NucNews - March 17, 2005 -------- NUCLEAR -------- accidents and safety KEPCO rapped over lax N-safety The Yomiuri Shimbun, March 17, 2005 http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/newse/20050315wo31.htm Kansai Electric Power Co.'s failure to enforce safety standards caused the fatal steam leak at the No. 3 reactor of its Mihama Nuclear Power Station in August, a government nuclear safety panel said Monday. In a final draft report of the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency's accident investigation committee, KEPCO was reprimanded more severely than in an interim report compiled in September on the incident at the plant in Mihamacho, Fukui Prefecture. The committee will submit the final report on March 30 based on the draft, which reveals a large gap in the approach toward safety between the agency and the Kansai region's major power firm. According to the draft, the cause of the accident was initially attributed to the failure to include damaged parts in a list of areas to be inspected for a long time, in addition to mechanical problems in the pipe. Investigators, however, later discovered that KEPCO's maintenance and quality guarantee system had not functioned properly, leading to its failure to correct the defective inspection system. Although the draft mentioned the responsibility of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. and Nihon Arm Co., it reiterated that KEPCO was mainly responsible. Several committee members supported this view. Although the agency requested that KEPCO submit detailed action plans, including top executives' statements concerning their commitment to safety measures, the plans--consisting of about 30 items in five main areas--submitted to the agency Monday did not satisfy this demand. As a result, the agency has ordered KEPCO to revise the plans so that both employees and people living near nuclear plants believe that the firm has changed its attitude toward safety. -------- iran Iran Offers Europe 'Guarantees' on Its Nuclear Program By JAD MOUAWAD March 17, 2005 NY TIMES http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/17/international/middleeast/17nuke.html?pagewanted=print&position= ISFAHAN, Iran, March 16 - President Mohammad Khatami said Wednesday that his country would not drop its uranium-enrichment program but was ready to provide "objective guarantees" that European negotiators were seeking about Iran's nuclear program. Britain, France and Germany have been negotiating with Iran on behalf of the European Union to end Iran's enrichment program, which the United States suspects is secretly being used to develop nuclear weapons and Iran insists is being used for civilian energy purposes. "What is completely unacceptable to us is the cessation of these activities," Mr. Khatami said during a news conference here. "We have very specific proposals to provide these objective guarantees they have demanded from us." After several threats against Iran, the Bush administration softened its stance last week and said it was ready to work with the Europeans to give Iran incentives in exchange for an end to the nuclear program. It offered to lift its objections on Iran's application to the World Trade Organization and to provide aircraft parts to Tehran. Iran rejected the American proposal. Asked whether there was anything the United States could provide to entice Iran, Mr. Khatami replied in English with a simple "No." The Europeans have been seeking guarantees about Iran's enrichment program, a critical process to manufacturing fuel for civilian nuclear reactors but one that also can produce the atomic core for weapons. Mr. Khatami said that as long as talks with the Europeans continued, Iran would maintain the freeze on its enrichment program that was agreed to last year. But he warned that if talks dragged on, the program might resume. "If the Europeans insist on a cessation, that is obviously a breach of the agreement we reached with them," he said through a translator. "If they break the agreement, whatever happens after, the responsibility lies with the Europeans." To win American involvement, Britain, France and Germany agreed to support the United States in taking the matter before the United Nations Security Council if Iran resumed its nuclear activities. At a news conference in Washington on Wednesday, President Bush said diplomacy required patience, "and our diplomatic objective is to continue working with our friends to make it clear to Iran we speak with a single voice." Iran, the world's fourth-largest oil producer, has argued that a civilian nuclear program used to produce electrical power would free more crude oil for export. Iran consumes nearly a third of the oil it produces. "We should have a rightful access to nuclear technology," Mr. Khatami said. "As for the fuel, we can't wait for others to deny us the access to use what we've invested in this venture." Following his news conference, Mr. Khatami alluded to the risk to the security of oil supplies posed by American policies in the Middle East. He made the comments in Isfahan during a dinner for visiting oil ministers of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. After the Islamic revolution in 1979, the United States imposed economic and commercial sanctions on Iran, including restrictions on investments and technology transfers in the country's oil and gas industry. Without mentioning the United States by name, Mr. Khatami said in his speech that "certain big powers" were "using oil as a political instrument to impose unilateral economic sanctions on producing countries." -------- korea Rice accuses NKorea of using tyranny label to avoid nuclear issue ISLAMABAD (AFP) Mar 17, 2005 http://www.spacewar.com/2005/050317190826.xakae7s1.html US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice accused North Korea on Thursday of focusing on the US label of Pyongyang as an "outpost of tyranny" to avoid discussing its nuclear programme. Rice, who is on her first official tour of Asia -- much of it dedicated to trying to break a deadlock on the nuclear issue and draw the Stalinist regime back to multi-party talks -- refused to be back down over the name-calling. "The North Koreans are determined to change the subject from what North Korea is doing, and we are not going to let them change the subject," Rice said in an interview with US television network ABC in Islamabad. The reclusive regime said Wednesday it would not engage in fresh talks with the United States on its nuclear ambitions and lashed out at Rice, currently on a six-nation tour of Asia. A foreign ministry spokesman said in a statement published by the North's official Korean Central News Agency that talks were inconceivable until Pyongyang was "delisted as 'an outpost of tyranny'." Asked about the issue, Rice told reporters in the Pakistani capital: "I am not going to get into a debate on semantics with the North Koreans." "Everybody knows what life looks like in North Korea and everybody knows what kind of system rules in North Korea and so as I said, I'm not going to let the North Koreans change the subject," she added. Rice reiterated the well-trodden US position that multi-party negotiations were the only way to break the impasse. "The North Koreans need to return to the six-party talks, it's the only way that they can find a way to enter the international community of states," Rice said. "It's the only way... to get out of the terrible situation in which the North Korean people find themselves, where we talk every year about problems of starvation and malnutrition in North Korea." "There is a lot at stake here for the North Koreans and they really should come back to the talks and stop trying to change the subject." Rice has repeatedly refused to back down from her criticism of North Korea, which has visibly infuriated Pyongyang. During a stop-off in India Tuesday, Rice warned North Korea it was becoming increasingly isolated. North Korea has attacked her personally over the "outpost of tyranny" comments, with its spokesman urging Washington to "behave realistically and wisely if it wishes to resume the six-party talks." He said North Korea would not deal with "such woman bereft of any political logic... Her reckless remarks showed to the world what type of a woman she is," the spokesman said. "It is quite illogical for the US to intend to negotiate with the DPRK without retracting its remarks," he added. Since abandoning talks last month, North Korea has since sent mixed signals on its willingness to return to the negotiations, with leader Kim Jong-Il saying Pyongyang would resume dialogue if "conditions" are met. The two Koreas, the United States, China, Russia and Japan have met three times to try to resolve the nuclear standoff that erupted in 2002 when the United States accused the North of operating a secret uranium-enrichment programme. The talks made little progress, with the final round held in June 2004. North Korea boycotted a fourth round scheduled for September last year. Washington believes North Korea possesses one or two crude bombs and may have reprocessed enough plutonium from spent fuel rods at its Yongbyon nuclear complex for half a dozen more. Rice was due to leave Pakistan later Thursday for Japan, before heading to South Korea and China, where the North Korean nuclear standoff will be at the top of the agenda. -------- latinamerica Washington Sees Iran as a Major Security Threat, but Not Nuclear Brazil Thursday, 17 March 2005 This analysis was prepared by Sarah Schaffer, COHA Research Associate. Additional research provided by Claudia Patterson, COHA Research Associate http://www.coha.org/NEW_PRESS_RELEASES/New_Press_Releases_2005/05.32%20Brazil%20Nuclear.htm • Washington, intent on wooing Brasilia, is prepared to look the other way on the nuclear front. • The Bush administration has offered Iran economic incentives to abandon nuclear technology and development, (a right that Iran legally has under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty), threatening that a failure to accept this arrangement will result in sanctions by the UN Security Council. • Brazil, with a history of covert nuclear experimentation and construction, has refused IAEA total inspection of its Resende Plant nuclear centrifuge. • Washington adamantly denies that Brasilia has plans to join the nuclear club—perhaps due to Brazil’s peacemaking efforts in Haiti. In recent weeks, Washington has stepped up its aggressive stance toward Iran, threatening it with harsh UN Security Council-mandated sanctions if it does not abandon its alleged nuclear activities. But last Friday, President Bush offered to drop U.S. objections to Iranian membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO) in exchange for a freeze on Tehran’s nuclear energy program. Iran continues to defend its right to pursue nuclear technology under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). U.S. officials have been claiming that Iran’s civilian program is merely a cover to develop nuclear weapons, but Tehran has denied the accusation, saying that its efforts are solely aimed at generating atomic energy. Ironically, despite the Bush administration’s bellicose demands that Iran give up its uranium enrichment program, Washington has dismissed any cause for alarm over a somewhat similar nuclear program in Brazil. Washington’s willingness to suspend disbelief over the more arcane aspects of Brazil’s uranium enrichment perhaps can be attributed to Brasilia’s present peacemaking efforts in Haiti—which has been a godsend for the U.S.—and the Bush administration’s eagerness to achieve closer relations with the Latin-American powerhouse. A Questionable History Throughout the 1980s, Brazil remained on the UN’s watch list for its covert dealings with West Germany to acquire nuclear technology; meanwhile, it increased its conventional weapons trade with “rogue” nations and evaded international nuclear processing inspections. Brasilia’s allegedly questionable activities have continued since President Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva refused to allow a comprehensive inspection of his nation’s nuclear facilities last fall. He recently finalized the $170 million sale of 24 Super Tucano training and light combat aircraft to Washington’s Latin American nemesis, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. Ordinarily Washington would not hesitate to express its strong rancor over such a move, but this proved not to be the case in this instance. In October 2004, after several months of evasive negotiations, Brazilian officials finally allowed the IAEA to inspect all of its nuclear facilities, except the Resende Plant’s centrifuge. According to Brazil’s Ministry of Science and Technology, the Resende facility enriches uranium that fuels the nation’s two nuclear power plants, which together provide only 4.3 percent of the nation’s total electricity. Due to the fact that Brazil is not heavily endowed with oil and natural reserves, its quest for nuclear energy is understandable. But Brazil's experience with its persistently troubled first nuclear plant, Angra I, has witnessed frequent failures resulting in a number of power outages. Despite the questionable function of Brazil’s Resende centrifuge, the IAEA agreed to President Lula’s terms to allow inspectors to examine the pipes leading into and out of the centrifuge, but not the facility itself, ostensibly for proprietary reasons. The IAEA’s refusal to release its findings also has intensified some observers’ suspicions. While the IAEA was expected to announce its conclusions by the end of November 2004, such a report has yet to be made public. Mark Gwozdecky, director of public information for the IAEA, told COHA, “there has been no announcement about Brazil . . . [but the IAEA and Brazilian officials] have agreed on an arrangement for verifying that the Resende plant is devoted exclusively to peaceful purposes.” A Faulty NPT Although reluctantly cooperative with IAEA inspectors, Brazil remains in full compliance with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), which it ratified in 1998. While the treaty prohibits any country outside the five acknowledged nuclear states (the U.S., the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, France and China) from acquiring or producing nuclear weapons, according to IAEA Director-General Muhammad ElBaradei in a February 2 op-ed published in the Financial Times, “Any country can have full control over enrichment [and] reprocessing activities.” Yet he deems that production of highly enriched uranium and reprocessed plutonium, which are used to make nuclear weapons as well as for nonmilitary purposes and are possessed by Brazil, as “just too close for comfort.” Under the latitude provided by the NPT, Brazil’s denial of a thorough inspection of all nuclear sites may be reason enough to suspect that it was interested in developing nuclear weapons technology, but the Bush Administration does not seem particularly worried as of now. After a fall 2004 visit, former Secretary of State Colin Powell stated that, “the United States has absolutely no concerns about Brazil doing anything with its nuclear program except developing power in a most controlled, responsible manner.” He confidently stifled critics’ concerns of nuclear weapons development, maintaining, “We know for sure that Brazil is not thinking about nuclear weapons in any sense.” Although Powell’s determination that Lula is not manufacturing nuclear weapons components as of now is most likely correct, Henry Sokolski, director of the Non-Proliferation Policy Education Center, a Washington-based non-profit organization, told COHA that we can “expect Brazil to share its enrichment technology with nations that do harbor nuclear weapons aspirations.” The Brazilian military, in turn, will have to “reassess the need for nuclear weapons if other nations do go nuclear.” Given the availability of uranium, skilled personnel and enrichment technology, the country is a prime candidate to process and ultimately possess nuclear devices, if it is so intentioned. How, then, has such a potential danger avoided the intense scrutiny it deserves and most likely would have normally gotten from the international non-proliferation community and certainly by the U.S.? Coddling Hemispheric Relations In reality, there seems to be little cause to worry that Brazil has covert plans to join the nuclear club. Lula’s priority is more likely for Brazil to aspire to become the Latin American hegemon as well as attain a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. While the recent arms sale to Venezuela has probably hurt Lula’s otherwise beatific status with Washington, he did not mean to compromise his entente with the U.S., which he most recently earned by agreeing to have the Brazilian military lead the UN peacekeeping mission to Haiti. Lula’s commitment rescued the U.S. from having its embarrassingly contradictory policy of ignoring the legitimacy of then-President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and ousting him by a de facto coup on February 29, 2004. The U.S. decision to overlook Brazil’s nuclear potential while strictly scrutinizing Iran’s nuclear efforts further exemplifies Washington’s inconsistent foreign policy—particularly its capacity for selective indignation. In his campaign to make Brazil a more formidable regional player—with its nuclear efforts serving as a viable tool—Lula will try to demonstrate, among other things, that his country is capable of economic growth independent of Washington’s predilections for the region. For its part, Brazil will continue to forge trade agreements, such as the recent arms sale to Venezuela, regardless of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s portrayal of President Hugo Chávez as a negative factor in the hemisphere. For now however, it seems the Bush Administration is willing to forgive and forget as it plays along with Lula’s agenda in the name of trying to service an important Latin American relationship. The Council on Hemispheric Affairs, founded in 1975, is an independent, non-profit, non-partisan, tax-exempt research and information organization. It has been described on the Senate floor as being “one of the nation’s most respected bodies of scholars and policy makers.” For more information, please see our web page at www.coha.org; or contact our Washington offices by phone (202) 223-4975, fax (202) 223-4979, or email coha@coha.org. -------- pakistan US demands Pakistan nuclear help The US suspects Pakistan is withholding information BBC Thursday, 17 March, 2005 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/4358769.stm US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has pressed Pakistan to tell Washington everything it knows about the AQ Khan nuclear weapons-smuggling network. "We all have an interest in knowing how it happened so we can safeguard against this kind of black market" activity, she said on a visit to Pakistan. AQ Khan, the father of his country's nuclear weapons programme, has admitted passing material to other countries. Ms Rice also urged Islamabad to stay on the path towards democracy. The AQ Khan nuclear smuggling network was revealed a year ago and since then, the scientist - once a hero for spearheading the country's nuclear weapons programme - has lived under virtual house arrest. 'Common interest' But the US believes Pakistan has not disclosed everything it knows about his activities. "We have had co-operation from Pakistan ... but I do not doubt that we all have an interest in knowing what happened," she said in a joint press conference with her Pakistani counterpart, Khurshid Kasuri. The story that refuses to die Pakistan's foreign ministry said on Thursday the AQ Khan network had been completely dismantled, Reuters news agency reported. Time magazine reported last month that the network was still operational, and Pakistan later admitted Dr Khan had given "a few centrifuges" to Iran. Pakistan is playing a dangerous game with the US, the BBC's Aamer Ahmed Khan says, keeping information to use as a bargaining chip. Islamabad learned the hard way that once you give powerful allies all they need, they have no more use for you, he says. Ms Rice also kept up Washington's moderate pressure on Pakistan to allow more democracy. "We look forward to the evolution of a democratic path towards elections in 2007," she said in Islamabad. She declined to say whether President Pervez Musharraf should step down as head of the country's armed forces. He seized power in a military coup in 1999. She praised "the courage of the Pakistani leadership and the courage of the Pakistani people and the armed forces in the fight against terrorism". Pakistan has been a key regional ally of Washington, withdrawing support for the Taleban after the 2001 attacks on the US. Ms Rice is on a trip to South and East Asia that will also take her to Japan, South Korea and China. She has already visited India and Afghanistan during her eight-day tour. Earlier in the day, she made her first visit to Afghanistan, when she let slip that the country's parliamentary elections would be delayed. ---- U.S. Wants Full Break-Up of Khan Nuclear Network Thu Mar 17, 1:03 PM ET Politics - Reuters By Saul Hudson http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20050317/pl_nm/pakistan_usa_dc_2 ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - A clandestine network run by the disgraced father of Pakistan's atomic bomb and used to supply nuclear technology abroad must be completely destroyed, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Thursday. "It is a network that we want to make certain that its tentacles are broken up as well, and so we have cooperation with a number of countries on that front," she told a news conference in Islamabad. Rice, in Pakistan for talks with President Pervez Musharraf as part of her first tour of Asia, said Pakistan had cooperated in investigating the scandal involving Abdul Qadeer Khan. "I don't think there is any doubt that A.Q. Khan represented a threat, not just to the United States, but to Pakistan, to the region, to the international community as a whole," she said. Pakistan first successfully tested a nuclear weapon in 1998 and Khan admitted last year to using a clandestine procurement network to supply Iran, Libya and North Korea with nuclear technology. Khan is being kept under virtual house arrest in Islamabad but Pakistan, a major U.S. ally in its war on terrorism, has not let foreign investigators question him. "We have had cooperation with Pakistan to try and make sure that the A.Q. Khan network is broken up, to get as much information as is possible," Rice said. "But I do not doubt that we all have an interest in knowing what happened, that we all have an interest in making sure that this network cannot, does not, continue to operate in any way. "And perhaps, most importantly, we all have an interest in knowing how it happened so that we can safeguard against this kind of blackmarket entrepreneurship in the future," she said. U.S. concern over the Khan network has cast a shadow over a relationship with Pakistan which Rice said was broad and deep and long-term. FIGHTER PLANES Asked if the A.Q. Khan scandal would have any bearing on a long-standing Pakistani request for F-16 fighters, Rice did not respond directly but said she had held a broad discussion with Pakistani leaders about its defense needs. "We are very much in a strategic relationship with Pakistan and we have been discussing the defense requirements and we have been discussing the military balance issues here in the region," she said. Washington's relations with Pakistan's nuclear-armed rival India have warmed considerably in recent years, but during a visit by Rice to New Delhi this week, India expressed concern about the possible sale of F-16s to Pakistan. Washington blocked sales of F-16s to Pakistan in 1990 as a sanction against its nuclear program. The United States is also considering supplying the aircraft to India. Pakistan has defended its handling of the Khan scandal. A foreign ministry spokesman said on Thursday decisive action had been taken and the network had been "effectively dismantled." Pakistan on Wednesday rejected charges that it had developed new illicit channels to upgrade its weapons program, saying it was indigenous. It also said it was interested in joining the 44-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group, an influential anti-proliferation body. Diplomats and nuclear experts told Reuters in Vienna this week that Pakistan was using illicit channels to upgrade its nuclear weapons capability, despite efforts by the U.N. nuclear watchdog to shut down all illegal procurement avenues. Rice did not respond when asked if she had pressed Musharraf, who seized power in a bloodless 1999 coup, to give up his post of army chief but said she looked forward to further democratic reform and free and fair elections in 2007. -------- russia Russia to launch new nuclear, diesel submarines MOSCOW (AFP) Mar 17, 2005 http://www.spacewar.com/2005/050317161345.sfxkzggb.html Russia will soon bring into service two new submarines, one nuclear and one diesel, the navy said Thursday. The nuclear-powered Dmitry Donskoi is a fourth generation, strategic missile launching submarine of the 941 "Akula" class, a navy spokesperson told the ITAR-TASS news agency. It was tested in June 2002 and will be put in service after testing of new armaments. The second is the Saint Petersburg, a fourth generation diesel-electric torpedo submarine of the 677 "Lada" class. -------- terrorism US plans for plague, flu and nuclear bomb attack From Roland Watson in Washington March 17, 2005 UK Times http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,11069-1528458,00.html A NUCLEAR bomb in a big city, plague released into an airport washroom and food stocks laced with anthrax are three of fifteen doomsday scenarios inadvertently published by American security chiefs yesterday. The extraordinary list of nightmare disasters, most triggered by terrorists, is being used by the Department of Homeland Security to concentrate its resources in the areas of most likely attack. The list, released mistakenly on to a website in Hawaii, shows where security officials believe the United States to be most vulnerable. It also includes a detailed breakdown of the expected casualties and economic costs that such attacks - and some natural disasters - would exact. One of the most deadly of the 15 scenarios is a flu pandemic, which begins in southern China and spreads within months to four leading American cities, claiming the lives of 87,000 and putting 300,000 in hospital, the plans estimate. A ten-kilotonne nuclear bomb driven by van into a big city before being detonated would be the most expensive, costing hundreds of billions of dollars, according to the planners. Casualties from such an explosion "could vary widely", they say. The Homeland Security Department, set up in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, attacks, provoked widespread criticism because of the way it distributed money in its first years. It allocated cash state by state, so that small towns in the middle of Wyoming were equipped with brand new equipment for hazardous materials units, while target cities such as New York and Washington received no extra cash. Michael Chertoff, the new Homeland Security Secretary, has promised to overhaul the process. The nightmare scenarios are part of a plan to ensure that cash for emergency planning is allocated according to likely need. The list of scenarios concentrates heavily on chemical and biological attacks. It envisages terrorists spraying anthrax with aerosols from a van as they drive through three cities. They would be able to hit another two shortly afterwards before authorities were able to grasp what was happening. Such an attack would leave 13,000 dead and cost billions of dollars, according to National Planning Scenarios, the document. By contrast, terrorists using a small aircraft to spray chemical blister agent over a packed college football stadium would leave 150 dead and 70,000 taken to hospital, costing $500 million (£261 million). The release of pneumonic plague into an airport washroom, a sports arena and a train station in a big city, spreading rapidly, would leave 2,500 dead and 7,000 injured and cost millions of dollars. If terrorists released sarin gas into the ventilation systems of three large office buildings, it would kill 6,000 and cost $300 million. Several scenarios envisage terrorists using explosives to trigger wider disasters. Blowing up a storage tank of chlorine gas and releasing a large quantity downwind would leave 17,500 dead, 10,000 severely injured and 100,000 taken to hospital. Clark Ervin, a former Homeland Security inspector-general, denied that the list helped terrorists by revealing the nation's vulnerabilities. "The terrorists know what their objectives are. They know what the vulnerabilities are," he said. The report was likely to deter attacks in these areas because it showed that the US was on its guard, he said. "And if attacks occur it's likely to minimise the damage." The good news about terrorism Paul Robinson 04/02/05 "The Spectator" http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8421.htm 'We are facing the gravest threat that this nation has ever faced.' Elizabeth I, speaking of the Spanish Armada? Winston Churchill, in the aftermath of Dunkirk? No. Home Office minister Baroness Scotland on Newsnight, justifying the new Prevention of Terrorism Act by reference to the threat from al-Qa'eda. 'Hang on,' I said to myself on hearing the Baroness, 'that can't be right.' My mum can remember lying in bed hearing bombs drop, and she once saw a V1 go over and heard the engine cut out as she watched. As an army officer a decade ago I used to have to check under my car for IRA bombs every time I went out. Army officers don't have to do that any more. The gravest threat ever? Surely not. But as an academic, I am loath to scoff without investigating the facts. Since my speciality is international security, I attend many conferences with and about the military-industrial establishment. With a few exceptions, I hear the same view with monotonous regularity - the world is more dangerous than ever before, the threat from Islamist terrorism is unlike anything we have ever known, our way of life and our very existence are menaced. Challenge this accepted wisdom and everybody looks at you as if you are an idiot. What is it they know that I don't? Not a lot, as it turns out. Vested interests are involved. Ever since the collapse of the Warsaw Pact eliminated the need for 90 per cent of our armed forces, the defence establishment has been working overtime to justify its continued existence. Similarly, ever since the disintegration of the USSR ended the threats from Soviet subversion and KGB espionage and put most of MI5 out of a job, the security service has brilliantly re-invented itself as an anti-terrorist agency. Over the past 15 years military planners, the intelligence and security services and security experts in academia have pulled off a brilliant confidence trick, convincing the public that, despite the visible signs of peace breaking out, the world is actually growing ever more dangerous. Their basic thesis is that during the Cold War there was a degree of stability which kept a lid on conflicts, and provided some certainty in the sphere of international relations. After 1991 these Good Old Days came to an end. Now we face not one stolid and predictable enemy, but numerous insane and suicidal ones. We can only wish to be as safe as my mother wondering where that V1 was going to land. If we haven't evacuated our children, it is because there is no safe place on the planet to send them. Alas for the experts, but luckily for us, the facts do not back this up. Far from being more dangerous, the world is safer now than ever before; and far from being an ever-growing problem, terrorism has been in sharp decline for over a decade. This is not a matter of opinion. It is provable. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri) and Canada's Project Ploughshares both annually track the number of armed conflicts taking place worldwide. Sipri counts only those which result in 1,000 deaths or more in a given year, so its figures are slightly lower. Even so, it agrees with Project Ploughshares that the amount of fighting on the planet is declining. According to Sipri, there were only 19 conflicts in 2003, down from 33 in 1991. With its broader definition, Project Ploughshares reports a decline to 36 in 2003 from a peak of 44 in 1995. More good news follows, I'm afraid. Battle-related deaths rose slightly from 15,000 in 2002 to 20,000 in 2003 because of the Iraq war, but even these figures are substantially down from the annual tolls of 40,000 to 100,000 during the Cold War. Global military expenditure also fell by 11 per cent in real terms between 1992 and 2000, and the Congressional Research Service in Washington notes that international arms sales fell from £22.8 billion in 2000 to £14.3 billion in 2003. In short, there are fewer wars, fewer arms sales and fewer people dying, each year, than at any time since the second world war. So much for the idea that the world is becoming more unstable. What of the second thesis - that global terrorism poses a new and unprecedented threat to our security? Again, the concept turns out to be unsound. I recommend that the fearful visit the excellent website of the Rand Corporation's MIPT (Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism) database and try out its 'Incident Analysis Wizard' (www.tkb.org/ChartModule.jsp). However you fiddle MIPT's figures, the chart always ends up looking roughly the same - a big peak in terrorism in the late 1970s and early '80s, followed by a steady reduction ever since. During the 1980s, the number of international terrorist incidents worldwide averaged about 360 a year. By the year 2000, it was down to just 100. In Western Europe, the number has declined from about 200 in the mid-1980s to under 30 in 2004. Even more strikingly, in North America the number of attacks has fallen from over 40 a year in the mid-1970s to under five every year for the past ten years, with the sole exception of 2001. Doubters can also turn to the US State Department's yearly analyses of international terrorism. These display exactly the same picture. It is sometimes argued that terrorist attacks nowadays cause more deaths than in the past, but even that does not add up - except in the case of 2001. The statistics for worldwide fatalities from terrorism show the same decline as the number of attacks. For every Bali or Madrid bombing now, there was a Beirut, an Air India or a Lockerbie in the past. We seem to have very short memories. Remember the FLQ, the Red Brigades, the Red Army Faction, the Baader-Meinhof group, and all the rest of them? All defunct. Even Eta haven't killed anybody for a couple of years. Bluntly, terrorism is a declining problem, despite our best efforts to provoke it. The reason for all this is simple. The Cold War was not the mythologised happy time of stable co-existence at all. At one point during the Cuban Missile Crisis, only one political officer stood between a Soviet submarine commander and his desire to launch a nuclear torpedo. The Cold War was a period of dangerous instability, with endless proxy wars, coups, insurgencies, revolutions, counter-revolutions, and state-sponsored terrorism. When communism fell, most of these activities came to an end. True, some new wars erupted as the old order crumbled away, and some new terror groups came to the fore, but nothing on the scale of the past. At this point in the argument, people often interrupt me and say, 'Yes, but what if...?!' What if rogue states develop weapons of mass destruction, and what if they give them to terrorists, and what if the terrorists find some means to disseminate them, and what if the moon were made of green cheese? And this, it seems, is what the whole of British defence and security policy now comes down to. We didn't invade Iraq because we knew it had weapons of mass destruction and links with terrorists, but because we didn't know that it didn't, and 'what if...?' And we are clamping control orders on those now released from Belmarsh not because we know that they are terrorists (if we had enough evidence to know, we'd be able to arrest them properly) but because we don't know that they aren't and, again, 'what if...?' But what if we are wrong? We imagine that it can't hurt to assume the worst, and that only inaction has a cost. But that is not true. Our leaders were wrong about Iraq and the cost so far is tens of thousands dead (including 80 British soldiers), and an entire city the size of Cardiff (Fallujah) depopulated and in ruins. Every mistake we make ruins lives. In October 1955 General Douglas MacArthur told the cadets of West Point: 'The next war will be an interplanetary war. The nations of the earth must someday make a common front against attack by people from other planets.' The cadets must have wondered which planet MacArthur himself was from, but his fears were no more far-fetched than the current government-fed paranoia that millions of us are about to be murdered in our beds by Islamofascist superbiotoxins kept at 45 minutes' readiness in a bedsit in Tipton and activated by psychotic double-amputees. In fact, considering the news last autumn of possible alien communications reaching us from somewhere between the constellations of Pisces and Aries, there appears to be more scientific evidence for bug-eyed space monsters than for the famous Iraqi WMD. 'If' the Little Green Men attack with their weapons of alien mass destruction, the carnage would be terrible. Why are we not doing something? What if MacArthur was right? What if indeed. -------- ukraine Chernobyl heroes win claim against Russia over unpaid invalidity pensions STRASBOURG (AFP) Mar 17, 2005 http://www.spacewar.com/2005/050317180205.xb7dy3lw.html The European Court of Human Rights Thursday ruled in favor of two Russians who sued social security authorities for failing to increase the invalidity pensions they were awarded for the radiation injuries they suffered in taking part in the cleanup of the Chernobyl nuclear plant. Dmitry Gorokhov, 53, and Rostislav Rusyayev, 54, complained that they had not obtained the increases in their pensions awarded by a Russian court in Many of the workers who went into the plant to clean up after the 1986 explosion had no protective equipment and suffered fatal or debilitating radiation burns. The plant was later sealed in a concrete sarcophagus and the entire Chernobyl region has been emptied of inhabitants and left deserted. The human rights court said the applicants had been denied timely justice, and deprived of the right to peaceful enjoyment of their possessions. Judgments of the court are enforceable in member countries of the Council of Europe, of which Russia is one. The court ordered Russian authorities to pay each of the defendants 900 euros (1,200 dollars) in non-pecuniary damages, for pain and loss of amenity. -------- u.s. nuc facilities -------- nevada Falsified Yucca Mtn. Documents Bolster Nuclear Dump's Critics WASHINGTON, DC, March 17, 2005 (ENS) http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/mar2005/2005-03-17-03.asp Government employees working on the licensing of Yucca Mountain, Nevada as the nation's only permanent repository for high-level nuclear waste "may have falsified documentation of their work," the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) acknowledged Wednesday. The suspected worker was employed by the US Geological Survey (USGS) at the Department of the Interior, and the documentation in question "relates to computer modeling involving water infiltration and climate," said Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman. “During the document review process associated with the Licensing Support Network preparation for the Yucca Mountain project, DOE contractors discovered multiple emails written between May 1998 and March 2000, in which a USGS employee indicated that he had fabricated documentation of his work," Bodman said in a statement. This documentation is required as part of the Department of Energy and Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s quality assurance programs that verify the accuracy and credibility of work that has been completed. Describing himself as "greatly disturbed" by the revelation, Bodman called the alleged fabrication "completely unacceptable." He has referred the matter to the Department of Energy’s Office of Inspector General for full investigation. Yucca Mountain would be nation's first long-term geologic repository for spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste. Currently stored at 126 sites around the nation, these materials are a result of nuclear power generation and national defense programs. The DOE has informed the U.S, Geological Survey and the State of Nevada of the alleged falsification. Nevada Governor Kenny Guinn, a Republican, said, “I am both disappointed and outraged by this development, but hardly surprised." “All along, the State of Nevada has felt it is our duty to hold the federal government accountable on the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump because we would be storing the deadliest substance known to man.” “This is yet another example as to why Nevada’s Agency for Nuclear Projects has closely monitored the Yucca Mountain project since its inception,” Guinn said. “This comes on the heels of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington ruling the EPA radiation protection standard was deficient.” Because the data in question involved computer modeling for water infiltration and climate, the sitution is particularly troubling, Guinn said. “DOE’s revelation is critical because water is the mechanism that could corrode the storage containers at Yucca Mountain and carry radioactive waste into the environment,”the governor said. “This is the heart of the matter as to whether the storage of nuclear waste could be determined to be safe just 90 miles from Nevada’s largest city, Las Vegas.” Guinn supports the Energy Secretary's call for a full investigation by DOE’s Office of Inspector General. U.S. Senators from Nevada John Ensign, a Republican, and Harry Reid, a Democrat seized upon the revelation as vindication for their longstanding position that Yucca Mountain is based on poor science and should not be licensed. “We in Nevada have said for years that the science at Yucca Mountain is faulty – now it appears the science is fraudulent," Ensign said. "This latest development provides yet another reason to abandon the misguided notion of storing high-level nuclear waste in Nevada and will hopefully encourage an accelerated discussion of alternatives that are safer and more scientifically sound." Senator John Ensign, a Republican, is opposed to Yucca Mountain. (Photo courtesy Office of the Senator) "These revelations will undoubtedly bolster Nevada’s legal case against Yucca Mountain. Senator Reid and I will remain vigilant and weigh our options for further action, but today it is clear the Yucca Mountain project continues to crumble before its supporters’ eyes,” Ensign said. “This proves once again that DOE must cheat and lie in order to make Yucca Mountain look safe," said Reid. "We aren’t just talking about false documentation on paper, this is about the health and safety of Nevadans and the American people." The Bush administration, which has approved the Yucca Mountain waste repository, has always insisted that its approval was based on sound science, a position that Secretary Bodman repeated Wednesday. “The safe handling and disposal of nuclear waste and the sound scientific basis for the repository safety analysis are priorities for this administration and the Department of Energy. All related decisions have been, and will continue to be, based on sound science," Bodman said. But Reid was not reassured by this statement. "It is abundantly clear that there is no such thing as 'sound science' at Yucca Mountain, and I’m disappointed President [George W. Bush] rushed so quickly to push the project through and continues to make it a priority. I do not believe Yucca Mountain will ever open, and Nevada and our nation will be safer for our successful efforts to stop the project." “It should be obvious to everyone now that Yucca Mountain isn’t going anywhere," Reid said. Both Nevada senators are working together on legislation that would allow waste to be stored on-site at nuclear facilities. "The tide is turning on Yucca Mountain, and it’s time we look at this viable alternative and realistic approach to long term waste storage,” said Reid. Nevada Congressman Jim Gibbons, a Republican and the sole geologist in Congress, said was not surprised to learn that reports about the safety of Yucca Mountain may have been falsified or fabricated. "For over two decades, the Department of Energy has rushed headlong towards licensing the Yucca Mountain Project no matter what," said Gibbons. "Today’s allegations are extremely serious and should halt the licensing process in its tracks." “The Department of Energy has initiated a scientific investigation of the data and documentation that was part of this modeling activity," Bodman said. "If in the course of that review any work is found to be deficient, it will be replaced or supplemented with analysis and documentation that meets appropriate quality assurance standards to ensure that the scientific basis of the project is sound," Bodman said. "We are conducting a thorough review of all work completed by the identified individuals to ensure that other work was not affected." Gibbons was not placated by this assurance. "I do not know how any Nevadan or any American can have confidence in the DOE in its pursuit to license Yucca Mountain in light of these recent allegations of false documentation and their history of changing the rules and standards without any regard for safety or security," he said. "The transportation and storage of high level nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain has been and always will be an unsafe and unsuitable proposal that I will continue to fight,” said Gibbons. In addition, Bodman said, the DOE has begun an evalution to determine if the department's quality assurance procedures are "sufficient to prevent the reoccurrence of a similar situation." "We plan to reemphasize to project personnel the importance of strict adherence to quality assurance procedures," he said. “The fact remains that this country needs a permanent geological nuclear waste repository, and the administration will continue to aggressively pursue that goal," Bodman said. "We are committed to the safety and protection of the citizens of Nevada as we pursue the development of the Yucca Mountain project.” -------- tennessee Cleanup Progress document now available (Oak Ridge TN) 11:53 a.m. on March 17, 2005 Oak Ridger Staff Reports http://www.oakridger.com/stories/031705/new_20050317005.shtml The new edition of "Cleanup Progress: Annual Report to the Oak Ridge Community" is now available at the Department of Energy Information Center in Oak Ridge. The document discusses the status of cleanup on the Oak Ridge Reservation, including East Tennessee Technology Park, the Melton Valley area of Oak Ridge National Laboratory and other reservation sites. It also covers waste management initiatives and public involvement activities for Fiscal Year 2004. "Real cleanup progress is being made just about everywhere you look on the Oak Ridge Reservation," said Stephen McCracken, DOE Oak Ridge Operations assistant manager for Environmental Management. "The accelerated cleanup schedule provides for cleanup of the reservation's highest priority cleanup areas by 2008, while saving approximately $1.4 billion through the life of the program through 2015." Examples of these accomplishments include the shipment of more that 1,800 cylinders of depleted uranium hexafluoride to Portsmouth, Ohio, an 800,000 cubic yard expansion of disposal capacity at the Environmental Management Waste Management Facility and the demolition of 11 facilities in the K-1064 area of ETTP. Updates on these and other projects are included in the new edition of "Cleanup Progress." For a copy of the document, visit the DOE Information Center, located at 475 Oak Ridge Turnpike, or call (865) 241-4780. -------- MILITARY -------- arms India Protests Possible Sale Of Fighter Jets to Pakistan By Glenn Kessler Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, March 17, 2005; Page A19 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A39410-2005Mar16.html ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, March 16 -- Indian officials objected Wednesday to the possible U.S. resumption of F-16 fighter jet sales to Pakistan, even as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice raised the prospect of selling military aircraft and civilian nuclear technology to India. During Rice's first visit to South Asia since taking office, Indian officials also dismissed U.S. concerns over a pending $4 billion natural gas pipeline project that India is developing with Iran; the Bush administration has accused Iran of having an illicit nuclear weapons program. "We have no problems of any kind with Iran," Foreign Minister Natwar Singh said The Bush administration has worked hard to develop closer links with India, in part because, as the world's largest democracy, it is considered a counterweight to the growing regional influence of China. The relationship with India is complicated by the U.S. support of Pakistan, a key ally in the war on terrorism, but tensions have eased in the past year between the two nuclear-armed neighbors and rivals. For instance, Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, plans to attend a cricket match in New Delhi, the Indian capital, on April 17. It would be the Pakistani leader's first visit to India since a failed summit in 2001. In absence of better missile technology, the F-16 has long been considered Pakistan's most reliable means of delivery for a nuclear weapon, although its missile capability has improved considerably. "We did express certain concerns about certain matters on the defense issue," Singh said. "Our views with regard to F-16 are well-known." Congress has not been notified about any decision by the Bush administration to go ahead with the sale and has repeatedly warned against selling F-16s to Pakistan, in part because Pakistan has provided little information on a nuclear smuggling ring run by A.Q. Khan, considered to be the father of the country's atomic program. Rice, who flew to Islamabad for talks Wednesday night with Musharraf and other Pakistani officials, refused to discuss an F-16 deal in any detail, except to say she planned no announcement on her trip. The State Department spokesman, Richard Boucher, said that during three hours of talks and a dinner with Musharraf, Rice brought up the purchase of F-16s as the two discussed Pakistan's defense and security needs. Pakistan bought 40 F-16s during the 1980s, but Congress halted sales in 1990 after the country was suspected of possessing a nuclear device. Pakistani officials have repeatedly raised the issue, seeking a reward for their cooperation in fighting al Qaeda. Pakistan is desperate to modernize its fleet, and would like to acquire about two dozen new aircraft. For the past three years, a U.S. official said, the administration has authorized the sale of F-16 spare parts to Pakistan to allow its older jets to keep flying. During the talks, Rice pressed Musharraf to provide more assistance in the investigation of Khan's activities. Her predecessor, Colin L. Powell, made a similar request during a trip to Islamabad a year ago. "On the subject of non-proliferation, they both emphasized the importance of our continuing cooperation to uproot the entire A.Q. Khan network," Boucher said. Rice also expressed the United States' "firm support for steady movement along a path to free and fair elections in 2007," Boucher said. Musharraf, who took power in a bloodless coup in 1999, reneged on a promise last year to give up his position as army chief of staff, and retains tight control. Before the talks in Pakistan, Rice was asked in an interview by India's NDTV about the possibility of selling F-16s to India and Pakistan. "We want very much for there to be a military balance in the region that preserves peace," Rice said. Rice told reporters at a news conference with Singh there was "much more we can do" in the relationship with India. She said the United States hoped to enhance defense cooperation, work with India on meeting its energy needs without harming the environment and build commercial and business links. A senior State Department official said the discussions on energy could include the sale of civilian nuclear technology to India. An agreement with India announced last year began the easing of U.S. restrictions on the export of dual-use items for India's nuclear power, space and high-technology programs as India enacted legislation addressing U.S. proliferation concerns. -------- biological weapons Anthrax Alarm Uncovers Response Flaws Pentagon Procedures Baffled Other Agencies, Delaying Health Officials By Spencer S. Hsu Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, March 17, 2005; Page A01 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A42040-2005Mar16.html The anthrax scare at the Pentagon this week exposed gaps between the military's procedures in handling biohazards and those of the rest of the federal government, which could increase the threat to public health in the event of an actual contamination, health experts and federal and Virginia officials said yesterday. Health officials inside government and out said the Pentagon's reliance on detection and response systems that are isolated from those at other federal agencies delayed Virginia health officials, the U.S. Postal Service and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in moving to protect the public from a possible biohazard in the mail. "The takeaway for me is, the government hasn't learned too many lessons from the last few years," said Scott J. Becker, executive director of the Association of Public Health Laboratories. "The Department of Defense appears to be developing their own detection systems. . . . The linkages to public health just didn't seem to be there. Clearly, things broke down." In the muddle, local hazardous materials teams were confused by sensor equipment that differed from equipment used by the Postal Service and Department of Homeland Security, said Robert B. Stroube, Virginia's health commissioner. State and federal officials responsible for deciding public health actions said scientists had trouble interpreting the findings from a Pentagon contract lab, which is not part of the CDC's national network of labs that respond to bioterror. Yesterday, the top elected officeholders in Fairfax County and the District, along with members of Congress, called for a summit to discuss the federal response. They said they were kept out of the loop during Monday's anthrax scare at the Pentagon and a subsequent biohazard alarm at a Defense Department office complex in the Baileys Crossroads section of Fairfax. Now that anthrax tests have come back negative and the buildings are beginning to reopen, several officials also are concerned about the differing testing guidelines. Since the 2001 anthrax attacks, the Postal Service has been spending $1.4 billion to install a biohazard detection system at 283 mail facilities; the federal government has spent $370 million to boost state and local public health labs, the backbone of the CDC's 140 bioterror Laboratory Response Network; and Homeland Security has launched a $60 million-plus BioWatch system to monitor air in more than 30 U.S. cities. All rely on the same CDC protocols. But the Defense Department has not signed a federal memorandum of understanding that standardizes alerts, terminology, data sharing and response when biohazard systems at military sites in the United States are triggered, a senior federal health official said. The Pentagon is spending $1 billion on a five-year program to develop biohazard warning systems and procedures at 185 U.S. and 15 overseas bases. "Why are they using a private facility to do environmental testing when we have invested billions of dollars to enhance public health and defense facilities to deal with 21st-century public health threats?" said George W. Foresman, homeland security adviser to Virginia Gov. Mark R. Warner (D). The BioWatch system has gone two years without a false positive. The Postal Service's system has reviewed 500,000 samples without a false positive. Pentagon spokesman Glenn Flood defended the department's actions while acknowledging that "we're looking at all those issues." "The contractor laboratory has worked well. We have protocols in place. . . . Until we get all the information, I could not go beyond that," Flood said. The Postal Service reopened its main government mail processing center at V Street NE at noon yesterday and advised about 200 employees that they could stop taking antibiotics. Last night, Pentagon officials awaited more lab results from the Pentagon's Remote Delivery Facility and the Baileys Crossroads office complex. The Pentagon expected to reopen its intake facility today. The Fairfax buildings will reopen today except for a suite in one of the towers, where more testing will be done, Homeland Security officials said. The events began last Thursday when one of four swab samples taken daily from sensor filters at the Pentagon delivery facility tested positive for anthrax at Commonwealth Biotechnologies Inc. in Richmond, a Pentagon subcontractor. The finding was confirmed by a highly accurate polymerase chain reaction test and forwarded Friday to the prime contractor, said Robert B. Harris, president of the Richmond lab. Pentagon officials say they were notified Monday morning of the finding. That afternoon -- apparently by coincidence, military officials said -- a machine on the eighth floor of the Fairfax complex that receives mail from the Pentagon sounded an airborne biohazard alarm. Military officials said that although Army scientists at Fort Detrick confirmed the initial positive finding, quality control problems at the lab probably spoiled the sample. "We stand by our results, and the work is ongoing," said Harris, whose company has processed 2,000 samples from the Pentagon over two years. "To say the way the release was made was premature, unfortunate and unwarranted is an understatement." A federal health official familiar with Pentagon operations said its lab practices vary from those of civilian agencies, complicating the interpretation of scientific data. Staff writers Allan Lengel and Josh White contributed to this report. ---- False Alarm Washington Post EDITORIAL Thursday, March 17, 2005; Page A24 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A42178-2005Mar16.html AS OF TODAY, it seems virtually certain that anthrax scares at two Defense Department postal facilities on Monday were false alarms, odd though that coincidence may be. But the procedures followed in both cases still reveal a great deal about how well the national capital region, with its confluence of federal, state and local agencies, managed what could have been a health crisis. Unexpectedly, they may have also revealed a deep gap between military and civilian approaches to bioterrorism. First, the good news: Enormous progress has been made since October 2001, when the first -- and still unsolved -- anthrax attack took place in Washington. The mere fact that the Pentagon's mailrooms are no longer inside the Pentagon itself is a big advantage. The screening systems also represent an advance. Last time around, nobody realized that postal workers were even endangered until some of them became sick. This time postal facilities were immediately shut down and workers were issued antibiotics. Both the Pentagon and local authorities were prepared for this kind of crisis and had the right equipment to deal with it. But while it seems that the Defense Department worked well with Arlington County police -- who agree that they have had ample time to train and practice with the agency -- the Pentagon failed to coordinate its initial activity with the Department of Homeland Security or the Department of Health and Human Services and its Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Not only were the latter not informed of the first incident for several hours, it isn't clear that the Pentagon ever intended to rely on them anyway. Apparently, the Pentagon has developed its own system of gauging and dealing with threats. This system depends heavily on private contractors, whose labs not only sounded the first false-positive alarm on Monday morning but let some mail circulate before establishing that it was safe to do so. The Pentagon has no explanation for that lapse, or for the fact that neither federal public health authorities nor Fairfax County police were aware of the first incident until after the second one took place in their jurisdiction. The Pentagon says it informed all relevant law enforcement agencies in good time, but if some didn't get the message, something is seriously wrong with the communication system. The post hoc examinations of the incident may reveal more. But it is already clear that deeper and more frequent cooperation among all of the region's federal and local authorities has to be a critical part of emergency preparedness. It is also time to ask why the Pentagon has felt the need to develop, in effect, its own internal biohazard detection procedures, separate from those of the rest of the country. Does the Pentagon not think that DHS and HHS are up to the job? ---- The 2001 anthrax mystery lingers 3 1/2 years after the deadly attacks, federal officials probing cases say tracking down culprits is difficult March 17, 2005 BY TOM BRUNE WASHINGTON BUREAU Newsday.com http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/ny-usinv174178549mar17,0,1514363.story?coll=ny-nationalnews-headlines WASHINGTON -- Nearly three and half years after deadly anthrax powder killed five, sickened 17 and terrorized an already stunned nation following the Sept. 11 hijackings, federal investigators remain stumped. The initial positive tests Monday showing anthrax in postal facilities for the Pentagon brought back memories of the chaos of October 2001 and the lingering mystery of who sent anthrax in letters to senators in Washington, a tabloid newspaper in Florida and news anchors in New York. Although the final tests turned out to be negative, concerns that terrorists could spray anthrax spores to kill thousands - a scenario posed in a confidential report made public yesterday - adds urgency to the solving of the 2001 anthrax attacks. But asked yesterday about the status of the probe, dubbed the Amerithrax investigation, the FBI said, "It is still ongoing." That sounds more optimistic than U.S. District Court Judge Reggie B. Walton did in October after he reviewed a sealed affidavit filed by the FBI containing classified information about its investigation. "Candidly, from my review of the classified information," Walton said in court, "it doesn't seem to me that anything is going to happen in the near future that's going to change the status quo." Walton is overseeing a defamation lawsuit filed against former Attorney General John Ashcroft, the FBI and others by Dr. Steven Hatfill, a former Army bioweapons expert whom Ashcroft publicly described as a "person of interest" in the anthrax case. After following him around, searching his house at least twice and draining a lake to see if he threw anthrax-making equipment into it, however, the FBI and prosecutors have yet to file any charges against Hatfill. Hatfill and his attorneys declined to comment. So did Justice officials. The FBI has probed others. In August, the FBI and postal inspectors searched homes in upstate New York and in New Jersey belonging to Dr. Kenneth Berry, who founded an anti-terrorism group and predicted in the 1990s an anthrax attack. Prosecutors filed no charges against him. Berry couldn't be reached for comment. The FBI and Justice Department officials say tracking down anonymous senders of dangerous powders in the mail is difficult and complex. The FBI still has not solved the question of who sent another potentially deadly powder, ricin, to the office of Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) in February 2004. Some of the targets of the 2001 anthrax letters haven't heard from the FBI lately. The FBI once gave regular briefings on the probe to Senators Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), whose office received anthrax-laced letters, a Leahy spokesman said. But he said it's been months since the last briefing. -------- budget House Approves War Funding $81.4 Billion Exceeds Combat Request, Trims Other Plans By Shailagh Murray Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, March 17, 2005; Page A23 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40248-2005Mar16.html The House yesterday overwhelmingly approved an emergency war spending bill giving President Bush most, but not all, of the aid he is seeking for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and to help tsunami victims in the Indian Ocean region. The $81.4 billion bill passed 388 to 43, a rare landslide in an otherwise bitterly divided chamber. Bush applauded the House "for its strong bipartisan support for our troops and for our strategy to win the war on terror." Despite the bill's easy passage, many lawmakers said they were annoyed to find non-urgent items riding on the back of immediate, combat-related spending needs. Reflecting that frustration, the House stripped out $592 million for a new U.S. embassy compound in Baghdad. The House included nearly $2 billion more for combat-related spending than Bush had requested. The Army and Marine Corps, which do most of the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, are the biggest beneficiaries of the bill, which would provide money to armor trucks and for protective body gear, night-vision devices, handheld mine detection systems, improved radios and medical supplies. Other funding would help the Army expedite its reorganization plans, including the creation of additional combat brigades. In one of the debate's more moving moments, Rep. John P. Murtha (Pa.), the ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations defense subcommittee, recounted that he and the subcommittee chairman, Rep. C.W. Bill Young (R-Fla.), had visited military facilities. One of their findings: Death benefits were too low. The House bill would increase the maximum subsidized life insurance benefit to $400,000, up from the current $250,000, and a one-time death gratuity for combat fatalities to $100,000, up from $12,000. "I have had 12 people killed in my district, and there is no question in my mind for the need for that to be changed," Murtha said. Overall, the bill has $500 million less than Bush's original request, with most cuts directed at non-defense-related foreign assistance that lawmakers deemed either unworthy or not urgent. The list included $570 million in cuts to Afghanistan reconstruction projects, including the building or refurbishing of power plants, the Kabul airport, courthouses and industrial parks. Those items will be considered as part of the fiscal 2006 budget process, Appropriations Committee members said. The Baghdad embassy took the biggest hit -- it was nixed altogether, with an amendment passing 258 to 170 to prevent the project from receiving funds under the legislation. Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), author of the amendment, and his allies want the embassy request considered as part of the regular appropriations process, to give Congress more oversight on how the money is spent and to provide a more thorough accounting of Iraq war costs. Bush omitted Iraq-related costs from his fiscal 2005 and 2006 budgets, arguing that they are too hard to anticipate. "We need an embassy in Iraq, but we have also known we need an embassy in Iraq," said Rep. Sue Myrick (R-N.C.), who co-sponsored the Upton amendment. Supporters of the embassy funding said striking it could delay much-needed security improvements and jeopardize the safety of U.S. workers. Rep. Frank R. Wolf (R-Va.) recounted the U.S. embassy attacks in Lebanon, Tanzania and Kenya: "We have a moral obligation to the people that we are sending in this region to live in a situation and work where they will be protected." Appropriations Committee Chairman Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.) cited the U.S. civilians who have been killed in Iraq and noted that the $592 million in this bill was already $66 million less than Bush had sought. Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.) said he will seek to preserve the embassy funding in the Senate's version of the supplemental spending bill, now scheduled to be considered in April. The House bill does provide non-defense foreign aid, including $200 million in economic assistance for the West Bank and Gaza territories; $150 million in foreign military assistance for Pakistan and $100 million for Jordan; and $354 million for Afghan reconstruction projects. Under the heading "emergency assistance," Afghanistan would receive an additional $594 million for efforts to fight narcotics and for police training, and $372 million to help dismantle the poppy industry. The House bill provides $656 million in tsunami disaster relief, $45 million less than Bush wanted. House Appropriations Committee members determined the $45 million difference to be debt relief for affected countries, not immediate aid for victims. A wild card as the supplemental debate unfolds is the fate of an immigration measure that Republicans attached to the House bill, tightening asylum rules and setting federal standards for driver's licenses. Sen. Larry E. Craig (R-Idaho) is considering his own immigration amendment that specifically addresses agricultural workers. Critics call it an amnesty program -- exactly the opposite direction of the House provision, setting the stage for a potential showdown when the bill goes to a House-Senate conference for the resolution of differences. -------- prisoners of war ‘Murder suspected in 26 Iraq, Afghan prison deaths’ The Pakistan International News March 17, 2005 http://jang.com.pk/thenews/mar2005-daily/17-03-2005/world/w2.htm NEW YORK: At least 26 prisoners have died in US custody in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2002 in what Army and Navy investigators have concluded or suspect were acts of criminal homicide, the New York Times reported on Tuesday, citing military officials. Investigators have closed their inquiries in 18 of those cases reviewed by the Army and Navy and have recommended them for prosecution or referred them to other agencies for action, the Times said. Eight cases are still being probed but are listed by the Army as confirmed or suspected criminal homicides, the paper reported, citing officials. Only one of the deaths occurred at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, notorious for a scandal over abuse meted out to detainees by US soldiers, the Times said. Army officials told the Times that the killings took place both inside and outside detention areas, including at the point of capture in often-violent battlefield conditions. The newspaper said the number of confirmed or suspected cases is much higher than any figure previously reported by the military and was provided to the Times after repeated inquiries. The cases include at least four involving Central Intelligence Agency employees that are being reviewed by the Justice Department for possible prosecution, the Times said. Lawrence Di Rita, the chief Pentagon spokesman, told the paper that he was not aware that the Defense Department had previously accounted publicly for criminal homicides among the detainee deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq, but said military authorities were vigorously pursuing each case. In addition to the criminal homicides, 11 cases involving prisoner deaths at the hands of US troops are now listed as justifiable homicides that should not be prosecuted; the Times reported citing Army officials. ---- CIA's Assurances On Transferred Suspects Doubted Prisoners Say Countries Break No-Torture Pledges By Dana Priest Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, March 17, 2005; Page A01 http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A42072-2005Mar16 The system the CIA relies on to ensure that the suspected terrorists it transfers to other countries will not be tortured has been ineffective and virtually impossible to monitor, according to current and former intelligence officers and lawyers, as well as counterterrorism officials who have participated in or reviewed the practice. To comply with anti-torture laws that bar sending people to countries where they are likely to be tortured, the CIA's office of general counsel requires a verbal assurance from each nation that detainees will be treated humanely, according to several recently retired CIA officials familiar with such transfers, known as renditions. But the effectiveness of the assurances and the legality of the rendition practice are increasingly being questioned by rights groups and others, as freed detainees have alleged that they were mistreated by interrogators after the CIA secretly delivered them to countries with well-documented records of abuse. President Bush weighed in on the matter for the first time yesterday, defending renditions as vital to the nation's defense. In "the post-9/11 world, the United States must make sure we protect our people and our friends from attack," he said at a news conference. "And one way to do so is to arrest people and send them back to their country of origin with the promise that they won't be tortured. That's the promise we receive. This country does not believe in torture. We do believe in protecting ourselves." One CIA officer involved with renditions, however, called the assurances from other countries "a farce." Another U.S. government official who visited several foreign prisons where suspects were rendered by the CIA after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, said: "It's beyond that. It's widely understood that interrogation practices that would be illegal in the U.S. are being used." The CIA inspector general recently launched a review of the rendition system, and some members of Congress are demanding a thorough probe. Canada, Sweden, Germany and Italy have started investigations into the participation of their security services in CIA renditions. The House voted 420 to 2 yesterday to prohibit the use of supplemental appropriations to support actions that contravene anti-torture statutes. The measure's co-author, Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), singled out renditions, saying "diplomatic assurances not to torture are not credible, and the administration knows it." Rendition, a form of covert action that is supposed to be shrouded in the deepest secrecy, was first authorized by President Ronald Reagan in 1986 and was used by the Clinton administration to transfer drug lords and terrorists to the United States or other countries for military or criminal trials. After the 2001 attacks, Bush broadened the CIA's authority and, as a result, the agency has rendered more than 100 people from one country to another without legal proceedings and without providing access to the International Committee of the Red Cross, a right afforded all prisoners held by the U.S. military. The CIA general counsel's office requires the station chief in a given country to obtain a verbal assurance from that country's security service. The assurance must be cabled back to CIA headquarters before a rendition takes place. CIA Director Porter J. Goss told Congress a month ago that the CIA has "an accountability program" to monitor rendered prisoners. But he acknowledged that "of course, once they're out of our control, there's only so much we can do." Asked to explain Goss's statement, an intelligence official said: "There are accountability procedures in place. For example, in some cases, the U.S. government is allowed access and can verify treatment of detainees." The official declined to elaborate. Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales said in an interview last week that, once a transfer occurs, "we can't fully control what that country might do. We obviously expect a country to whom we have rendered a detainee to comply with their representations to us. If you're asking me 'Does a country always comply?,' I don't have an answer to that." In practice, though, the CIA has little control over prisoners once they leave CIA custody, said three recently retired CIA officials and other intelligence officials who have dealt with foreign intelligence services on detainee matters. "These are sovereign countries," said Michael Scheuer, a recently retired CIA officer who favors the use of renditions to disrupt terrorist networks. "They are not going to let you into their prisons." "Once they are in the jurisdiction of another country, we have no rights to follow up," said Edward S. Walker Jr., a former assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs and now president of the Middle East Institute. The U.S. official who visited foreign detention sites said the issue "goes far beyond" the assurance: "They say they are not abusing them, and that satisfies the legal requirement, but we all know they do." For a country offering assurances, following up could imply the United States does not trust its leaders. "We wouldn't accept the premise that we would make a promise and violate it," said the Egyptian ambassador to the United States, Nabil Fahmy, whose country has accepted rendered terrorism suspects. He denied that Egyptian officers employ torture in interrogations. "I don't accept the premise that if you want to torture someone, you send them to Jordan or Egypt. That would be the exception to the rule." Egypt, he added, "is becoming more and more rigorous" in prosecuting officers who use excessive force. But Mamdouh Habib, an Australian citizen, has alleged he was tortured in Egypt for six months after U.S. officials sent him there. Habib had been detained in Pakistan in October 2001 as a suspected al Qaeda trainer. In Egypt, he alleges, he was hung by his arms from hooks, shocked, nearly drowned and brutally beaten. He was then sent to the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and was released in February. Another Arab diplomat, whose country is actively engaged in counterterrorism operations and shares intelligence with the CIA, said it is unrealistic to believe the CIA really wants to follow up on the assurances. "It would be stupid to keep track of them because then you would know what's going on," he said. "It's really more like 'Don't ask, don't tell.' " Questions about assurances have stalled the release of prisoners from Guantanamo. Guarantees of humane treatment by Yemen notwithstanding, a federal court in the District of Columbia prohibited on Saturday the transfer of 13 Yemeni prisoners from Guantanamo to Yemen until a hearing is held on their attorneys' assertion that they could be tortured if returned there. And despite assurances by China, State Department officials have been unwilling to send 22 Chinese Muslims from Guantanamo to China for fear they would be tortured. Researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report. -------- us McCain, Auditors Question Army Modernization Effort By Renae Merle Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, March 17, 2005; Page E02 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A41938-2005Mar16.html The Army's $120 billion modernization effort was challenged yesterday by government auditors, who said it might be too complex to complete on budget, and by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who questioned whether taxpayers' interests are protected. The Future Combat System (FCS) is designed to replace the Army's heavy tanks and battlefield equipment with a lightweight, high-tech mix of manned and unmanned vehicles. The Government Accountability Office said at a hearing before McCain's Senate Armed Services airland subcommittee yesterday that nearly two years and $4.6 billion after the program began, only one of more than 50 required technologies is mature. It noted that the program will need 34 million lines of software to operate, about twice the number used by the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the largest previous military software project. Chicago-based Boeing Co. is managing the Army transformation project. Some critics have questioned whether Boeing, which has been mired in procurement scandals during the past two years, was the right choice for "lead system integrator" -- a position that gives the aerospace giant more influence than a typical prime contractor in deciding the program's design and awarding subcontracts. McCain pointed out that Boeing is running the program under what is known as "other transaction authority," or OTA, rather than a normal procurement contract. The agreement excludes, for example, the Procurement Integrity Act, which limits government employees' ability to negotiate a job with a contractor, and the Truth in Negotiations Act, under which the government conducts audits. "We do have laws in place . . . in order to protect the taxpayers," McCain said. "I appreciate the enormity of the challenge here and the importance of modernizing our Army to meet the new challenges, and we're not interested in holding it up in any way. But we do have this obligation to the taxpayer." Critics have also questioned whether Boeing, the Pentagon's second-largest contractor, should be using an agreement Congress originally intended to attract small commercial companies to the industry. The Pentagon's inspector general has called the increasing use of the agreements with traditional contractors "disturbing." "If one accepts the premise that FCS is unprecedented in its scale and importance and that the Army is changing the way it does business in order to accomplish FCS, then it makes sense for the relationship with the defense industry to change as well," Boeing spokesman Randy Harrison said after the hearing. "You can't get to the future by doing business as usual." Army officials defended the program. "The bottom line is that we need to acquire the best capabilities that we can afford within time constraints given to us," said Claude M. Bolton Jr., the Army's chief weapons buyer. "I believe the [lead systems integrator] and the OTA are both vitally important to the success of this program." The Army streamlined the agreement to eliminate unneeded paperwork and save time, Bolton said. The goals of the laws McCain cited are reflected in the agreement, he said. "All the protection is there," Bolton said. Bolton said during the hearing that, under the agreement, the company's prices are certified as fair. But after the hearing, the Army told the committee that the contract does not require certification, the Project on Government Oversight, a D.C. watchdog group, said it learned. A committee aide confirmed that account and said the agreement also did not appear to allow the Army to recoup funds if it determined the company had overcharged or that costs were not fair and reasonable. -------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE -------- human rights Federal bureaus reject stun guns [batons & pepper spray ok] By Kevin Johnson, USA TODAY 3/17/2005 http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-03-17-tasers-usat_x.htm WASHINGTON — The Department of Homeland Security's two largest law enforcement divisions have rejected the use of stun guns for about 20,000 agents and officers, largely because of questions about the safety of the devices that emit electrical charges to temporarily incapacitate suspects. The bans were adopted by the bureaus of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) in internal directives that were issued during the past two years. ICE rejected the devices in December 2003, spokesman Russ Knocke said. That was about a month after an officer with the Federal Protective Service, a part of ICE, allegedly was injured during a stun gun training session. CBP issued its own ban several months later, spokesman Barry Morrissey said. "There are enough question marks about the safety of this device," Morrissey said, citing a recent review by the agency. "The safety of our officers and the public is always a concern. It was determined that the device just didn't fit." The bureaus' acknowledgements of the bans come at a time when stun guns, which are used by more than 7,000 law enforcement agencies across the USA, are under increasing scrutiny. Since 1999, more than 80 people have died after being shocked with stun guns, according to reviews by The Arizona Republic and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). The Republic has reported that autopsies have linked 11 deaths to stun guns, which also are known as Tasers. In recent weeks, several civil rights groups — including the SCLC, an interfaith group in Atlanta — have called for a moratorium on the use of stun guns. The International Association of Chiefs of Police and other law enforcement groups have called for more extensive research into whether stun guns are safe. Arizona-based Taser International, by far the largest manufacturer of the devices, has vigorously defended the safety of the more than 130,000 Tasers it has sold to police agencies. Taser spokesman Steve Tuttle declined to comment on the Homeland Security bureaus' decision not to use the devices. "While we understand the concerns of the public concerning the topic of in-custody deaths following Taser usage, there are medical experts who dispute the few cases, out of tens of thousands of lifesaving uses, where a Taser device has been cited as a contributing factor to an in-custody death," Tuttle said recently in a statement. "It is the safer alternative (to firearms) ... to subdue violent individuals who could harm law enforcement officers, innocent citizens or themselves." Officer's lawsuit against Taser ICE spokesman Knocke said his agency, which also includes the federal air marshals program, banned stun guns Dec. 10, 2003, after a review by ICE's Firearms and Tactical Training Unit. Less than four weeks earlier, on Nov. 14, officer Salvatore Dimiceli allegedly suffered injuries to both arms during a stun gun training session held in Miami by Taser International, said Tod Aronovitz, Dimiceli's attorney. Dimiceli has sued Taser. He alleges that Taser did not provide adequate warnings about the training, and he is seeking an unspecified amount in damages. ICE would not comment on the incident or the lawsuit. Efforts to reach Taser regarding Dimiceli's allegations were unsuccessful. Knocke declined to comment on ICE's safety review that followed the incident, but he said, "The decision (to ban stun guns) was made out of an abundance of caution related to safety." The National Institute of Justice, the research arm of the Justice Department, has solicited proposals for additional studies of stun guns. Since September, the Justice Department has awarded $530,000 in grants for such research; the work is likely to be completed this summer. The Police Foundation, a law enforcement think tank based in Washington, has submitted one of the proposals. It said the safety reviews should be done quickly because stun guns are used by so many law enforcement officers. "Clearly, there is not enough information out there on the medical issues and how these devices are being deployed," said Karen Amendola, the foundation's chief operating officer for research and evaluation. "There needs to be an objective third-party look at this issue." Ban not aimed at manufacturer Much of the recent criticism of stun guns has focused on Taser International. But Morrissey said the safety review and subsequent ban of stun guns by CBP officials dealt with the "overall application of the technology" and was not aimed at a specific manufacturer. Morrissey added, however, that the "burden of proof is on the manufacturer" when it comes to the safety of stun guns. "Down the road, we may look at (the issue) again," he said. If stun guns had been approved for his agency, Morrissey said, the weapons could have been issued to thousands of Border Patrol agents who often are involved in hand-to-hand altercations with suspects. Such agents carry pepper spray and batons as non-lethal weapons that can be used instead of their handguns. CBP recently drafted a policy for using non-lethal weapons that will make batons and pepper spray more accessible to Customs officers, Morrissey said. ---- End Hypocrisy and Double Standards on Human Rights, Cuba Demands By Political Affairs 3-17-05, 12:54 pm http://www.politicalaffairs.net/article/articleview/805/1/82/ "There is no real enjoyment of human rights if there is no equality and equity. The poor and the rich will never have the same rights in real life, proclaimed and recognized as these may be on paper." --Felipe Perez Roque, Cuban Foreign Minister Related stories: Cuba solidarity http://www.politicalaffairs.net/article/topiclist/11 This week's opening of the 61st Session of the UN Commission on Human Rights began with a call by the Cuban delegation for major reform in the Commission. In thinly veiled references to the "selectivity, polarization, blackmail, double morals and hypocrisy" employed by the large countries on the panel – mainly the UK and the United States – to accomplish their political objectives, the Cuban delegation insisted that the deteriorating human rights situation in the world required a new course. Cuba's Minister of Foreign Affairs Felipe Pérez Roque spoke at the 61st session of the United Nations Commission on Human rights and his statement was followed by an unusually loud ovation. According to Prensa Latina, Perez Roque reiterated that Cuba would never stop fighting the maneuvers of the US government to try to condemn the Cuba. He added that the administration of President George W. Bush is afraid of the Cuban example to the world. Successive US administrations have used the UNCHR as a platform for denouncing Cuba, blocking international conventions banning landmine use, use of new nuclear weapons and depleted uranium, and watering down other international decisions related to human rights that the US considers to go against its political objectives. In his statement, Perez Roque stated that such maneuvering has caused the Commission to lose its legitimacy. "It's not credible," he said. "In it, there are plenty of lies, double standards and empty speeches by those who, while enjoying their wealth, squander and pollute, look the other way and pretend not to see how millions of human beings endure the violation of the right to life, the right to peace, the right to development, the right to eat, to learn, to work; in brief, the right to live in dignity." Perez Roque charged that the US government and its allies use the Commission "as if it were their private property" to condemn the developing countries of the South who refuse to toe their line and "actively oppose their strategy of neocolonial domination." But Perez Roque didn't let Europeans of the hook. He accused the European Union of abdicating its responsibility to human rights by refusing to support a resolution "that proposed to investigate the massive, flagrant and systematic human rights violations still committed today against over 500 prisoners at the naval base that the United States keeps, against the will of the Cuban people, in the Harbor of Guantánamo." The EU delegates blocked the resolution in a show of "hypocrisy and double standards." Perez Roque also lashed out at the Bush administration’s concepts of permanent and preemptive wars and the system of economic inequality that rules the globe. "For a small group of nations represented here," Perez Roque pointed out, "the United States and other developed allies [have] the right to peace has already been achieved. They will always be the attackers and never the ones under attack. Their peace rests on their military power. They have also achieved economic development, based on the pillage of the wealth of the other poor countries that were former colonies, which suffer and bleed to death for those to squander. However, in those developed countries, incredible as it may seem, the unemployed, the immigrants and the impoverished do not enjoy the rights that are most certainly guaranteed for the rich." Perez Roque also despaired at the thought the US might change its ways soon and engage in real and constructive dialogue about remedies to the deteriorating situation. Cuba's foreign minister added a moving accolade to the struggles of the Cuban people and of the real meaning of human rights: The Cuban people strongly believe in freedom, democracy and human rights. It took them a lot to achieve them and are aware of its price. It is a people in power. That is the difference. There cannot be democracy without social justice. There is no possible freedom if not based on the enjoyment of education and culture. Ignorance is the cumbersome shackle squeezing the poor. Being cultivated is the only way to be free! – that is the sacred tenet that we Cubans learned from the Apostle of our independence. There is no real enjoyment of human rights if there is no equality and equity. The poor and the rich will never have the same rights in real life, proclaimed and recognized as these may be on paper. That is what we Cubans learned long ago and for that reason we built a different country. And we are just beginning. We have done so despite the aggressions, the blockade, the terrorist attacks, the lies and the plots to assassinate Fidel. We know that the Empire is chagrined by this. We are a dangerous example: we are a symbol that only in a just and friendly society; that is, socialist, can there be enjoyment of all rights for all citizens. Perez Roque also sounded a stern warning to the Bush administration that threats against Cuba's national sovereignty or any attacks on that country's right to exist will be met with fierce resistance. He closed by promising Cuba's continued willingness to fight for a Commission on Human Rights that defends equality and justice and peace, not the political goals of big nations. -------- torture Abu Ghraib taint doesn't slow general's ascent March 17, 2005 St. Petersburg Times By SUSAN TAYLOR MARTIN, Times Senior Correspondent http://www.sptimes.com/2005/03/17/Columns/Abu_Ghraib_taint_does.shtml The U.S. officer in charge of gathering intelligence in Iraq during the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal got a plum new post Wednesday: head of the Army Intelligence Center at Fort Huachuca, Ariz. Maj. Gen. Barbara Fast took command of the center - where soldiers learn the proper treatment of prisoners - just a week after the latest investigation into the scandal cited no wrongdoing by her or other higher-ups. Fast's promotion troubles some experts, who question how thorough the investigations have been and why no senior officials have been held accountable. "It used to be that if you were the captain of a ship and something happened, even if it was not your fault you took responsibility," said Lawrence Korb, assistant secretary of defense in the Reagan administration. "Here we have a situation where people were in the chain of command when something happened and yet they get another career-enhancing job." Fast, whose new post reportedly pays $132,100, remains on track to become only the second female three-star general in Army history. As chief military intelligence officer in Iraq, Fast, 51, was in charge of interrogators who were trying to glean information from prisoners about the growing insurgency. As such, she often visited Abu Ghraib and determined which inmates should be held for questioning. But Fast has never publicly discussed the abuse, and it is unclear how much she knew about it. The first investigation - made public last spring - had only a brief mention of Fast and put most of the blame on military police. A subsequent report by three generals praised Fast for making changes in intelligence-gathering that facilitated Saddam Hussein's capture and saved American and Iraqi lives. But another report, by an independent, Pentagon-appointed panel, criticized Fast. It said she had failed to advise Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top commander in Iraq, on policies for questioning prisoners and "appropriately monitoring" CIA activities at the prison. In the latest investigation, Vice Adm. Albert T. Church III said he found problems with interrogation techniques. But Church said it was not part of his mission to determine if higher-ups should be held responsible. "The Church report is among a series of whitewash reports," said Amrit Singh, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union. "All of the evidence we have seen thus far suggests that policymaking officials were in fact responsible for the abuses that took place at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere." The ACLU, which obtained government documents through the Freedom of Information Act, is suing Sanchez, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and two lower-ranking officers on behalf of several men who say they were tortured and abused. Although Fast is not a defendant, "it was under her watch that the abuses at Abu Ghraib took place," Singh said. "It is ironic she has been promoted when she was principally involved in interrogation policy for Iraq." In her new job, Fast is commander of Fort Huachuca, home to 5,500 troops and the U.S. Army Intelligence Center, where soldiers are trained in interrogation techniques. One expert wonders why the Army didn't appoint someone untainted by the events in Iraq. "It's concerning that the same names keep popping up," said Eugene Fidell, a military justice expert who has taught at Harvard Law School. Thus far the only officer disciplined in the abuse scandal is Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, a reservist who was in charge of military police at Abu Ghraib. She was suspended from her command and issued an administrative reprimand, which could end her military career. Sanchez remains on active duty, as does Col. Thomas Pappas, who directly supervised intelligence officers at Abu Ghraib. And Rumsfeld, who approved some of the controversial interrogation methods, continues as defense secretary. Fidell said there have been so many investigations of prisoner abuse that they have lost focus and eroded public confidence in the process. But he and Korb agree one more probe is needed - this one by a truly independent, nonpartisan panel along the lines of the 9/11 Commission. Mistreatment of prisoners "contributes to our not-so-great image in the Muslim world," Korb said. "And it will linger unless we have a no-holds barred, let the chips fall where they may kind of investigation." Susan Taylor Martin can be contacted at susan@sptimes.com -------- Goss defends interrogation practices Thursday, March 17, 2005 Cable News Network http://www.cnn.com/2005/ALLPOLITICS/03/17/goss.prisoners.ap/index.html WASHINGTON (AP) -- CIA Director Porter Goss on Thursday defended U.S. interrogation practices amid ongoing criticism that Americans' treatment of prisoners amounts to torture. Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Goss said that professional interrogation has been a "useful and necessary way to obtain information that saves innocent lives and protects combat forces." "The U.S. government does not engage in or condone torture," Goss said. Sen. John McCain, a former prisoner of war in Vietnam, said he was concerned about what he sees as a lack of policy on prisoners. Goss said he believes there is a policy in the intelligence community and where there is any uncertainty officials err on the side of caution. "We don't do torture," Goss said. Adm. Lowell Jacoby, head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said he is seeing fewer attacks in Iraq since the Jan. 30 elections. "There may in fact be a change in the insurgency and the attack planning," he said, adding that it's too early to know if its a trend. Attacks, Jacoby said, have recently been confined to four provinces in Sunni dominated areas. He estimated there are 12,000 to 20,000 insurgents, with a single-digit percentage that is made up of non-Iraqis. Goss said he's optimistic, but realizes that the United State must be patient as Iraqis establish their government. "There is no misjudging that there is still willful intimidation," directed by terrorists toward innocent people, Goss said. -------- POLITICS -------- propaganda wars Japan's 'rights' act to muzzle the media By Kosuke Takahashi Mar 17, 2005 Asia Times http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Japan/GC17Dh01.html TOKYO - Japan, usually considered a nation with an open press, is likely to curtail that freedom with its first human-rights law, one that includes abuses by the media, as determined by a non-independent, government-controlled media watchdog agency. Politicians everywhere, East and West, have always strived to control the media. Especially for conservative political wings and old guards, the liberal and liberal-leaning media are a great nuisance, or a real problem. In the United States, the right-wing media are a force to be reckoned with, but legal curbs on freedom of speech and the press are difficult or impossible enact. Russian President Vladimir Putin's crackdown on the critical, less than adulatory media in recent years is among the most notable examples of repression. In the peaceful Philippines Revolution of 1986, or the People Power Revolution, that ended president Ferdinand Marcos' dictatorship, both his loyal government troops and the opposition reformist soldiers struggled over control of television and radio stations, invaluable communications and propaganda tools. In South Korea, President Roh Moo-hyun - himself often criticized by the entrenched, conservative big media - pushed through the National Assembly a media law requiring what his administration called balance and fairness. His predecessor, Kim Dae-jung, also tried to intimidate the media by checking the financial dealings by the big media. The media everywhere howled. The list goes on. But in Japan? Today's democratic Japan is no exception to the persistent curbing of press freedom. And Japan has no human-rights protection law - in this case coupled with curbs on press freedom, described as sometimes infringing on privacy and abusing human rights. The Japanese government and its coalition parties, led by the governing Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), plan to resubmit to the Diet (parliament) a controversial bill that aims to protect human rights - and also to curb certain press practices. The aim is to submit the bill before the current session is scheduled to end on June 19, though it could be extended. The Japanese media, both liberal and conservative, are outraged by portions of the bill and have called with virtually one voice for a drastic revision, even scrapping the proposed legislation. The Human Rights Protection Bill is becoming a very big political issue, raising concerns over possible future government interference in press coverage and intimidating and muzzling of the press. A proposed freeze for five years on the most controversial press restrictions would make this a problem for future administrations after the departure of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's government. Critics say the bill could lead to problematic new regulation of the news media - with a lapdog watchdog agency, or media monitor, under the thumb of the Ministry of Justice. The legislation does not address human-rights violations by the government, instead stressing alleged journalism-related human-rights violations, such as the infringement of privacy. The text of the proposed bill - not yet formally submitted - is not available online in English or Japanese, since it appears to be a work in progress, and some provisions could be revised. "The bill does not address the issue of human-rights violations by government power, since the proposed new watchdog body is not an independent monitor of power," Makoto Teranaka, the executive director of Amnesty International Japan, told Asia Times Online. "Moreover, it's very bizarre to see this type of human-rights protection bill include the provision on media regulation by [what it calls] international standards," added Teranaka, who demanded the media restrictions be removed. The issue of media regulation and the debate it has generated have coincided with two important developments in the relationship between journalism and political power in Japan. # The first and most recent development is the Tokyo High Court's decision last Thursday supporting the retrial of the case of five now-deceased journalists convicted in connection with the wartime Yokohama Incident crackdown on free speech, Japan's most serious wartime assault on free speech. Those journalists were convicted between August 29 and September 15, 1945, on suspicion of "scheming to re-establish the Communist Party", at that time a violation of the wartime Maintenance of Public Order Law enacted in 1925. They were, and still are, widely believed to have confessed their alleged crimes under police torture. Relatives of the five deceased defendants requested a petition for retrial to the Yokohama District Court, and the court accepted it in April 2003, after two previous petitions were rejected. The Tokyo High Court concurred that a new trial was necessary. # The second is the revelation of Japan public broadcaster NHK's alleged alteration of a documentary, reportedly under political pressure, to excise critical portions relating to wartime Emperor Hirohito. The liberal Asahi Shimbun reported on January 12 that NHK in 2001 significantly altered a documentary program that featured a mock trial of the Japanese military for forcing Asian women into sexual slavery during World War II. The Asahi said NHK was pressured by two powerful politicians of the LDP, namely Shinzo Abe, then deputy chief cabinet secretary, and Shoichi Nakagawa, then head of an LDP panel on history education. Abe is now deputy secretary general of the LDP, and Nakagawa is the minister of economy, trade and industry. Both men are conservatives. Abe is a grandchild of Nobusuke Kishi, minister of commerce and industry during Hideki Tojo's militaristic administration; Kishi was one of the suspected war criminals who were later released from Sugamo Prison by the United States; he became prime minister in 1957. The Asahi reported that under their political pressure NHK edited out four minutes of footage, including a scene in which the mock trial found the late wartime Emperor Hirohito guilty of crimes against humanity. NHK and the two politicians have vigorously denied the allegations. Asahi stands by its story, while NHK says Asahi's coverage was incorrect. If possible, there's a bright side, quite separate from squelching press freedom: The Human Rights Protection Bill aims to provide immediate relief, prohibiting further discrimination and possibly monetary compensation for some people suffering from discrimination or abuse through the establishment of a human-rights redress system. On the face of it, no one could oppose this just cause, especially when Japan is still striving to eliminate all discrimination against hisabetsu buraku, or communities suffering discrimination. The bias against these communities (such as butchers, leather workers and tanners, and some entertainers - both Japanese and foreign) has locked them into an East Asian version of India's caste system. This is a pernicious, still pervasive remnant of the Edo period (1603-1867). Discrimination today may be based on one's location of residence and neighborhood, occupation, dialect or mannerisms or membership in a particular group. Despite the Japanese constitution's provision of legal equality for all, discrimination persists (Click here for more on hisabetsu buraku). Further, this type of human-rights protection law clearly is needed in Tokyo, particularly since the immigration authorities sent a Kurdish man and his eldest son back to Turkey two months ago; the deportation was ordered despite the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) formally designating them as "mandate refugees". Turkey says some Kurds are secessionists, seeking to destabilize the nation, but the father and son claim they were falsely accused. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Justice said the father had made false statements to the authorities, alleging that he and his son were persecuted in Turkey and again would be persecuted on their return. The ministry cited the Tokyo High Court's rulings in both May 2003 and November 2004 as reasons and evidence justifying the deportations. This is the second time the Japanese government has planned to submit the human-rights bill to the Diet. The original bill was submitted in March 2002, but it triggered such an outpouring of criticism from human-rights groups and news media, especially over its news media restrictions, that it was withdrawn in October 2003. It came under fire for two reasons: # First, the proposed new watchdog body, the Human Rights Committee of Japan, was not independent of the government, contrary to the so-called Paris Principles endorsed by the UN Commission on Human Rights in 1992 and by the UN General Assembly in 1993. The Paris Principles stress autonomy from government as one of the minimum standards for a human-rights monitoring agency. This autonomy or independence is required because many of the numerous human-rights violations that the UN pointed out occurred within facilities administered by justice authorities', such as immigration detention centers and prisons. A similar example would be US troops' abuse of Iraqi prisoners in the US-administered Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Moreover, in 1998, the UN, citing the UN Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, called upon Tokyo to set up independent institutional mechanisms in order to provide remedies against human-rights violations, citing police and immigration officers' abuses. This time around, the revised bill, like the original legislation, would place the proposed watchdog Human Rights Committee of Japan under the jurisdiction of the Justice Ministry - it would not be an autonomous body or independent of the government and government pressure. Teranaka, executive director of Amnesty International Japan, argued that the committee should become an empowered and well-financed independent body beyond the control of the Ministry of Justice, much like South Korea's National Human Rights Commission (NHRC). Seoul established this body in November 2001, in order to independently investigate human-rights abuses, including privacy violations, and to provide remedies. As the next-best option, Teranaka said the committee should be placed directly under the cabinet, or it should become an external agency of the Cabinet Office, in order to weaken the influence of the Ministry of Justice. If the monitoring and watchdog committee is made a part of the internal Justice Ministry bureau, then there would be no independent persons to check the questionable activities of the Ministry of Justice. Ministry personnel should be prevented from serving on the human-rights committee, according to human-rights activists. # Second, critics point out that the bill would give the committee sole and wide discretion to restrict the activities of media organizations. The committee's purview would include "human-rights violations by news organizations". The bill specifically identified for special relief those who had been abused by reporting methods, such as "ambush" interviews and reporting by constantly following a news subject. Although under generally accepted ethics, journalists must avoid actions that overstep the bounds of legitimate journalism, this clause of the bill could lead to the capricious and illegitimate restriction by fiat of freedom of reporting and news gathering. Reporters, for example, might be unable to cover election law violations by legal or questionable candidates, as well as many bribery scandals still prevalent in Japanese political circles. To reveal wrongdoing and corruption, journalists must doggedly pursue news sources. Someone who was pursued by the media, however, might claim that he or she was the victim of human-rights abuse through invasion of privacy and obstruction of his or her daily business routine, and disruption and stress in his or her family life. Japanese media, both conservative and liberal, have denounced possible, or likely press freedom violations. The Asahi Shimbun, in an editorial on February 25, said, "If the Human Rights Committee is given the power to judge whether certain news coverage is excessive, that would mean giving a government body the power to limit areas of news reporting. One of the roles of news organizations is to monitor what the government does. If the media comes under government control, the public's right to know will be jeopardized. There is no equivalent human-rights relief body abroad that has such power over the media." The Asahi also said, "Under the previous bill, the Human Rights Committee of Japan can pursue criminal charges in cases of discrimination or abuse. It has the option of taking a case to court on behalf of a victim. The committee has wide powers. For example, the committee can levy fines if the accused party refuses to submit documents that have been requested, or does not turn up to hear the case against it." The government and the LDP-led ruling coalition parties are likely to submit a revised bill, with the media restrictions intact, but with a five-year freeze on actual implementation of the section restricting media activities. The freeze would be reviewed in five years. This freeze tactic is a typical and traditional LDP strategy aimed at getting an important bill passed by temporarily setting aside the most difficult issues. For example, in 1992 the LDP-led ruling coalition parties enacted the UN Peacekeeping Operations Cooperation Law by placing a freeze on the Japan Self-Defense Forces' (SDF) participation in UN Peacekeeping Forces, a part of general peacekeeping operations that could involve potentially dangerous tasks, such as disarming parties to a conflict and patrolling conflict areas. At that time, the LDP-led coalition parties dodged criticism from opposition parties and the Japanese public by compromising, backing off for a while and showing some flexibility in order to pave the way for SDF troops' first overseas mission. The freeze finally was lifted in December 2001, although the SDF have not yet participated in any of the more dangerous UN Peacekeeping Forces operations. (The SDF mission in southern Iraq is strictly humanitarian. The government also is considering deploying SDF to Sudan, possibly allowing it to undertake riskier UN Peacekeeping Forces' missions there for the first time.) The LDP-led ruling coalition parties seem to be doing the same thing now, in the face of protests. The LDP appears to be eyeing the possible future lifting of the freeze on the most controversial, and incendiary, restrictions on the media. It is generally accepted that Japanese media and the public need to stand together on the principle that journalism must serve as an independent monitor of power. Insisting on this principle, the media should steadfastly and consistently resist the bill in order to limit its activities. Not all journalists are perfect, but the principle of a free media is important. By joining forces, the public and the media can prevent the government's possible future intervention in press freedom - and the abuse of press freedom by government power. Kosuke Takahashi is a former staff writer at the Asahi Shimbun and is currently a freelance correspondent based in Tokyo. He can be contacted at letters@kosuke.net . -------- State of Journalism Lamented in New Book March 17, 2005 3:01 PM EST Associated Press http://start.earthlink.net/article/ent?guid=20050317/42390ed0_3ca6_1552620050317-1217393418 NEW YORK - Tom Fenton couldn't be more surprised by his new calling at age 74: activist. A veteran foreign correspondent recently retired from CBS News after 34 years, Fenton now is sounding off about TV's neglect of global news, and the resulting benightedness of the audience he says TV journalism has so ill-served. He has compiled his concerns in a new book, "Bad News - The Decline of Reporting, The Business of News, and the Danger To Us All" (ReganBooks). Its central thesis: The fall of communism coincided with growing concentration of U.S. media ownership. The nation became complacent about external threats, and less vigilant. So did news media, as their corporate bosses found it hard to justify the expense of pricey foreign bureaus and legions of correspondents stationed around the globe - especially when wall-to-wall coverage of a domestic spectacle like the O.J. Simpson trial attracted far more eyeballs than a complex story from a faraway land. In that decade leading up to 9/11, Fenton argues, the news media abdicated its responsibilities. "As surely as 9/11 pointed up the myriad failures of official agencies in Washington, it also revealed the abject failure of the news media," he writes. "We had failed to warn the American public of the storm clouds approaching our shores. And in failing to do so, we betrayed the trust of the public." As just one instance of the media's myopia, he writes that cutbacks in CBS' foreign coverage scuttled an interview with Osama bin Laden he was arranging in 1996. "Our bosses saw him as an obscure Arab of no interest to our viewers." Fenton is neither a scold nor whiner; a dapper man in a double-breasted blue suit, he seems too much the gentleman. But he's dead serious - except when catching himself in his unaccustomed role. "This is all new to me," he admits, breaking into a chuckle. "I've spent a lifetime reporting, not advocating. And now, all of a sudden, I have an agenda." Based at CBS' London bureau for much of the past quarter-century, Fenton writes that, whereas CBS once maintained two dozen foreign bureaus, it currently has just three "staffed by correspondents in the entire world." (A spokeswoman for CBS News puts the number at five staffed by full-time correspondents.) For some coverage, then, footage is purchased from stringers and news agencies to fill the gap, with the network packaging that video into a story. "I think CBS viewers began to think there's a Harrods (department store) in just about every capital of the world," Fenton cracks, "because we kept doing our standups in front of the CBS London bureau - and there's Harrods in the background." But Fenton isn't picking on CBS. His indictment includes all of TV news. He wonders how any of the three broadcast networks can still justify a half-hour evening newscast, rather than expanding to an hour. As for the cable news networks, where the problem with time is so much to fill, he complains that correspondents are kept on the air throughout the day - "they don't have a chance to go out and do reporting. They bring us talk, not news." And, all too often, it's news-talk dwelling on the woes of Michael Jackson and other crowd-pleasing pageantry. Duly amused, does the audience feel shortchanged? "No," concedes Fenton, "because we have dumbed down the viewers, so they don't even know what they're missing. We have trained them to accept the coverage they're getting. We've got to sell foreign news, we've got to get people interested again." With that in mind, "Bad News" isn't so much a media-bashing book as a highly readable crash course in stuff you didn't know you never knew - a sort of "Global Affairs for Dummies." "I want readers to be surprised at what they don't know, through no fault of their own," says Fenton. "Most Americans get their primary news, God help them, from television. We've got to do something about TV news." But what? For one thing, Fenton proposes that journalists form a pressure group to shame the media stewards into fulfilling their public trust - "a lobby for better news." "We need to get the debate going, to get people to start thinking about the news they're missing, and how important it is," he says. "We in the media have less credibility now than at any time I can think of, and the country is so polarized, I can't believe it! But the real story of the news isn't what's left and what's right - it's what's left out." EDITOR'S NOTE - Frazier Moore can be reached at fmoore@ap.org -------- us politics Paul Dundes Wolfowitz By ERIC SCHMITT March 17, 2005 NY TIMES MAN IN THE NEWS http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/17/politics/17qman.html?pagewanted=print&position= WASHINGTON, March 16 - After surveying the tsunami-pummeled coast of Indonesia from a Navy helicopter in January, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz appeared shaken at the devastation. "When you fly over in a helicopter you just begin to get a sense of how enormous this tragedy has been, and when people don't just lose a parent or a brother, but they lose their entire family, it gives a new horrible meaning to what it means to be a survivor," he told reporters in Banda Aceh. "It's also clear," Mr. Wolfowitz added, "that beyond the immediate needs, there are going to be a great deal of work to rebuild, reconstruct." In that three-day trip to South Asia to assess tsunami damage and the Pentagon's role in relief efforts, his friends and associates say, the seeds for President Bush's selection of Mr. Wolfowitz to be the next president of the World Bank were planted. Freed, however briefly, from his Pentagon office, the daily drumbeat of violence and American casualty reports from Iraq, and a war of which he was a principal architect, friends say, Mr. Wolfowitz was energized both to be back in Asia - he was the United States ambassador to Indonesia in the late 1980's - and to be seen as the harbinger of help, not conflict. "It did have a huge impact on him," said Sean O'Keefe, an old friend and former NASA administrator who is now chancellor at Louisiana State University. "He was stunned by the human consequences there." In a telephone interview on Wednesday, Mr. Wolfowitz said the World Bank, which sets development policy for much of the third world, was a logical extension of his longtime goal to spread human rights and political freedoms around the globe. "Economic development supports political development, and it really came home to me with the Asian tsunami," he said. Caricatured as a hawk among hawks in the Bush administration and a lightning rod for its Iraq policy, Mr. Wolfowitz is tougher to pigeonhole under closer examination. As a teenager, he attended the 1963 civil rights march on Washington, and in 2003 he said he remained a civil libertarian and a "bleeding heart" on social issues. His soft-spoken personal style belies any fire-breathing image. And his activist vision has defined his career inside and outside government. Besides calling for the overthrow of President Saddam Hussein years before American troops invaded Iraq in 2003, Mr. Wolfowitz advocated arming the Bosnian Muslims in their war against the Serbs and criticized the Clinton administration over its Kosovo policy, contending it waited too long to intervene militarily. His humanitarian impulses have taken him to desolate places. In July 2003, Mr. Wolfowitz sat crossed-legged inside a sweltering reed hut in a tiny dust-choked Iraqi village near the Iranian border listening to tribal elders seeking his help to restore their way of life as marsh Arabs, which Mr. Hussein had taken away by draining the marshes. But Mr. Wolfowitz's critics say his optimism on America's ability to build a better world has often blinded him to the motivations of people like Ahmad Chalabi, the Iraqi National Congress leader whose intelligence on Iraq's unconventional weapons, used as the primary basis for going to war, turned out to be wrong. These critics also say that he failed to prepare a thorough postwar strategy in Iraq and should not be put in charge of a major development agency. "Paul Wolfowitz has a serious credibility problem," said William Hartung, a senior research fellow at the World Policy Institute, a nonprofit research organization. "He understated the cost of the Iraq war, while promoting vast distortions about Baghdad's weapons capabilities as a way to sell the conflict to the American public." A former aspiring mathematician turned policy maker, Mr. Wolfowitz has world views forged by family history and in the halls of academia rather than in the jungles of Vietnam or the corridors of Congress. Brooklyn-born and raised in Ithaca, N.Y., Paul Dundes Wolfowitz, 61, is the son of a Cornell University mathematician who left Poland after World War I. The rest of his father's family perished in the Holocaust. At Cornell, Mr. Wolfowitz majored in mathematics and chemistry, but was profoundly moved by John Hersey's "Hiroshima," and shifted his focus toward politics. "One of the things that ultimately led me to leave mathematics and go into political science was thinking I could prevent nuclear war," he said. He has held major posts at the Defense and State Departments, including senior foreign policy adviser to Dick Cheney when he was defense secretary. After the administration of the first President Bush, he was dean of the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. In Mr. Bush's first presidential campaign, Mr. Wolfowitz became one of his earliest advisers on foreign and national security policies. After a meeting at the Treasury Department on Wednesday, he acknowledged the new challenge of reporting to an international board at the World Bank. "I'm leaving one very big job and going to another even bigger job," he said. -------- ENERGY As Oil Hits New Highs, OPEC Struggles to Bring Down Prices By JAD MOUAWAD March 17, 2005 NY TIMES NEWS ANALYSIS http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/17/business/17cnd-oil.html?pagewanted=print&position= TEHRAN, Iran, March 17 - While OPEC ministers were being feted by Iran's president on Wednesday with Persian food and Kurdish music, traders in the oil pit of the New York Mercantile Exchange sent them an unexpected message. Hours after the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, which was meeting in Isfahan, Iran, decided to increase its production ceiling by a half-million barrels a day, prices in New York spiked at a new high. Today, crude oil futures rose sharply, with the April contract hitting a record $57.60 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange before closing down 6 cents at $56.40 a barrel. Crude prices have risen by about 50 percent in the last year. Some analysts believe $100 a barrel is a possibility if supplies were disrupted by some event like another war in the Middle East. For OPEC, the situation is paradoxical. The group is uncomfortable with today's high prices. The OPEC president said he did "not accept this" while Saudi Arabia, the cartel's most powerful member, favors oil at $40 to $50 a barrel. But there is not much OPEC can do. Its 11 members are pumping close to 29 million barrels a day and do not have much more production capacity left to tap. Saudi Arabia, which has been pumping 9.5 million barrels a day since the beginning of the year, can add another million barrels or so, but the oil is mostly heavy crude that is less in demand because harder to refine. All the rest of OPEC can do is count their record revenues and plan expansions. But as it is, some countries - including Iran, Indonesia, Venezuela and Libya - are struggling to meet production quotas. OPEC's president, Sheik Ahmad al-Fahd al-Sabah, said today that if prices remained at their current highs for another 10 days, the group would lift its ceiling by another half-a-million barrels a day. Excluding the contribution from Iraq, OPEC's ceiling is now 27.5 million barrels. "The market has not absorbed OPEC's decisions," Mr. Sabah said, adding that the jump in prices in the last two days "could be a result of fears or a shortage in products." Analysts at the French bank Société Générale said in a research note that OPEC members, clearly "hoped to reassure the market, talking prices down and they failed." So, for international markets, this year seems to be heading much the same way as last year - runaway demand, tight supplies, political uncertainties, bullish investors and OPEC's incapacity to rein in prices. And much like last year, these factors are feeding into each other. Adjusted for inflation, oil prices have yet to reach the levels of 1981, when crude rose to the equivalent of around $80 a barrel. And today's economies are better protected against high prices because they have managed to squeeze oil out of much of their industries, substituting nuclear energy, natural gas or even coal. Still, the increase in prices is worrying consumers and their governments. The United States and Europe have repeated calls for producers to pump more oil. And the Bush administration finally scored a victory this week on its plans to expand domestic production when the Senate authorized drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. But that will not be enough. Production in most regions outside of the Persian Gulf is declining or is being kept steady by billions of dollars in costly recuperation technology. International oil companies, starved of potentially oil-rich regions to explore, are handing back huge amounts of cash to shareholders instead of drilling new fields. Meanwhile, the world is consuming oil at a record pace, straining the ability of producers and refiners to deliver gasoline. This year, global oil demand is expected to grow 2.2 percent, or 1.81 million barrels a day, to 84.3 million barrels. This follows last year's estimated growth of 3.4 percent. OPEC ministers argue this means that oil markets are going through a fundamental transformation. (In recent years, the average growth in oil demand was around 1 percent.) "There has been a huge change in the structure of the market," Mr. Sabah, who is also Kuwait's oil minister, said on Wednesday. "The market is not missing supplies but prices are going higher." But many of the objective factors that drove growth last year are still around. Crude oil exports out of Iraq remain unreliable; Nigeria's biggest oil region is in the middle of a political and social conflict; Venezuela keeps sending contradictory signals about its intention to supply the United States; and Russia is still embroiled in the handling of its biggest oil producer, Yukos. In addition, China continues to surprise analysts by the resilience of its exports and internal consumption rate. While Chinese demand for oil is slowing from last year's 15 percent growth, it is expected to rise by 7.9 percent in 2005, or around half a million barrels a day, according to the International Energy Agency. "The reality is that oil consumption has caught up with installed crude and refining capacity," the energy agency said in its last monthly report released earlier this month. So, with demand expected to climb to 86 million barrels a day in the fourth quarter, oil traders in New York are signaling that they see no ceiling on prices. OPEC, meanwhile, is enjoying its dinner. -------- OTHER -------- environment Senate Approves Arctic Refuge Oil Drilling By J.R. Pegg WASHINGTON, DC, March 17, 2005 (ENS) http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/mar2005/2005-03-17-10.asp The U.S. Senate voted Wednesday to allow oil drilling within the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), handing a major defeat to Democrats and environmentalists who have battled long and hard against the plan. The 51-49 vote blocked an effort by Democrats to remove drilling language from budget legislation and removes a key hurdle to opening the refuge to development Bush administration officials hailed the support for one of the President's energy priorities, but Democrats lashed out at Republicans for advancing the effort by including drilling revenues in the budget resolution. "This is a backdoor scheme for drilling," said Senator Russ Feingold, a Wisconsin Democrat. "The public doesn't want it, major oil companies don't appear to want it and it does not belong in a budget resolution." "Even if you think we should drill in the Arctic Refuge this is not the time or place for the debate," Feingold told colleagues. "It invites greater mischief down the line." The move blocked Democrats from filibustering the provision as they have done in recent years and meant proponents only needed a simple majority to advance the plan, rather than the 60 votes needed to end a filibuster. The language in the resolution assumes the government will get $2.5 billion from opening ANWR to oil drilling - critics say that is highly speculative and inflates historic leasing prices some 80 times. "This is really a change to legislative policy … not budget policy," said Senator Kent Conrad, a North Dakota Democrat. "The votes don't exist to do this through the proper channels of the Senate," added Senator John Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat. "This is an abuse of power and is also the abuse of common sense." New Mexico Republican Pete Domenici defended the method and said opponents were "trying to deny Americans a vital resource" by insisting it be approved by a supermajority. "We have decided it is too important for that," Domenici said. The vote is critical to the Bush administration's effort to allow drilling in the refuge, which was created in 1960 by Republican President Dwight Eisenhower. Although there is not similar language in the House budget resolution, the House has passed provisions opening ANWR on three separate occasions - the Senate has failed previously to approve drilling in the refuge. The House is "waiting with open arms," Domenici said. Proponents say oil development in the refuge ANWR can be done with little impact to the environment and will ease U.S. dependence on foreign oil. "There will not be any damage to the environment and that is a fact," said Senator Larry Craig, an Idaho Republican. Drilling supporters note the provision only opens 2,000 acres of the refuge's 1.5-million acre coastal plain, which Congress has the authority to approve for oil and gas development. "The area we are talking about exploring is not in a protected wilderness area," said Senator Lisa Murkowski, an Alaska Republican. "It has been reserved because of its potential for oil and gas preserves." But opponents say the coastal plain is the biological heart of the refuge and oil drilling would have devastating impacts to its wildlife and do little to reduce foreign oil imports. "It is very foolish to say oil development and a wildlife refuge can coexist," said Senator Maria Cantwell, a Washington Democrat and sponsor of the amendment. More than 100 species of wildlife and birds rely on the area, including caribou, polar bears, wolves, grizzly bears, musk oxen, and arctic foxes. Critics add that although the provision limits development to 2,000 acres, that figure only includes surface acreage covered by production and support facilities and does not include pipelines, gravel roads and ice roads. "Every oil field on the North Slope has a permanent gravel road," said Senator Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat. "This is going to be destructive and it will change the environment permanently." Government estimates of how much oil lie within the coastal plain range from 5.7 billion to 16 billion barrels. The official estimate from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), which was last revised in 1998, found that the mean value of the total quantity of technically recoverable oil in the area is 7.7 billion barrels. But the term "technically recoverable" is not the same as "economically recoverable," which many believe is a more accurate figure. Using 1996 dollars, the mean of this estimate translates into 5.2 billion barrels of oil that is economically recoverable at $24 per barrel. Although oil prices are now above $50 per barrel, USGS estimates do not show a significant increase in economically recoverable oil even at this price. It will take at least 10 years for oil from ANWR to make any impact on oil supplies, Democrats said, and conservation efforts and tighter fuel standards could make a greater impact much more quickly than new production. The United States consumes some 20 million barrels of oil a year - almost 60 percent is imported. If peak production is obtained, proponents say ANWR could provide one million barrels a day. Oregon Democrat Ron Wyden said the provision approved Wednesday would do nothing to ensure ANWR oil aids the nation's domestic supply. This resolution is "a license to export Alaska oil outside the United States," Wyden said. "With the weak dollar it would be the virtual certainty that the highest price for Arctic oil would be outside our country." Republicans say the nation's thirst for oil and the security implications of that demand are more than enough reason to open the refuge. "We are absolutely vulnerable to the fact that we import oil from a dangerous and unstable world," Domenici said. "We will not be a world power if someone denies us oil. There is no doubt in my mind that America must do something and this is a chance to something very significant." Seven Republicans joined the Senate's lone Independent and 41 Democrats in the bid to strip the language from the bill. Hawaii Democrats Daniel Akaka and Daniel Inouye joined Louisiana Democrat Mary Landrieu as the three Democrats who voted with 47 Republicans in favor of opening ANWR. Environmentalists called the vote a serious setback but refused to concede defeat on the issue. "They may have cleared the first hurdle by the skin of their teeth, but this thing isn't over, not by a long shot," said Defenders of Wildlife President Rodger Schlickeisen. Including ANWR drilling in the final budget reconciliation could make the legislation harder to pass, Schlickeisen said, and Congress has failed to complete the budget process in each of the last two years. "Shoehorning a controversial measure like Arctic Refuge drilling into the budget where it doesn't belong was a parliamentary stunt to begin with, and it's one that could very well come back to haunt them," Schlickeisen said. -------- imf / world bank / wto (economics) Wolfowitz Picked for World Bank Bush Nominee for Chief Faces Opposition Overseas By Paul Blustein and Peter Baker Washington Post Staff Writers Thursday, March 17, 2005; Page A01 http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A39858-2005Mar16?language=printer President Bush said yesterday that he has chosen Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz, a key architect of the Iraq war, as the U.S. nominee to head the World Bank. The announcement was an aggressive move to put the administration's stamp on the World Bank, the largest source of aid to developing countries, by installing at the bank's helm a leading advocate of the U.S. campaign to spur democracy in the Middle East. But it risked a new rift with countries critical of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, especially since it came so soon after Bush's nomination of John R. Bolton, another prominent hawk, as ambassador to the United Nations. The nomination shocked many among the bank's 10,000-member staff and in many capitals abroad, especially in Europe. When Wolfowitz's name surfaced a couple of weeks ago as a possible nominee, many diplomats and bank insiders dismissed his prospects as remote. Although the United States traditionally gets to choose the World Bank chief, there was speculation that a Wolfowitz candidacy could be torpedoed by the board of the bank, a 184-nation institution that has always operated by consensus. Bush said at a news conference that he chose Wolfowitz, 61, because he is "committed to development" and is "a compassionate, decent man." The president also said that as No. 2 at the Pentagon, Wolfowitz had demonstrated skill for managing a large institution. Other administration officials cited Wolfowitz's experience as ambassador to Indonesia, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs and dean of the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University as evidence of his expertise and involvement in development issues. In a written statement, Wolfowitz sought to dampen fears about his candidacy by stressing a desire to listen to a wide variety of views. He also praised James D. Wolfensohn, the outgoing president, a Clinton administration appointee who has run the bank since 1995 but frequently clashed with the Bush team. Wolfensohn "has deepened the Bank's commitment to poverty reduction, emphasizing such key factors in development as education, health -- particularly HIV/AIDS, women, youth, and the environment," Wolfowitz said. If approved by the bank's board, Wolfowitz would assume command of an institution that lends about $20 billion a year to developing nations and often plays an enormously influential role in shaping their policies because of the conditions it sets for aid. The World Bank in recent years has been a target of groups that consider it to be an agent of Western corporate capitalism, especially the U.S. variety. Sensitivities abroad are inflamed about the Bush administration's propensity to throw its weight around the world. Accordingly, the nomination was denounced by many of the groups that came to regard the bank under Wolfensohn as more receptive to their concerns. "Wolfowitz has shown nothing but disdain for collaboration with other countries," said David Waskow, director of the international program at Friends of the Earth. "How's he going to run the World Bank effectively, and to what end?" Some others, even some who hold Wolfowitz in high esteem, worried that the nomination would crystallize the impression that the bank is an instrument of U.S. foreign policy. The bank's loans were often used during the Cold War to support dictators friendly to the United States, a reputation the bank has only recently begun to live down. The Wolfowitz nomination "has broken the myth that this is the World Bank -- it's the American Bank," said Moisés Naím, editor of Foreign Policy magazine and a former representative of Venezuela on the World Bank board. Although he said Wolfowitz is "a man of ideas" who has firsthand knowledge of Third World poverty and can command support from the White House, Naím said Bush "has injected America's image problem in an institution that already had a lot of its own problems." But Kenneth L. Adelman, a former Reagan administration official, described Wolfowitz as "a perfect fit" who would bring a different philosophy to the World Bank than his predecessors and would be more eager to bypass governments and steer money to private organizations. "I can't think of a World Bank president who would be as conservative as he would be," Adelman said. "Socialist governments are going to complain about him but socialist governments don't have a track record of enormous success in helping developing countries," Adelman said. Some World Bank staff members speculated that Wolfowitz would use the bank's financial clout to advance the goal of spreading democracy, especially in the Middle East. Wolfowitz, in a phone interview, rejected suggestions that he might change bank policy by, for example, making loans contingent on democratic rule. "When the bank sticks to its knitting and works on poverty reduction, that's just a huge contribution to overall progress," he said. "You certainly don't want to say that this institution, which plays such an important role in fighting the AIDS epidemic in Africa, will have a different agenda" because of concerns about how African countries are ruled. "It's not a secret. I care a lot about the spread of freedom and democracy," Wolfowitz said. "But as I've said over and over again, I think there's a political stream and an economic stream, and they flow together and reinforce each other. "If I'm president of the World Bank, I know which stream I'm focused on," he said. It wasn't clear yesterday whether Wolfowitz will be opposed by other bank shareholders. No U.S. choice for bank president has ever been opposed, but in 2000 the Clinton administration effectively vetoed Europe's first choice to head the International Monetary Fund, even though the IMF job is traditionally a European preserve. The 24 members of the World Bank's board represent member countries or groups of countries, with voting power based mainly on their financial contributions to the bank's capital, so that the United States has about 16 percent of the votes, Japan 8 percent, Germany 4.5 percent, France 4.3 percent and so on. But contested votes are almost unheard of because the board considers consensus to be essential. Carole L. Brookins, who resigned as the administration's representative on the board a couple of months ago, said that because the bank operates by consensus, "I can't imagine the U.S. putting up a candidate, especially someone of this stature, without doing the homework to make sure he would be acceptable." Administration officials said Treasury Secretary John W. Snow had contacted his counterparts from a number of other nations in recent weeks, including France, Germany and all the other members of the Group of Seven major industrial countries, to discuss the bank presidency. But until yesterday morning, his conversations concerned only the qualifications a new president should have, not specific names, the officials said. "The secretary was encouraged by his calls," a Treasury official said. "We're optimistic about the dialogue that will occur within the World Bank board." European sources at the bank said yesterday that they were awaiting instructions from their capitals about how to respond. A spokesman for French President Jacques Chirac was noncommittal in describing Chirac's position after a phone call from Bush. "The president took note of this candidacy and will examine it in the spirit of friendship between our two countries, bearing in mind the missions of the World Bank," the spokesman said. ---- Bush Names Iraq War Architect Paul Wolfowitz to Head World Bank Democracy Now Thursday, March 17th, 2005 http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/03/17/1442215 President Bush named Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz to become the new president of the World Bank. Woflowitz is one of the chief hawks within the Bush administration and was a leading architects of the Iraq war. We speak with journalist Jim Lobe and Njoki Njoroge Njehu of the 50 Years is Enough network. [includes rush transcript] President Bush has named Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz to become the new president of the World Bank. Woflowitz is one of the chief hawks within the Bush administration and was a leading architects of the Iraq war. He previously served as the US ambassador to Indonesia and in the Pentagon during the 1991 Gulf War. At a White House press conference, Bush gave his reasons for naming Wolfowitz to the post. * President Bush, White House press conference, March 16, 2005. By tradition, the United States selects the World Bank president - who serves a five-year term - while Europeans nominate a head of the International Monetary Fund. Although the World Bank's Board of Governors must approve Wolfwoitz, no nomination has ever been rejected. Current World Bank president James Wolfensohn will leave in June after 10 years, despite seeking re-appointment. * Jim Lobe, journalist with the Inter Press Service. * Njoki Njoroge Njehu, of the 50 Years is Enough network. JUAN GONZALEZ: At a White House press conference, Bush gave his reasons for naming Wolfowitz to the post. PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: First of all, I think people -- first, I appreciate the world leaders taking my phone calls as I explained to them why I think Paul will be a strong president of the World Bank. I said he was a man of good experiences. He helped manage a large organization. The World Bank is a large organization. The Pentagon is a large organization. He has been involved in the management of that organization. He's a skilled diplomat, worked at the State Department in high positions. Ambassador to Indonesia, where he did a very good job representing our country, and Paul is committed to development. He's a compassionate, decent man who will do a fine job in the World Bank. And that's why I called leaders of countries, and that's why I put him up. AMY GOODMAN: President Bush speaking Wednesday at the White House news conference. By tradition, the US selects the World Bank president, who serves a five year term, while Europeans nominate a head of the International Monetary Fund. Although the World Bank’s board of governors have to approve Wolfowitz, no nomination has ever been rejected. Current World Bank president, James Wolfensohn will leave in June after ten years, despite seeking reappointment. To talk about the nomination of Paul Wolfowitz, we're joined by two guests in Washington, DC: Jim Lobe, a journalist with the Inter Press Service, has been closely tracking the rise of the neoconservatives in Washington; and Njoki Njehu, of the 50 Years is Enough Network. We're going to begin with Jim Lobe. Can you give us a thumbnail bio of Paul Wolfowitz? JIM LOBE: Well, Wolfowitz was brought up in Ithaca, New York. His father, Jack Wolfowitz was a very prominent statistician who came to the United States from Poland in 1920. That part of the family that remained in Poland was wiped out in the Nazi holocaust, which appears to have had a major influence on Wolfowitz's outlook and on his kind of sense of mission since university. He joined, I would say, the hawk establishment, or I would say, the right-wing hawk establishment, in 1970. He was an apostle of Alfred Wohlstetter, along with Richard Perle. But unlike many other neoconservatives, he remained in government almost constantly through the next 35 years. He rose very quickly in both the State Department and the Pentagon. As noted before, he was ambassador to Indonesia, but he was also George Schultz’s assistant Secretary of State for East Asian Affairs. In the 1980s, he served as Undersecretary for Political Affairs in the Pentagon under George H. W. Bush, and came to some notoriety in 1992 when a draft document that he was working on, or he and his office were working on regarding future US strategy was leaked to The New York Times. This document became a kind of bible for what later would be called unilateralists. It was taken as that by the Project for the New American Century. And it put out the idea of a -- really, a US-dominated world, in which the United States would be the ultimate guarantor for peace and security, would use preemption as a strategic doctrine and would try to prevent the rise of any conceivable regional or global ally, or sorry, rival in key parts of the world. From the period of the Clinton administration, he was the head of the Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies, where he brought a lot of people who had worked with him in the past like Francis Fukuyama, and made a fairly diverse curriculum, and then was brought into the administration in his current post as Deputy Secretary of State in 2001. We kind of know a lot of the rest, I guess. JUAN GONZALEZ: Njoki Njehu, I’d like to ask you what you think. Your reaction, and what you think the reaction will be of organizations and civil society groups throughout the third world to this nomination? NJOKI NJOROGE NJEHU: The reactions have already started coming in and people are shocked and outraged, because I think it represents a real slap in the face in terms of the Bush administration's choice of Wolfowitz, because he is a very polarizing personality. He is someone who, unlike many people who have perhaps -- except for Robert McNamara, none of the other heads of the World Bank have been figures that were known globally. But Paul Wolfowitz, given his role in the war in Iraq, he's very well known. People are surprised. You know, in spite of what is being said about his experience in development, he really doesn't have experience in development. Serving in Indonesia, you know, perhaps qualifies him to be a diplomat or someone who has watched crony capitalism up close and personal, but I don't think it gives him the credentials of being a development expert. This is where the tension comes in terms of people thinking about what the institution, the World Bank, is supposed to be doing. And given the Bush administration's very clear ideological bend on many, many fronts, we are worried that this is exactly what's going to be happening at the World Bank with Paul Wolfowitz as president. AMY GOODMAN: Jim Lobe, what about this comparison of Robert McNamara, who went from one of the architects of the Vietnam War to head of the World Bank, to Wolfowitz, same thing? Even here President Bush, in responding to a question at one of his rare news conferences in Washington, about Wolfowitz, saying, you know, Pentagon, World Bank, they're both big institutions. JIM LOBE: Well, first of all, Wolfowitz has never run the Pentagon, actually. He was the deputy. One of the reasons that he didn't get the top spot is that there was considerable reservation about whether he could manage an institution as large as the Pentagon. There really was nothing in his history that suggested that he could, whereas McNamara was always considered to be a management wiz. So, on that basis, I really don't think there's much comparison. One of the articles in the mainstream press, I think in the Times, made the point today that McNamara went to the World Bank kind of in order to perform contrition for a Vietnam War which he always had serious doubts about, but nonetheless carried through, and which killed lots and lots of people, many more than in Iraq. Wolfowitz believes that the war in Iraq, as in Afghanistan, was a correct war, that it was worth waging, and so in a sense, they're going in -- to compare Wolfowitz's state of mind with that of McNamara’s would also not pass muster, I would say. JUAN GONZALEZ: But even on that war, obviously, he has made some statements that have come back to haunt him. He said, on WMDs in Iraq, for bureaucratic reasons, we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction, because it was the one reason everyone could agree on. Certainly, that's proven to have been the most bankrupt reason of all for the United States to go into Iraq. And do you think, as Njoki Njehu said earlier, that the opinion that people around the rest of the world have of him in regard to his role with the Iraq War will have an impact on how they judge his work here at the World Bank? JIM LOBE: Well, I think that's inescapable. And I think, you know, even his defenders concede that his association with the Iraq War, both the lead-up to the war and what he was saying in the lead-up to the war and how the war has played out and the failure of his predictions to come true, his optimistic predictions to come true, will undoubtedly affect how people perceive him around the world, particularly, you know, as president of the World Bank. I don't think there's any way he's going to get around that. He's going to have to make very clear to people very early on, unless he is opposed, for example, by the Europeans, that he really is more than one dimensional and that he has taken an interest in development, and he wants to take an interest in development. I would make this point -- that statement by Wolfowitz in many ways is unsurprising. Wolfowitz believes that Saddam Hussein was a terrible tyrant, and he wanted Saddam Hussein overthrown since at least 1998, and I think he was simply reflecting what really was an interagency process. What could all of the bureaucracies agree on was the least common denominator, as a rationale for overthrowing him, but Wolfowitz had never made any secret. It was his desire to overthrow Saddam. I would also make one additional comment, which is, Wolfowitz is seen as a neoconservative, and indeed, in many ways he is, but in many other ways, he's very different from neoconservatives, and I don't want to do an advertisement for him, but he tends to be much more intellectually curious. He has a much wider group of social acquaintances and professional acquaintances than most neoconservatives who tend to be somewhat inbred. He has never been a lobbyist particularly or worked for a think tank or as a business consultant. I mean, to some extent, he has a little bit. He has been on some boards. And the fact that he has remained in government. And his personal style is different. He doesn't go for the kind of personal no-holds-barred attacks on opponents that neoconservatives are really quite famous for. He's very different, even in his attitude, for example, to Israel and the Palestine question, which I think is central to neoconservative world view. He has been vastly more sympathetic to Palestinians, and including their national aspirations, for much longer than almost every other prominent neoconservative. He's a bit of an odd duck. JUAN GONZALEZ: I'd like to ask Njoki Njehu about that issue. Tom Malinowski, the head of Human Rights Watch, has been quoted as saying that Wolfowitz is, quote, “a serious and thoughtful person who is genuinely interested in the promotion of democracy and human rights around the world.” There are some who say of all of the neo-cons in the close circle around President Bush, that he is the least ideological and the most committed to human rights. What's your view on that? NJOKI NJOROGE NJEHU: Well, but then I would say that he is not -- the mandate of the World Bank is very different from the kinds of -- when you listen to what people are saying about his experience and the kinds of things that he has done and the kinds of politics that he has, then in fact, in some ways, I think it's a counter-argument for his being qualified to head the World Bank. They're not talking about, you know, his years of experience working in the developing world. They're talking about his diplomacy. They're talking about his experience at the Pentagon. They're talking about all kinds of different things, which I think, in fact, would be the same things that I would cite to say that he's not qualified to head the World Bank. But the other thing to say is that this process of who and how the head of the World Bank is nominated brings up again the question of democratic practice and governance at these institutions. You have a country, the United States, deciding on the head of the World Bank, the Europeans deciding on the head of the IMF. But the countries that are so-called the client countries of the World Bank and IMF have no say in this decision, and so at the same time that there is a lot of talk about freedom and democratic practice, these two institutions are perhaps some of the most undemocratic in the world. And there is a contradiction in a process where one country, in the case of the World Bank, and a handful in the case of the IMF, gets to decide for 184 member countries. These are the contradictions that exist. And again, I really raise the question of what is their commitment even to democracy when these institutions, they are not practicing it, nor do they seem to be open to the idea that developing countries, or you know, many more countries can have a say in terms of the leadership of the institutions. AMY GOODMAN: Njoki, finally, it was Paul Wolfowitz as Deputy Defense Secretary who went to the tsunami-ravaged region of Aceh and came back and has pushed for the restoration of military ties with the Indonesian military, that had been fully cut off in 1999 when the military razed East Timor to the ground as the people went out to vote, now using the pretext of the tsunami to restore military ties that Condoleezza Rice has supported. Of course, Paul Wolfowitz was the US Ambassador to Indonesia during the time of the occupation, continued to support the Indonesian government through one of the worst genocides of the 20th century. Your response to that? NJOKI NJOROGE NJEHU: Well, I mean, I think that this is again another reason why he is not qualified, because his experience and his tendencies around military issues and defense, and so I think that it does, in fact, indicate to the world that for the United States, the priorities of the United States and the World Bank are changing, and there has been indications in this direction, and I think that -- you know, he has also said that what he saw in -- when he went to -- in terms of the tsunami, the effects of the tsunami, is what has changed his mind and his heart around what he wants to do with the rest of his life. And I think it's a really -- for them to move from that to being head of the World Bank, it's a really bad beginning, because it doesn't in a way address the question of the fundamentals. He is coming from this again as many people do, from this idea of charity, of wanting to help versus wanting to change the system and being in what we call -- what I would call being in solidarity with the people and of those terrible circumstances around the world or helping build a system that insures the justice. A charity approach is what he has, and I think it's a bad recipe for the future work of the World Bank, which I think is where we are headed with the nomination of Paul Wolfowitz. AMY GOODMAN: Njoki Njehu, I want to thank you for being with us, of the 50 Years is Enough Network, and Jim Lobe, journalist with the Inter Press Service. To purchase an audio or video copy of this entire program, click here for our new online ordering or call 1 (800) 881-2359. -------- ACTIVISTS St. Patrick's Day Special: Irish Peace Activists Protest U.S. Use of Shannon Airport in Iraq War Democracy Now Thursday, March 17th, 2005 http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/03/17/1442223 To commemorate St. Patrick's Day, we take a look at the use of Shannon airport by U.S. troops en route to Iraq as well as the case of three Irish peace activists recently acquitted after their arrest during a protest against President Bush. [includes rush transcript] Today is May 17th - St. Patrick's Day - when people across the country celebrate the Saint credited with bringing Christianity to Ireland. To commemorate the occasion, we look at the case of three Irish anti-war activists who were acquitted after their arrest during a protest against President Bush. The three were arrested in a small rowing boat in the river Shannon as they held up a sign that read "Bush Go Home" during the president's visit to Ireland in June 2004. The Irish government said they failed to obey instructions to leave a temporary exclusion zone set up for Bush's visit. The judge dismissed the case saying there was no evidence of any refusal by them to comply with the instructions. * Aron Baker, one of the defendants in the case. He is a member of the Mid-West Alliance Against Military Aggression Another member of the group - Tim Hourigan - spoke about Shannon airport and its use as a stopover for U.S. troops in the Iraq war. * Tim Hourigan RUSH TRANSCRIPT AMY GOODMAN: On a trip to Ireland earlier this year, I spoke with Aron Baker, one of the defendants in the case. He began by explaining why he took part in his protest. ARON BAKER: When President Bush came to visit Ireland, his little stopover to Shannon, Dromoland Castle, anti-war activists and similar were at a peace camp basically in the area, and some colleagues of mine, Ed Horgan, a retired army commandant from the Irish forces and a friend of ours, Eibhlin ni Hir, decided to basically take to the water to protest his visit, exercise our constitutional rights to protest, and we – Ed had organized it. He had his boat there, and it was a small boat, about 12 feet. And we took to the water at Bunratty, just maybe a couple of miles away from Shannon Airport. And we went out. We -- before taking to the water, Ed and Eibhlin did brief media interviews with interested media parties there. And then we took to the water and progressed out with a small engine we had, out towards the airport. In order to get out there, obviously, we were under engine power, but the water levels are very low. There’s a lot of mud flats. And as we were progressing out there, a police -- a garda patro boat approached us and then just waved at us once and veered away. And we progressed on until a helicopter flew overhead, and then the navy and the gardi both kind of simultaneously zeroed in on us, and we -- at that stage, the engine was foul in the mud. We were in very shallow water. So we had stopped temporarily, and the navy approached us, and basically, despite what they claim, they basically arrested us on the spot for what they later claim was breaching the exclusion zone, which was not marked in any shape or form or pre-announced in any shape or form, or hugely minimally, not to our knowledge at all. And we were then arrested. We were towed into deeper water and then transferred onto the garda patrol boats before being taken to the Foynes Harbour, where the gardi and other powers that be had a huge private powwow about what to do with us and then took us to Askeaton Garda Station where we were held, and then we were taken to Ennis Court, where we were released on bail. And having been charged with breaching the exclusion zone under the Harbours Act, we were then later charged with a public order offense, failing to obey a garda, and from there, we went to trial, basically. The trial was drawn out over a period of time, and the actual trial took place last week. But we were well represented by counsel, a solicitor and barristers and the -- AMY GOODMAN: What did the judge say? ARON BAKER: The judge for a finish dismissed all charges against us. He actually said that he found in all cases with the defense, and that basically, there was no -- there was no -- no warrant for our being arrested, none of -- all that we had been arrested for was pretty groundless, basically. AMY GOODMAN: And why did you protest? ARON BAKER: Why did I protest? I protested because I'm not happy with the use of Shannon Airport by U.S. military, the U.S. military machine. I don't like seeing them coming through the airport, because I know that what they're going to do is basically death and destruction, which is just not justified in any shape or form. AMY GOODMAN: Aron Baker of the Mid-West Alliance Against Military Aggression, speaking in Dublin in January. Another member of the group, Tim Hourigan, talked about Shannon Airport and its use as a stopover for U.S. troops going to Iraq. TIM HOURIGAN: My name is Tim Hourigan, and I'm with the Mid-West Alliance Against Military Aggression, which is a peace group based in Limerick, only 16 miles from Shannon Airport. And we have been monitoring Shannon Airport since late September, early October 2001, because of the U.S. military use of Shannon Airport in attacking Afghanistan and Iraq, and Shannon Airport, although it's supposedly a civilian international airport in the west of Ireland, is actually a vital hub for movement of troops and explosives and other weapons from the United States to the theater of war, where they’re used on innocent people. Last year, 158,000 U.S. troops came through Shannon Airport. With that figure is actually higher than the number of troops currently in Iraq, and they used Shannon Airport because it's got not only one of the longest civilian runways in Western Europe, but also because it’s the first major runway to get to. They can land at Shannon, save fuel and take more troops, more explosives that they wouldn't be able to bring if they needed to put more weight of fuel on the airport by flying farther. So it's actually the most efficient way for them to put the troops in harm's way, have them occupy the country and get the weapons of war out there from the continental U.S., is to come through Shannon Airport. AMY GOODMAN: Do the troops know where they're going? TIM HOURIGAN: Some of them don't know that they're in Shannon until they get off the plane. Some members of our group had an opportunity to meet some of the younger troops inside the airport, and I mean, they knew that they were going to Iraq, but they said that they didn't actually want to go there, but a lot of them, they know where they're going to, but they're not informed of any point in between, really. And it’s rare enough we get to talk to them, because myself and a number of others have had high court injunctions preventing us going to the airport anymore. So we don't get to talk to many of them, but we see them through telescopes, and they all look very young and quite nervous, most of them. AMY GOODMAN: Why can’t you talk to them? What do you mean you have an injunction? TIM HOURIGAN: The authority that runs the airport took an injunction against 22 people, including myself, who were involved in a peace camp that basically exposed the use of the airport. The government was trying to cover up and minimalize everything that was going on at the airport, everybody saying that, you know, there's nothing secretive or furtive going on at the airport. It was denied at the highest level in this country. And then some people set up a peace camp and started, you know, showing photographs of what was going on, giving figures, registration numbers of aircraft. And the state wasn't particularly happy with that. Following a few actions, including the disarmament actions by Mary Kelly and the Catholic Workers, a high court injunction was sought to evict everyone in the peace camp and to prevent us from entering the grounds of the airport, where we had been monitoring before. It has had very little effect, because we just got a telescope, and we do it from, you know, a mile away. AMY GOODMAN: What is the position of the Irish government on Iraq? TIM HOURIGAN: Their government -- the Irish government's position kept changing. I mean, they denied everything until the peace camp exposed what was going on, that we had no involvement. They tried -- at one stage, we -- there was a demonstration that actually saw troops in desert uniform coming through the airport, and the official government position was that these were – that they were returning from bases in Germany to go home to the U.S., even though they were in desert uniforms. So they denied -- they tried to deny that they were actually going to the war zone. Later, they admitted that the troops were coming through, but tried to pretend that the weapons were not coming through or that the troops were not armed. They kept moving this, everything else. It depends who our Taoiseach is talking to, the head of the government, because on one hand, he tries to say that we're not participating in the war, even though we're giving much more assistance than we could do by sending our tiny army to participate in it itself, but on the other hand, you know, when he puts George Bush and all the rest of us, he’ll say, you know, he won't apologize for helping to oust the likes of Saddam. So it’s just --they waffle and try to deny as much as they can. AMY GOODMAN: Do you think most people in Ireland know what's happening at Shannon Airport now? TIM HOURIGAN: They didn't before, but they certainly do now. They know that it has been used, but they -- there's still more that's being covered up like the renditions you referred to. The jet involved in that, I have seen it at Shannon Airport and we have logged it a few times. And it's never been inspected at Shannon Airport. None of the military flights at Shannon Airport have been inspected. The particular jet has been -- has come through Shannon last year, the year before, going from the Middle East to the States. It's never been inspected. We have lodged complaints with the police, who are known as the Garda Siochana in this country, and they have never inspected that. So there’s still a lot more we don't know, like are people being brought through in chains off to Guantanamo Bay. You know, we know there's troops coming through. That's not even disputed anymore, but what's on the military cargo flights, what type of weapons are being brought, what type of explosives, and are people being brought through for torture? That's still being covered up by the authorities. AMY GOODMAN: Tim Hourigan of the Mid-West Alliance Against Military Aggression, speaking in Dublin last month. To purchase an audio or video copy of this entire program, click here for our new online ordering or call 1 (800) 881-2359. ---- Israeli court indicts nuclear whistleblower Vanunu JERUSALEM (AFP) Mar 17, 2005 http://www.spacewar.com/2005/050317152634.w3n9ksyi.html Nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu was indicted by an Israeli court on Thursday for repeatedly violating the terms of his release from prison one year ago, the justice ministry said. He was accused before a Jerusalem court of breaching on 21 occasions the severe restrictions placed on his movement after serving an 18-year sentence for lifting the lid on the inner workings of the Dimona nuclear plant, it said. "They charged me for giving interviews to the media and for not respecting the restrictions of my release. They're not charging me with releasing secrets," Vanunu told AFP from his residence in east Jerusalem. He did not appear in court. There is no warrant for his arrest and no date has yet been set for any trial. After his release in April, the 50-year-old was banned from leaving Israel or speaking to foreign journalists without prior authorisation amid fears that he was planning to leak more secrets of nuclear capabilities. "They want a trial but my lawyers are working on it. I'm not worried," Vanunu said, adding that he expects to hear within weeks whether the matter will go to court. His interview with Britain's Sunday Times newspaper led experts to conclude that Israel had nuclear weapons. He converted to Christianity shortly before he was arrested, fuelling accusations among Israelis that he is a traitor to the Jewish state and has been living at St George's Anglican cathedral since his release. Vanunu says he has applied for asylum in a string of Western countries but that his applications have been turned down. He was last arrested in December as he tried to enter the West Bank town of Bethlehem to attend Christmas Eve midnight mass. He was required to post bail of 50,000 shekels (11,500 dollars) and ordered to remain at St George's. -------- Soldiers' families to hold anti-war rally at Ft. Bragg By Charisse Jones, USA TODAY 3/17/2005 9:28 PM http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-03-17-bragg--rally_x.htm Military families and veterans are helping organize a major anti-war rally outside Fort Bragg in North Carolina that could draw several thousand people Saturday, the second anniversary of the Iraq war. Groups such as Iraq Veterans Against The War and Gold Star Families for Peace, whose members have lost relatives in Iraq, will play a prominent role. "We figured if we formed and used our grief in a positive way that could be very powerful," says Cindy Sheehan, a member of Gold Star Families For Peace from Vacaville, Calif., near San Francisco. Sheehan says U.S. soldiers in Iraq need to come home, but she knows her son will not be among them. Casey Sheehan, a 24-year-old Army specialist, was killed in April during an ambush in the Sadr City section of Baghdad. Groups like Gold Star Families For Peace, made up of 60 families, and Iraq Veterans Against the War, with nearly 200 members, were formed within the last nine months. The members were brought together by grief and opposition to the Iraq conflict. More than 1,500 U.S. servicemembers have died in Iraq. These new groups are one component of a national anti-war effort, says Andrew Pearson of the North Carolina Peace and Justice Coalition, one of the march's organizers. Since the November elections, there has been "a strategic reorientation for the anti-war movement. And a lot of it coming from the direction of leadership of military families and veterans," he says. Nancy Lessin of Military Families Speak Out says the march outside Fort Bragg this weekend could draw several thousand people to nearby Fayetteville, N.C. The Army base is home to the 82nd Airborne Division and has 46,000 active-duty soldiers. Fifty-three soldiers from the base have died in Iraq. "We're showing folks all over the country and the world that even in the military community, there's huge opposition to the continuation of the Iraq war," Pearson says. A similar rally in Fayetteville on the first anniversary fell short of the 2,000 people predicted, city spokesman Jason Brady says. He said the local police are working with this year's organizers "to make sure it works out smoothly." Lessin, of Boston, says military families calling for an end to the U.S. presence in Iraq are battling the notion their stance is disloyal. "There's a code of silence we struggle with that says we shouldn't be speaking out," Lessin says. For many people, supporting the troops means supporting the war, she says. Her group's 2,000 members have met with members of Congress, held educational forums and will be speaking at protests throughout the country. "Real support is to bring them home now," Lessin said of the troops in Iraq. "We fully recognize you don't bring 150,000 troops out overnight, that this is going to take some months to do safely, but that's really what needs to happen." Others disagree. "I think what they're doing is reprehensible," says KristinnTaylor of the Washington, D.C., chapter of Free Republic, a national group dedicated to conservative causes that plans to have counterdemonstrators at the North Carolina rally. "They're working to undermine the morale of the families and the soldiers." United For Peace and Justice, a coalition of anti-war groups, says various organizations are planning protests beyond the anniversary and workshops to counter military recruiters. About 500 people from more than 270 anti-war groups met in St. Louis the weekend of Feb. 19 to plan educational campaigns and counter-recruitment seminars, says Bill Dobbs of United for Peace and Justice. In Vermont, 49 of 57 communities approved non-binding resolutions March 1 — the state's Town Meeting Day — calling for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq. Most of the resolutions also call for an assessment of how the state is being affected by the high deployment of its National Guard. Tiny Vermont has the highest per capita death toll of U.S. troops in Iraq. And on a per capita basis, the Vermont National Guard has the second highest deployment of troops overseas, says Lt. Veronica Saffo, spokeswoman for the state's National Guard. "I think more and more people are beginning to understand that the costs of the war extend beyond the horrible number of deaths ... occurring in Iraq," says Joseph Gainza of the American Friends Service Committee, which helped lead the petition drive.