters) http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/nm/20050215/wl_nm/iran_eu_nuclear_dc LUXEMBOURG - Iran told the European Union on Tuesday their negotiations must show clear progress and practical results by mid-March if it was to prolong negotiations on EU demands that it stop enriching uranium. "We have not lost all hope. We are doing our best," Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi told a news conference after talks with Luxembourg, the current EU president. Enriched uranium can be used for electricity generation -- which Iran says is its sole purpose -- or to make nuclear bombs, which Washington accuses Tehran of trying to do secretly. Kharrazi said he was looking for movement in three separate sets of talks on nuclear, political and economic issues. "Both sides have to be more serious to arrive at conclusions that would be taken as concrete and tangible results by mid-March." France, Germany and Britain, representing the EU, have offered Tehran trade and economic benefits if it agrees to abandon its uranium enrichment program, and Iran agreed last November to suspend the program temporarily. But it says it will review the progress of its talks with the three EU powers in mid-March, and may resume enrichment if it is not satisfied with the results achieved by then. Kharrazi said the EU and Tehran had to negotiate in a way that would lead to practical measures, "otherwise they may sit down and they may talk in generalities without any tangible movement." "Both sides have to ... refrain from statements that might be provocative," he added. Iran, one of the world's leading oil producers, says it needs nuclear power to meet growing electricity demand at home and wants to become an electricity exporter. Luxembourg's Deputy Foreign Minister Nicolas Schmit, representing the EU at the talks, said there was still time to reach a solution. "We have to be optimistic," he said. "The deadline is March or the end of March, so we still have some weeks at our disposal." Schmit was standing in for Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn, who was slightly hurt in a car accident on Sunday and is not yet back at work. Kharrazi visited Asselborn before meeting Schmit. "The three countries representing the European Union and Iran can achieve such an agreement," Schmit added. "The momentum for such an agreement is very strong. So I am still optimistic that we will achieve that." -------- korea N. Korea nukes estimated as high as 15 BY KNUT ROYCE WASHINGTON BUREAU February 15, 2005, 7:13 PM EST http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/ny-usnuke0216,0,1476738,print.story?coll=ny-top-headlines WASHINGTON -- Defense Intelligence Agency analysts believe North Korea may already have produced as many as 15 nuclear weapons, according to a DIA official. "A dozen to 15, tops," said the official, who asked to not be further identified. Another intelligence official who works for a separate agency said the DIA's estimate is at the high end of a recent intelligence community-wide assessment of North Korea's nuclear arsenal. The CIA, he said, lowballed the estimate at two to three bombs while the Department of Energy's analysis put it somewhere in between. Before the recent assessment, the upper number from the intelligence community had been eight to nine. If the DIA's estimates are accurate, they reflect a belief that North Korea has steadily increased the production of bombs during the first four years of the Bush administration. The large discrepancies between the estimates also reflect uncertainties about the size of the bombs and whether North Korea has begun producing some from highly enriched uranium, a process the country is believed to have acquired in 2002. The CIA has been more skeptical that North Korea has had the resources or ability to build a large number of bombs. In 2001, for instance, then-Deputy Director John McLaughlin said the country probably had one bomb. In 2003, the agency wrote the Senate that North Korea had produced "one or two simple fission-type nuclear weapons." One analyst who believes the DIA is closer to the mark than the CIA is John Pike, a defense expert for globalsecurity.org. "Two to three imputes considerable stupidity to the North Koreans," he said. There is broad agreement that North Korea had enough plutonium to build two bombs when leader Kim Il Sung agreed in 1994 to freeze the country's nuclear program in exchange for Western aid. In 2002, when the U.S. confronted North Korea with evidence that it was embarking on a uranium enriching program, the country booted out United Nations nuclear inspectors and intensified its bomb-making capacity by processing 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods to produce bomb-grade plutonium. There is general agreement that the plutonium processing could have resulted in six additional bombs. But there is no agreement on whether the six bombs were actually built. Pike says he believes they were, and that North Korea may have seven plutonium bombs. He speculates that another plutonium bomb may have been tested in Pakistan in 1998. But he says there is much less certainty over whether North Korea has built uranium bombs. "Some would say North Korea is just a bunch of peons and they have zero uranium bombs," he said. "Others believe they may have in the order of 10,000 centrifuges and have been operating them for a year or two, in which case they might have a couple dozen uranium bombs." Matthew Bunn, a nuclear weapons expert at Harvard University and a former science adviser in the Clinton White House, said that there is no evidence that North Korea is producing highly enriched uranium yet. "This is not to say we know for sure," he added. "Even if you have all the designs, manufacturing manuals and all that, the making of centrifuges and making them run properly" is extremely complicated, he said. "A lot of people have screwed it up many times. And they don't have help from the Pakistanis any more, so its doubtful they will get going any time soon." The question of North Korea's nuclear arsenal assumed fresh currency last week when the insular state announced that it had become a nuclear power and declared it would drop out of multilateral talks geared at halting its nuclear program. If its estimated weapons production continues at the current rate, North Korea may soon catch up with India and Pakistan, which are believed by the nonprofit Center for Defense Information to have between 24 and 60 bombs. ---- North Korea Develops New Longer Range Missiles: Report Seoul (AFP) Feb 15, 2005 http://www.spacewar.com/news/missiles-05j.html North Korea has developed new Scud missiles with a longer range and a higher degree of precision largely for targetting South Korea, a news report said Tuesday. The "Scud-ER" missile has a range of 600 kilometers (360 miles) to 1,000, double the ranges of North Korea's existing Scuds, the Chosun Ilbo, Seoul's largest-circulation daily said quoting government sources. "US reconnaissance satellites spotted the new types of North Korean Scud missiles a couple of years ago. Work is under way to see if they have been deployed for operations," an unnamed government source told Chosun. The South Korean defense ministry declined to confirm the report. North Korea has short-range Scud-Bs with a range of 300 kilometers as well as Scud-Cs with a range of 500 kilometers, targetting South Korea. It has also deployed intermediate-range Rodong missiles with a 1,300 kilometer range which can hit targets in most areas of Japan. Pyongyang stunned the world in 1998 by test-launching over Japan a Taepodong-1 missile with a range of up to 2,000 kilometers. The missile is still in the testing stage, according to experts. The Taepodong-2, a long-range missile with a range of 6,700 kilometers (4,150 miles), is also reportedly under development. -------- missile defense US Missile Defense Test Ends In Fiasco, Second In A Row Washington (AFP) Feb 15, 2005 http://www.spacewar.com/news/bmdo-05g.html For the second time in less than two months, a test of the Pentagon's missile defense system ended in fiasco Monday when an interceptor missile failed to lift off, defense officials said. The Missile Defense Agency said the failure became apparent when an interceptor that was supposed to shoot down an incoming target missile carrying a mock warhead did not take off from the Ronald Reagan Test Site located on the Marshall Islands in the central Pacific. "The reason for not launching is under investigation, and program officials are reviewing data to determine the cause," the agency said in a statement. The setback was most likely caused by a malfunction of the ground support equipment rather than defects of the missile itself, the officials pointed out. However, the failed test was the second for the beleaguered national missile defense system since mid-December. The December 15 test was aborted after a built-in internal check detected an anomaly in the interceptor missile, shutting it down moments before launch from an atoll in the Pacific. Lieutenant General Henry Obering, who heads the Missile Defense Agency said an assessment had determined that the anomaly was a rare gap in the flow of electronic messages between the flight computer and the interceptor's thrust vector controller, which guides the missile. ---- 'Star Wars' missile defense system fails again Analysts say timing couldn't be worse, as N. Korea says it has nuclear weapons. February 15, 2005, updated 12:00 p.m. By Tom Regan | csmonitor.com http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0215/dailyUpdate.html For the second time in two months, and the third straight time in two years, a test of the national missile defense system has failed, reports the Los Angeles Times. Although mock ballistic missile launched Sunday from Alaska without problems, the interceptor designed to shoot it down failed to launch from the Ronald Reagan Test Site at Kwajalein Atoll in the central Pacific Ocean. The New York Times reports that officials at the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) at the Department of Defense took some "consolation" from the fact that they beleive it was not the missile itself that failed, but a "malfunction in ground support systems." The L.A. Times reports that analysts say each setback "diminishes credibility" in the program (known as Son of Star Wars," a scaled-down version of the original program proposed in the 80s by Ronald Reagan) at a time when North Korea has just announced that it possesses nuclear weapons. "It's certainly embarrassing at a time when the administration has basically decided that its North Korea policy is missile defense," said John Pike, director of Globalsecurity.org, a nonprofit defense analysis group. "You don't get second chances in nuclear combat." Bloomberg News reports that the last two tests were "to replicate to a greater degree than previous exercises since 1999 the flight path of an incoming North Korean ballistic missile." The missile defense system has been championed by President Bush since his election in 2000. In May of 2003 the White House published the National Policy on Ballistic Missile Defense Fact Sheet, which lists the reasons that the US believes that the development of such a program is important. The current system has had ten tests since 1999, with five of the test scoring hits. But only the last two tests have included the interceptor designed to be used when the system is actually launched. In fact, Pentagon officials have said that now that they are using the actual interceptor, the tests are much more "technologically challenging," and thus more open to the possibility of failure. The Washington Post reports that this latest failure (each test costs $85 million) could "fuel debate" in Congress over the system, which has cost billions of dollars without any real signs of success. The missile defense system was supposed to be ready for operation by September of 2004, but it could be months before the next test is even held. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has so far refrained from putting the system on alert – a move that had been expected last fall when the first six interceptors were installed at a launch facility near Fairbanks, Alaska. The system, intended to protect the United States against a long-range missile attack, envisions the creation of a multilayered network of land- and sea-based interceptors and space-based weapons. Reuters reports that President Bush's 2006 budget proposal would cut funds for ballistic missile defense by $1 billion to about $8.8 billion. To date the program has been the single largest US defense research and development project. New Scientist reports that the program's critics were quick to pounce on the system's latest failure. "It's clear that the program is being pushed ahead for political reasons regardless of its capability," says David Wright, co-director of the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) in Cambridge, Massachusetts. "This interceptor has never been tested in an intercept test. Yet the Pentagon has already put eight of them in silos and is building at least another dozen before even knowing if they work." The New York Times reports that Mr. Bush's decision to make the system operational even though the testing phase is not completed, has drawn heavy criticism as well. Mr. Wright compared it to Henry Ford starting up an automobile production line, and selling cars without "ever taking one for a test drive." Business Week points to another problem facing the Star Wars program – altered priorities for Mr. Rumsfeld. "The Rumsfeld vision of future warfare has had a severe collision with reality," says Loren Thompson, chief operating officer of the Lexington Institute, a conservative think tank in Arlington, Va. The problems facing missile defense, he says, are "the relatively weak case for the overall mission and the need to spend money in other ways." Business Week also points out that the current system is designed to destroy the "more rudimentary missiles that Iran and North Korea are developing." But Russia has already developed a new missile, the SS-27 that makes the Star Wars system obsolete. But what if Pyongyang or Tehran buys an SS-27? "I don't know about that," he [MDA spokesman Rick Lehner] told BusinessWeek Online. -------- u.s. nuc facilities -------- california Livermore security breaches overlooked By Betsy Mason CONTRA COSTA TIMES Posted on Tue, Feb. 15, 2005 http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/news/world/10903610.htm?1c Lawrence Livermore Laboratory has quietly weathered the media firestorm ignited by the reported loss of classified computer disks at Los Alamos Laboratory in July, but Department of Energy records show Livermore has had more serious security incidents over the past three years than its embattled New Mexico cousin. In response to the missing disks and resulting scrutiny from the press and the federal government, Los Alamos Lab director Peter Nanos shut down all activity there July 16. A week later, the DOE halted all work involving removable classified media, such as computer disks and drives, at all of its facilities, including Lawrence Livermore. Work resumed at Livermore a few weeks after an inventory accounted for all classified removable media at the lab. But work at many high-security facilities at Los Alamos remained stalled for more than six months. Recently completed investigations by the FBI and the DOE concluded the missing disks never existed. Many more security incidents have occurred at the DOE's four nuclear weapons labs, including Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico and California, that haven't gotten the same attention as the lost disks. Records recently released by the National Nuclear Security Administration within the DOE show that of 87 security incidents at Livermore Lab from 2002 to 2004, 35 were Category 1, defined by the DOE as incidents that "pose the most serious threats to national security interests and/or DOE assets and could potentially create serious security situations." Category 1 incidents are considered the most serious security incidents because they could result in top secret nuclear weapon information falling into the wrong hands. The incidents may include classified information provided to an unauthorized person or put on an unclassified computer system, and unsecured or unattended security containers. At Livermore, four incidents resulted in confirmed disclosure of classified information to an unauthorized person. "In all those cases, the determination was made that the impact was minimal," said NNSA spokesman Bryan Wilkes. While the specific nature of these disclosures is classified, an example could be one level of classified information being disclosed to a person with a lower security clearance level, Wilkes said. Meanwhile, Los Alamos Lab, commonly viewed as the worst offender when it comes to security lapses, had more total incidents with 102, but only 22 were considered Category 1 incidents, 13 fewer than Livermore Lab. Like Livermore, Los Alamos had four confirmed disclosures of classified information to unauthorized people. Another 39 incidents at Los Alamos and nine at Livermore are still being investigated and haven't been confirmed or rated yet. Sandia in New Mexico had the most total incidents with 160, but only 14 were Category 1. At Sandia in Livermore, three of 42 total incidents were Category 1. The two labs combined had two confirmed disclosures of information to an unauthorized person. It is difficult to compare the numbers between labs because each site uses its own judgment when reporting and categorizing security incidents, Wilkes said. "We're working on that," he said. NNSA takes each incident seriously, Wilkes said, but it is important to keep the numbers in perspective. "When one considers the numbers of transactions we have, they number in the hundreds of thousands or millions," Wilkes said. "So these (security incident) numbers are fairly low. We are confident in the safety and security at all our sites." Both Livermore and Los Alamos referred all questions about the security incidents to NNSA. Even before the incident numbers were made public, employees at Los Alamos had begun to speak out about the shutdown and resulting tensions at the lab. Some employees have said they think Nanos overreacted and the complete shutdown, firings, demotions and reprimands were overkill. On an Internet blog called "LANL: The Real Story," a few employees have been venting about Nanos, who in the days and months following the report of missing disks called workers "cowboys" who feel they are above the rules. Some lab employees have even called for his resignation. Others have called the climate at the lab "poisonous." The security incident numbers are adding to some employees' opinions that Los Alamos was unfairly punished for a problem that exists at all the weapons labs. -------- MILITARY -------- business 8 more Air Force pacts probed February 15, 2005 ASSOCIATED PRESS http://www.washtimes.com/national/20050214-114046-3194r.htm The Pentagon is investigating eight additional Air Force contracts to determine whether they were manipulated or influenced illegally by a former Air Force official who was convicted last year of giving Boeing Co. special treatment on a tanker-lease deal. The eight contracts range in value from $42 million to $1.5 billion and their total value is about $3 billion, according to a summary provided by the Pentagon yesterday. Michael Wynne, the acting chief of Pentagon acquisition programs, said the eight contracts were identified as suspicious from among 407 reviewed by a team of military and civilian contracting specialists. They referred the eight to the Pentagon's inspector general. The eight are in addition to seven that are being investigated. At least four of the eight contracts involve Boeing. Mr. Wynne stressed that it is not clear whether any of the eight have been tainted. They were picked for investigation because they "seemed to be out of the normal process." The review and investigations are an outgrowth of revelations about Darleen Druyun's handling of the multibillion-dollar deal with Boeing that would have allowed the Air Force to lease a fleet of new aerial-refueling aircraft. Congress eventually killed the deal because of Druyun's involvement. Druyun was an Air Force acquisition executive who later was hired by Boeing as a top executive. She pleaded guilty last year and is serving nine months in federal prison. Boeing's former chief financial officer, Michael Sears, also has pleaded guilty for his role in hiring Druyun. He is scheduled to be sentenced Friday. Boeing spokesman Dan Beck said the firm would continue to cooperate with the government to resolve any outstanding questions. "We'll continue to cooperate as these go to the [inspector general], and we'll be responsive to every request for information from [the Defense Department]. If any problems are found, we've got both the will and the processes to fix them," Mr. Beck said. The biggest contract was a $1.5 billion award to a Boeing-Pemco team in 2000 and 2001 for depot maintenance for the Air Force's KC-135 aerial-refueling aircraft. Mr. Wynne said the reviews and investigations have not identified any other Air Force acquisition executive who acted improperly or illegally in the contracting process. Meanwhile, two federal criminal investigations into Boeing in Los Angeles and Virginia were expected to end soon without more indictments, government and industry sources told the Los Angeles Times. The company has maintained that any ethical violations were confined to Sears and Druyun. -------- iraq Shocking and Awful: A Grassroots Response to War and Occupation Tuesday, February 15th, 2005 Democracy Now! http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/02/15/1518257 As President Bush requests $80 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, we play an excerpt from a new 13-part series produced by Deep Dish TV featuring interviews with Noam Chomsky, Tariq Ali and Larry Everest. It is narrated by David Barsamian. [includes rush transcript] A new documentary about the war and occupation of Iraq has been released. Deep Dish TV has collected and produced thirteen programs, which are being distributed to communities all over the United States on Free Speech TV and on community access channels. The documentary series is titled, "Shocking and Awful: A Grassroots Response to War and Occupation." It is produced entirely by independent video activists. We are joined by the coordinator of Shocking and Awful, Brian Drolet. He is a long time Community TV activist with Deep Dish Television. * Brian Drolet, long time Community TV activist with Deep Dish Television. He is the co-coordinator of the documentary series "Shocking and Awful: A Grassroots Response to War and Occupation." * Excerpt from "Shocking and Awful: A Grassroots Response to War and Occupation" featuring interviews with Noam Chomsky, Tariq Ali and Larry Everest. It is narrated by David Barsamian. RUSH TRANSCRIPT AMY GOODMAN: We're joined by the project coordinator of Shocking and Awful, Brian Drolet, a long-time community activist with Deep Dish TV. Tell us what Deep Dish TV is, and welcome, Brian. BRIAN DROLET: Deep Dish is really the first grassroots satellite network it began about 15 years ago, providing programming to public access channels around the country. And in that time, in the last 15 years, it's produced, I don't know upwards of 30 series, the latest one being Shocking & Awful, that's now played on over 100 public access stations around the country. AMY GOODMAN: How did you get this footage from all over the world from video activists? BRIAN DROLET: We put out a call for the footage, and the co-coordinating producer on the series, Dee Dee Hallek has been a public access -- AMY GOODMAN: Diva? BRIAN DROLET: Force. Diva maybe … for many years. She has been extremely important in helping to build public access in this country for many years. So we put out a call to video activists through the public access network, through the independent media network and we got a tremendous response. Through the process, we developed 13 themes, and built half-hour shows around each theme. AMY GOODMAN: Tell us about the themes? BRIAN DROLET: Well, if you look at it this way, that the United States tried to shock and awe the Iraqi people into submission and acceptance of the occupation. And most of the people in the world saw this as shocking and awful. And they responded. And this series is really a response to that global movement in opposition to the U.S. Occupation and takeover of Iraq. So, we look at all of the different aspects of this occupation. What does it look like on the ground from the point of view of Iraqis to have American soldiers breaking into your homes and arresting your fathers and your brothers and taking them away without any explanation. What does it mean for a culture when their heritage is destroyed as happened in Iraq? What does it mean for the women of Iraq to have more of their -- to have many of their rights that they enjoyed previously taken away again and be under the threat of perhaps a fundamentalist law? What does it mean when millions of people literally on February 5 -- on February 15, rose up and took the streets of the world to oppose the war, and yet didn't quite have the strength to stop it. So, we tried to look at the entire scope of this war, including the takeover of the Iraqi economy. So, I think that it's probably a very unique series that touches on many aspects you won't see on corporate television. AMY GOODMAN: Introduce this clip, Brian Drolet, that we are going to see. BRIAN DROLET: The clip that we're going to see know is a brief history of Iraq that was recorded by David Barsamian of Alternative Radio. It's a history that should be obvious and well-known to every American, but in fact, it's not. It actually has many important parallels to what's happening today. AMY GOODMAN: Let's roll. DAVID BARSAMIAN: Baghdad, April, 2003. A city which had seen numerous conquering armies now fell to the armed might of the United States. In the days after the U.S. invasion, the pillage of priceless ancient treasures from Baghdad's museums symbolized the destruction and humiliation America brought this land, the cradle of civilization. Iraq, the ancient land of Mesopotamia, the Greek word for the land between the rivers. Over 5,000 years ago, the Sumerians created humanity's first stable, city-based agriculture society, invented the plow and writing. This is where law and accounting were invented and where the Old Testament placed the Garden of Eden. Down through the millennia, the flow of human migration, war and conquest brought a succession of civilizations. In the 13th century, Baghdad was destroyed by the invading Mongols and the region remained economically weakened until it fell under the domination of the Turkish Ottoman Empire in the 16th century. Under Turkish rule which lasted until World War I, Iraq consisted of three administrative provinces, Mosul, Baghdad, and Basra. By the end of the 19th century, the Ottoman Empire was in decline and the Middle East had had become a scene of growing rivalry among the world's colonial powers. A resource that transcended all others, oil, provided the fuel for the expansion of European and then U.S. imperialism in the region. And oil made the Middle East what the U.S. State Department later called “the greatest strategic prize in history.” The Anglo-Persian Oil Company, now, British Petroleum began producing oil in neighboring Iran in 1908. Winston Churchill converted the Empire's ships to oil in 1912. Airplanes and tanks made their first combat appearance in World War I, underscoring petroleum's new strategic value. During the war, the British, most famously through their operative, T.E. Lawrence, Lawrence of Arabia, promised independence to the people of the region provided that they allied with Britain against the Ottoman Empire. At the same time they were promising independence, the British and the French were negotiating the 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement, to carve up the Middle East between them. The British got Iraq, Palestine and Jordan, and the French took greater Syria, including Lebanon. Like his American counterparts today, British General Stanley Maude declared after taking Baghdad, “Our armies do not come into your cities and lands as conquerors or enemies, but as liberators.” The new rulers of Mesopotamia and their imperial cartographers further inflamed the region by detaching oil-rich Kuwait from the province of Basra and formally making it a British colony. The British-French betrayal triggered a revolt for the independence of Syria, Palestine and Iraq. The people fought so fiercely that British leaders used chemical weapons against them. Winston Churchill said, “I do not understand the squeamishness about the use of gas. I'm strongly in favor of using poison gas against uncivilized tribes.” Confronted with massive resistance, Britain's Lord Curzon proposed creating an Arab façade behind which the British would rule. Modern day Iraq was created at a closed-door meeting of British officials at the Semiramis Hotel in Cairo, Egypt. Two pro-British Iraqis were present to witness the scene. The British anointed one of the sons of Sharif Hussein, the Hashemite ruler of Mecca which is now in Saudi Arabia, as king of Iraq. His brother was made king of Jordan. There was no Iraqi national anthem, so during the coronation the British military band played "God Save the King." Their puppet King Faisal was forced to sign a 75-year concession granting the foreign-owned Iraq Petroleum Company all rights to the country's oil. The British ruled Iraq directly and indirectly from the end of World War I until a nationalist coup overthrew the Hashemite monarchy in 1958. After World War II, British hegemony in the Middle East was challenged and eventually supplanted by the American empire and its voracious appetite for oil and power. REVEREND BILLY: We must end the -- we must colonize the people in Colombia, the people in Grenada, the people in Panama and the Philippines, every day, every year, every month. Bombing brown people. How people get elected here. How people run politics here. It's been going on since 1846. It's been going on since 1790. How did it get start here? How can it be stopped? Hallelujah! LARRY EVERETT: This wasn't a war to liberate anyone, this was a war of conquest. And most importantly, this war was not a diversion as a lot of the mainstream democrats describe it, from the war on terror, it's the embodiment of the war on terror, which is actually a war of terror against the people of this planet, for greater empire. HAMID DABASHI: I think that the most immediate purpose is oil. I have no question in my mind, but the more long term issue is the strategic control of the region of the Persian Gulf area that substantial interests of the United States as an empire. And they have the potential imperial tendency by China or Russia or Europe. As potentially, so, the United States is positioning itself in -- in a place that can have global control. TARIQ ALI: The problem is that empires, whether it's the British or the French or the Germans in the 19th and 20th centuries or the American empire before it game became a global empire always act in their own interests. That's the only reason they are there. It's in their own interests. It's not to do the good. It's not to do war of good versus evil. It's a war of national or imperial self-interests. That is why they are there. And the reason why the whole region is dotted with military bases, and you have the largest foreign base of the United States, the Al Abib base in Qatar, a tiny principality. That's where you have it, why? Because of the oil. I don't think that the war in Iraq was exclusively about oil, but oil was ever-present in the discussion. If you read these memoirs dictated by Paul O'Neill to Ron Suskind which have been published recently, they are revealing, saying that the plan to take Iraq predated 9/11 and was discussed within the first three weeks of the Bush Administration. And it included how they would divvy up the oil. Now this is O'Neill talking, this is not some conspiracy theorist in cyberspace. AMY GOODMAN: “Empire and Oil,” part of the 13-part series, Shocking & Awful, that is available to public access TV and PBS stations around the country. For more information, you can go to deepdishtv.org. Brian Drolet, project coordinator, thank you for joining us. BRIAN DROLET: Thanks for having us. ---- Clare Short On Why She Quit Tony Blair's Government In Protest of the Iraq War & How British Intelligence Spied On UN Chief Kofi Annan Tuesday, February 15th, 2005 Democracy Now! http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/02/15/1518249 One of Europe's leading critics of the Iraq invasion joins us in the Firehouse Studio. Two years ago Clare Short resigned her top post in the Blair government. She recently wrote about her resignation and the war in her book "An Honourable Deception? New Labour, Iraq and the Misuse of Power" [includes rush transcript] We are joined right now by one of Britain's leading critics of the invasion of Iraq: Clare Short. She is best known for resigning her cabinet-level position as Secretary of State for International Development in Tony Blair's government over the UK's involvement in the Iraq invasion. In her resignation letter to Prime Minister Blair in May 2003, Clare Short wrote, "As you know, I thought the run-up to the conflict in Iraq was mishandled, but I agreed to stay in the Government to help support the reconstruction effort for the people of Iraq. I am afraid that the assurances you gave me about the need for a U.N. mandate to establish a legitimate Iraqi government have been breached." A few months later she called on Blair to resign, charging he mislead the British people over the war in Iraq. Clare Short gained headlines again last year when she accused British intelligence agents of spying on U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan in the run up to the Iraq war. She said she had read transcripts of private conversations of Annan. She is the author of a new book, "An Honourable Deception? New Labour, Iraq and the Misuse of Power" Today, a conversation with Clare Short. She joins us in our firehouse studio. She is in the United States to discuss the impact of U.S. foreign policy on the world at a forum being coordinated by the Eisenhower and Century Foundations. * Clare Short, was the Secretary of State for International Development in Tony Blair's government before resigning in protest over Britain's participation in the invasion of Iraq. She is also a contributor to the new book put out by the Eisenhower Foundation called Patriotism, Democracy and Common Sense. RUSH TRANSCRIPT AMY GOODMAN: We turn now to Clare Short. Welcome to Democracy Now! CLARE SHORT: Thank you. AMY GOODMAN: It's good to have you with us. First, your reaction to the elections that took place in Iraq? CLARE SHORT: I think everyone should remember it's Grand Ayatollah Sistani who insisted on elections. The plan, the U.S. plan, and the U.N. plan, was to consult in communities across Iraq, get some representatives to then come together and design a constitution, as the process was in Afghanistan. So, let's remember that it wasn't American democracy; it was Grand Ayatollah Sistani democracy. And, of course, what he wanted was to demonstrate was what a big proportion of the population the Shia people were. And he’s achieved that objective, and they voted in big numbers, as did the Kurdish people, because they want to keep their autonomy, and the people in the middle of the country didn't vote. And therefore, voting is always moving. I remember the first time I voted. I was very moved by it. But it's divided the country, and all we have got is the proof that the Shia are a big number, and a group that are supposed to draw up a constitution. That is supposed to be then a referendum in October, and then there's supposed to be a general election in December. So there's a long way to go. We haven't got the constitution yet. There's a danger that the country will be more divided. There's no evidence that the resistance is being weakened. So, it's a small thing. It doesn't solve the problem. AMY GOODMAN: Hmm. Talk about your decision to resign your cabinet position. CLARE SHORT: Well, my view in the run-up to the war was not with those who said containment was working, that we should just leave Iraq. The sanctions were hurting the people very terribly. So, it was right to come back to Iraq, and say, “Can't we do better than this?” So I was very in favor of us going back to the U.N., getting in inspectors, trying to get the sanctions lifted, indicting Saddam Hussein as a war criminal and for crimes against humanity, and trying to help the people of Iraq to get rid of him and build a more decent future for themselves. The rush to war meant that that process couldn't be completed, and a lot of people were going to die unnecessarily; and of course, you have seen it was illegitimate across the world, and it was a breach of international law. But I still took the view, even then, I mean, it's quite a thing to leave your government and conclude that your Prime Minister has been deceiving you and the nation. So, I still felt, even though the rush to war had been wrong, if we internationalized the reconstruction, if the people of Iraq got a better future out of it, that rush might be forgiven. But the failure to prepare for afterwards, the chaos, the criminality, the looting, the continuing death, the unemployment, the lack of electricity and water is a complete disaster. And it's criminally incompetent. What happened, of course, in the U.S. was the State Department had made preparations in just a couple months before the conflict, and, of course, the U.S. chose the date. This new unit was set up in the Pentagon. It didn't prepare properly, and we have got the chaos and continuing loss of life, which is further destabilizing the Middle East, and all serious commentators say the recruitment to a new, highly dispersed al Qaeda type organization has gone up enormously. So, there never was al Qaeda in Iraq beforehand. There is now. It is much strengthened. A lot of Iraqis have died. A lot of American young people have died, a smaller number of young Brits have died. It's a disastrous foreign policy mistake for all concerned. AMY GOODMAN: Clare Short, what about the resistance? What are your feelings about the Iraqi resistance? CLARE SHORT: Yeah, you said I supported them. That is not so. What I had said is in international law, there is a right to resist occupation. And we have a history. I mean, the American resistance to British colonialism, the French resistance to the Nazis, and so on. It's just labeling everything terrorism and talking as though anyone who resists anything that the U.S. does must be a bad guy. It's such an ignorant way of commenting on world affairs. I was simply reminding people of that reality in international law. And there's no doubt either that all of the studies -- most of them are American studies -- show the majority of the Iraqi people want the occupation to end immediately. And those who participated in the elections, that is their view and their wish. Now, clearly, within that, there are some very extreme groups using suicide bombers and killing lots of Iraqis. And that's a tragedy for Iraq. But resistance to occupation is as old as human kind itself. Most of our countries have participated in it. If people don't understand that's what's going on with the support of a lot of Iraqis, we are never going to put it right. AMY GOODMAN: What were your thoughts when you heard Scott McClellan, the White House Press Secretary, in talking about what's going on in Lebanon now, and Syria, condemning foreign occupation of any country? CLARE SHORT: Well, I think it's called hypocrisy, and it is incredible that these masters of spin don't even hear, with a smile that will go across the world as people think, “How dare you say that when you're in the middle of an occupation in another country?” I think with Lebanon, it’s very difficult to see who did this. I mean, everyone's blaming Syria, and it’s like we're all being softened up for action against Syria. I cannot see how Syria benefits from this. I think we need to pause and find out what really happened and who really did it. AMY GOODMAN: When did you resign your post in the cabinet? CLARE SHORT: I can't remember the precise date, but it was about a week or so after the fall of Baghdad. AMY GOODMAN: What was Tony Blair’s response? CLARE SHORT: Well, we exchanged letters. I talked to him on the phone. He sort of said, “I suppose it's too late to dissuade you.” I said, “We have been there.” He said, “What's going to happen?” I said, “I’m going to write you a letter, you're going to write me one. I’m going to make a statement in the House of Commons.” He said, “Okay.” That was it. I mean, I nearly went before, you see, and he spent lots of time persuading me to stay in the government, sweet-talked me a lot, saw me repeatedly, so he knew we were finished now. AMY GOODMAN: Why did you decide not to resign before the invasion? CLARE SHORT: I got a lot of criticism for that, but it was, as you said in your introductory remarks, the war was unstoppable by then, but I still thought that if there was a real internationalization of reconstruction and no occupation, and the U.N. was brought in, and international forces brought in at Iraqis’ request, they could quickly rebuild their country. It's naturally a wealthy country with a lot of educated people, and Iraq could come out better off. And I thought my prime minister -- well, he did. He promised me that that's what would happen, and that's what the U.K. would stand for, and then he broke that promise, too. So I tried everything to try and make sure we didn't have the disaster we have got now. AMY GOODMAN: We are talking to the Right Honorable Clare Short, a former member of the British Cabinet, resigned over the invasion of Iraq. What about the British intelligence spying on U.N. officials and overall at diplomats at the U.N.? CLARE SHORT: Well, it was on Kofi Annan's office phone calls and papers, and it had been going on for some time. There's no question about it. I have seen the documents, but from 1997, when our government, the Blair government, took office, until the Iraq war, our relationship with Kofi Annan was extremely close. Britain was very supportive of him and of building the U.N. to be more effective. We were engaged in all sorts of joint work to increase the efficiency of the systems. But, of course, in the run-up to the Iraq war, Kofi Annan was trying to prevent war and to have the U.K., who – we were just going along with anything that the U.S. did -- seeing his phone calls, seeing his papers. It's quite inappropriate, and it means that he cannot operate as an independent individual talking to governments across the world without both the U.S. and U.K. knowing what he is doing. AMY GOODMAN: When did you go public? CLARE SHORT: We had a trial of a young woman in Britain, Katherine Gunn, who had revealed that I think the U.S. had asked the U.K. or talked to the U.K, about bugging the various members of the Security Council in the run-up to the war. She was being tried for breach of official secrets, because she revealed that, and she worked in a listening organization. And they dropped the charges against her. But this whole question of bugging the U.N. was in the news. So I was asked to comment on our morning radio news program, and I thought, “Here's the moment.” I had been thinking, how can I reveal that this is going on in order that it be stopped. So, I thought, here is the -- I will say what I think about the story of her, and why they dropped the charges. Then I will reveal that we're spying on Kofi Annan, which I did. AMY GOODMAN: Have you ever spoken to U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan about this? CLARE SHORT: I have, actually. AMY GOODMAN: And what is his response? CLARE SHORT: Well, I don't want to in any way embarrass him, but he was glad to know it was happening, because of course, it intrudes in his capacity to have private conversations with leaders across the world, and therefore, the effectiveness of his office. If people think they can't speak frankly to him, then he's less useful in his role of trying to prevent conflict and promote development, and so on. AMY GOODMAN: What is happening right now in Britain? What is the sentiment of the British public, both around the Iraq occupation and also around the torture scandals at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib? You have your own, as well, but also four British citizens were just sent home from Guantanamo: Moazzam Begg and three others. CLARE SHORT: Well, in Britain, what's happened is that Tony Blair has lost the trust of the British people. He was a much admired and liked prime minister. Now most people don't trust him. Most people think the war was a mistake. Most people think he lied to the country. But we're in a run-up to an election, which will probably take place in May, and the main opposition party, the Conservatives, of course, supported the war, and are more reactionary on social policies than the Labour Government on spending on health and education and so on. So, the country's very grumpy in the run-up to election, doesn't really want either. Labour’s ahead in the polls, but an awful lot of people are not going to vote. Britain is feeling very, very disillusioned because of the Iraq war and the way in which its government behaved. In terms of Abu Ghraib, we were all as shocked, as I suppose most Americans were, and horrified. Guantanamo, we thought, was just disgraceful, a breach of the Geneva Convention. That's old international law, dating back to before the First World War. Angry that some of our own nationals were there, and our own government wasn't taking more urgent action to demand they were brought home and tried, or put under surveillance, holding people without trial. We have now had people back, one of them from my city, Moazzam Begg. The news is he hasn't talked publicly; the news is that he's very damaged, undergoing psychiatric treatment. I think there was some young men from a town a little bit north of mine. They also, I believe, are psychologically very, very damaged. So, it looks like forms of torture that are destructive of the human personality are going on. We have got our own scandal. We locked up thirteen foreign nationals accused of being engaged in planning terrorism, but no trial, and our courts have said that's illegal. So, there's a big battle in the country about what's to happen about that. So, we feel our government's contaminated by the errors of your government. Blair tends to go along with the kind of things America does, and the majority of the country do not support them. AMY GOODMAN: And the British soldiers accused of torturing prisoners? CLARE SHORT: Well, we're just deeply ashamed. AMY GOODMAN: When did it happen, and they're on trial now? CLARE SHORT: They're on trial, but it happened a good time ago, I think in the immediate aftermath of the conflict, and when the looting was on. So, there's a lot of comment that it shouldn’t have taken so long to bring them to trial. Because of course, part of the point of trial is both to do justice, but also to show others they're not allowed to behave like that. So, we couldn't believe the kind of sexualized torture that went on in Abu Ghraib; and now we have got our own British scandal, not quite so many in number, but the same kind of shameful events. AMY GOODMAN: You're here as -- to discuss the impact of U.S. foreign policy on the world. You're here in a tour that is sponsored by the Eisenhower and Century Foundations. What is the message that you are putting out to the people of this country? CLARE SHORT: I think America is making itself hated across the world. It's spending a fortune on arms, but can't create peace. And Afghanistan is a narco state now, and we all know Iraq is a mess. But if America would come back to its true inspiration, a real believer in justice and fair development across the world, which means attending to the environment, the problems of poverty, getting a just settlement in the Middle East, the whole world could come together, and America would be back up there as an example to the world. At the moment, it's hated. It's impoverishing itself. It has got poor social programs at home. It's overextending its military activity. People talk more and more about the Roman Empire and how it ended up collapsing. I think America is in trouble. But if it could come back to its original values that brought the admiration of the world, it could lead the world in a time when we need more justice, more even development to attend to poverty and environment, and get settlement in the Middle East, which means the whole of the world could then combine to deal with the problems of anyone who would use violence against civilians. AMY GOODMAN: What do you mean when you say Afghanistan is a narco state? CLARE SHORT: It is a chaotic state that has warlords dominating most of the areas outside Kabul. And they get all their -- they have lots of fighters. There's lots of different ones that get all their money from the growing of opium, which is then sold on through criminal networks and comes across the world, and most of Europe’s opium comes out of Afghanistan. That's the bulk of its economy. I mean, you cannot get a stable country that grows its economy and improves the life of its people if the backbone of your economy is criminal narcotics. That's the state of Afghanistan. AMY GOODMAN: Finally, what do you think is the solution to what is going on now in the Middle East with Israel and Palestine? CLARE SHORT: I think a settlement on Israel-Palestine is really easy if America backed it. It is a two-state solution, on 67 boundaries with East Jerusalem as the capital of the new Palestinian state. That could all be driven, and of course, because Israel is completely dependent on American arms, money and supplies, if America wanted that settlement, it would be had. Then both people, the Palestinian and the Israeli people, want the two-state solution. I'm afraid the peace we're talking about, just a withdrawal from Gaza and then Prime Minister Sharon planning to take half of the West Bank, will not bring peace. So, we're looking – I’m afraid this is a moment of hope because there’s a cease-fire, but we're going to go on with more and more violence and suffering and support for terrorist action. AMY GOODMAN: The Right Honorable Clare Short, I want to thank you very much for being with us. Clare Short quit her job as Cabinet Minister under Tony Blair over the occupation of Iraq. Her own autobiography is called An Honourable Deception? New Labour, Iraq and the Misuse of Power, with a question mark, An Honourable Deception?. She also has contributed to the new book, Patriotism, Democracy and Common Sense. -------- prisoners of war ICRC raises Guantanamo conditions Tuesday, 15 February, 2005 BBC News http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4267297.stm The head of the International Committee for the Red Cross has met US President George W Bush to discuss concerns about detainees at Guantanamo Bay. Jakob Kellenberger and Mr Bush talked about "ICRC concerns regarding US detention", the organisation said. ICRC officials regularly visit the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where suspected al-Qaeda and Taleban members are being held. A leaked report by the ICRC was said to have found evidence of torture tactics. The committee said Mr Kellenberger had met President Bush in Washington on Monday. Their discussion "focused on ICRC concerns regarding US detention" as well as the main challenges facing the organisation in armed conflicts around the world. He also met US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and is due to meet Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Tuesday. 'Tantamount to torture' The Geneva-based agency said it welcomed the opportunity to "raise these issues at the highest level and looks forward to strengthening its confidential dialogue with US authorities." The Bush administration insists the 540 or so inmates of Guantanamo - many of whom have been held without charge since the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan - have been treated humanely. Human rights organisations say prisoners have been mistreated, and released detainees have spoken of beatings and coerced confessions. Last November, media reports quoted a leaked ICRC report, from a visit last summer, as saying practices at the camp were "tantamount to torture". The ICRC, which normally refuses to comment publicly on its work to help victims of conflict, refused to "publicly confirm or deny" the reports. -------- us Judge warns Rumsfeld in anthrax case February 15, 2005 United Press International http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20050215-104609-5442r.htm Washington, DC, Feb. 15 (UPI) -- A judge in Washington has warned Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld he could face contempt for ignoring a ruling on Pentagon anthrax vaccinations. In October, U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan largely struck down the U.S. military's involuntary vaccinations for weaponized anthrax. The judge said the program could not be administered unless individual service members give "informed consent" to the vaccinations, President Bush issues a specific waiver or the Food And Drug Administration properly classifies a drug for use in the program. A 1999 executive order by then President Bill Clinton required "informed consent" before administering the vaccine. Monday, Sullivan ordered "Donald H. Rumsfeld" to "show cause by Feb. 28" why "he/or the government should not be held in contempt" for failing to follow the earlier ruling. Sullivan also ordered Pentagon employees and soldiers challenging the program to respond to an emergency motion by the Pentagon asking that the earlier injunction be modified. ---- Octogenarian receives Army recruiting letters inviting him to re-enlist Tue, Feb. 15, 2005 By William Douglas Knight Ridder Newspapers http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/10906027.htm WASHINGTON - The last time Dr. Floyd Baker served in the U.S. Army, Harry S. Truman was president, Dinah Shore's "Buttons and Bows" topped the music charts, "The Treasure of Sierra Madre" won an Oscar and the bikini made its debut on American beaches. So the 84-year-old semi-retired dentist from Philadelphia was a little surprised last August when he got a letter from a local Army recruiting station inviting him to re-enlist. "I was honorably discharged in 1948," said Baker, who was drafted in 1946 and left the Army with captain's bars on his shoulders. "I thought the letter belonged to somebody else, knowing when I got in the Army and when I got out. I thought it was a mistake." He started believing that maybe it wasn't when he got a similar letter two months later offering him a $30,000 signing bonus, a $58,646 loan-repayment option and a "generous retirement plan" to re-up. Help the soldiers "on the front line fighting the war on terrorism," it said. "Among the difficulties facing them are receiving adequate dental care prior to being sent to areas of danger and conflict. Our soldiers are sacrificing so much for us and we would greatly appreciate the services of fine professionals like you." Baker really began thinking the Army's offer was serious after he talked last week to a senior-citizen friend at a Philadelphia-area Veterans Administration facility who'd received a similar letter. Army officials, after a few gasps and guffaws upon hearing of the letters, called them an honest mistake. "We need dentists, but we don't need them quite that old," said Maj. Tanya Beecher, a Fort Knox, Ky., Army operations officer who helps process waiver requests for older enlistees. "We're pushing it when we request (a waiver) for someone 67." A spokesman for the Army Recruiting Command at Fort Knox said Baker's letter probably had resulted from someone not checking ages along with names from recruiting efforts or the mass-mailing lists the Army buys from marketing firms. "Normally, we try to suppress these people - people who are too young or too old or currently in the military," Beecher said. "It's not foolproof, but we try to suppress them." Baker's letters may be a simple bureaucratic mistake, but they're also symptomatic of how the U.S. military is struggling to fill its ranks as it's stretched thin in Afghanistan and Iraq. To help keep its numbers up, the Army recently expanded a little-used program to recall officers and enlisted personnel to serve voluntarily for up to a year. More than 300 Army retirees from their mid-40s to their late 60s are on active duty through the program, said Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty, an Army personnel spokesman. "There were a couple of guys brought back who are really old, in their 60s," Hilferty said. "One went to Iraq. He's a medical professional." The Army is still looking for a few good dentists. Currently, 938 dentists are on active duty in the Army, short of the 1,015 the service is authorized to carry, according to Defense Department figures. Fort Knox's Beecher said the Army was trying to recruit 30 dentists for active duty and 48 more for the Army Reserve. Whether the letters were a mistake or not, Baker said re-enlisting didn't fit into his plans for his golden years, even though "my wife and children say I should go back in with that much signing money" being offered. "I told him, `We can do this,'" Baker's 70-year-old wife, Gerty, said jokingly. "I thought the letter was a hoot. I'm going to frame it." ---- Unarmored Humvee Death Toll Continues to Climb Feb 15, 2005, 06:59 By LISA HOFFMAN Scripps Howard News Service http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_6217.shtml As the deadline for "hardened" Humvees arrives Tuesday in Iraq, the U.S. death toll tied to the workhorse vehicles is nearing 400. By top Pentagon order, from now on only Humvees that carry some degree of armored protection will be allowed to leave secure U.S. encampments for patrols and convoys on the often-mean streets of Iraq. The new edict comes as a Scripps Howard News Service analysis has found that more than 1 in 4 of the 1,450 deaths of American troops in the war have been associated with Humvees. Hundreds more soldiers have been wounded in them. No other piece of war equipment _ including helicopters, planes, trucks and other combat transport _ carries such a deadly record. The casualty count of at least 387 includes 75 troops who died in Humvee accidents; that is more than the 67 GIs who have perished in aircraft crashes in the Iraq war. By far, though, it is combat that has been the most dangerous. About 70 percent of Humvee casualties have come from insurgents wielding roadside bombs, rocket-propelled grenades and other weapons, the analysis showed. Using the publicly available data on which the Scripps analysis was based, it cannot be determined how many deaths occurred in unarmored or lightly protected Humvees, which were not originally designed for combat use. And, as the Jan. 31 deaths of three Marines south of Baghdad showed, even the most well-fortified Humvee can be eviscerated by a well-placed explosive. But troops and their families have charged that many of the deaths and injuries could have been avoided if the Humvees, made with fiberglass and aluminum, and equipped with fabric roofs and open sides, instead were made with steel. As few as 2,000 of the fleet of about 10,000 Humvees in Iraq were armored in some way when the war began nearly two years ago, the Pentagon has acknowledged. Commanders never envisioned Humvees as combat vehicles, expecting instead to use them as transport behind the lines. After an enemy insurgency wielding improvised bombs took root in mid-2003, a rising chorus of complaints has come from lawmakers on Capitol hill, frustrated reserve troops and anxious families, who told of troops salvaging scrap from junkyards to weld onto their Humvees themselves. In response, the Pentagon triggered a wholesale push to produce more armored Humvees and kits containing steel reinforcements that can be attached to vehicles already in the war zone. Last fiscal year, the Pentagon put in a $1.2 billion order for an additional 6,655 armored Humvees, on top of the 3,700 already being built. On Monday, the White House asked Congress for another $3.3 billion to add armor to trucks and to buy more armored vehicles. In all, about 19,000 Humvees are in use now in Iraq. The Pentagon says 75 percent are armored in some way, although critics charge that as many as half are equipped only with the "Mad Max"-like protection that troops are attaching themselves. After taking heat from a National Guardsman in December over the lack of armored vehicles, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld ordered earlier this month that, by Tuesday, all Humvees and other vehicles in Iraq must have some degree of armored protection. Only those that have been upgraded will be allowed to leave U.S. bases on combat patrols or convoys. Trucks, too, must have armor to hit the roads outside the secured areas. "There will not be a vehicle moving around in Iraq anywhere outside of a protected compound that does not have the appropriate armor," Rumsfeld said Feb. 3. Meanwhile, the accident toll for troops in Humvees continues. On Sunday, three soldiers died north of Baghdad after an armored Humvee rolled over into a canal. One of the three, a staff sergeant from Dyess Air Force Base in Texas, died when he tried to rescue the others. In all, 21 U.S. troops have drowned when their Humvees tumbled into rivers, canals or drainage ditches. (Reach Lisa Hoffman at hoffmanl(at)shns.com) -------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE -------- drug war A CIA cover-up? No one accountable on death of a missionary and her baby Feb. 15, 2005 MSNBC.com http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6940982/ On Monday’s ‘Scarborough Country,’ we told you about the tragic case of a 2001 CIA mission gone horribly wrong in the jungles of Peru. The result was the murder of Christian missionary Roni Bowers, a Baptist missionary, and her 7-month-old daughter, Charity. Now, after four long years, the Justice Department has suddenly decided to drop the secret investigation. Below is the series of events that led to what may be a government cover-up: - In 1994, Bill Clinton authorized U.S. military action against suspected drug flights in Peru to stem the flow of narcotics coming across U.S. borders. - On April 20, 2001, a Peruvian military jet under the supervision of CIA agents mistakenly identified a missionary plane for drug runners. And with the Bowers family aboard, the Peruvians shot down the aircraft, killing Roni Bowers and her 7-month-old daughter, Charity. Pilot Kevin Donaldson was shot in both legs, and was able to make a miraculous landing on the Amazon with his plane on fire. - In August 2001, a joint U.S.-Peruvian investigation blamed poor communications and shortcuts in procedures. - Several months later, a Senate investigation found that the CIA failed to properly oversee the anti-drug operation in Peru. In the wake of that Senate investigation, the Department of Justice opened up a secret inquiry into whether CIA agents involved lied to Congress in order to cover up details of what went wrong in the murderous affair. - In July of 2002, the Bush administration paid $8 million to survivors. - Last week, the investigation was dropped by the Justice Department. No charges were ever filed, and all involved are still employed by the CIA. They’re not talking, and neither is the Department of Justice. -------- homeland security / national intelligence NORAD testing laser warning system at Reagan National Airport 2/15/2005 Associated Press http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-02-15-norad-lasers_x.htm WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon is considering using lasers to warn pilots they've flown into restricted airspace, an unusual choice because the government also says terrorists might use the beams of light to blind pilots as they approach airports. The North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD, has been researching the use of alternating red and green lasers as a way to communicate with pilots flying too near the Capitol or the White House when they can't be reached by radio. NORAD tried the ground-based laser signals on a test plane flying into Washington's Reagan National Airport last Friday. The low-intensity lights are safe for the eyes, the command said in a statement. If the system becomes operational, the Federal Aviation Administration would send a special notice to pilots describing the lights and telling them what to do if they see them. Retired airline Capt. Steve Luckey on Tuesday called the warning system "a step in the right direction — as long as they can show they're prudent or safe." Luckey, who chairs the national security committee for the Air Line Pilots Association International, has long been concerned about reports of powerful green laser beams projected into cockpits. An FAA study concluded that lasers could cause a plane to crash. Beginning in December, the FBI investigated a rash of incidents around the country in which lasers were shined through cockpit windows. Though no links to terrorism were found, the government said in January it would require pilots to report immediately any lasers beamed at airplanes. Such notification would allow air traffic controllers to broadcast warnings and quickly notify law enforcement officers. Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, hundreds of small planes have flown within the restricted airspace around the capital — a 15 3/4-mile radius around the Washington Monument. In some cases, fighter jets have been scrambled to check on a plane and escort it to a nearby airport. In June, Kentucky Gov. Ernie Fletcher flew into the restricted airspace on a small plane with a malfunctioning transponder. A communications breakdown led police to believe a hijacked plane might be heading toward the Capitol, forcing a frantic evacuation of people gathered to view President Reagan's casket. -------- POLITICS -------- us politics Cheney's daughter named to Mideast post 2/15/2005 Associated Press http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-02-15-cheney-diplomat_x.htm WASHINGTON (AP) — Elizabeth Cheney, a daughter of Vice President Dick Cheney, is returning to the post of deputy assistant secretary of state for the Near East with added responsibilities. Cheney, who held the post from 2002 to 2003 in President Bush's first term, will assist newly appointed Assistant Secretary David Welch and also coordinate U.S. efforts to promote democracy and economic progress in the Middle East and Northern Africa, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Monday. A lawyer who has worked in the U.S. embassies in Hungary and Poland, Cheney left her State Department post to work in her father's re-election campaign last year. -------- voting A Corrupted Election Despite what you may have heard, the exit polls were right By Steve Freeman and Josh Mitteldorf February 15, 2005 http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/1970/ Recall the Election Day exit polls that suggested John Kerry had won a convincing victory? The media readily dismissed those polls and little has been heard about them since. Many Americans, however, were suspicious. Although President Bush prevailed by 3 million votes in the official, tallied vote count, exit polls had projected a margin of victory of 5 million votes for Kerry. This unexplained 8 million vote discrepancy between the election night exit polls and the official count should raise a Chinese May Day of red flags. The U.S. voting system is more vulnerable to manipulation than most Americans realize. Technologies such as electronic voting machines provide no confirmation that votes are counted as cast, and highly partisan election officials have the power to suppress votes and otherwise distort the count. Exit polls are highly accurate. They remove most of the sources of potential polling error by identifying actual voters and asking them immediately afterward who they had voted for. The reliability of exit polls is so generally accepted that the Bush administration helped pay for them during recent elections in Georgia, Belarus and Ukraine. Testifying before the House Committee on International Relations Dec. 7, John Tefft, deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, explained that the Bush administration funded exit polls because they were one of the "ways that would help to expose large-scale fraud." Tefft pointed to the discrepancy between exit polls and the official vote count to argue that the Nov. 22 Ukraine election was stolen. Grasping at explanations Last November in the United States, as in Ukraine, the discrepancy between the presidential exit polls and the tallied count was far beyond the margin for error. At the time, Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International, the two companies hired to do the polling for the National Election Pool (a consortium of the nation's five major broadcasters and the Associated Press), didn't provide an explanation for how this happened. They promised, however, that a full explanation would be forthcoming. On Jan. 19, on the eve of the inauguration, Edison and Mitofsky released their report, "Evaluation of Edison/Mitofsky Election System 2004," which generated headlines such as MSNBC's "Exit Polls Prove That Bush Won." But, the report does nothing of the sort. It restates a thesis that the pollsters previously intimated—that the discrepancy was "most likely due to Kerry voters participating in the exit polls at a higher rate than Bush voters." But the body of the report offers no data to substantiate this position. In fact, data presented in the report serve to rebut the thesis, and bolster suspicions that the official vote count was way, way off. The report states that the difference between exit polls and official tallies was far too great to be explained by chance ("sampling error"), and that a systematic bias is implicated. With that statement the pollsters confirm the discrepancy we initially documented. The exit polls were based on more than 70,000 confidential questionnaires completed by randomly selected voters as they exited the polling place. The overall margin of error should have been under 1 percent. But the official result deviated from the poll projections by more than 5 percent—a statistical impossibility. The pollsters report that the precincts were appropriately chosen for sampling, in that the aggregated official results from the sampled precincts accurately reflected the official statewide ballot counts. In saying this, Mitofsky and Edison vindicate a key piece of their methodology—the representativeness of their samples. If the fault indeed lies with the exit polls, the range of possibilities for error is therefore narrowed. Finally, they report that the source of error is, in fact, within-precinct error (WPE), the difference between official precinct tallies and the exit poll samples from those same precincts. On average, across the country, the President did 6.5 percent better in the official vote count, relative to Kerry, than the exit polls projected. This admission further narrows the range of possibilities. If the polling data are accurate, the only remaining possibilities are "non-response bias" (i.e., Bush voters disproportionately did not participate in the exit polls) and/or errors in the official tally. However, having gotten to this point in their argument, Mitofsky and Edison summarily dismiss the possibility that the official count was wrong. They reject the election fraud hypothesis because, they say, "precincts with touch screen and optical voting have essentially the same error rates as those using punch-card systems." Indeed, they do. But this fact merely suggests that all three of these systems may have been corrupted. Indeed, there is little question about problems associated with both punch card systems (recall the Florida debacle in 2000) and mechanical voting machines, which are generally unreliable, vulnerable to tinkering and leave no paper trail. That's why both systems have been slated for termination under the Helping America Vote Act of 2002. Notably, Mitofsky and Edison unsucessfully try to explain away the fact that, according to their data, only in precincts that used old-fashioned, hand-counted paper ballots did the official count and the exit polls fall within the normal sampling margin of error. Further, data that are underplayed in the report provide support for the hypothesis that the election was stolen. First, the report acknowledges that the discrepancy between the exit polls and the official count was considerably greater in the critical swing states. And while that fact is consistent with allegations of fraud (if you are going to steal an election you go after votes most vigorously where they are most needed), Mitofsky and Edison suggest, without providing any data or theory to back up their claim, that this discrepancy is somehow related to media coverage. Second, in light of the charges that the 2000 election was not legitimate, the Bush/Cheney campaign would have wanted to prevail in the popular vote. If fraud was afoot, it would make sense that the president's men would steal votes in their strongholds, where the likelihood of detection is small. Lo and behold, the report provides data that strongly bolster this theory. In those precincts that went at least 80 percent for Bush, the average within-precinct-error (WPE) was a whopping 10.0—the numerical difference between the exit poll predictions and the official count. That means that in Bush strongholds, Kerry, on average, received only about two-thirds of the votes that exit polls predicted. In contrast, in Kerry strongholds, exit polls matched the official count almost exactly (an average WPE of 0.3). Other report data undermine the argument that Kerry voters were more likely to complete the exit poll interview than Bush voters. If this were the case, then one would expect that in precincts where Kerry voters predominated, the cooperation rate would be higher than in pro-Bush precincts. But in fact, the data suggest that Bush voters were slightly more likely to complete the survey: 56 percent of voters completed the survey in the Bush strongholds, while 53 percent cooperated in Kerry strongholds. Corollary evidence The exit polls themselves are a strong indicator of a corrupted election. Moreover, the exit poll discrepancy must be interpreted in the context of more than 100,000 officially logged reports of irregularities during Election Day 2004. For many Americans, if not most, mass-scale fraud in a U.S. presidential election is an unthinkable possibility. But taken together, the allegations, the subsequently documented irregularities, systematic vulnerabilities, and implausible numbers suggest a coherent story of fraud and deceit. What's more, the exit poll disparity doesn't tell the whole story. It doesn't count those voters who were disenfranchised before they even got to the polls. The voting machine shortages in Democratic districts, the fraudulent felony purges of voter rolls, the barriers to registration, and the unmailed, lost, or cavalierly rejected absentee ballots all represent distortions to the vote count above and beyond what is measured by the exit poll disparity. The exit polls, by design, sample only those voters who have already overcome these hurdles. The thesis of the Mitofsky/Edison exit poll report and the headlines that it generated are curiously detached from the numbers in the report itself. Statisticians who have studied the exit polls find substantial evidence to support the thesis that the vote counts—not the exit polls—were inaccurate. Apparently, the pollsters at Mitofsky and Edison have found it more expedient to provide an explanation unsupported by theory, data or precedent than to impugn the machinery of American democracy. Unfortunately, their patrons in the media find it correspondingly preferable to latch onto a non-confrontational thesis, however implausible, than to even suggest the possibility of foul play. A comprehensive analysis of the Edison/Mitofsky report has been posted here. ----- Surprising Pattern of Florida's Election Results by Kathy Dopp Wednesday November 3, 2004 http://residentbush.com/Aftermath-2004_Florida-Results.htm Look at the Percent Change columns. Explanation, Sources, and Graphical Plots are Below the Chart Voting Machine Type by County 2004 Note: This is a scientific study. Small op-scan counties must be excluded for valid analysis. This relationship with voting machines is statistically significant. No conclusions as to the causes of the pattern can be drawn at this time. I am putting my ideas for a complete study out to statisticians and programmers to be able to fully analyze 2004 election results beginning with Florida, so that we can develop and test the efficacy of a system to put in place by 2006 to pinpoint counties which warrant recounts. Please Subscribe to our mail list for updates and to learn how you can help this project. With your help, we can put measures in place by 2006 to find patterns allowing us to pinpoint possible election rigging/hacking/innocent-errors by the day after the election, so that candidates will immediately know if precincts or counties need to be recounted prior to conceding. E-Touch Voting (%Regist)*(TotalVotes) (Actual-Exp)/(Exp) COUNTY vendor REGISTERED VOTERS ACTUAL RESULTS EXPECTED_VOTES PERCENT CHANGE %REP %DEM TOT_REG REP DEM TOT_VOTES REP DEM REP DEM Broward ES&S 26.8% 50.5% 1,058,069 236,794 441,733 686,715 184,152 346,565 28.6% 27.5% Charlotte ES&S 44.9% 31.9% 113,808 44,402 34,227 79,730 35,806 25,435 24.0% 34.6% Collier ES&S 53.1% 24.4% 168,673 82,493 43,277 126,916 67,388 30,912 22.4% 40.0% Hillsborough Sequoia 35.1% 41.7% 621,201 241,630 210,892 455,970 159,843 190,023 51.2% 11.0% Indian River Sequoia 51.3% 30.0% 81,643 36,744 23,850 61,087 31,325 18,343 17.3% 30.0% Lake ES&S 47.4% 34.3% 161,269 73,971 47,963 123,269 58,388 42,237 26.7% 13.6% Lee ES&S 47.5% 29.7% 304,937 114,153 76,874 193,326 91,895 57,513 24.2% 33.7% Martin ES&S 52.5% 27.5% 98,857 41,303 30,149 72,334 37,953 19,905 8.8% 51.5% Miami-Dade ES&S 34.8% 42.8% 1,058,801 326,362 383,032 713,022 248,045 305,486 31.6% 25.4% Nassau ES&S 49.1% 36.8% 41,353 23,726 8,543 32,656 16,031 12,017 48.0% -28.9% Palm Beach Sequoia 32.0% 45.1% 729,575 174,233 275,030 452,061 144,679 204,000 20.4% 34.8% Pasco ES&S 40.1% 37.3% 265,974 103,195 84,729 190,861 76,531 71,237 34.8% 18.9% Pinellas Sequoia 39.2% 37.8% 590,989 222,630 222,103 448,875 175,947 169,789 26.5% 30.8% Sarasota ES&S 47.9% 31.2% 240,592 104,446 88,225 195,183 93,552 60,833 11.6% 45.0% Sumter ES&S 43.5% 40.8% 40,523 19,794 11,583 31,835 13,851 13,004 42.9% -10.9% 5,576,264 1,845,876 1,982,210 3,863,840 1,435,385 1,567,297 Op-Scan Precinct (%Regist)*(TotalVotes) (Actual-Exp)/(Exp) COUNTY vendor REGISTERED VOTERS ACTUAL RESULTS EXPECTED_VOTES PERCENT CHANGE %REP %DEM TOT_REG REP DEM TOT_VOTES REP DEM REP DEM Alachua Diebold 27.8% 50.5% 142,358 47,615 62,348 111,022 30,887 56,111 54.2% 11.1% Baker Sequoia 24.3% 69.3% 12,887 7,738 2,180 9,955 2,415 6,895 220.4% -68.4% Bay ES&S 44.2% 39.2% 101,315 53,305 21,034 74,890 33,079 29,351 61.1% -28.3% Bradford ES&S 28.3% 61.4% 14,721 7,553 3,244 10,851 3,072 6,663 145.8% -51.3% Brevard Diebold 44.8% 36.5% 338,195 152,838 110,153 265,075 118,772 96,860 28.7% 13.7% Calhoun Diebold 11.9% 82.4% 8,350 3,780 2,116 5,961 709 4,911 433.2% -56.9% Citrus Diebold 41.5% 38.9% 90,780 39,496 29,271 69,457 28,809 27,039 37.1% 8.3% Clay ES&S 56.5% 25.6% 106,464 61,813 18,887 81,144 45,877 20,794 34.7% -9.2% Columbia Diebold 31.3% 56.5% 34,282 16,753 8,029 24,984 7,825 14,119 114.1% -43.1% DeSoto Diebold 25.4% 59.3% 14,901 5,510 3,910 9,493 2,413 5,630 128.4% -30.6% Dixie Diebold 15.0% 77.5% 9,676 4,433 1,959 6,440 968 4,988 358.1% -60.7% Duval Diebold 36.9% 46.2% 515,202 218,476 157,624 378,330 139,605 174,965 56.5% -9.9% Escambia ES&S 43.8% 40.7% 189,833 93,311 48,207 142,895 62,602 58,149 49.1% -17.1% Flagler Diebold 40.7% 38.1% 47,068 19,624 18,563 38,455 15,669 14,657 25.2% 26.6% Franklin ES&S 15.9% 77.3% 7,620 3,472 2,400 5,930 943 4,586 268.1% -47.7% Gadsden ES&S 11.2% 82.9% 26,884 6,236 14,610 20,948 2,347 17,361 165.7% -15.8% Gilchrist Diebold 30.4% 58.6% 9,035 4,930 2,015 7,007 2,133 4,106 131.2% -50.9% Glades Diebold 24.8% 64.8% 5,963 1,983 1,434 3,434 852 2,227 132.8% -35.6% Gulf ES&S 26.6% 67.1% 9,627 4,797 2,398 7,259 1,928 4,874 148.8% -50.8% Hamilton ES&S 14.9% 78.9% 7,645 2,786 2,252 5,065 755 3,994 268.9% -43.6% Hardee Diebold 26.7% 63.8% 10,399 5,047 2,147 7,245 1,936 4,619 160.7% -53.5% Hendry ES&S 30.8% 56.5% 17,144 5,756 3,960 9,774 3,010 5,523 91.3% -28.3% Hernando Diebold 41.3% 38.8% 109,656 40,137 35,006 75,832 31,303 29,428 28.2% 19.0% Highlands ES&S 44.5% 39.8% 60,176 20,475 12,986 33,687 14,976 13,401 36.7% -3.1% Holmes ES&S 21.3% 72.7% 10,982 6,410 1,810 8,298 1,771 6,036 261.9% -70.0% Jackson ES&S 22.0% 71.5% 27,138 12,092 7,529 19,750 4,339 14,127 178.7% -46.7% Jefferson Diebold 20.7% 72.3% 9,300 3,298 4,134 7,477 1,551 5,408 112.7% -23.6% Lafayette ES&S 13.2% 82.8% 4,309 2,460 845 3,325 440 2,755 459.3% -69.3% Leon Diebold 26.6% 57.1% 171,182 47,902 79,591 128,316 34,165 73,214 40.2% 8.7% Levy Diebold 27.6% 59.7% 22,617 10,408 6,073 16,649 4,594 9,940 126.5% -38.9% Liberty ES&S 7.9% 88.3% 4,075 1,927 1,070 3,021 237 2,667 712.3% -59.9% Madison Diebold 14.9% 79.5% 11,371 4,195 4,048 8,306 1,238 6,605 238.8% -38.7% Manatee Diebold 44.3% 33.0% 191,635 81,237 61,193 143,469 63,489 47,394 28.0% 29.1% Marion ES&S 43.2% 39.7% 184,257 81,235 57,225 139,581 60,279 55,427 34.8% 3.2% Monroe Diebold 38.7% 36.1% 51,377 19,457 19,646 39,517 15,286 14,278 27.3% 37.6% Okaloosa Diebold 57.2% 24.7% 127,455 69,320 19,276 89,288 51,059 22,085 35.8% -12.7% Okeechobee Diebold 29.7% 58.5% 18,627 6,975 5,150 12,184 3,622 7,124 92.6% -27.7% Orange ES&S 35.1% 40.2% 531,774 191,389 192,030 385,547 135,299 154,938 41.5% 23.9% Osceola Diebold 32.8% 40.2% 129,487 32,812 30,295 63,440 20,804 25,508 57.7% 18.8% Polk Diebold 39.0% 42.6% 295,742 123,457 85,923 210,642 82,059 89,651 50.4% -4.2% Putnam Diebold 28.1% 57.7% 45,344 18,303 12,407 30,960 8,690 17,878 110.6% -30.6% Santa Rosa ES&S 55.9% 28.1% 96,359 51,952 14,635 67,175 37,543 18,880 38.4% -22.5% Seminole Diebold 44.6% 32.3% 241,230 107,913 76,802 185,762 82,869 60,037 30.2% 27.9% St.Johns Diebold 53.3% 28.3% 109,635 58,802 26,215 85,699 45,678 24,272 28.7% 8.0% St.Lucie Diebold 36.6% 41.4% 137,951 38,919 43,367 82,798 30,272 34,288 28.6% 26.5% Suwannee ES&S 26.8% 63.6% 21,930 11,145 4,513 15,785 4,236 10,035 163.1% -55.0% Taylor Diebold 18.9% 75.6% 11,481 5,466 3,049 8,580 1,622 6,486 237.1% -53.0% Union ES&S 18.3% 75.5% 7,063 3,396 1,251 4,675 855 3,529 297.4% -64.5% Volusia Diebold 35.9% 40.8% 309,930 100,209 106,853 208,410 74,891 85,000 33.8% 25.7% Wakulla Diebold 24.2% 66.9% 15,396 6,777 4,896 11,763 2,850 7,864 137.8% -37.7% Walton Diebold 50.1% 36.8% 32,777 17,526 6,205 23,939 11,987 8,802 46.2% -29.5% Washington Diebold 25.4% 67.0% 14,421 7,367 2,911 10,363 2,634 6,947 179.6% -58.1% 4,725,026 1,950,213 1,445,675 3,419,852 1,337,242 1,432,425 Note: Election Results were taken on Nov 3, when the Florida vote was 98.6% in and the Voter Registration Numbers are from 10-04. Explanation of What these numbers are, and how they were calculated: PERCENT CHANGE for DEM, for example, = (Actual DEM Vote - Expected DEM Vote) / (Expected DEM Vote) This is a simple percent change measure taught in highschool mathematics. EXPECTED_VOTES REP = the percentage of registered REP * the total number of voters who voted in each county on Tuesday. EXPECTED votes would normally vary from the ACTUAL votes due to increased voter turnout by one party, Independents voting REP or DEM or other factors. What seems very odd in these numbers is that the increase in ACTUAL votes from EXPECTED votes has a striking pattern of being so much higher for REPs than that for DEMs in counties using optical scan voting machines, even when smaller counties are excluded from the analysis. http://enight.dos.state.fl.us/ and http://election.dos.state.fl.us/voterreg/index.shtml for registered voters by county and election results by county http://vevo.verifiedvoting.org/verifier/ for voting machine type by county Statistical Analysis and Visual Charts of the Data Graphical Plots of FL 2004 Data Simple pictures of counties by voting machine type Op Scan- Precinct Counties and Touchscreen Counties Statistical Significance FL 2004 & Graph Pearson's Correlations FL 2004 Interesting but Not Rigorous because the data was plotted using counties with smaller population. Other Election Results by County: Florida Presidential 2000 Pennsylvania Presidential 2004 An open source election and vote-counting system with voter verifiable paper ballot and two independently-programmed, always-reconciled ballot counting system that needs your support. Voters nationally voted along party lines by about 90% and Florida exit polls favored Kerry. However, no conclusions can yet be drawn from this data and analyses. Further study is needed of other numerical by county measures for Florida and other states' election results and races. This site was mentioned in a http://www.house.gov/judiciary_democrats/gaoinvestvote2004ltr11504.pdf letter from three congressmen to the GAO urging an investigation. An analyses of our data http://synapse.princeton.edu/~sam/royle_florida.html which neglected to remove smaller counties from the study before doing the analyses and so does not seem to be a valid critique of our analyses but is interesting. TruthOUT and Thom Hartman of CommonDreams is covering us. http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/110804Z.shtml http://ustogether.org/Florida_Election.htm