NucNews - March 26, 2005 -------- NUCLEAR -------- accidents and safety Estimates of Chernobyl radioactivity over France too low: new report PARIS (AFP) Mar 26, 2005 http://www.spacewar.com/2005/050326164617.7ek3epnk.html A new expert report on the radioactive cloud from the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster over France suggests radioactivity measurements were sometimes much higher than at first suggested, a source close to the case said Saturday. Judge Marie-Odile Bertella-Geffroy, who has been leading the inquiry since July 2001, has just been handed new information from two experts, Paul Genty and Gilbert Mouthon, various French media organisations reported Saturday. During their investigation into the matter the two experts relied on documents seized during searches in various ministries and organisations involved in the prevention of nuclear risks. The accident at the Chernobyl plant in the Ukraine on April 26, 1986 was the world's worst nuclear power disaster, contaminating a large part of Europe over several days. ---- "3 Mile Island Revisited" Documentary On Free Speech TV From: "Bill Smirnow" Date: Sat Mar 26, 2005 2:57am Three Mile Island Revisited documentary on Free Speech TV The award-winning documentary Three Mile Island Revisited will be aired on Free Speech TV (Dish Network, channel 9415) the week of March 28, 2005 -- the 26th anniversary of the most serious commercial nuclear plant accident in U.S. history. Hosted and narrated by Karl Grossman and directed by Steve Jam beck, the documentary challenges the claims of the nuclear industry and government that "no one died" as a result of the core meltdown at Unit-1 of the Three Mile Island nuclear complex in Pennsylvania. Three Mile Island Revisited, produced by EnviroVideo and Green Sphere Inc, is the winner of the Silver Award at the WorldFest-Houston International Film Festival and recipient of the Director's Citation, Black Maria Video and Film Festival. The documentary "makes a chilling case that people did die as a result of the TMI," declared Earth Island Journal, the publication of the Earth Island Institute, in its review of Three Mile Island Revisited. On March 28, 1979, the cooling system of the reactor malfunctioned leading to an overheating and a partial meltdown of the plant's nuclear core. Indeed, Robert Pollard of the Union of Concerned Scientists says in Three Mile Island Revisited that the plant was 30 minutes away from a full meltdown and this was only prevented by luck. Nevertheless, the radioactivity released immediately and for days and weeks later had major health impacts. In fact, the owners of the facility "have quietly given cash settlements--some as high as $1 million" to the families of victims, states Grossman in Three Mile Island Revisited. Among those interviewed in Three Mile Island Revisited is Debby Baker who was pregnant at the time of the accident and whose son was born with Downs Syndrome. She received $1 million and says in the documentary: "I learned that our government covers up many, many things." See www.envirovideo.com http://www.envirovideo.com/ for the FSTV broadcast schedule. -------- depleted uranium Rats get uranium in study of veterans' health Some health advocates claim that exposure to depleted uranium could be causing Gulf War Syndrome. By Kevin Miller 381-1676 mailto:kevin.miller@roanoke.com New River Current Saturday, March 26, 2005 BLACKSBURG - The U.S. Army recently awarded Virginia Tech researchers http://www.roanoke.com/news/nrv%5C20806.html additional money to study whether a combination of stress and exposure to uranium from military ammunition could cause some of the myriad health problems affecting veterans of the first war in Iraq. The U.S. military as well as some NATO forces frequently use depleted uranium in armor-piercing ammunition because of its density. Although far less radioactive than natural uranium, which is used for nuclear weapons and fuel for nuclear power plants, depleted uranium can still pose a health risk to those who come into direct contac t with it. Environmental groups and some health advocates claim that exposure to depleted uranium - whether in the form of radioactive dust ingested after detonation, in the form of shrapnel in the body or through contact with spent munitions and their targets - could be causing Gulf War Syndrome, the name given to the assorted health problems suffered by veterans of the first Gulf War. Others have said depleted uranium ammunition caused a rise in cancer rates and birth defects among Iraqi citizens. Medical studies have offered conflicting results on the potential dangers of depleted uranium, but research into the subject is intensifying. Researchers at the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine in Blacksburg have been testing depleted uranium's effects of laboratory rats for the past several years. The Tech team is paying particular attention to the toxicity of the uranium and whether stress - often in the form of forced swimming - affects the rats' reaction to heavy metal. Bernie Jortner, a professor in the vet school's Department of Biomedical Science and an expert in neurotoxicity, said rats in one study who received an injection of a soluble uranium and were stressed once showed reduced motor activity skills for several days. They also exhibited kidney damage and changes in levels of dopamine, a neurotransmitter essential to healthyfunction of the central nervous system. But the rats' motor functions returned after the kidneys repaired themselves a week later, making it difficult for the researchers to determine whether it was the uranium directly or the kidney damage that affected the rats. Jortner said the meaning of the dopamine changes is as yet unclear - pointing out, however, that reduced dopamine levels are associated with Parkinson's disease. The Army recently extended a second study by Jortner and his two principal colleagues, Tech's Marion Ehrich and the University of Florida's David Barber, in which uranium pellets are implanted in rats to simulate shrapnel. These rats are kept longer and stressed more often. Jortner said the second study is much more complex and comprehensive. "We'll have much more data ... and be much closer to the situation" faced by soldiers wounded by depleted uranium ammunition, Jortner said. To date, the Army has invested in excess of $1 million in the research programs. ---- peaceinspace radio: Leuren Moret: “Depleted Uranium: Update” Monday March 28, 2005 - Noon-1 PM PT/Monday Brownbagger COOP RADIO – CFRO – 102.7 FM Vancouver, B.C. http://peaceinspace.blogs.com/peaceinspaceorg/2005/03/peaceinspace_ra.html LISTEN ONLINE TO COOP RADIO: http://www.coopradio.org/ GUEST: Leuren Moret was an Expert Witness at the International Criminal Tribunal For Afghanistan At Tokyo. She is an independent scientist and international expert on radiation and public health issues. She is on the organizing committee of the World Committee on Radiation Risk, an organization of independent radiation specialists, including members of the Radiation Committee in the EU parliament, the European Committee on Radiation Risk. She is an environmental commissioner for the City of Berkeley. Ms. Moret earned her BS in geology at U.C. Davis in 1968 and her MA in Near Eastern studies from U.C. Berkeley in 1978. She has completed all but her dissertation for a PhD in the geosciences at U.C. Davis. She has traveled and conducted scientific research in 42 countries. She wrote a scientific report on depleted uranium for the United Nations sub commission investigating the illegality of depleted uranium munitions. Marian Falk, a former Manhattan Project scientist and retired insider at the Livermore Lab, who is an expert on radioactive fallout and rainout, has trained her on radiation issues. International Criminal Tribunal for Afghanistan written opinion of Judge N. Bhagwa t : also at http://www.traprockpeace.org/tokyo_trial_13march04.doc HOST: Alfred Lambremont Webre, JD, MEd Full Article at: http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/082304W.shtml Depleted Uranium: Dirty Bombs, Dirty Missiles, Dirty Bullets http://shininglight.us/mt/archives/2005/03/details_on_depl.html#more Details on Depleted Uranium The details about Depleted Uranium are emerging from the deep hole the US Department of Defense has put them. Rumor has it that the BBC will break the story over the next few days. If that happens, US mainstream media will likely pick up the story. What I want to know is why its taken so long. Who put the blackout on US Media? I've found internet links to documents produced by the government as early as 1990 on DU and its potential consequences. There are extensive resources on-line on DU. There are also government commissioned studies that minimize it's risks. The Federation of American Scientists has a good set of links. Remember all the discussion about Anthrax powder? The CDC describes how small particles of Anthrax the size of 5-10 micrometers can easily become airborne again when disturbed: Although resuspension of certain settled particles requires substantial amounts of energy, lower energy activities (e.g., paper handling, foot traffic, mail handling, and patting of chairs) can reaerosolize settled B. anthracis spores (9,10). The clinical and epidemiologic presentations of anthrax after an intentional release vary by the population targeted, the characteristics of the spores, the mode and source of exposure, and other characteristics. The size of the particles of DU are nanometers and therefore even easier to disturb and stay airborne for longer periods. The problem with even Rands conclusions are based on the assumption of episodic exposures where the body can purge itself of the particles as it do with natural occuring uranium. I can imagine battlefields that are occupied indefinitely producing continuous exposure that builds up in the body. I recall discussions of dust always in the air in Iraq. I can imagine a gradually increasing continuous exposure to DU in certain locations. With troops rotating in and out of hot areas, they receive continuous exposure while there. The numbers exposed would be very high. DU along with the exposure of many troops to the traces of chemical weapons in southern Iraq early in the invasion when a munitions dump was burned probably accounts for much of the 56% disability rate in Gulf War II Veterans. Explaining How “The numbers are overwhelming, but the potential horrors only get worse,” Robert C. Koehler of the Chicago-based Tribune Media Services wrote in an article about DU weapons entitled “Silent Genocide.” “DU dust does more than wreak havoc on the immune systems of those who breathe it or touch it; the substance also alters one’s genetic code,” Koehler wrote. “The Pentagon’s response to such charges is denial, denial, denial. And the American media is its moral co-conspirator.” The U.S. government has known for at least 20 years that DU weapons produce clouds of poison gas on impact. These clouds of aerosolized DU are laden with billions of toxic sub-micron sized particles. A 1984 Department of Energy conference on nuclear airborne waste reported that tests of DU anti-tank missiles showed that at least 31 percent of the mass of a DU penetrator is converted to nano-particles on impact. In larger bombs the percentage of aerosolized DU increases to nearly 100 percent, Fulk told AFP. DU is harmful in three ways, according to Fulk: “Chemical toxicity, radiological toxicity and particle toxicity.” [...] “Exposure pathways for depleted uranium can be through the skin, by inhalation, and ingestion,” Moret wrote. “Nano-particles have high mobility and can easily enter the body. Inhalation of nano-particles of depleted uranium is the most hazardous exposure, because the particles pass through the lung-blood barrier directly into the blood. “When inhaled through the nose, nano-particles can cross the olfactory bulb directly into the brain through the blood brain barrier, where they migrate all through the brain,” she wrote. “Many Gulf era soldiers exposed to depleted uranium have been diagnosed with brain tumors, brain damage and impaired thought processes. Uranium can interfere with the mitochondria, which provide energy for the nerve processes, and transmittal of the nerve signal across synapses in the brain. “Damage to the mitochondria, which provide all energy to the cells and nerves, can cause chronic fatigue syndrome, Lou Gehrig’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and Hodgkin’s disease.” Complete Article Radioactive Uranium Nano-Particles Pinpointed as Major Issue in Gulf War Syndrome Christopher Bollyn – American Free Press January 7, 2005 Depleted uranium weapons and the untold misery they wreak on mankind are taboo subjects in the mainstream media. There are indications, however, that the media embargo is about to be breached. Despite being a grossly under-reported subject in the mainstream media, there is intense public interest in depleted uranium (DU) and the damage it inflicts on humankind and the environment. While American Free Press is actively investigating DU weapons and how they contribute to Gulf War Syndrome, the corporate-controlled press virtually ignores the illegal use of DU and its long-lasting effects on the health of veterans and the public. In August 2004 American Free Press published a ground-breaking four-part series on DU weapons and the long-term health risks they pose to soldiers and civilians alike. Information provided to AFP by experts and scientists, some of it published for the first time in this paper, has increased public awareness of how exposure to small particles of DU can severely affect human health. Leuren Moret, a Berkeley-based geo-scientist with expertise in atmospheric dust, corresponds with AFP on DU issues. Recently Moret provided a copy of her correspondence to a British radiation biologist, Dr. Chris Busby, about how nanometer size particles of DU – less than one-tenth of a micron and smaller – once inhaled or absorbed into the body, can cause long-term damage to one's health. Busby is one of the founders of Green Audit, a British organization that monitors companies "whose activities might threaten the environment and health of citizens." Moret's letter was meant to assist Busby in a legal case being heard in the High Court in London where a former defense worker, Richard David, 49, is suing Normal Air Garrett, Ltd., an aircraft parts company now owned by Honeywell Aerospace, claiming exposure to depleted uranium on the job has made his life a "living hell." David worked as a component fitter on fighter planes and bombers but had to quit due to health problems. He says he developed a cough within weeks of starting work. Today, David suffers from a variety of symptoms like those known as Gulf War Syndrome, including respiratory and kidney problems, bowel conditions and painful joints. Medical tests reveal mutations to his DNA and damage to his chromosomes, which, he says, could only have been caused by ionizing radiation. He has also been diagnosed with a terminal lung condition. Honeywell denies depleted uranium was ever used at the plant in Yeovil, Somerset, where David worked for 10 years until 1995. David claims that DU's existence at the plant was denied because it is an official secret. David has asked the High Court for more time to gather evidence. The hearing is due to resume in April. “I don’t have any legal representation," David said, "so I am representing myself. It is a real David versus Goliath case. “I am confident I will win. I hope to set a precedent for other cases of people who have suffered from the effects of depleted uranium.” Moret's letter on the particle effect of DU is based on research done by Marion Fulk, a nuclear physical chemist and former scientist with the Manhattan Project and the National Laboratory at Livermore, California. Fulk, who has developed a "particle theory" about how DU nano-particles affect human DNA, donates his time and expertise to help bring information about DU to the public. Asked about Fulk's particle theory, Busby said it is "quite sound." "DU is much more dangerous than they say," Busby added. "I've always said that it contributes significantly to Gulf War Syndrome." When Moret's correspondence to Dr. Busby was posted on the Internet over the New Year's holiday under the title "How Depleted Uranium Weapons Are Killing Our Troops," some 6,000 people read the letter in the first two days. The following Monday, a producer from the BBC's Panorama program contacted Moret to arrange an interview. If the BBC follows up with an investigation on the health effects of DU, it may be hard for the U.S. media to remain silent. More than 500,000 "Gulf War Era" vets currently receive disability compensation, many of them for a variety of symptoms generally referred to as Gulf War Syndrome. Experts blame DU for many of these symptoms. “The numbers are overwhelming, but the potential horrors only get worse,” Robert C. Koehler of the Chicago-based Tribune Media Services wrote in an article about DU weapons entitled “Silent Genocide.” “DU dust does more than wreak havoc on the immune systems of those who breathe it or touch it; the substance also alters one's genetic code,” Koehler wrote. “The Pentagon's response to such charges is denial, denial, denial. And the American media is its moral co-conspirator.” The U.S. government has known for at least twenty years that DU weapons produce clouds of poison gas on impact. These clouds of aerosolized DU are laden with billions of toxic sub-micron sized particles. A 1984 Dept. of Energy conference on Nuclear Airborne Waste reported that tests of DU anti-tank missiles showed that at least 31 percent of the mass of a DU penetrator is converted to nano-particles on impact. In larger bombs the percentage of aerosolized DU increases to nearly 100 percent, Fulk told AFP. Depleted uranium is harmful in three ways, according to Fulk: "Chemical toxicity, radiological toxicity, and particle toxicity." Particles in the nano-meter (one billionth of a meter) range are a "new breed of cat," Moret wrote. Because the size of the nano-particles allows them to pass freely throughout the organism and into the nucleus of its cells, exposure to nano-particles causes different symptoms than exposure to larger particles of the same substance. Internalized DU particles, Fulk said, act as "a non-specific catalyst" in both "nuclear and non-nuclear" ways. This means that the uranium particle can affect human DNA and RNA because of both its chemical and radiological properties. This is why internalized DU particles cause "many, many diseases," Fulk said. Asked if this is how DU causes severe birth defects, Fulk said, "Yes." The military is aware of DU's harmful effects on the human genetic code. A 2001 study of DU's effect on DNA done by Dr. Alexandra C. Miller for the Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, indicates that DU's chemical instability causes 1 million times more genetic damage than would be expected from its radiation effect alone, Moret wrote. Dr. Miller requested that questions be sent in writing and copied to a military spokesman, but did tell AFP that it should be noted that her studies showing that DU is "neoplastically transforming and genotoxic" are based on in vitro cellular research. Studies have shown that inhaled nano-particles are far more toxic than micro-sized particles of the same basic chemical composition. British toxicopathologist Vyvyan Howard has reported that the increased toxicity of the nano-particle is due to its size. For example, when mice were exposed to virus-size particles of Teflon (0.13 microns) in a Univ. of Rochester study, there were no ill effects. But when mice were exposed to nano-particles of Teflon for 15 minutes, nearly all the mice died within 4 hours. "Exposure pathways for depleted uranium can be through the skin, by inhalation, and ingestion," Moret wrote. "Nano-particles have high mobility and can easily enter the body. Inhalation of nano-particles of depleted uranium is the most hazardous exposure, because the particles pass through the lung-blood barrier directly into the blood. "When inhaled through the nose, nano-particles can cross the olfactory bulb directly into the brain through the blood brain barrier, where they migrate all through the brain," she wrote. "Many Gulf Era soldiers exposed to depleted uranium have been diagnosed with brain tumors, brain damage, and impaired thought processes. Uranium can interfere with the mitochondria, which provide energy for the nerve processes, and transmittal of the nerve signal across synapses in the brain. "Damage to the mitochondria, which provide all energy to the cells and nerves, can cause chronic fatigue syndrome, Lou Gehrig’s disease, Parkinson’s Disease, and Hodgkin’s disease." www.americanfreepress.net/html/explaining_how.html “WAKE-UP WITH CO-OP” MON.-WED.- FRI. 7-9 AM PT "MONDAY BROWNBAGGER" Mondays Noon - 1 PM PT LISTEN ONLINE: http://www.coopradio.org/ LISTENER-SPONSORED CO-OP RADIO is broadcast across Canada on the Star Choice satellite system on channel 845. Co-op radio, CFRO fm is located in Vancouver, B.C., Canada. Its frequency in the Vancouver area is 102.7 MHz and we are also found on various cable frequencies in most major cities throughout British Columbia. RealAudio and Program information for radio station CFRO can be found on the internet at http://www.coopradio.org Listener phone-in: Call Coop Radio on-air with your questions and comments at (604) 684-7561. SIGN OUR U.N. PETITION TO BAN WEAPONS AND WARFARE IN SPACE http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/832338563 Campaign for Cooperation in Space http://www.peaceinspace.org -------- india U.S. mollifies India with weapons of its own By UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL Published March 26, 2005 http://www.wpherald.com/Asia_Pacific/storyview.php?StoryID=20050326-093058-4416r WASHINGTON -- India and the United States have announced plans to boost defense ties soon after Washington unveiled plans to sell F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan. The United States has offered to New Delhi F-18 aircraft, with a license to manufacture them in India, civilian nuclear energy and cooperation in the field of space technology. Under the new agreement, announced hours after Washington said it was selling F-16s to Pakistan, the US administration also offered to help India increase its missile defense and early warning systems. Commenting on the U.S. offer, defense analysts in India said New Delhi should not worry too much about the F-16 sale to Pakistan because what Washington is offering to India is more substantial and of a strategic nature. Senior U.S. officials, who announced the U.S. offer to help India meet its defense and energy needs, said Washington wants to see India emerge as a major world power. -------- missile defense Debating missile defense March 26, 2005 Washington Times Letters to the Editor http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20050325-083717-4823r.htm I wanted to take this opportunity to address some of the outrageous comments Peter Huessy made in his Tuesday Op-Ed column, "Defending missile defense." From the perspective of missile defense proponents, Mr. Huessy repeatedly refers to "our critics" in his commentary when referring to members of Congress who have raised legitimate concerns about the Bush administration's approach to missile defense. He is not an administration official. Nor does he work for the Missile Defense Agency, and he is not an elected official serving on a committee that has direct responsibility for reviewing the missile defense budget. Because Mr. Huessy feels the need to disparage members of Congress, including myself and Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., I believe it is useful to correct his several misleading comments about missile defense. Without speaking for my colleagues, I have always been supportive of a missile defense system that works. I believe the Pentagon, working with Congress, has a duty to explore any promising technology that has the potential to protect the American people. Let me be clear: Protecting the American people should be our highest priority. We should not rush to deploy a system that has not been tested just to meet an arbitrary deadline or have a photo op. Serious concerns have been raised with all aspects of the Missile Defense Agency's approach to providing a missile shield — from the development of the system to the focus of the program to the adequacy of the testing to the cost in taxpayer dollars of a program, more than $85 billion since 1985 — that has failed to shoot down a single ballistic missile under realistic conditions. Although Mr. Huessy may not appreciate the value of congressional oversight, I intend to keep paying close attention to the administration's budget requests for missile defense and asking relevant questions until we have an effective system that actually defends against a missile attack. REP. ELLEN O. TAUSCHER U.S. House Armed Services Committee Washington • In a recent Op-Ed column, Peter Huessy writes, "Former Department of Defense official Philip Coyle says we should test for 10 to 12 years." This is not correct. What I have said is that the Missile Defense Agency itself — not me — has laid out a set of 20 to 30 developmental flight-intercept tests for its Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system that could take decades. The last successful flight-intercept test was well more than two years ago, and at this rate, it could take 50 years to successfully complete those 20 to 30 developmental tests, and this does not include the time for realistic operational testing to follow. Testing for 10 or 12 years is the least of the agency's problems. The United States has been testing various continental missile defenses for more than 40 years, but none has been shown to be effective against enemy intercontinental ballistic missiles under realistic operational conditions. The Missile Defense Agency has claimed that the system being deployed in Alaska and California could be 80 percent effective, but, considering recent flight-test failures, this cannot be true. The three most recent flight-intercept tests have failed, and in two of those, the interceptor failed even to get off the ground. If those tests are any measure, the system being deployed is closer to zero percent effective than to 80 percent. The Missile Defense Agency could demonstrate the real operational capability of the GMD system in just a few tests if those tests were conducted the way it is being deployed. But this would mean relying on existing satellites and radars because the more sensitive Space-Based Infrared System satellites and seagoing X-band radars are years behind schedule and unavailable to detect and track an enemy launch. It also would mean no longer relying on information from the "enemy" on the exact date, time and location of launch; intended target; flight trajectory of the enemy missile; and advanced descriptions of the target re-entry vehicle and other objects, decoys or countermeasures in the target cluster. It also would mean removing the artificial targeting aids (GPS and radar beacons) that have been flown on the surrogate targets in all the flight-intercept tests so far. In the five successful tests to which Mr. Huessy refers, the defenders have had early warning and detailed information about the "enemy" missile, including tracking beacons on the targets, that no enemy would intentionally provide. To have confidence in the GMD system, Congress and the American public need successful tests in which the Missile Defense Agency withdraws — one by one — such artificial targeting aids. Because the system is still early in development, it would be unwise to take all these aids off at once. If deprived of all this information today, the system would be expected to fail. Successful tests, with the uncertainties and lack of warning of realistic battle, will show whether it is the critics or the proponents who have unrealistic expectations. PHILIP COYLE Senior adviser Center for Defense Information Former assistant secretary of defense for testing and evaluation Washington -------- pakistan IAEA wants nuke parts for probe: Pakistan March 26, 2005 18:16 IST PTI http://us.rediff.com/news/2005/mar/26nuke.htm Pakistan has received a formal request from the International Atomic Energy Agency to send components of a 'discarded' centrifuge for analysis. "The request comes a day after Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf said they planned to send nuclear centrifuges to the agency for investigation relating to Iran's nuclear programme," Pakistan Foreign office spokesman Jalil Abbas Jilani was quoted in the Dawn daily on Friday. The examination was in connection with revelations that Pakistan's disgraced nuclear scientist A Q Khan was involved in supplying centrifuges to Iran, whose nuclear programme is currently being investigated by IAEA following strong objections from the United States. Jilani, who had earlier said Pakistan had not received any request from IAEA nor would send any centrifuges, confirmed that the request had been made but remained evasive on when it was received. Musharraf had said in a television interview on Thursday that Pakistan was considering dispatching parts of centrifuges to Vienna for examination. "To end the issue once and for all we want to send nuclear centrifuges to Vienna for inspection and the matter is under consideration," he said. ---- Pakistani Hints He'll Turn Over Centrifuges in Iran Investigation By SOMINI SENGUPTA March 26, 2005 NY TIMES http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/26/international/asia/26pakistan.html?pagewanted=print&position= EW DELHI, March 25 - President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan says he will consider turning over centrifuges to the international nuclear watchdog agency to aid in its investigation of Iran's nuclear program. The centrifuges could help the group, the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, determine whether the traces of highly enriched, weapons grade uranium found on nuclear equipment in Iran originated in Iran or, as Tehran maintains, arrived in a contaminated shipment of centrifuges from Pakistan. Earlier this month, Pakistan acknowledged for the first time that Dr. A. Q. Khan, the country's most celebrated nuclear scientist and a one-man nuclear black market, had sold centrifuges to Iran, but said he had done so independently and without the consent of the government. International diplomats have said that Pakistan privately agreed months ago to turn the centrifuges over to the agency but had been dragging its feet. In an interview broadcast Thursday on a private television network called Aaj, General Musharraf seemed to say the delays would stop. "To end the issue once and for all we want to send nuclear centrifuges to Vienna for inspection, and the matter is under consideration," he was quoted as saying in a report on the interview published Friday in an English-language daily, Dawn. Centrifuges are used to enrich uranium, which may then serve as a source of fuel for nuclear power plants or for weapons, though weapons-grade uranium is far more concentrated. Iran has maintained that it has the right to enrich uranium for use in power plants, but Washington contends that it is using its peaceful nuclear activities to obscure its weapons-making program. Pakistan, a key ally in the United States' war on terror, has in the past acknowledged that Dr. Khan smuggled nuclear secrets to North Korea, Iran and Libya. On television last year, Dr. Khan admitted to having spread Pakistan's nuclear technology, issued an apology but offered no details on what he had sold to whom. Pardoned by General Musharraf, he now lives in a closely guarded house in the capital. Bush administration officials, as well as the Musharraf government, say they believe Dr. Khan's illicit network has been dismantled. "Dr. A. Q. Khan was involved in nuclear proliferation to Iran," General Musharraf said in the interview. "It is unfortunate. But now he is living a quiet life and in no way involved in any network." ---- U.S. Is Set to Sell Jets to Pakistan; India Is Critical By THOM SHANKER and JOEL BRINKLEY March 26, 2005 NY TIMES http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/26/politics/26military.html?pagewanted=print&position= WASHINGTON, March 25 - The United States will sell F-16 jet fighters to Pakistan in a deal that State Department officials said Friday would improve regional security. But the decision was immediately denounced by India as adding a fresh element of instability to relations between the nuclear neighbors. The size of the arms sale has not been decided, State Department officials said, although Pakistan previously said it was seeking about two dozen of the planes, which can be used in ground or air attack roles and have a maximum range of more than 2,000 miles. President Bush personally telephoned Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India early Friday to inform him of the decision to sell F-16's to Pakistan, White House officials said. In words apparently meant to soften the impact of a major weapons transfer to India's rival, Mr. Bush said the administration had also cleared the way for India to discuss a combat aircraft purchase with American arms manufacturers. Mr. Bush, speaking from his Texas ranch, told the Indian prime minister that the United States was "responding" to New Delhi's request for information on "multirole combat aircraft," according to White House officials. The possibility of the F-16 sale to Pakistan had been hinted at by people in the administration and was reported by The Wall Street Journal this month before Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited India and Pakistan. Even so, Mr. Singh told Mr. Bush of his "great disappointment" over the pending arms sale and warned that it would undermine regional security, according to Sanjaya Baru, the prime minister's spokesman, as quoted by The Associated Press from India. Relations between India and Pakistan remain tenuous and bitter. They have fought three wars, mostly over the Kashmir territory, and now both nations have nuclear arms. Still, they are committed to off-and-on peace talks. And in an important step, the Pakistani president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, has promised to visit India for a cricket match between teams from the countries early next month. The F-16 is valued for its ability to take on a variety of missions, including delivering precise airstrikes. In that role, it has been used extensively in Afghanistan and Iraq to attack suspected insurgent hiding places, and Pakistan has said it would use the plane to strike at terrorists. The fighters to be sold to Pakistan may be newer models off the production line, and not the older variant purchased by Pakistan in the 1980's. In 1990, it ordered more, but delivery was blocked when Congress passed legislation to punish the Pakistanis for their ambitions to develop nuclear weapons. State Department officials said the purchase price would be unknown until a formal agreement is reached on which model of the fighter will be sold, and how it will be equipped. The F-16C/D models purchased by the United States Air Force from the Lockheed Martin Corporation in 1998, for example, cost $18.8 million each, though exported versions of the plane typically cost more. The arms sale is seen as reward for cooperation in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, when Pakistan opened its territory as a crucial portal into neighboring Afghanistan during the war to topple the Taliban government and oust fighters of Al Qaeda. Even so, some military analysts complain that Pakistan is not doing enough today to hunt down insurgents and terrorists still seeking refuge in the mountainous areas of Pakistan just across the Afghan border. The Bush administration has also chosen to overlook or play down other irritants, including what some officials say has been a lack of cooperation in investigating the nuclear black-market network run by A. Q. Khan, a Pakistani scientist, and the slowness of General Musharraf to return his country to democracy. State Department officials explained that the arms sale fit into the broader strategic relationship across South Asia. "We are looking to improve security and improve prosperity and improve development of the entire region as a whole through an integrated program of engagement," Adam Ereli, the State Department deputy spokesman, said at a news briefing Friday afternoon. "And that engagement includes security, it includes energy, it includes economy, it includes diplomacy, politics," he said. "And part of that is a decision to begin negotiations with the Pakistani government and Congress to sell F-16's to Pakistan and to respond favorably to a request for information from India for the possible sale of multirole combat aircraft." Mr. Ereli said that "relations between India and Pakistan have never been better," and that "to the extent that we can contribute to Pakistan's sense of security and India's sense of security, that will contribute to regional stability." Pakistan has the older F-16's already in its arsenal, and has been lobbying to buy more for years. As one reward for its assistance after Sept. 11, the United States began selling Pakistan spare parts for those older planes. India, on the other hand, has been buying its fighters elsewhere, but American companies are lobbying to get into the Indian arms market. Like most newer-generation strike jets, the F-16 can carry nuclear weapons. But State Department officials denied that sales of advanced aircraft to the two countries would increase the ability of either to deliver nuclear weapons across their shared border, citing the fact that both countries have tested medium-range missiles capable of carrying warheads. But Larry Pressler, a former Republican senator from South Dakota who gave his name to the amendment that halted the F-16 transfers to Pakistan in the 1990's, said Friday that the decision to go ahead with the jet-fighter deal "is a mistake." "I know that we want to be friends with Pakistan because of the terrorism thing, but you don't fight terrorism with F-16's," he said in a telephone interview. "F-16's are capable of nuclear delivery. That's about the only reason Pakistan wants them. The only people they are in a fight with are in India. India now will have to get the same thing somehow. So it raises tensions and stakes without meeting any of our objectives." The United States wants several things from Pakistan, and the sale of F-16's could more tightly bind the two nations. In particular, Washington wants more help in unraveling the Khan nuclear network, particularly its assistance to Iran and North Korea. But a State Department official said there was no quid pro quo with the arms deal. A senior administration official also said the United States wanted more signs of democratization, including a decision by General Musharraf to surrender his military position as a sign of relinquishing some of his consolidated power. In part to mollify India, Secretary Rice made a point of lauding India's leaders for its help with Southeast Asian tsunami relief, and she insisted during her visit to the region last week that the United States would join India in a larger strategic partnership. She also expressed hope to leaders of both countries that they would work with each other to peacefully resolve their dispute over Kashmir. Senior officials said Friday that the United States was trying to balance the arms sale to Pakistan by animating "the strategic dialogue" with India that would emphasize that nation's role as "a world power." "We are comfortable that we have a kind of concerted approach in which neither side feels that we are acting or taking steps to undermine the relations that we have and compromise their interests," a senior State Department official said. -------- terrorism Fictional Doomsday Team Plays Out Scene After Scene By ERIC LIPTON March 26, 2005 NY TIMES http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/26/politics/26home.html?pagewanted=print&position= WASHINGTON, March 25 - They disguise themselves as janitors, ambulance crews and food-processing-plant employees. They gather supplies by staging burglaries at a pharmacy and a plumbing supply store. They smuggle weapons into the United States by hiding them in furniture cushions imported from Europe or sneaking them in from Mexico. Ever so patiently and meticulously, this fictional team of terrorists plots its attacks. To federal officials, the conspirators are known as Universal Adversary, the make-believe force behind a dozen doomsday scripts that the Department of Homeland Security has compiled in an effort to help the nation prepare for, or perhaps even prevent, future attacks. The story lines were developed through a collaboration of some of the nation's top antiterrorist and law-enforcement specialists, from the White House; the Federal Bureau of Investigation; the Departments of Homeland Security, Defense, Energy, Agriculture, Labor and Transportation; the Nuclear Regulatory Commission; and the Environmental Protection Agency. The hundreds of pages of documents detailing these plots are not just a guidebook to calamities that might hit the United States. They also offer a best guess about the techniques the government fears that terrorists might use to pull them off. "There are almost limitless forms of terrorist attacks, but many of them will employ the same kinds of trade craft," said James Jay Carafano, a senior fellow for national security and homeland security at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative research organization in Washington. "Knowing the trade craft helps a great deal as it can allow you to stay one step ahead of the terrorist." Officials from the White House, the Department of Homeland Security and the F.B.I. declined to comment in detail about the terrorist tactics identified in the documents. But they acknowledged that a goal of devising the plots was to get law enforcement officials thinking like terrorists. "We are moving forward in applying lessons learned to anticipate and address all possible attack scenarios," an F.B.I. spokeswoman said, asking not to be named because her department was not the lead author of the document. "With enhanced law enforcement and intelligence community partnerships, we are able to better detect terrorist plots and dismantle terrorist organizations." Similar scripts involving the Universal Adversary will be used early next month, when Homeland Security officials stage mock chemical and biological attacks involving more than 10,000 law enforcement, public safety, health and other officials in Connecticut and New Jersey, as well as Canada and Britain. Like the terrorists in the Sept. 11 attacks, the members of Universal Adversary generally enter the United States through official border control points, rather than risk an illegal border crossing. They spend weeks or even months studying their targets, often getting jobs inside the institutions they want to attack. Terrorists posing as janitors, in one case, place sarin nerve gas into the ventilation systems in three high-rise office buildings - a task that, after six months of planning, takes less than 10 minutes to carry out. The clear, colorless and tasteless substance kills 6,000 people, including some of the rescue personnel, according to the script. In a second situation, after enrolling in a class to become emergency medical technicians, terrorists drive an ambulance to a sports arena and blow it up, killing 100 people. In another hypothetical plot, terrorists get jobs at an industrial plant that uses liquid chlorine, then use a small explosive device to blow up a tank, killing 17,500 people. And in a fourth plot, terrorists working at food-processing plants contaminate ground beef and orange juice, killing 300. "The insider is a big, big problem," said Edward Badolato, a retired Marine colonel and counterterrorism expert who is an executive vice president at the Shaw Group, an engineering and security consulting firm. The potential threat from insiders is one reason that contractors are increasingly being required to do background checks on their employees at major federal buildings and high-profile skyscrapers in New York and elsewhere, said Blake Coppotelli, managing director of the business intelligence and investigation division at Kroll, a risk consulting company based in New York. In other cases, employees are issued identification cards that restrict where they can move within buildings. "You cannot have as secure a building without taking into consideration these issues," Mr. Coppotelli said. The techniques that terrorists might use to acquire specialized materials also received a great deal of attention. The highly enriched uranium needed for a nuclear device, for example, is stolen from the former Soviet Union and then brought into the United States through Mexico. Anthrax is stolen from a university laboratory. Material required for a dirty bomb - a crude radioactive device that causes most of its damage simply by contaminating the area where it is set off - is delivered to the United States on a ship. The substance, cesium 137, is encased in a special container that prevents its detection by radiation monitors installed in many of the nation's ports. In almost every situation, the would-be terrorists take actions that expose them to capture. In the planned attack on a college football stadium, after the plotters enter the United States on student visas, they are added to a terrorist watch list because they do not show up at classes, and then are interrogated by the police after an officer sees them videotaping the stadium. The theft of antibiotics like ciprofloxacin and doxycycline offers a hint that an anthrax attack is being organized. Those planning to attack a chemical plant, a plot that involves helicopters, enroll in firearms and flight training programs. Security experts who have read the documents say their basic lesson is that terrorists who succeed in evading apprehension in the first stages of a plot can still be stopped before pulling off the attack. "You succeed through a layer security system," Mr. Carafano said. -------- transportation Fuel from nuclear warheads causes concern over transport safety Associated Press Sat, Mar. 26, 2005 http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/11238775.htm CHARLESTON, S.C. - An experimental load of nuclear fuel will be arriving in South Carolina in a few weeks, stirring debate over whether the substance is a target for terrorism or a safe source of energy. A shipment of MOX, a nuclear fuel made from weapons-grade plutonium, is expected to arrive at the Charleston Naval Weapons Station in two to three weeks and then will be transported by truck to the Catawba Nuclear Station in York County. Scientists and environmentalists disagree on the health and safety risks of radioactive plutonium and plutonium-based fuel. Still, the federal government is moving ahead with plans to turn plutonium from nuclear warheads into a product that could run power plants. The South Carolina plant will be the first American nuclear reactor to use MOX. The product already is used in reactors in Europe and Japan, and has been tested in laboratories abroad. Its use in the United States is part of the federal government's pact with Russia to find safe ways to dispose of both countries' plutonium supplies. But activists say there are too many dangers with the fuel. "The risk of bringing nuclear fuel through the area, through the waterway we rely on for our economy, and driving it on the same streets with our children is too great," said Merrill Chapman of the Charleston-based group Citizens Against Plutonium. In September, Chapman and her group protested a 275-pound shipment of weapons-grade plutonium moving through Charleston on its way to France. There, the plutonium was processed into the four MOX "fuel assemblies" that are now on their way back to South Carolina. Its arrival will mark the first shipment of MOX into the country. Chapman and her group are working now to set up protests in Charleston while the MOX is en route. The federal Department of Energy has said that the transportation of MOX is safe. If the fuel works successfully at the Catawba Nuclear Station, the federal government plans to build the first U.S. MOX factory near Aiken to transform the rest of the country's leftover military plutonium into fuel. Whether future shipments of MOX are necessary will depend on the success of the work at Catawba. The ships carrying the fuel to Charleston are specially outfitted to hold nuclear material. A team of armed officers will accompany the ships and an armed convoy will move the load by land to York. Information from: The Post and Courier, http://www.charleston.net -------- treaties Bye-Bye NPT? by Gordon Prather March 26, 2005 NY TIMES http://www.antiwar.com/prather/?articleid=5346 The 2005 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) will occur 2-27 May 2005 at the United Nations in New York and it may be the last. Under the NPT, the International Atomic Energy Agency is the designated "inspectorate" for verifying compliance by nation-states with their safeguards and additional protocol agreements with the Agency. It is surely an understatement for Director General Mohamed ElBaradei to say the system "clearly needs reinforcement." Part of the current problem with the system is Bill Clinton's fault. It appears to have been a Clinton-Gore administration article of faith that the 21st Century would see the end of the nation-state. Believing that, Clinton-Gore proceeded to hand over to the United Nations – the presumptive world government for the 21st Century – every semi-international problem that arose, including gun control, women's reproductive rights and nuke disarmament. Nuke disarmament? Now, it's true that upon the collapse of the Warsaw Pact, Soviet officials actually came to our Congress and asked for our help in getting rid of thousands of excess nukes. In the so-called Nunn-Lugar Act, Congress authorized Bush the Elder to provide such financial and technical assistance to the Russian nation-state as they would accept to prevent the proliferation of excess nukes, nuke materials, technologies and technologists. But, it needs to be emphasized over and over that the Nunn-Lugar programs were never intended to be disarmament programs. They were strictly intended to help the Russians keep all those excess Soviet nukes from getting into the hands of rogue states or terrorists. Nevertheless, the incoming Clinton-Gore Administration seized on the Nunn-Lugar programs – as well as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, itself, and the just negotiated Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty – as levers to advance their cause of global nuke disarmament via the United Nations. Note that a) nuke non-proliferation and b) nuke disarmament are very different animals. And, until Clinton-Gore came to power, the NPT – which had to be renewed every five years – was about nothing other than preventing the acquisition by hook or crook of nukes by those NPT signatories who did not already have nukes. However, there is this Article VI in the NPT that says something about the declared nuke states agreeing to someday seriously consider getting rid of all their nukes, too. So, soon after taking office, President Clinton began to pledge at UN Conference after UN Conference that he would comply with Article VI, now, rather than someday. He began the unilateral and irreversible subjection of our "excess" nuke materials and nuke infrastructure to the NPT-IAEA inspection regime. By 1995 Clinton had gotten all Nonproliferation Treaty signatories to agree to extend the life of NPT indefinitely. As a byproduct of that indefinite NPT extension there are now NPT Review Conferences held every five years wherein the signatories assess effectiveness of the NPT-IAEA regime. The first Review Conference – held in 2000 – was considered by the disarmament crowd to be a great success, in spite of the fact that in 1998 both India and Pakistan – neither country an NPT signatory – had detonated their homegrown nukes for the first time. Why a success? Because the Clinton administration committed the United States to: "an unequivocal undertaking by the nuclear-weapon states to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals leading to nuclear disarmament to which all states parties are committed." Then, at the 40th General Conference of the IAEA in 1997, Director General Hans Blix announced the U.S.-IAEA-Russia Trilateral Agreement, hyped as an important step towards the US and Russia meeting NPT nuke "disarmament obligations." Misusing many hundreds of millions of dollars of Nunn-Lugar funds, each side would dispose of – under the watchful eyes of IAEA inspectors – 34 tons of weapons-grade plutonium, recovered from thousands of U.S. and Soviet dismantled nukes. So Clinton was well on his way to transforming the NPT into a disarmament treaty and the IAEA into a disarmament agency. Then Bush the Younger came to power, making John Bolton Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs. Bolton apparently believes the United States – not the United Nations – is the presumptive world government for the 21st Century and has acted accordingly. As Undersecretary, Bolton has aggressively and stridently attacked multilateral institutions and international treaties that the US cannot control – such as the IAEA and the NPT. Now, Bush has nominated Bolton to be our Ambassador to the United Nations. Will he be at the 2005 NPT Review Conference? Stay tuned. -------- u.n. The U.N. Fights for Its Future March 26, 2005 NY TIMES EDITORIAL http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/26/opinion/26sat2.html?pagewanted=print&position= Large organizations like the United Nations are notoriously resistant to change. But if the U.N. is to recover from its recent serial batterings and start promoting economic and social development, fighting nuclear proliferation and nurturing democracy, bold reforms are needed right away. Secretary General Kofi Annan has begun that process by calling on member states to approve a wide range of reforms at a special General Assembly meeting this September. We strongly endorse Mr. Annan's agenda, especially his call for developed countries to establish timetables for living up to their promises to commit 0.7 percent of their gross national incomes to development aid by 2015 (the United States now contributes 0.18 percent) and for poor countries to come up with strategies for putting this aid to effective use. His proposals also take on the crucial issue of climate change, asking for a broad framework to stabilize greenhouse gas emissions after the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012. This new agreement would include rich and poor countries, thus meeting one of Washington's major objections to the Kyoto approach. Mr. Annan made useful recommendations addressing nuclear weapons proliferation, including a treaty to cut off production of fissile nuclear materials and strengthened inspections under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. The treaty needs not just tougher inspections, but also new language tightening restrictions on uranium and plutonium processing plants that can be used to make bomb fuel. On the organizational side, the proposals aim at eliminating one of the United Nations' great embarrassments, a Human Rights Commission whose seats have been filled by regional rotation, letting egregious violators of human rights like Cuba, Libya and Sudan sit in judgment of other countries' performance. In place of this, Mr. Annan proposes a more credible and authoritative human rights council chosen by a two-thirds vote of all member states. He also wants this to be the year the Security Council adds new members to better reflect the realities of today's world. The current lineup, particularly the five veto-wielding permanent members - Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States - emerged from the geopolitics of 1945, the year the U.N. was founded. Unfortunately, most specific plans for enlargement have problems of their own, with regional rivalries over who can best represent Africa, South Asia or Latin America. Many of the problems that have tarnished the U.N.'s reputation in recent years have been self-inflicted, including the scandalous maladministration of the oil-for-food program and the sexual assaults committed by U.N. peacekeepers in Congo. But the overriding problem has been Washington's virtually unremitting hostility. The United Nations simply cannot function effectively when it is being cold-shouldered by its most powerful member and largest financial contributor. Not all of Mr. Annan's specific suggestions will be popular in Washington. But by helping to negotiate a strong international consensus behind a meaningful set of reform proposals, President Bush can give substance to his repeated vows to work more cooperatively with other nations in his second term. -------- u.s. nuc facilities -------- new mexico UC Berkeley joins with New Mexico schools on lab bid Charles Burress, San Francisco Chronicle Staff Writer Saturday, March 26, 2005 http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/03/26/BAGTBBV2781.DTL The University of California has teamed up with three New Mexico universities to bolster its chances for keeping a contract to manage the Los Alamos National Laboratory. UC and its New Mexico partners announced plans Thursday for a new Institute for Advanced Studies to conduct cooperative research with the Los Alamos facility, located in New Mexico. The Los Alamos lab, birthplace of the atomic bomb, has become a leading center for nuclear weapons design and research in many other scientific fields. The institute would be formed only if UC regents proceed with a bid to manage the lab and if the bid is accepted, according to UC and the New Mexico consortium led by the University of New Mexico. The other partners are New Mexico State University and the New Mexico Institute for Mining and Technology. Details have yet to be worked out, UC spokesman Chris Harrington said Friday. "This is a partnership we felt would enhance a possible bid should the board of regents decide to do so," he said. The new institute would likely have its own staff as well as provide collaborative opportunities for scientists from the lab and partner universities, said Terry Yates, vice president of research and economic development at the University of New Mexico. It would be housed at the Los Alamos lab, although it could also have "virtual" locations at the various campuses, Yates said. UC Vice President S. Robert Foley told UC regents earlier this month that the U.S. Department of Energy may open the bidding for the lab early next month, followed by a 90-day submission period. The current contract expires Sept. 30, but Foley said it may be extended to allow for processing the bids and making the transition to the new contract, which might require UC to find a corporate partner. UC has managed the lab since it began in World War II, but recent security and management lapses prompted the Department of Energy to open the contract to outside bidding. E-mail Charles Burress at cburress@sfchronicle.com. -------- south carolina Fuel from nuclear warheads causes concern over transport safety Associated Press Sat, Mar. 26, 2005 http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/11238775.htm CHARLESTON, S.C. - An experimental load of nuclear fuel will be arriving in South Carolina in a few weeks, stirring debate over whether the substance is a target for terrorism or a safe source of energy. A shipment of MOX, a nuclear fuel made from weapons-grade plutonium, is expected to arrive at the Charleston Naval Weapons Station in two to three weeks and then will be transported by truck to the Catawba Nuclear Station in York County. Scientists and environmentalists disagree on the health and safety risks of radioactive plutonium and plutonium-based fuel. Still, the federal government is moving ahead with plans to turn plutonium from nuclear warheads into a product that could run power plants. The South Carolina plant will be the first American nuclear reactor to use MOX. The product already is used in reactors in Europe and Japan, and has been tested in laboratories abroad. Its use in the United States is part of the federal government's pact with Russia to find safe ways to dispose of both countries' plutonium supplies. But activists say there are too many dangers with the fuel. "The risk of bringing nuclear fuel through the area, through the waterway we rely on for our economy, and driving it on the same streets with our children is too great," said Merrill Chapman of the Charleston-based group Citizens Against Plutonium. In September, Chapman and her group protested a 275-pound shipment of weapons-grade plutonium moving through Charleston on its way to France. There, the plutonium was processed into the four MOX "fuel assemblies" that are now on their way back to South Carolina. Its arrival will mark the first shipment of MOX into the country. Chapman and her group are working now to set up protests in Charleston while the MOX is en route. The federal Department of Energy has said that the transportation of MOX is safe. If the fuel works successfully at the Catawba Nuclear Station, the federal government plans to build the first U.S. MOX factory near Aiken to transform the rest of the country's leftover military plutonium into fuel. Whether future shipments of MOX are necessary will depend on the success of the work at Catawba. The ships carrying the fuel to Charleston are specially outfitted to hold nuclear material. A team of armed officers will accompany the ships and an armed convoy will move the load by land to York. Information from: The Post and Courier, http://www.charleston.net -------- MILITARY -------- arms Pakistan prime minister praises U.S. decision to sell F-16s 3/26/2005 10:24 PM (AP) http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2005-03-26-pakistan-planes_x.htm ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistan's prime minister praised the Bush administration on Saturday for deciding to sell F-16 warplanes to his country and insisted that Islamabad has no aggressive designs against its neighbors. The comments by Prime Minister Shaukat came a day after a State Department spokesman said the United States has agreed to sell F-16 fighter aircraft to Pakistan, a move seen as rewarding Islamabad for its support of the U.S. war on terror. "It is a good and very important decision. We welcome it," Aziz said in an address at a graduation parade for Pakistan Air Force cadets near Risalpur in northwestern Pakistan. The decision perturbed Pakistan's nuclear-armed rival, neighboring India, although the Bush administration also gave a green light to New Delhi for its own purchase of sophisticated weapons. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh conveyed "great disappointment" to President Bush in a telephone call, according to Singh's spokesman. Without naming India, Aziz said Pakistan had "no aggressive intentions against any country." "Pakistan believes in peace and wishes to live in harmony with its neighbors," he said. The sales would represent a shift in policy after years of sanctions and harsh rhetoric from Washington over Pakistan's nuclear ambitions and what U.S. administrations have seen as tolerance for Islamic extremism. Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, however, Pakistan has become an important partner. State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said the administration sent reports to Congress on Friday describing proposals to sell armaments to both Pakistan and India. Congress must sign off on the sensitive technology export. Pakistan signed a deal with Washington to buy the F-16 fighter jets in the late 1980s, but the agreement was scrapped in the 1990s when the U.S. government imposed sanctions on Islamabad over its nuclear weapons program. Although Washington lifted the sanctions because of Islamabad's support for the U.S. war on terror, the sale of the F-16s remained on hold. Also Saturday, Foreign Minister Khursheed Kasuri clarified a statement made last week by Pakistan's President Gen. Pervez Musharraf that he was considering giving parts of centrifuges to the International Atomic Energy Agency as part of a probe into Iran's suspected nuclear weapons program. Officials believe Iran's program was aided by a Pakistani scientist. Pakistan "may give some components of discarded centrifuges" to the the U.N. nuclear watchdog, Kasuri said, but he stressed that any such move should not be linked to the U.S. decision to sell F-16 planes. "These are separate things," he said. Kasuri also said the purchase of F-16 planes will not be limited and Pakistan will be getting the latest version of the jets. ---- US unveils plans to make India 'major world power' WASHINGTON (AFP) Mar 26, 2005 http://www.spacewar.com/2005/050326005348.d7i7vfxm.html The United States unveiled plans Friday to help India become a "major world power in the 21st century" even as it announced moves to beef up the military of New Delhi's nuclear rival, Pakistan. Under the plans, Washington offered to step up a strategic dialogue with India to boost missile defense and other security initiatives as well as high-tech cooperation and expanded economic and energy cooperation. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has presented to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh the Bush administration's outline for a "decisively broader strategic relationship" between the world's oldest and largest democracies, a senior US official said. "Its goal is to help India become a major world power in the 21st century," said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity. "We understand fully the implications, including military implications, of that statement." He did not elaborate but noted that South Asia was critical, with China on one side, Iran and the Middle East on the other, and a somewhat turbulent Central Asian region to the north. The US-India plan was announced as Washington decided Friday to sell an undetermined number of F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan under a plan to prop up Pakistan on the political, military and economic fronts. Rice discussed the US-India plan with Singh during her Asian visit earlier this month but it was not revealed to the public. The US proposal culminates efforts to repair relations strained by India's May 1998 nuclear tests. The healing process began when Bill Clinton visited India in March 2000 near the end of his presidency, as the first president to go there since Jimmy Carter in 1978. He eased sanctions on purchases of high-tech equipment and broke into a market formerly served by India's Cold War ally Russia. President George W. Bush's administration, under a so-called "Next Steps in Strategic Partnership," pushed that process forward by completely lifting sanctions, including military sales, in return for India's support on the US-led war on terrorism. "This year the administration made a judgment that the 'Next Steps in Strategic Partnership,' though very important, wasn't broad enough to really encompass the kind of things we needed to do to take this relationship where it needed to go, and so the president and the secretary (Rice) developed the outline for a decisively broader strategic relationship," the US official said. Bush was inviting Prime Minister Singh to visit him in July in Washington and the US leader would also like to travel to South Asia later this year or early next year, he said. Those presidential meetings, he added, would "be consolidating an enhanced dialogue" on the strategic, energy and economic tracks with India. The strategic dialogue will include global issues, regional security matters, Indian defense requirements, expanding high-tech cooperation and even working toward US-India defense co-production, the official explained. The United States, he said, was prepared to "respond positively" to an Indian request for information on American initiatives to sell New Delhi the next generation of multi-role combat aircraft. "That's not just F-16s. It could be F-18s," he said. Deputy State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said US corporations were now "free to talk to India" about whatever aircraft they could offer. "It'll be up to India to decide what it wants. And then negotiations, if it does decide it wants something from us, based on its needs, would proceed from there," Ereli said. Beyond possible sale of fighter planes, the US is ready to discuss the more fundamental issue of defense transformation with India, including transformative systems in areas such as command and control, early warning and missile defense, the official said. "Some of these items may not be as glamorous as combat aircraft, but I think for those of you who follow defense issues you'll appreciate the significance," he said. The energy dialogue is to include civil, nuclear and nuclear safety issues as well as the issue of space launch vehicles and satellites while the existing economic dialogue would be revitalized with discussion of energy, trade, commerce, environment and finance. US energy, treasury and transport ministers are to visit India this year. ---- Pakistan F-16 sale unlikely to shoot down peace with India ISLAMABAD (AFP) Mar 26, 2005 http://www.spacewar.com/2005/050326012316.kd0nhtnb.html India and Pakistan should be able to keep their fledgling peace process alive despite New Delhi's anger at the planned US sale of F-16 warplanes to nuclear rival Islamabad, analysts and officials said. Washington said late Friday, in a major turnaround, that it had agreed to let Pakistan, a major ally in the US war on terror, buy the sophisticated fighter jets in the face of fierce objections from India. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh expressed "great disappointment" when US President George W. Bush telephoned to inform him of the decision, fearing it could affect the balance of power on the subcontinent. But Pakistan, which has fought three wars against India, apparently tried to soften the blow by pointing out the United States had said it was also ready to boost defence ties with New Delhi. "We want good relations with them. We have no objection if India gets anything, they can also buy the aircraft," Pakistani Information Minister Sheikh Rashid told AFP after the US announcement. Relations between India and Pakistan have thawed since they launched a peace process 14 months ago, with the two countries rebuilding sporting ties, people-to-people contacts and transport links. Pakistan's military ruler President Pervez Musharraf is scheduled to watch a cricket match in the Indian capital and meet Singh next month in a further sign of detente. But defence remains a sensitive topic, with India raising objections to the possible sale of F-16s to Pakistan during an Asian tour by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice last week. Singh brought up the concerns again when he talked to Bush on Friday, telling him the decision "could have negative consequences for India's security environment," said the prime minister's spokesman, Sanjaya Baru. However analysts said the South Asian neighbours, which split in 1947 after independence from Britain, would be able to overcome their differences about the so-called Fighting Falcon jets. "This is part of the American effort to maintain a conventional balance between Pakistan and India," Riffat Hussain, head of the strategic studies department at Islamabad's Quaid-e-Azam University, told AFP. The United States pointed out Friday that it would "respond positively" to an Indian request for information on a bid for F-16s, F-18s or other aircraft. "An increase of US influence on both sides strengthens the peace process. Washington clearly wants a friendship between Pakistan and India," Hasan Askari, a defence analyst and former head of the political science department at Punjab University in Lahore, told AFP. "This will not have lasting negative implications because the balance of power in the region continues to be tilted decisively in favour of India." The move is sure to firm up ties between Washington and Islamabad, which has been seeking to add to its current F-16 fleet since 1990, when a deal for 40 planes fell through because of US concerns over the country's nuclear programme. The sale has become a national cause in Pakistan, constantly debated in the media, and pictures of F-16s can often be seen painted on taxis, buses and public buildings. "The symbolism of this move is very important because it buries the legacy of the US sanction-orientated approach to Pakistan," Hussain said. The deal is also likely to strengthen the position of Musharraf, who aligned himself alongside Bush in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. "It is an excellent pat on back for Musharraf's regime," Askari added. "This will help his government salvage its reputation at home, where the opposition, particularly radical Islamic groups, have accused him of bending over backwards for the US without getting anything in return." "It also defuses anti-American sentiments in Pakistan. The F-16 issue had become an emotional political issue since the 1990s," he said. -------- iraq Missiles, microbes, sacked weapon sites: Loose ends proliferate in Iraq By Charles J. Hanley, Associated Press, 3/26/2005 13:17 http://www.boston.com/dailynews/085/world/Missiles_microbes_sacked_weapo:.shtml Dozens of ballistic missiles are missing in Iraq. Vials of dangerous microbes are unaccounted for. Sensitive sites, once under U.N. seal, stand gutted today, their arms-making gear hauled off by looters, or by arms-makers. All the world now knows that Iraq had no threatening ''WMD'' programs. But two years after U.S. teams began their futile hunt for weapons of mass destruction, Iraq has something else: a landscape of ruined military plants and of unanswered questions and loose ends, some potentially lethal, an Associated Press review of official reporting shows. The chief U.N. arms inspector told AP that outsiders are seeing only a ''sliver'' of the mess inside Iraq. Demetrius Perricos reports that satellite images indicate at least 90 sites in the old Iraqi military-industrial complex have been pillaged. The U.S. teams paint a similar picture. ''There is nothing but a concrete slab at locations where once stood plants or laboratories,'' the Iraq Survey Group said in its final report. But that report from inside Iraq, though 986 pages thick, is at times thin on relevant hard information and silent in critically important areas. Just days after the report was issued last fall, for example, news leaked that tons of high-grade explosives had been looted a year earlier from the Iraqi complex at Qaqaa. It was a potential boon to Iraq's car bombers, but the U.S. document did not report this dangerous loss. Similarly, the main body of the U.S. report discusses Iraq's Samoud 2s, but doesn't note that many of these ballistic missiles haven't been found. Only via an annex table does the report disclose that as many as 36 Samouds may be unaccounted for in the aftermath of the U.S.-led invasion. Seventy-five of the 26-foot-long, liquid-fueled missiles were destroyed under U.N. oversight before the war, because they too often exceeded the 93-mile range allowed for Iraqi missiles under the 12-year-old U.N. inspection regime. After the U.N. inspectors were evacuated on the eve of the U.S. invasion, they lost track of the remaining missiles. The Iraq Survey Group, which ended its arms hunt in December, says a complete accounting of the Samouds ''may not be possible due to various factors.'' Besides the Samouds, up to 34 Fatah missiles a similar but solid-fueled weapon are also unaccounted for. And more than 600 missile engines may be missing; the U.S. document simply doesn't report their status. Perricos, in the AP interview at his New York headquarters, expressed concern about the missiles. ''If they have been destroyed, somebody should know they've been destroyed or not. Have they gone somewhere?'' he asked. The worry is not that Iraqi insurgents might field the missiles, he said, but that advanced Samoud or Fatah parts might secretly boost missile-building programs elsewhere in the region or beyond. ''The engines can easily be sold for a lot of money for the insurgency,'' he said. Asked about gaps in Iraq Survey Group reporting specifically the silence on the Qaqaa explosives a CIA official replied, ''Our focus and goal was to find WMD, not conventional explosives.'' The official spoke on condition of anonymity. Led by CIA special adviser Charles A. Duelfer, the Iraq Survey Group discredited Bush administration claims of an Iraqi WMD threat by determining that Baghdad's programs to build nuclear, chemical and biological weapons were shut down in 1991 under U.N. inspection. But paperwork discrepancies and stray pieces from past programs from artillery shells to test tubes have left a ''residue of uncertainty,'' as the latest U.N. inspectors' report put it. On top of that, the disorder following the U.S.-led invasion exposed dangerous material and equipment, previously under U.N. seal, to theft. Samouds and Fatahs are only the biggest items on the ''unaccounted-for'' list. The smallest are bits of bacterial growth for biological weapons. The Iraqis said this bioweapons material was destroyed years ago, but not all is documented. Inspectors simply don't know whether vials of seed stock including deadly anthrax and botulinum A bacteria may have been used to nurture more batches that are unaccounted for. ''From bits in these original vials, you can create a hundred others, and we just want to know, has all this been traced?'' Perricos asked. The Iraq Survey Group lists the fate of bioweapons seed stocks under ''Unresolved Issues.'' The U.S. arms hunters' findings further cloud the picture on another item, 155mm mustard-gas shells with a dead-end paperwork trail. At least 13,000 shells filled with mustard were destroyed under U.N. supervision in the 1990s, but 550 were never found. Iraqis told U.N. inspectors they were destroyed in a fire. Now the U.S. teams say an imprisoned Iraqi official told them a Special Republican Guard unit retained the chemical rounds, and Iraq was about to declare them to U.N. inspectors when the Americans invaded. His account, otherwise unconfirmed, raises the prospect of the mustard, an incapacitating blistering agent, falling into the hands of the anti-U.S. insurgency in Iraq. Although some chemical weapons lose potency quickly, mustard remains viable for years. Perricos said stray chemical ordnance may have lain unnoticed in Iraqi ammunition dumps when the invasion began. ''We don't know if they have cleaned up, if they have visited, for example, the munitions depots,'' he said of the Iraq Survey Group. The group's final report acknowledges, in fact, that ''only a fraction of Iraq's total munitions inventory was identified and exploited for CW rounds'' that is, checked for chemical weapons. In part, at least, this was because depots were stripped by looters after the Iraqi government was brought down in April 2003. More than a year later, in the Netherlands and Jordan, U.N. inspectors found the first evidence of what had happened: More than 40 missile engines somehow had made their way out of Iraq and into foreign scrap yards, along with four specialized vessels from Iraq's Fallujah chemical plant, which made ingredients for poison gases. But ''we have just seen a very thin sliver'' of the Iraqi materiel being bought and sold in the Middle East, Perricos said of those finds. In U.N. Security Council discussions, Perricos has suggested his agency return to Iraq to help with arms verification, but the United States hasn't responded. Iraqi representatives say the inspection agency should be shut down. Other unknowns in today's Iraq involve some of the most sensitive among the 90 or so ransacked sites: Iraq's chemical-weapons center of the 1980s, a desert complex in the embattled Sunni Triangle, it was overrun by looters who apparently broke into a U.N.-sealed bunker holding old chemical weapons, sarin-filled artillery rockets, the Iraq Survey Group reported. It isn't known whether usable warheads remained in the bunker and what may have been taken. Besides the 377 tons of high-grade explosives, whose disappearance went unreported by the U.S. teams, this huge site south of Baghdad held thousands of pieces of equipment for making explosives, missile propellant and other military products. The U.N. inspectors worry that 800 pieces of specialized chemical equipment, long under U.N. monitoring, have been taken. Satellite images show that many buildings at Iraq's premier nuclear site, south of Baghdad, were systematically dismantled. High-precision equipment long under U.N. monitoring was presumed stolen, including flow-forming machines and electron-beam welders, key to building centrifuges to produce nuclear-bomb fuel. The cost of the fruitless U.S. weapons hunt was both financial and human. The Iraq Survey Group's budget is classified, U.S. officials have said. But Duelfer's predecessor, David Kay, told the AP that a report that $600 million was appropriated for 2004 was correct. That doesn't include a reported $300 million spent on the weapons hunt before the 2004 fiscal year, and additional spending in late 2004. Searching in the midst of war, for evidence that wasn't there, took four lives among the searchers, the CIA reports. Two Iraq Survey Group members died and five were wounded when a building exploded while they searched it, and two more died and one was wounded in an attack on a Duelfer convoy. He escaped injury. On the Net: Iraq Survey Group report: http://www.cia.gov/cia/reports/iraq(underscore)wmd(underscore)2004/i ndex.htm l U.N. inspectors' reports: http://www.un.org/Depts/unmovic/new/pages/document(underscore)list.a sp -------- spies Report on U.S. Weapons Intelligence Is Said to Be Critical By SCOTT SHANE March 26, 2005 NY TIMES http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/26/politics/26weapons.html?pagewanted=print&position= WASHINGTON, March 25 - A presidential commission that has spent a year studying American intelligence on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and other countries will be sharply critical of the performance of several agencies, a government official briefed on the commission's report said Friday night. "It makes some tough calls," the official said. "It's going to be quite critical of a number of agencies." He spoke on condition of anonymity and gave few details because the report by the commission headed by Laurence H. Silberman and Charles S. Robb will not be released until next week. The report has already been circulated to the intelligence agencies, which were given an opportunity to correct factual errors and make other comments. Though the full report is classified, an unclassified version has been prepared for public release, the official said. Porter J. Goss, director of central intelligence, sent an e-mail message to all C.I.A. employees on Friday to alert them to the report, which is due to be received by President Bush on Thursday. An official who saw the message said it did not characterize the report, which is expected to fault the C.I.A.'s performance, but was intended to avoid surprises and keep up morale. Formally known as the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction, the nine-member panel was appointed by Mr. Bush in February 2004 and began meeting about a year ago. It was created after a team of American experts known as the Iraq Survey Group failed to find in Iraq the stockpiles of biological and chemical weapons and the active nuclear weapons program that the C.I.A. and other agencies had reported were there under Saddam Hussein, the former Iraqi dictator. The commission was given the task of assessing not only that prewar intelligence failure but also the quality of current American knowledge of weapons programs in Iran, North Korea and other countries. Officials who have been briefed on the panel's work told The New York Times this month that intelligence on Iran's weapons program was inadequate. The administration has expressed serious concern about Iran's quest for nuclear weapons and has been pressuring North Korea to give up its nuclear devices. The commission was assigned to compare reporting on weapons in Libya and Afghanistan with what was found after those countries were opened to American experts, after the ouster of the Taliban in Afghanistan and the decision of the Libyan leader Muammar el-Qaddafi to give up his weapons programs. Led by Mr. Silberman, a retired federal judge, and Mr. Robb, a former Virginia governor and senator, the panel is also expected to propose adjustments to the intelligence reorganization recently engineered by legislation. The law created a director of national intelligence to oversee and coordinate all 15 intelligence agencies, which have a total budget estimated at $40 billion. President Bush has appointed John D. Negroponte, who served most recently as ambassador to Iraq, to the job. -------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE -------- homeland security / national intelligence Not Mild-Mannered Enough Clark Kent Ervin was hired by his friend President Bush to expose flaws in homeland security. Trouble was, he did. March 26, 2005 Mother Jones http://www.motherjones.com/news/outfront/2005/03/clark_kent.html Martyr, idiot, dedicated, deluded. Why did this American college student crushed by an Israeli bulldozer put her life on the line? And did it matter? Clark Kent Ervin was stirring up trouble right until the end. Late last year—just weeks before he was unceremoniously dismissed from his job as the chief internal watchdog for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)—he reported that the federal government still could not keep foreigners from using stolen passports to enter the country. In the weeks and months before that, he’d released reports that found the federal air marshal program in disarray, warned that shipping containers were entering U.S. ports every day without even superficial screening for nuclear material, and chastised the department for failing to fulfill its congressional mandate to come up with a centralized watch list of suspected terrorists. Even Homeland Security’s single most publicized initiative, the screening of passengers and bags at the nation’s airports, had failed to make it any more difficult to sneak guns, knives, and explosives onto planes, Ervin’s investigators in the Office of Inspector General had found. None of those disclosures, however, seemed to be of much interest to department leaders. Secretary Tom Ridge, Ervin notes, met with him only twice, both times to complain about negative publicity generated by his reports. Never once, he says, did Ridge so much as request a face-to-face briefing on the continued problems in airport security. It was only after Congress put pressure on the department that Ervin was asked to present his findings to Admiral James Loy, then head of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). “His response was to say, ‘Why are you calling it a failure rate at this airport? Why not say success rate?’” Ervin remembers. At 45, Ervin is a tidy man with deep-set eyes, tortoiseshell glasses, and graying hair. When he spoke to Mother Jones, a few weeks after his dismissal, he had traded the suit-and-tie uniform of a senior federal official for a cable-knit sweater and slacks. His political allegiances, however, had not changed. “I am a Republican who is supportive of this president,” he said. “Please write that down.” But loyalty didn’t prevent Ervin from doing his job. “He was really the citizens’ last chance of ensuring that vitally important money was being spent well,” says Danielle Brian, the executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, a watchdog group that has been critical of the department. “Often it wasn’t.” Ervin was born to a Democratic family in Houston, the child of a union bricklayer. It was his older brother, he says, who chose to name him after Superman’s alter ego. On the recommendation of his teachers, he was offered a scholarship as the first black male student at Kinkaid, an elite Houston prep school. He had always been interested in politics—“When I was two years old in 1961, I remember Kennedy’s news conferences”—but it wasn’t until he became a Rhodes scholar at Oxford, and then a student at Harvard Law School, that he began to question the Democratic Party for, in his view, going soft on defense and embracing a radical social agenda. His new political views attracted him to the administration of George H.W. Bush, where he worked on the “Thousand Points of Light” volunteer initiative and soon afterward became friendly with George W. Bush, a fellow Kinkaid alum. He made failed bids for Congress and then the Texas Legislature during the early 1990s before joining the administration of then Texas Governor Bush. In 2001, he returned to Washington as inspector general at the State Department, moving to Homeland Security in 2003. He served nearly two years in the job—in an acting capacity, because the Senate had failed to vote on his confirmation. At Homeland Security, Ervin’s team of 459 auditors and investigators uncovered not just security lapses, but extensive waste. By the time Ervin arrived, the Department of Transportation had already uncovered one massive cost overrun: A $100 million contract granted to hire new airline screeners had ballooned to more than $600 million. Ervin’s subsequent reports revealed that Boeing Company had received at least $49 million in extra profits for a contract to do nothing more than oversee other contracts. And executives at the cash-strapped TSA awarded themselves $1.5 million in year-end bonuses in 2003, and then spent another $462,000 on an awards ceremony for departmental brass, including nearly $2,000 for seven sheet cakes and $1,500 for three cheese displays. Yet over and over again, department leaders ignored Ervin’s calls for action. “Basically, the focus there at the top was, let’s put out press releases touting advances and let’s minimize problems,” says Ervin, “because we want DHS to be a good news story.” Perhaps it’s that focus on positive spin that has kept officials from explaining Ervin’s dismissal. Either Congress or the White House could have acted to keep him in office when his term as acting inspector general expired in December. But neither did. “The decision not to renominate Clark Kent Ervin was purely a White House decision,” says Elissa Davidson, a spokeswoman for Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine), though Collins herself held up Ervin’s confirmation for two years because of a dispute over an investigation he’d conducted at the State Department. White House spokesman Scott McClellan declined to comment, saying simply, “We appreciate the job he has done.” For his part, Ervin says he’s not bitter. “I don’t have an ax to grind,” he insists, adding that he plans to continue drawing attention to the department’s problems—most of which, he says, could be fixed with the right management. “I don’t take any joy in saying what I am saying—but you have to tell the truth when you are in a job like this.” Michael Scherer is Washington correspondent for Mother Jones. ---- Report: TSA misled public on personal data 3/26/2005 (AP) http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-03-26-tsa-data_x.htm WASHINGTON — The Transportation Security Administration misled the public about its role in obtaining personal information about 12 million airline passengers to test a new computerized system that screens for terrorists, according to a government investigation. The report, released Friday by Homeland Security Department Acting Inspector General Richard Skinner, said the agency misinformed individuals, the press and Congress in 2003 and 2004. It stopped short of saying TSA lied. "TSA officials made inaccurate statements regarding these transfers that undermined public trust in the agency," the report said. "These misstatements were apparently not meant to mischaracterize known facts. Instead, they were premised on an incomplete understanding of the underlying facts." Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., said the agency took months to disclose its role in getting the data. "The American public must know their personal information is well protected, or they will distrust the new systems we need to keep our nation safe," Lieberman said in a statement. The report comes at a sensitive time for the TSA, which is using airline passenger data — which can include credit card information, phone number and address — to test a computerized system for screening passengers, called Secure Flight. Congress has said that TSA can't proceed with Secure Flight unless the Government Accountability Office reports that the technology ensures privacy and that the data is protected. That report is due Monday. The report concluded that the TSA was inconsistent in protecting passengers' privacy as it developed a passenger prescreening system. It did acknowledge that the agency's environment for privacy has improved substantially. TSA spokesman Mark Hatfield said the agency is committed to privacy of personal information. "The core of our mission is preserving our freedoms, and that means doing the utmost to protect every American's privacy," Hatfield said. The report cites several occasions where TSA officials made inaccurate statements about passenger data: •In September 2003, the agency's Freedom of Information Act staff received hundreds of requests from JetBlue passengers asking if the TSA had their records. After a cursory search, the FOIA staff posted a notice on the TSA Web site that it had no JetBlue passenger data. Though the FOIA staff found JetBlue passenger records in TSA's possession in May, the notice stayed on the Web site for more than a year. •In November 2003, TSA chief James Loy incorrectly told the Governmental Affairs Committee that certain kinds of passenger data were not being used to test passenger prescreening. • In September 2003, a technology magazine reporter asked a TSA spokesman whether real data were used to test the passenger prescreening system. The spokesman said only fake data were used; the responses "were not accurate," the report said. The report also disclosed that the TSA had a much broader role in getting and using passenger data than had been previously disclosed. Between February 2002 and June 2003, TSA had a role in 14 transfers of data involving at least 12 million records obtained without passengers' knowledge or permission from America West, American Airlines, Continental, Delta, Frontier and JetBlue. However, the report concluded, in only one case was a passenger's data inappropriately revealed to the public. -------- ACTIVISTS Taiwanese hold massive demonstration against China 3/26/2005 11:51 PM (AP) http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2005-03-26-taiwan-china_x.htm TAIPEI, Taiwan — Hundreds of thousands of people marched through Taiwan's capital on Saturday to protest a new Chinese law that authorizes an attack on the island if it moves toward formal independence. But China warned against stirring "new tension" and vowed never to back down. In one of the largest demonstrations in Taiwan's history, the protesters assembled at 10 different areas in Taipei, with each route representing one of the articles of the anti-secession law. The marchers converged on the wide boulevard in front of the Presidential Office building. "Taiwan is only a small island, so we must speak out really loud to make the world hear that we are a democracy facing an evil giant," said Vivian Wang, a 38-year-old restaurant worker who traveled by bus from the southern city of Kaohsiung — about 190 miles away. On Sunday, China said via government media that it stood by the controversial law, which was passed on March 14. "The extreme Taiwan independence secessionists have been malevolently distorting the principles of the law to misguide the Taiwan people and instigate antagonism and create new tension across the Taiwan Strait," the commentary said. Beijing is worried that self-ruled Taiwan is drifting toward independence, and the new law codifies the use of military force against the island if it seeks a permanent split. The island — just 100 miles off China's southern coast — has been resisting Beijing's rule since the Communists took over the mainland in 1949. Taiwan has been able to enjoy de facto independence for more than 50 years, largely because the United States has warned it might defend the island if China attacks. America is also the only major nation that sells advanced weapons to newly democratic Taiwan, about the size of Maryland and Delaware combined. "What do we want from China? Peace," lawmaker Bikhim Hsiao led the crowd in chanting. Thousands of tour buses brought protesters to Taipei from all over the island. Police estimated the crowd at about a million. The rally was organized by private groups, but leaders of President Chen Shui-bian's Democratic Progressive Party played a high-profile role in the organization. Chen — long a fierce critic of Beijing's Communist leadership who has resisted China's increasing pressure to unify — appeared at an intersection along one of the protest routes. As he promised, Chen did not speak at the rally, but mounted the stage and chanted slogans with the crowds. Critics had said that holding a speech at the event might have provoked China. A five-story-high white balloon representing peace, and an equally tall model of a red sea urchin, its needles symbolizing the missiles China is pointing at Taiwan, were erected at the protest site. The sea urchin model was deflated at the end of the rally, while protesters climbed over it, trying to tear it apart. China's completely government-controlled media portrayed the march as "political carnival" and a waste of money that caused traffic jams. "Taiwan independence march is an empty show of strength," read a headline in the Beijing Morning Post. The newspapers didn't carry pictures of the march. CNN and BBC broadcasts, only available at hotels and apartment complexes for foreigners, were blacked out when they reported on the protest. In Taiwan on Saturday, police set up barbed wire at the opposite side of the Presidential Office building to prevent protesters from turning their anger against the headquarters of the opposition Nationalist party. Leaders from the Nationalists — who oppose independence and want to improve relations with China — stayed away from the demonstration. "Each person has his own way of opposing the anti-secession law, but in the end, Taiwan must have peace and stability," said Nationalist Party Chairman Lien Chan. A handful of protesters ripped Chinese flags to pieces close to the building, but police prevented them from burning the flags. No major Supporters of Taiwan's cause also staged demonstrations overseas. In Hong Kong, about 100 protesters marched to oppose the anti-secession law. Taiwanese TV stations also showed footage of protests in Los Angeles and Brussels. --- Hundreds of Thousands Stage Mass Rally in Taiwan March 26, 2005 NY TIMES By KEITH BRADSHER http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/26/international/asia/26cnd-taiwan.html?pagewanted=print&position= TAIPEI, Taiwan, March 26 - Hundreds of thousands of Taiwanese marched on Saturday afternoon to denounce Beijing in one of the largest political demonstrations ever here, the clearest sign yet of how China’s anti-secession legislation has poisoned relations across the Taiwan Strait. The size of the demonstration showed how much the political landscape has changed since the Communist Party-controlled National People’s Congress in Beijing approved a law on March 14 calling for the use of "non-peaceful means" to halt any Taiwanese attempt to declare independence from the mainland. Even some supporters of the opposition Nationalist Party here, which backs closer relations with the mainland, joined the march, although the party’s leaders did not. "In the past, I didn’t understand the emerging situation across the Taiwan Strait - it seems that war across the Taiwan Strait will happen at any time," said Sue Rong-yin, a 24-year-old pharmacology student who described herself as a staunch Nationalist Party supporter who had never joined a political demonstration until Saturday. Organizers said they had met their goal of attracting a million protesters, though the police put the crowd at more than 500,000. Most politicians and analysts are not nearly so pessimistic as Ms. Sue about the actual prospects for conflict. But passage of the anti-secession law has brought an abrupt halt to the honeymoon that Taiwan and China had enjoyed over the winter, with both sides now back to denouncing each other almost every day. Beijing’s official New China News Agency denounced the march before it started, carrying a prominent story on Saturday morning contending that Taiwanese advocates of independence "malevolently distorted" the anti-secession law. Mainland lawyers drafted the law last summer, in response to fears that President Chen Shui-bian might declare Taiwan’s independence from the mainland. But then the Nationalist Party did unexpectedly well in legislative elections in December. President Chen responded to those elections by making a series of unexpected overtures to Beijing. Over Chinese New Year in late January and early February, Taiwan and China allowed the first direct charter flights between them since the Nationalists retreated here after losing China’s civil war in 1949. On Feb. 24, President Chen concluded a surprise political alliance with the most pro-Beijing party here, the People First Party, prompting a half dozen of his more strongly pro-independence advisers to quit. The pact helped the president increase his influence in the legislature, but polls showed a sharp decline in support for both parties and a steep rise in the number of voters who said they were not attracted to any of the parties. The furor over the anti-secession law and the march on Saturday have allowed President Chen to woo back many angry independence advocates, including several of the advisers who had resigned. In an event that showed President Chen Shui-bian’s talent for political theater, demonstrators were encouraged to bring pets and children on Saturday as they marched under light clouds down 10 routes to converge in front of the Presidential Palace. President Chen and his staff wrote a song for the occasion, set to the tune of Bob Dylan’s "Blowing in the Wind" and with lyrics in the local dialect like, "How many rocky roads must the people of Taiwan walk, before really achieving democracy?" President Chen himself joined the march, breaking a long tradition here of sitting presidents not participating in political demonstrations. A 15-foot-tall red balloon resembling a pincushion, and meant to show Chinese missiles aimed at Taiwan, was deflated at the end of the demonstration, while a similar-sized round white balloon, labeled "peace," was left standing. Alex Tsai, a senior Nationalist Party lawmaker, dismissed the rally, saying it "really looks like a carnival or festival; it’s not really a political rally." Mr. Tsai said his party would press on with plans to send a delegation to Beijing on Tuesday. The Nationalists are preparing for their chairman, Lien Chan, to visit the mainland this summer, which would make him the first Nationalist leader to do so since the end of the civil war. But that strategy carries political risks. Another student in the crowd, Mickey Shi, a 23-year-old Nationalist Party supporter who also had never been to a political demonstration before, said that he thought his party’s leaders should have joined the march. "If you think you are a party of the Taiwan people, you should stand up for them," he said. Lai I-chung, a foreign policy analyst at the Taiwan Think Tank, a research group here, said polls were showing that over 90 percent of the Taiwanese people disliked the anti-secession law’s mention of using "non-peaceful means" to regain the island. North Korea’s claim last month that it had produced nuclear weapons has prompted fears of a race by other countries like Taiwan to develop their own if they felt threatened. Foreign Minister Chen Tan-sun said in an interview that Taiwan had the scientific capability to manufacture nuclear weapons but no intention of doing so despite the recent threats from the mainland. The United States, which guarantees Taiwan’s security, has forcefully and repeatedly warned Taiwan against developing nuclear weapons, and forced the island to dismantle a secret nuclear program in the 1970’s after the Central Intelligence Agency learned of it.