NucNews - November 28, 2005
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- china
Nuclear Industry Research Base Launched in China's Shanghai
Source: BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific
Monday, 28 November 2005
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/315508/nuclear_industry_research_base_launched_in_chinas_shanghai/index.html?source=r_science
Text of report in English by official Chinese news agency Xinhua (New China News Agency)
Shanghai, 28 November: The China Nuclear Industry Group (CNIG) set up Sunday [27 November] a research base for nuclear power, instruments for civilian use, and military industry, in Shanghai, according to sources with CNIG.
Located in Shanghai Caohejin high-tech development zone, the research base covers 21,000 square meters of floor space, and will combine the functions of management, service and trade.
An official with CNIG said that China's nuclear industry has embraced a crucial development opportunity, with nuclear power, nuclear fuel and nuclear applications to be the three pillars.
By the year 2020, the installed capacity of China's nuclear power is expected to reach 40 million kilowatts, accounting for 25 per cent of the country's total.
In the coming five years, the market scale for nuclear applications will reach 100bn yuan (about 12.5bn US dollars).
Wang Shoujun, CNIG deputy general manager, said that in the 2006- 2010 period, his group will complete integration and research of the meters matched with the nuclear industry to provide more home-made products for the country's nuclear power construction.
-------- depleted uranium
Independent study asked of depleted cylinders
October 28, 2005 Associated Press
http://www.wkyt.com/Global/story.asp?S=4093584&nav=4CAL
WASHINGTON A House-Senate conference committee has asked for a study of whether a toxic gas left in depleted uranium cylinders poses a danger at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant.
A memo from the Department of Energy's Inspector General's Office says as many as 18-hundred-25 cylinders have phosgene mistakenly left in them and may be corroding.
Some experts have said that a leak could release hydrogen fluoride, a toxic gas that hugs the ground. Paducah's stockpile of depleted uranium hexafluoride consists of about 35-thousand-200 cylinders. It has been slated to be processed into a more stable compound beginning in 2007.
Senator Mitch McConnell inserted the study order in the final pending bill for energy and water programs and projects, which was approved by the conference committee.
-------- india
US Congressman backs Indo-US nuclear pact
Mon Nov 28, 2005 8:20 AM ET (AFP)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20051128/pl_afp/indiausnuclear_051128132006
NEW DELHI - A US legislator and well-known critic of Indian policies in Kashmir has backed a landmark pact that would let New Delhi buy civilian nuclear technology, the Press Trust of India said.
"I am leaning towards the nuclear agreement," said Congressman Dan Burton, R-IN, a senior member of the Foreign Relations Committee in the US House of Representatives.
"But we want a definite separation between civilian and military (components of India's nuclear programme). If that is assured, I am quite sure it will be addressed," he said on the sidelines of a meeting with delegates of an Indian trade promotion group.
In July, the United States said it would change laws and work to amend international treaties designed to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and allow India to buy civilian nuclear technology.
In return, New Delhi, which tested nuclear weapons in May 1998, would have to identify its military and civilian nuclear facilities and place the later under International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections.
Burton, a Republican from Indiana, has been a critic of India's human rights record in the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir, which has been in the grip of a 16-year-old insurgency that has left more than 44,000 people dead.
But Burton's remarks on Monday sounded a more positive note, particularly at a time when many US lawmakers have raised concerns about exchanging nuclear technology with India.
Both houses of the US Congress must approve the July 18 agreement signed by US President George Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in order for the deal to take effect.
-------- iran
Emboldened Iran sets new terms for nuclear talks
Iran Focus Mon. 28 Nov 2005
http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=4608
Tehran, Iran, Nov. 28 – Iran set on Sunday new terms for the resumption of talks with the European Union over its suspected nuclear weapons program.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid-Reza Asefi, speaking during his weekly press conference, said that the issue for discussion during a meeting in December must focus on “the creation of nuclear fuel on Iranian soil”.
Asefi said that the Iran-EU dialogue had to be carried out in the framework of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
The Foreign Ministry spokesman said, “Another condition for these negotiations is they must not create any special rules for Iran and must not act in a discriminatory way”.
The third condition was that the subject of the talks had to be clear. He clarified that Tehran believed that the subject of the discussion had to be the creation of nuclear fuel inside Iran.
Asefi also said that there had to be a clear timeframe to the talks so that opportunities for Iran were not “spoiled”.
----
Iran adamant on nuclear fuel recycling
11/28/2005 (UPI)
http://www.upi.com/InternationalIntelligence/view.php?StoryID=20051128-101202-6648r
TEHRAN, Nov. 28 -- Iran's Higher National Security Council stressed Monday that all uranium processing operations should take place inside Iranian territory.
Council spokesman Hussein Intizami said Iran is seeking through complete fuel recycling process to join the international Nuclear Club.
"When we say complete fuel recycling it means that all processing operations should take place inside Iran or by Iranian specialists," Intizami was quoted as saying by the Iranian News Agency, IRNA.
Asked if Russia made any suggestion to Iran on that issue, he said "we have not received anything from Moscow until now."
He said "it is natural to expect from all friendly countries to show interest and concern about the Islamic Iranian Republic's regional weight and the demands of its people for possessing modern technology."
Intizami emphasized that Iran suggested the participation of other countries in its nuclear activities in a shoe of good intentions and attempt to build confidence.
"But that proposal does not mean stopping any of the phase of the nuclear fuel recycling and depriving Iran from that technology for ever," he added.
----
Hardline Iranian leader alienates fellow conservatives
By Ali Akbar, Dareini, 28/11/05 Irish Examiner
http://www.examiner.ie/pport/web/world/Full_Story/did-sgA-WKelZnZH2sgadLjt5C321I.asp
CRITICS say the 80s-style radicalism of ultraconservative President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is hurting Iran at home and abroad - to the point that even his natural allies in parliament have rejected his three choices to run the all-important oil ministry.
The Islamic hardliner appears undeterred, but pragmatists in the ruling hierarchy are growing restless and looking for ways to contain him.
Conservative writer Ghodratollah Rahmani said: “Ahmadinejad’s behavior has annoyed many fellow conservatives. That he doesn’t like to consult with anybody outside his small circle of old friends is a reality. He doesn’t consult even with knowledgeable people in his own camp.”
Even extremists in the hardline camp want Mr Ahmadinejad to be more responsive to their advice.
Leader of the Islamic Coalition Society, Mohammad Nabi Habibi said: “If he doesn’t want to hear no for a fourth time, he has to consult with people outside his circle of friends.”
Mr Ahmadinejad has jettisoned Iran’s moderation in foreign policy and pursued a purge in the government, replacing pragmatic veterans with former military commanders and inexperienced religious hard-liners.
His aim is to install rulers who will revive the radical fundamentalist goals pursued in the 1980s under the late Ayatollah Khomeini, father of the 1979 revolution that toppled Iran’s pro-Western shah.
All pragmatists, including those seeking better ties with the West, have either lost their posts or will likely lose them soon, pushing the government toward an ever more radical stance in the volatile Middle East and in the dispute over Iran’s nuclear programme.
Mr Ahmadinejad’s call last month for Israel to be “wiped off the map” intensified international concerns about his policies. Iran’s resumption of uranium conversion angered some nations that have suspicions over whether the Tehran regime is trying to develop nuclear weapons.
He suffered a humiliating defeat last week when his choice for oil minister was rejected for a third time, an unprecedented failure for an Iranian president.
This month, the government announced that 40 ambassadors and senior diplomats, including supporters of better ties with the West, would be fired.
In the works is the replacement of hundreds of governors and senior officials at various ministries with young, inexperienced hardliners who oppose good relations with the West. This includes putting fundamentalists in key posts at security agencies.
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say on all matters of state, has endorsed Mr Ahmadinejad’s course.
Presidential adviser Mahdi Kalhor said: “Ahmadinejad has a revolutionary management policy. He makes decisions in 24 hours previous governments used to take within five years.”
----
'Iran nuclear diplomacy balanced, broad-based'
Monday, November 28 , 2005 - © 2005IranMania.com
http://www.iranmania.com/News/ArticleView/Default.asp?ArchiveNews=Yes&NewsCode=38162&NewsKind=CurrentAffairs
LONDON, November 28 (IranMania) - Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid-Reza Asefi said the path pursued by Iran's nuclear diplomacy and dialogue is balanced and broad-based encompassing European and non-European states, Russia, China and the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), IRNA reported.
Speaking at his weekly press conference attended by domestic and foreign reporters, Asefi added such diplomacy existed before the recent session of the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) Board of Governors on Iran's nuclear case and would be continued in the future.
Asked about Iran's diplomatic measures to resume negotiations with the Europeans, he said, "Diplomatic measures and channels are always on the Foreign Ministry's agenda. To this end, Foreign Minister (Manouchehr Mottaki) had talks with his British, French, Belgian and Australian counterparts."
He rejected a news reported by the German weekly magazine Der Spiegel saying Iran has offered North Korea oil and natural gas as payment for assistance in developing nuclear missiles, saying, "Such issue is not raised. This news is fundamentally incorrect.
"Such misinformation and news fabrication comes on the threshold of the IAEA Board of Governors' meeting. This is not correct at all." In response to a question on a visit by an IAEA delegation to the United Arab Emirates to supervise activities of Iranian companies in this country, he said, "I have heard the news but we have no company in the UAE engaged in illegal activities which will cause concern for us.
"The agency's representatives can supervise all countries. Such news fabrication is not very serious and important."
Asked about Russia's participation in Iran's possible negotiations with European states, Asefi added, "The issue of Russia's direct participation in Iran's negotiations with the three European states (Germany, France and Britain) is not the question.
"We hold talks and negotiations with Russia as we have with other countries but the level of talks will be determined after receiving the proposal (on resumption of) talks."
The spokesman pointed to an upcoming visit by Foreign Minister Mottaki to Turkey, saying, "The minister is to hold talks with his Turkish counterpart, president and prime minister. These meetings will have a crucial impact on the improvement of bilateral ties between the two countries.
"It is evident that during this visit, meetings will be arranged with senior officials. We consider Turkey a friend and neighbor with plenty of commonalties."
On the time set for resumption of nuclear work at Natanz, he said, "Reuters filed a completely unfounded story in this respect, IRNA noted.
"We have made no promises on Natanz. Everything has been carried out within the framework of voluntary measures but we prefer this issue to be clarified in serious and constructive negotiations.
"We are interested in undertaking nuclear fuel production in Iran through talks."
Turning to the opening of Rafah checkpoint to neighboring Egypt, Asefi said, "This opening is a window for the Palestinian people who are jailed in a big prison and have no link with the outside world, IRNA added.
"The 'Zionist' regime agreed to opening this checkpoint under foreign pressure but it stills violates the sovereignty of the Palestinians.
"This regime causes problems for the Palestinians by installing cameras. However the opening (of the checkpoint) is welcome."
----
Tehran ready to reply to Russia
16:13 | 28/ 11/ 2005 (RIA Novosti commentator Vladimir Benazarov.)
http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20051128/42242885.html
MOSCOW. Last weak, speaking at a session of the governing body of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), official representative of the Islamic Republic of Iran Mohammad Mehdi Akhunzadeh said Tehran was "seriously considering Moscow's proposal to have Iranian uranium enriched in Russia."
According to some sources, Akhunzadeh actually expressed Tehran's readiness to reply to the Russian propositions within the shortest time possible, at least "before the next meeting of the governing body scheduled for March 2006."
There are, however, some undertones little known to the general public. To begin with, experts in Iran say Russia's proposal cannot be seen as an attempt to keep Iran from developing its own nuclear weapons, as is claimed by some western analysts. From the Iranian point of view, enrichment in Russia of the uranium converted at the Isfahan nuclear center should be regarded at this stage as an endeavor to soften foreign policy pressure brought to bear on the Islamic republic in recent times by the U.S., Israel and European Union countries.
The central issue that has been facing the governing body for close to three years has been the "Iranian file" - whether it should be referred to the UN Security Council threatening international sanctions against Iran, or left with the IAEA to find a compromise solution in the course of Iran-EU negotiations. Practically all resolutions passed by the Agency note Tehran's desire to cooperate and be transparent and open in resolving the problem of the file.
Besides, IAEA general director Mohammed el-Baradei, in all his reports preceding scheduled and unscheduled meetings of the board, has repeatedly stressed the peaceful tenor of Iran's nuclear programs.
The words of the Agency's head are based on the information obtained in practically continual inspections of Iranian nuclear facilities by qualified specialists and experts. Statistics say that IAEA inspections in Iran have logged more than 2,000 man-hours over less than three years: an undoubted record.
But they have failed to produce any confirmation that Iran maintains a military component of its nuclear research. However, Washington and Tel Aviv are continuing to assert that Tehran intends to develop the nuclear bomb and have been tossing ever new pieces of unconfirmed evidence to the public.
On the other hand, it is evident that the attempts by the "European Trio" (Britain, France, Germany) to solve the issue of Iranian nuclear programs have brought no results over the past two and a half years despite Iran's persistent desire to carry on dialog with the European Union.
Circles close to the IAEA are convinced that Tehran would do well by accepting Moscow's offer. Firstly, this will give it time to persuade the world community that its atomic intentions are truly peaceful, and secondly, to create a more positive image of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was elected last August.
Enrichment of Iranian uranium on Russian territory may, Tehran believes, mark a half-way station on Iran's path to its long-term program aimed at using atomic energy for power generation.
-------- israel
US Report Calls on Israel to Begin Nuclear Disarmament
Barbara Ferguson, Arab News -
Monday, 28 November,2005
http://www.arabnews.com/?page=4§ion=0&article=73843&d=28&m=11&y=2005
WASHINGTON, 28 November 2005 — In order to contain Iran’s nuclear development and prevent a nuclear arms race in the region, Israel must begin nuclear disarmament.
This, according to a recent report, entitled “Getting Ready for a Nuclear— Ready Iran,” [www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/ pdffiles/PUB629.pdf] published by the US Army War College, commissioned and partially funded by the Pentagon, argues that Iran’s nuclear weapon development cannot be stopped by any current military or diplomatic options.
The report instead recommends that the United States convince Israel to “mothball” its Dimona nuclear reactor and agree to international monitoring by the International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA, something it has refused to do.
Israel, to date, has never officially confirmed that it does not have nuclear weapons, nor denied it. Credible reports of Israel’s sizable arsenal of nuclear bombs are well-documented, as well as their stable of missiles and aircrafts to deliver them any where in the Middle East.
Israel has long-said its nuclear program has prevented conventional attacks from hostile neighbors, but some experts believe Israel’s position may have motivated other countries to develop their own nuclear options.
The study also argues that Israel’s action would persuade other Middle East countries, Egypt or Algeria, to “follow suit and mothball their own nuclear facilities,” which would lead to a regional halt to the production of fissile material that would be the most effective method to successfully isolate Iran.
“It should be made clear, however, that Israel will take the additional step of handing over control of its weapons-usable fissile material to the IAEA only when all states in the Middle East dismantle their fissile producing facilities (large research and power reactors, hexafluoride, enrichment plants, and all reprocessing capabilities) and all nuclear weapons states (including Pakistan) formally agree not to redeploy nuclear weapons onto any Middle Eastern nation’s soil in time of peace,” said the report.
Nuclear nonproliferation expert Henry Sokolski, Executive Director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, and Iran specialist Patrick Clawson, Deputy Director for Research at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, edited the report, based on research and meetings with the nation’s leading experts on Iran, the Middle East, and nuclear proliferation.
India and Pakistan have already proved their nuclear capabilities, and the Middle East is close to a nuclear weapons arms race, Sokolski told reporters: “You have a whole neighborhood of folks posed, at any time, to go nuclear.” He said the call for Israel to suspend its nuclear development activity is “controversial,” but said: “A Middle East with yet more nuclear powers could turn into a big, big death bath.” “An Iran with advanced nuclear capabilities that put it close to having a bomb would likely be a more assertive Iran. Iran might well want to throw its weight around,” co-author Patrick Clawson said during a recent discussion of the study at the Washington Institute. “For example, it could claim that the fate of Jerusalem is a matter that concerns all Muslims and therefore Iran should have a say in any settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Iran might become active in the many disputes in the Caucasus region, such as in Chechnya; after all, this is territory Iran lost to Russia less than two hundred years ago.” Washington’s involvement in Mideast nuclear negotiations are essential, Clawson argued because the US and Iran may well become involved in a Cold War, which he said would only end “as the regime evolves.”
-------- missile defense
Missile Defense and Space Weapons: Pork Barrel in the Sky
From: "Frida Berrigan"
Date: Mon Nov 28, 2005 10:56am
http://www.worldpolicy.org/projects/arms/
WORLD POLICY INSTITUTE
Contact: William D. Hartung, 212-229-5808, ext. 4257,
hartung@newschool.edu
Frida Berrigan, 212-229-5808, ext. 4254,
berrigaf@newschool.edu
NEW REPORT HIGHLIGHTS ROLE OF ARMS LOBBY
IN PROMOTING "PORK BARREL IN THE SKY"
MISSILE DEFENSE SPENDING, CONTRACTS DOUBLE UNDER BUSH;
Space Weapons Next on the Agenda
"Tangled Web 2005: A Profile of the Missile Defense and Space Weapons Lobbies" is online at http://www.worldpolicy.org/projects/arms/reports/tangledweb.html. We would be hapopy to send you a hard copy of the report, just email berrigaf@newschool.edu
New York, November 28th - The Arms Trade Resource Center at the World Policy Institute released a report on the role of the arms lobby in promoting missile defense and space weapons. "After spending $130 billion since Ronald Reagan's 1983 'Star Wars' speech, the Pentagon has yet to produce a single device that can reliably intercept a ballistic missile," notes William D. Hartung, author of "Tangled Web 2005: A Profile of the Missile Defense and Space Weapons Lobbies." "Despite this dismal track record, missile defense spending has increased by two and one-half times during the Bush administration, in part due to lobbying by major contractors like Boeing and Lockheed Martin and their allies in Congress," he said.
Budgets Grow, Contractors Cash In
In the first two years of the Bush administration alone, missile defense budgets jumped by more than 80%, from $4.2 billion to $7.7 billion annually. Budgets have continued to grow, to $8.8 billion in the FY 2006 budget proposal, down from a high of $9.9 billion in FY 2005.
The biggest beneficiaries of these sharp spending increases have been the big four missile defense contractors. From 2001 to 2004, Boeing's missile defense contracts doubled, from $1.4 billion to $2.9 billion; Lockheed Martin's awards more than doubled, from $557 million to $1.2 billion; Raytheon's contracts nearly tripled, from $225 million to $647 million; and Northrop Grumman's awards went up more than fivefold, from $104 million to $534 million, largely due to its acquisition of TRW, a major player in the missile defense field. Overall, more than 77% of all missile defense prime contracts from 2001 to 2004 went to just these four firms. "Given the recent concerns about cronyism and incompetence in the Bush administration, the concentration of missile defense contracts among a handful of firms with a record of technical failures and cost over-runs is deeply troubling," asserts Center Deputy Director Frida Berrigan.
Alabama-based firms Colsa Instruments (over $120 million in total from 2001 to 2004) and Sparta, Inc. ($264 million over four years) have also benefited from growing missile defense budgets.
Contractor Political Contributions: What Are They Getting for Their Money?
Top missile defense contractors have contributed over $4.1 million to just 30 key members of Congress in the 2001 to 2006 election cycles. The top two recipients in the Senate are Alabama Senators Richard Shelby ($204,334) and Jeff Sessions ($145,250). Collazo Enterprises (the parent company of Colsa Instruments), has been the top contributor to Sen. Sessions (R-AL) in the 2001-2006 cycle, contributing $40,000 to his political war chest. Sen. Shelby (R-AL) and Representatives Terry Everett (R-AL), Bud Cramer (D-AL) and Robert Aderholt (R-AL) are all top recipients of funds from Collazo and other Alabama-based contractors. In return, these Alabama lawmakers have worked overtime to increase funding for missile defense projects that flow to firms based in their state.
Other major missile defense supporters who have been on the receiving end of major contractor donations include Rep. Jim Saxton (R-NJ), who received $72,995 from Lockheed Martin in the 2001 to 2006 cycles, and has bragged about his role in getting two Lockheed Martin-built Aegis destroyers added to the Pentagon budget. Saxton describes the ships as "the shields of the U.S. fleet and the backbones of the sea-based element of the nation's missile defense system." Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK), the chairman of the defense appropriations subcommittee, has been pressing the Pentagon to continue upgrading ground-based missile defense interceptors that are being based in Fort Greely, Alaska, with 40 missiles expected to be deployed by 2007. Sen. Stevens has already received $103,400 from missile defense contractors in the 2001 to 2006 election cycle.
"Whatever its alleged military benefits, it is clear that missile defense has become a multi-billion dollar 'pork barrel in the sky,'" says study author William D. Hartung.
Space Weapons: the Next Big Boondoggle?
The next big item on the arms lobby's agenda is the research and deployment of weapons in space, an effort which, if carried through, could eventually grow to be even more expensive than the missile defense program. Major projects like the XSS-11 spacecraft, the Near Field Infrared Experiment (NFIRE), and the Common Aero Vehicle (CAV) are all being developed with Anti-Satellite capabilities. Many of the same contractors that brought us missile defense are now involved in space weapons research, including Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman. Smaller firms with a piece of the action include Davidson Inc. and Miltec, Alabama-based firms whose work on the Kinetic Energy Anti-Satellite system (KE-ASAT) has been championed by Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL). "Not only will these systems be immensely costly," notes Frida Berrigan, "but they risk sparking a 'shooting war' in space that would undercut the current military and economic benefits the United States derives from its current position as the dominant space power."
-------- u.s. nuc weapons
U.S. alters nuclear weapons policy
Congress rejects 'bunker busters' for more reliable arms
James Sterngold, SF Chronicle Staff Writer
Monday, November 28, 2005
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/11/28/MNGIKFV3FK1.DTL
After struggling in recent years to redefine U.S. nuclear policy, Congress turned the country in a new direction this month by giving millions of dollars for a program aimed at producing a smaller arsenal of more reliable warheads.
Lawmakers killed the widely criticized nuclear "bunker buster" concept, which critics regarded as too aggressive, and instead appropriated $25 million for research on what is called the reliable replacement warhead, or RRW. Though that initial sum is relatively modest, it signifies an important policy shift that could end up costing many billions of dollars.
Even some arms control advocates have applauded the decision, because many see the new program as a sharp scaling back of the Bush administration's once soaring nuclear ambitions.
Democrats as well as Republicans were so enthusiastic that they voted for almost three times the amount of money requested by the White House, in large part because the program is viewed as an exercise in restraint.
"This is about tinkering at the margins of the existing weapons systems, nothing more," said Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Walnut Creek, a member of the House Appropriations Committee's energy and water subcommittee, which controls the nuclear weapons budget "They (the White House) aren't getting what they wanted."
But while the vote was decisive, just what the nuclear future will look like is not. Some experts caution that more than tinkering may be involved.
"The answer to every question at this point is, 'It depends,' " said Philip Coyle, a senior Pentagon official in the Clinton administration and a nuclear scientist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory for 33 years. "A new warhead can be new in a wide variety of different ways, and nobody knows what that will mean yet."
Indeed, the reliable replacement warhead is a strikingly elastic concept that, at this stage, each side can define as it likes. One of the few clear guidelines is that Congress has ordered that, whatever it is, it must be deployed without new underground testing, which President George H.W. Bush banned in 1992. But few agree on whether that is even feasible.
Beyond that, experts generally agree, the new program will mean spending billions of dollars to ensure that nuclear weapons remain a fundamental element of military planning, at a time when many other countries -- some friendly, some not -- are making similar calculations. The commitment is, in short, part of a global trend.
"It's not just that the Cold War is over, the post-Cold War period is over, too," said Nikolai Sokov, a senior research associate at the Monterey Institute for International Studies and a former Russian arms control negotiator. "What you're seeing now is a whole wave of policies of this kind being discussed in Russia and the United States and other places. There is an active process in a wide variety of countries. They are all exploring the option of nuclear weapons."
He added, "We're not talking about disarmament, we're talking about optimization. What you're doing is reducing the warheads to a more appropriate size." To those who believe in nuclear restraint, the program is a modest upgrading of existing weapons. For instance, optical fiber detonator cables would replace electrical wires and safer high explosives would be used to initiate the implosion of the radioactive core, which starts the nuclear chain reaction.
"This is not a sneaky way to get a whole new powerful warhead type of thing in the future," insisted Rep. David Hobson, R-Ohio, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee's energy and water subcommittee, and the most influential voice for restraint. "We're not trying to do separate missions than those the warheads were designed for today."
Nuclear weapons proponents, however, see it in more expansive terms. Although the initial funding is just for research, and Congress will have to approve any further steps, nuclear proponents regard the program as an efficient new production platform for rapidly developing new warheads for specialized missions.
For some government officials, the code word is capability. When the talk turns to warheads with new capabilities, or of dealing with new threats, the implication is that whole new weapons designs will be required.
"Part of the transformation will be to retain the ability to provide new or different military capabilities in response to (the Department of Defense's) emerging needs," Linton Brooks, administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration, which builds and maintains the stockpile, said at a Senate hearing earlier this year.
That increases the possibility, many experts say, that the warheads may need not only testing, but also the development of heavily modified missiles or new missiles to deliver them, adding billions of dollars more to the ultimate cost.
William Schneider Jr., chairman of the Defense Science Board, an influential advisory body to the Pentagon, said in a report last year that "the nature of the potential threat demands that we consider solutions that go beyond improvement on the margin," and that the country should build "weapons more relevant to the future threat environment," including nuclear warheads.
Cutting through the distrust and disagreements, there are critical areas of bipartisan agreement. First, the method of maintaining the Cold War-era stockpile -- the so-called life extension program -- cannot last indefinitely because the warheads are aging. Some experts dispute this, but Congress seems to have accepted the view that a new approach is required.
Second, the U.S. nuclear weapons manufacturing capability, all but halted after the Cold War, needs to be resuscitated. It could cost tens of billions of dollars over the coming decades and, as some envision it, could give the United States the capacity to produce more than a hundred warheads a year.
How the new warheads would be delivered to their targets has been little discussed, but expensive missile improvements are a prospect, even though Hobson and others insist this will not be called for. But making the new warheads more reliable and safer, weapons experts say, could make them heavier and bulkier. At the least, that would require extensive retesting of missiles.
The first warhead to be upgraded will be the W76, which is deployed on the submarine-based Trident missiles. But whether that missile will still work as designed with a new warhead, without substantial modifications, is yet to be proven.
"You can't just have a conversation about the warheads -- it has to be about the delivery systems and even the military's command and control," said John Browne, a weapons designer and former director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory. "These things are part of an interrelated system. That's what people forget."
The rethinking of the U.S. nuclear posture began after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Underground nuclear testing was banned, warhead production was stopped, and thousands of weapons were decommissioned.
Some demanded that the nuclear stockpile, with more than 10,000 warheads, be scrapped. Instead, the Clinton administration started increasing the budgets for the nuclear design labs, at Livermore, Los Alamos and Sandia National Laboratory, for what was called "science-based stockpile stewardship," a program of maintaining and refurbishing aging warheads.
While the nuclear weapons budget has more than doubled since the mid-1990s to about $6.5 billion, some now argue that the old warheads are growing less reliable with age and are not suited for deterring new types of enemies, such as North Korea or Iran, in part because they are too powerful.
In 2001, a conservative Washington think tank, the National Institute for Public Policy, called for the development of new types of specialized warheads, such as "bunker busters" -- warheads in super hard casings that would allow them to burrow deep into the earth before exploding -- to destroy deeply buried targets or caches of chemical and biological weapons.
That report became the backbone of the Bush administration's new nuclear strategy, the Nuclear Posture Review, issued in 2002. Half a dozen members of the group that drew up the 2001 study assumed senior positions in the Bush administration, including Brooks at the National Nuclear Security administration, Schneider at the Defense Science Board and Stephen Hadley, now the president's national security adviser.
In 2003, the White House won funding in Congress for the bunker buster study and research into other new types of warheads.
But that is when Hobson, concerned that the weapons could spur a new arms race, surprised fellow Republicans by pushing back. He later slashed some of the funding and strongly criticized some of the White House plans. He wanted, he said, a more restrained policy, one that would survive pressure from nuclear hawks.
"My problem is I can only be chairman for six years," Hobson said. "That's why I'm trying to lock in place a footprint for the future. I'm trying to kill things so they don't come back."
But California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a member of the Senate's energy and water appropriations subcommittee, said she did not trust the administration and expected to fight the same battle again.
"This administration continues to try to reopen the nuclear door," she said. "So we must remain vigilant in ensuring that the reliable replacement warhead program does not lead to the development of new nuclear weapons and the resumption of nuclear testing."
Hobson and others say they fully expect the government to try at some point to expand the program, and they insist they are prepared to fight back. But some nuclear proponents are angry at what they see as a weakened Bush administration backing off at all.
"This 'modernization' is not a modernization of the weapons' capabilities," said Kathleen Bailey, a senior associate of the National Institute for Public Policy and a co-author of the 2001 nuclear study. "That's what is needed. But the administration has already shown it doesn't have the willingness to stand up and go to bat on this. So I can't imagine the Republicans or the Democrats in the future doing so."
Surprisingly, one of the few groups that seems not to have engaged directly in the debate is the military.
William Odom, a retired lieutenant general trained in nuclear warfare and former director of the National Security Agency, said one reason was that professional military leaders regarded the weapons as too dangerous and too difficult to protect and maintain, given the modest probability that they would ever be used, particularly as conventional bombs become more powerful and more accurate.
"Once you get through all the imponderables of using these things, you increasingly lose your enthusiasm for the desirable effects of the weapons," said Odom, who also helped put together the 2001 study but has a limited belief in the usefulness of nuclear weapons. "From a professional's perspective, it's damn hard to work up any excitement about them. Eventually, they'll go the way of chemical weapons."
E-mail James Sterngold at jsterngold@sfchroicle.com
----
U.S. alters nuclear weapons policy
Congress rejects 'bunker busters' for more reliable arms
James Sterngold, San Francisco Chronicle Staff Writer
Monday, November 28, 2005
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/11/28/MNGIKFV3FK1.DTL
After struggling in recent years to redefine U.S. nuclear policy, Congress turned the country in a new direction this month by giving millions of dollars for a program aimed at producing a smaller arsenal of more reliable warheads.
Lawmakers killed the widely criticized nuclear "bunker buster" concept, which critics regarded as too aggressive, and instead appropriated $25 million for research on what is called the reliable replacement warhead, or RRW. Though that initial sum is relatively modest, it signifies an important policy shift that could end up costing many billions of dollars.
Even some arms control advocates have applauded the decision, because many see the new program as a sharp scaling back of the Bush administration's once soaring nuclear ambitions.
Democrats as well as Republicans were so enthusiastic that they voted for almost three times the amount of money requested by the White House, in large part because the program is viewed as an exercise in restraint.
"This is about tinkering at the margins of the existing weapons systems, nothing more," said Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Walnut Creek, a member of the House Appropriations Committee's energy and water subcommittee, which controls the nuclear weapons budget "They (the White House) aren't getting what they wanted."
But while the vote was decisive, just what the nuclear future will look like is not. Some experts caution that more than tinkering may be involved.
"The answer to every question at this point is, 'It depends,' " said Philip Coyle, a senior Pentagon official in the Clinton administration and a nuclear scientist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory for 33 years. "A new warhead can be new in a wide variety of different ways, and nobody knows what that will mean yet."
Indeed, the reliable replacement warhead is a strikingly elastic concept that, at this stage, each side can define as it likes. One of the few clear guidelines is that Congress has ordered that, whatever it is, it must be deployed without new underground testing, which President George H.W. Bush banned in 1992. But few agree on whether that is even feasible.
Beyond that, experts generally agree, the new program will mean spending billions of dollars to ensure that nuclear weapons remain a fundamental element of military planning, at a time when many other countries -- some friendly, some not -- are making similar calculations. The commitment is, in short, part of a global trend.
"It's not just that the Cold War is over, the post-Cold War period is over, too," said Nikolai Sokov, a senior research associate at the Monterey Institute for International Studies and a former Russian arms control negotiator. "What you're seeing now is a whole wave of policies of this kind being discussed in Russia and the United States and other places. There is an active process in a wide variety of countries. They are all exploring the option of nuclear weapons."
He added, "We're not talking about disarmament, we're talking about optimization. What you're doing is reducing the warheads to a more appropriate size." To those who believe in nuclear restraint, the program is a modest upgrading of existing weapons. For instance, optical fiber detonator cables would replace electrical wires and safer high explosives would be used to initiate the implosion of the radioactive core, which starts the nuclear chain reaction.
"This is not a sneaky way to get a whole new powerful warhead type of thing in the future," insisted Rep. David Hobson, R-Ohio, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee's energy and water subcommittee, and the most influential voice for restraint. "We're not trying to do separate missions than those the warheads were designed for today."
Nuclear weapons proponents, however, see it in more expansive terms. Although the initial funding is just for research, and Congress will have to approve any further steps, nuclear proponents regard the program as an efficient new production platform for rapidly developing new warheads for specialized missions.
For some government officials, the code word is capability. When the talk turns to warheads with new capabilities, or of dealing with new threats, the implication is that whole new weapons designs will be required.
"Part of the transformation will be to retain the ability to provide new or different military capabilities in response to (the Department of Defense's) emerging needs," Linton Brooks, administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration, which builds and maintains the stockpile, said at a Senate hearing earlier this year.
That increases the possibility, many experts say, that the warheads may need not only testing, but also the development of heavily modified missiles or new missiles to deliver them, adding billions of dollars more to the ultimate cost.
William Schneider Jr., chairman of the Defense Science Board, an influential advisory body to the Pentagon, said in a report last year that "the nature of the potential threat demands that we consider solutions that go beyond improvement on the margin," and that the country should build "weapons more relevant to the future threat environment," including nuclear warheads.
Cutting through the distrust and disagreements, there are critical areas of bipartisan agreement. First, the method of maintaining the Cold War-era stockpile -- the so-called life extension program -- cannot last indefinitely because the warheads are aging. Some experts dispute this, but Congress seems to have accepted the view that a new approach is required.
Second, the U.S. nuclear weapons manufacturing capability, all but halted after the Cold War, needs to be resuscitated. It could cost tens of billions of dollars over the coming decades and, as some envision it, could give the United States the capacity to produce more than a hundred warheads a year.
How the new warheads would be delivered to their targets has been little discussed, but expensive missile improvements are a prospect, even though Hobson and others insist this will not be called for. But making the new warheads more reliable and safer, weapons experts say, could make them heavier and bulkier. At the least, that would require extensive retesting of missiles.
The first warhead to be upgraded will be the W76, which is deployed on the submarine-based Trident missiles. But whether that missile will still work as designed with a new warhead, without substantial modifications, is yet to be proven.
"You can't just have a conversation about the warheads -- it has to be about the delivery systems and even the military's command and control," said John Browne, a weapons designer and former director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory. "These things are part of an interrelated system. That's what people forget."
The rethinking of the U.S. nuclear posture began after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Underground nuclear testing was banned, warhead production was stopped, and thousands of weapons were decommissioned.
Some demanded that the nuclear stockpile, with more than 10,000 warheads, be scrapped. Instead, the Clinton administration started increasing the budgets for the nuclear design labs, at Livermore, Los Alamos and Sandia National Laboratory, for what was called "science-based stockpile stewardship," a program of maintaining and refurbishing aging warheads.
While the nuclear weapons budget has more than doubled since the mid-1990s to about $6.5 billion, some now argue that the old warheads are growing less reliable with age and are not suited for deterring new types of enemies, such as North Korea or Iran, in part because they are too powerful.
In 2001, a conservative Washington think tank, the National Institute for Public Policy, called for the development of new types of specialized warheads, such as "bunker busters" -- warheads in super hard casings that would allow them to burrow deep into the earth before exploding -- to destroy deeply buried targets or caches of chemical and biological weapons.
That report became the backbone of the Bush administration's new nuclear strategy, the Nuclear Posture Review, issued in 2002. Half a dozen members of the group that drew up the 2001 study assumed senior positions in the Bush administration, including Brooks at the National Nuclear Security administration, Schneider at the Defense Science Board and Stephen Hadley, now the president's national security adviser.
In 2003, the White House won funding in Congress for the bunker buster study and research into other new types of warheads.
But that is when Hobson, concerned that the weapons could spur a new arms race, surprised fellow Republicans by pushing back. He later slashed some of the funding and strongly criticized some of the White House plans. He wanted, he said, a more restrained policy, one that would survive pressure from nuclear hawks.
"My problem is I can only be chairman for six years," Hobson said. "That's why I'm trying to lock in place a footprint for the future. I'm trying to kill things so they don't come back."
But California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a member of the Senate's energy and water appropriations subcommittee, said she did not trust the administration and expected to fight the same battle again.
"This administration continues to try to reopen the nuclear door," she said. "So we must remain vigilant in ensuring that the reliable replacement warhead program does not lead to the development of new nuclear weapons and the resumption of nuclear testing."
Hobson and others say they fully expect the government to try at some point to expand the program, and they insist they are prepared to fight back. But some nuclear proponents are angry at what they see as a weakened Bush administration backing off at all.
"This 'modernization' is not a modernization of the weapons' capabilities," said Kathleen Bailey, a senior associate of the National Institute for Public Policy and a co-author of the 2001 nuclear study. "That's what is needed. But the administration has already shown it doesn't have the willingness to stand up and go to bat on this. So I can't imagine the Republicans or the Democrats in the future doing so."
Surprisingly, one of the few groups that seems not to have engaged directly in the debate is the military.
William Odom, a retired lieutenant general trained in nuclear warfare and former director of the National Security Agency, said one reason was that professional military leaders regarded the weapons as too dangerous and too difficult to protect and maintain, given the modest probability that they would ever be used, particularly as conventional bombs become more powerful and more accurate.
"Once you get through all the imponderables of using these things, you increasingly lose your enthusiasm for the desirable effects of the weapons," said Odom, who also helped put together the 2001 study but has a limited belief in the usefulness of nuclear weapons. "From a professional's perspective, it's damn hard to work up any excitement about them. Eventually, they'll go the way of chemical weapons."
E-mail James Sterngold at jsterngold@sfchroicle.com.
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
-------- connecticut
NRC renews Millstone license
Associated Press
Published November 28 2005
http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/local/state/hc-28190857.apds.m0040.bc-ct--millnov28,0,5007148.story?coll=hc-headlines-local-wire
WATERFORD, Conn. -- The Nuclear Regulatory Commission renewed Millstone Power Station's license Monday, approving the power plant's operation for another 20 years.
The commission conducted an environmental review and determined there were no environmental effects that should keep the power plant from remaining operational. Similarly, the plant passed a safety review and inspections.
Dominion Nuclear Connecticut owns and operates Units 2 and 3 at the Millstone Power Station. Unit 1 is being decommissioned.
The NRC said Dominion has shown it has the plans and capability to manage the effects of the plant's aging.
The lengthy review process has been going on for nearly two years. Some eastern Connecticut residents testified at public hearings, urging the commission not to renew the permit because of concerns that the plant was polluting the environment.
The commission found in July that continuing Millstone's operation would have only limited effects on the environment and said those effects would not be reduced by shutting the plant down.
The staff, however, found that the impact from electromagnetic fields in the area is uncertain.
The Connecticut Coalition Against Millstone challenged the relicensing application, insisting that Millstone operations are linked to high incidences of cancer in the surrounding community and killing of fish, said Nancy Burton, head of the group.
"Unfortunately, the NRC decision was consistent with its current practice of approving Millstone license amendments which relax rather than strengthen safety protections," she said in a statement. "Millstone should be closed because of these risks and the lax regulation by the NRC."
-------- MILITARY
-------- iraq
Democrats and the War
[from the November 28, 2005 issue] The Nation, posted online 11/14/05
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20051128/editors
http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20051128&s=editors
Everything that needs to be known is now known: The reasons the Bush Administration gave for the American war in Iraq were all falsehoods or deceptions, and every day the US occupation continues deepens the very problems it was supposed to solve. Therefore there can no longer be any doubt: The war--an unprovoked, unnecessary and unlawful invasion that has turned into a colonial-style occupation--is a moral and political catastrophe. As such it is a growing stain on the honor of every American who acquiesces, actively or passively, in its conduct and continuation.
The war has also become the single greatest threat to our national security. Its human and economic costs are spiraling out of control, with no end in sight. It has driven America's reputation in the world to a historic low point. In the meantime, real threats suffer terrible neglect. These include more terrorist attacks, jeopardized oil supplies, rising tension with China, the spread of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction and even natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina. All are pushed aside as this Administration pours the country's blood, treasure and political energy into a futile war. In short, ending the Iraq War is the most pressing issue facing America today. Until it is ended, a constructive national security policy cannot be forged.
Americans are well on their way to a full appreciation of the dimensions of this debacle. In an October CBS news poll, 59 percent of citizens surveyed and 73 percent of Democrats now want an end to US military involvement in Iraq. But this growing majority has made its judgment with virtually no help from our nation's leaders. Most shameful has been the Democratic Party's failure to oppose the war. Indeed, support for it has been bipartisan: A Republican President and Congress made the policy, and almost all of the leading Democrats--most of the honorable exceptions are members of the House of Representatives--supported it from the outset and continue to do so. To their credit, would-be presidential candidate Senator Russell Feingold and former Senator Gary Hart have recently made strong antiwar statements. More recently two other presidential contenders, Senator John Kerry and former Senator John Edwards, have begun to call for a shift in policy, though still in vague and reticent terms. More typical, however, are the other presidential hopefuls, Senators Hillary Clinton, Joseph Biden and Evan Bayh, who continue to huddle for cover in "the center." They offer little alternative to Bush's refrain "We must stay the course!" Nor do the party's Congressional leaders and its head, Howard Dean, once a leader of antiwar sentiment. Can such politicians, who cannot even follow a majority--in the Democratic Party, a large majority--really be considered leaders?
The Nation therefore takes the following stand: We will not support any candidate for national office who does not make a speedy end to the war in Iraq a major issue of his or her campaign. We urge all voters to join us in adopting this position. Many worry that the aftermath of withdrawal will be ugly, but we can now see that the consequences of staying will be uglier still. Fear of facing the consequences of Bush's disaster should not be permitted to excuse the creation of a worse disaster by continuing the occupation.
We firmly believe that antiwar candidates, with the other requisite credentials, can win the 2006 Congressional elections, the 2008 Democratic presidential primaries and the subsequent national election. But this fight, and our stand, must begin now.
In the coming weeks and months The Nation will help identify--and encourage support for--those candidates prepared to bring a speedy end to the war and to begin the hard work of forging a new national security policy that an end to the Iraq War will make possible.
There is no other way to save America's security and honor. And to those Democratic "leaders" who continue to insist that the safer, more electable course is to remain openly or silently complicit in the war, we say, paraphrasing the moral philosopher Hillel: If not now, when? If not you, who?
-------- israel / palestine
Trial of Saddam Hussein Resumes in Baghdad
Monday, November 28th, 2005
Headlines Democracy Now!
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/28/1455246
In Iraq, the trial of Saddam Hussein has resumed amid heavy security inside the Green Zone. On Sunday Iraqi police arrested 10 Sunni men who were allegedly plotting to assassinate the best-known judge trying Hussein. Today's proceedings marked Saddam Hussein's first court appearance since two lawyers on his defense team were shot dead.
Ramsey Clark Questions Whether Hussein Can Get Fair Trial
Meanwhile former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark has joined Hussein's defense team in Baghdad. On Sunday he questioned whether Hussein can get a fair trial in Iraq. "A court can not be a court unless it's absolutely independent," Clark said. "International law, and all private and public law in every country requires independence of the judiciary and of the judges, whoever they are; four we don't know, we haven't seen their faces, we do not know their names, would they be impartial?"
Four Humanitarian Aid Workers Kidnapped in Iraq
In other news from Iraq four humanitarian aid workers from the United States, Canada and Britain have been kidnapped in Baghdad. Only one of the four has been identified so far -- British peace activist and retired professor Norman Kember.
Ex-Iraqi PM: Torture As Bad Now As Under Hussein
Iraq's former prime minister Iyad Allawi is claming that the human rights abuses occurring today in Iraq are as bad as they were under Saddam Hussein. In an interview with the Observer newspaper of London Allawai said "We are hearing about secret police, secret bunkers where people are being interrogated. A lot of Iraqis are being tortured or killed in the course of interrogations."
UK investigates Shootings by Private Contractors in Iraq
The British Foreign Office is investigating allegations that private contractors with the defense company Aegis have randomly shot at Iraqi cars. According to the Telegraph newspaper, a video recently appeared on a site affiliated with Aegis that contained four clips of an unidentified gunman shooting at cars in Iraq. In one clip a Mercedes is fired on at a distance of several hundred yards before it crashes in to a civilian taxi. One Iraqi Interior Ministry officials confirmed such shootings occur. He said: "When the security companies kill people they just drive away and nothing is done... I would say we have had about 50-60 incidents of this kind."
-------- spies
Report: Pentagon Expands Ability to Spy At Home
Monday, November 28th, 2005
Headlines Democracy Now!
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/28/1455246
The Washington Post is reporting the Pentagon has expanded its ability to spy on citizens within the United States. According to the Post, the Bush administration is considering allowing a little known Pentagon agency called the Counterintelligence Field Activity to investigate certain crimes domestically . The Pentagon is also pushing legislation on Capitol Hill that would create an intelligence exemption to the Privacy Act, allowing the FBI and others to share information gathered about U.S. citizens with the Pentagon, CIA and other intelligence agencies. Kate Martin of the Center for National Security Studies, said such an exemption would remove one of the few existing privacy protections against the creation of secret dossiers on Americans by government intelligence agencies." Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon said "We are deputizing the military to spy on law-abiding Americans in America. This is a huge leap without even a [congressional] hearing."
-------- war crimes
Saddam trial resumes with confrontation
By Rick Jervis, 11/28/2005 USA TODAY
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2005-11-28-saddam_x.htm
BAGHDAD — An alternately relaxed and combative Saddam Hussein used the second day of his war crimes trial Monday to lecture the presiding judge and complain about his treatment by guards.
He also dashed off some poetry and watched as the first damaging testimony against him played on a flat-screen television in the heavily guarded courtroom. (Related video: Saddam trial resumes)
Saddam's courtroom actions seemed designed to turn the proceedings to his advantage, playing the role of head of state and attempting to paint the judges as usurpers.
Saddam's seven co-defendants came into the courtroom moments after being called. Saddam took more than five minutes to surface after the bailiff bellowed his name.
When he showed up, he was dressed in a dark gray jacket, with a white shirt buttoned to the neck. He cradled a copy of the Quran in his right arm. He walked with short, deliberate steps. "Peace be upon the people of peace," he said, using a traditional Arabic greeting, and raised his right hand. (Related audio: Ex-leader's complaint)
A few minutes later, he complained to presiding Judge Rizgar Mohammed Amin about having to walk up four flights of stairs, with his hands bound, because of a broken elevator. Amin said he would address the matter with court guards.
"I don't want you to tell them," barked Saddam, 68. "Order them! You are Iraqi. You have sovereignty. They are in your country. They are invaders. They are occupiers."
The five-judge panel adjourned the trial until Dec. 5 after some defendants complained they hadn't yet met with their lawyers. Monday's 2 1/2 hour proceedings were the first since Oct. 19, the trial's opening session.
Saddam and his co-defendants are charged with retaliating against the small, mostly Shiite village of Dujail after an attempt on Saddam's life there in 1982. They are charged in connection with the deaths of more than 140 villagers and face death if convicted.
In videotaped testimony Monday, a former Iraqi intelligence officer offered the trial's first evidence against Saddam and his co-defendants. Images of a sickly Wadah Ismael al-Sheik, 54, were shown on a flat-screen TV in the front of the courtroom while Amin read aloud his testimony. Suffering from lung cancer, al-Sheik sat in a wheelchair and had tubes protruding from his hospital gown. He died a few days after testifying last month.
After serving as an intelligence official, al-Sheik was imprisoned by the government under Saddam. Al-Sheik said more than 150 Iraqi troops spread through Dujail, 50 miles north of Baghdad after the failed attempt on Saddam's life. The soldiers rounded up about 400 people, including women and children, who were then detained.
The troops stormed Dujail on the orders of Barzan Ibrahim, former head of intelligence and one of the defendants, al-Sheik said. But he said he never heard any direct orders from Ibrahim or other Iraqi officials to torture or kill detainees.
"The number of people who attacked the convoy did not exceed 12 people," Al-Sheik said. "I don't know why this large number of people was arrested."
Saddam appeared relaxed in his front row seat in the chest-high wooden holding area. He chatted with the Iraqi court guards during breaks, at times making them laugh, and scrawled poetic verses. Near the session's end, as the judges broke to discuss an issue, Saddam recited one to co-defendants nearby.
Iraq's "mountains, wilderness and plains will be our witness. ... We help the weak, but when we strike, we strike the elite."
Challenging the legitimacy of the court looks to be a cornerstone of the defense, said Miranda Sissons, head of the Iraq program for the International Center for Transitional Justice, a New York-based group that monitors judicial proceedings in countries emerging from repressive rule or armed conflict. She is in Baghdad to observe the trial of Saddam and his lieutenants.
Ramsey Clark, an attorney general under President Lyndon B. Johnson, sat with the defense team Monday. (Related news: Clark starts work on Saddam defense)
At one point in the trial, former vice president Taha Yassin Ramadan complained to the judge that of the three lawyers he started with, one was killed, one was shot and injured and the third has left the country. He has not met with a new lawyer, he said.
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
-------- death penalty
U.S. Prepares to Execute 1,000th Person Since 1976
Monday, November 28th, 2005
Headlines Democracy Now!
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/28/1455246
Meanwhile, the United States is about to execute its 1,000th prisoner since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. On average a prisoner has been executed every 10 days since 1976. 3,400 prisoners remain on death row.
-------- torture
Torture and Survival in a Saudi Prison: William Sampson Recounts his 2 1/2 Year Ordeal, Calls Torture "Morally Wrong, a Political Mistake" and Useless for Intelligence Gathering
Monday, November 28th, 2005 Democracy Now!
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/28/1455257
We speak with William Sampson, a Canadian citizen who was jailed for over two and a half years in Saudi Arabia where he was accused of being a British spy. He was never tried, only tortured - including being beaten, raped and deprived of sleep. Under mounting international pressure, the Saudi government released Sampson in August 2003. He has written a book about his ordeal titled "Confessions of an Innocent Man: Torture and Survival in a Saudi Prison." [includes rush transcript] Five years ago this month, car bombings in Saudi Arabia killed two British nationals and wounded two others. Most of the targeted were working as foreign engineers in the country. The bombings set off another nightmare for several of their colleagues, who were accused by the Saudi government of carrying out the attacks.
One of them was William Sampson. Sampson, a Canadian citizen, was working as a consultant in the Saudi Arabian pharmaceutical industry. Within weeks of the bombings, he was imprisoned along with seven others and placed in solitary confinement.
Sampson remained in jail for over two and a half years, where he says he was tortured, beaten, and sexually assaulted. Medical tests subsequently backed up his claims.
In February 2001, after weeks of torture, Sampson appeared on Saudi Arabian television and confessed to the bombings. He later claimed he had endured torture so painful in prior weeks he had begged his captors to let him confess.
The televised confession elicited a world-wide campaign to secure his release. Sampson's case was taken up by the Association In Defense of the Wrongfully Convicted, and championed by prominent advocates such as the late attorney Johnnie Cochran and wrongfully imprisoned former boxer Rubin "Hurricane" Carter. Under mounting international pressure, the Saudi government granted him clemency. In August 2003, Sampson and five others were set free.
Since his release, Sampson has initiated legal proceedings against the Saudi government. He's also written a book about his ordeal -- "Confessions of an Innocent Man: Torture and Survival in a Saudi Prison."
* William Sampson, arrested and held in a Saudi jail for almost 3 years where he was tortured into confessing to crimes he did not commit. He is the author of the new book "Confessions of an Innocent Man: Torture and Survival in a Saudi Prison."
RUSH TRANSCRIPT
AMY GOODMAN: William Sampson joins us in our Firehouse studio. Welcome to Democracy Now!
WILLIAM SAMPSON: Thank you for inviting me.
AMY GOODMAN: Tell us about the day you were arrested.
WILLIAM SAMPSON: Well, it started off as a normal but stressful day. I got up in the morning, made myself coffee, ran out of my house, late as always.
AMY GOODMAN: Why were you in Saudi Arabia?
WILLIAM SAMPSON: I was in Saudi Arabia working as a consultant for the Saudi Industrial Development Fund, which is a government development bank. I was there as a marketing consultant, reviewing project proposals by startup industry in Saudi Arabia.
AMY GOODMAN: How long had you been there?
WILLIAM SAMPSON: About two-and-a-half years at the time of my arrest. And as I said, I ran out the front door, saw that there was a flat tire on my car, turned to get a taxi. And I saw another car pull up and almost run me over. A couple of individuals jumped out of it, stripped my possessions off me, a third got out of the car, waved a gun at me, and the next thing I knew, I was on my way to a Saudi Arabian prison.
AMY GOODMAN: And then what happened?
WILLIAM SAMPSON: When I first arrived at the prison, I was chained to the door of my cell, chained upright in the door of my cell and assigned an initial number. I think it was 23 or 26 at the time. And I stood in that position for about an hour or so before I was taken up for my first interrogation session. During that session, I was beaten and punched and asked various questions about what I had been doing in the proceeding weeks, specifically around about the times of two bombings, one that occurred November the 17th, one that had occurred on November the 22nd of 2000, and also about a bombing that had occurred only two days previously on December the 15th of 2000. And as I said, I answered those questions in between --
AMY GOODMAN: These were all bombings of cars?
WILLIAM SAMPSON: These were all bombings. Yes. The first bombing that occurred on November the 17th was on the car of a British national called Christopher Rodway, which killed Christopher Rodway and injured his wife.
AMY GOODMAN: Did you know him?
WILLIAM SAMPSON: I didn't know him, but I had a friend who knew him, who worked in the same department at the military hospital in Riyadh. On the night of the second bombing, November 22, a car with four British expatriates – well, three British and one Irish expatriate -- were driving on the way to a party at one of the sort of western residential compounds in Riyadh, and a friend of mine was in the car immediately behind them following them to that party. A bomb went off, and that one injured the occupants and almost, but not quite, killed -- severely injured a chap called Mark Paine. If my friend, Raf Schyvens, who was following the vehicle had not been there, the severely injured party, Mark Paine, would possibly have bled to death. Raf, being a trauma nurse, actually stopped and rendered first aid assistance until the emergency services were actually able to take up the slack. For his pains, Raf was subsequently arrested and tortured, much as I was.
AMY GOODMAN: For how long?
WILLIAM SAMPSON: He was in prison for a week longer than myself. So, I was in for 964 days. He was in for 971.
AMY GOODMAN: And he had already been arrested at the time of your arrest?
WILLIAM SAMPSON: Yes. He would have been arrested about a week before me, and what had happened was after the second bombing had gone off, all of the witnesses to the bombing were questioned by the police. And they were asked lots of odd questions, like all the names of people they knew and all of the relationships with all the other Westerners. And Raf was the last of them to actually be questioned. And during his initial questioning sessions, they kept making statements at him that they knew he was the bomber. But they released him. So he just assumed, we all assumed, that those were just sort of threats to unsettle him.
The next thing happened was that about a week before my arrest, about September the 10th, he just disappeared. I had phoned -- I had been intending to actually meet him that day. I phoned him from my work, just before leaving work, and just by chance got him on his cell phone at the time his villa was being searched by the secret police, and he was being arrested. And from that moment on, for the next week, I spent my time chasing around all the contacts I had at various police stations, trying to find out where he might be, until I eventually got told to back off, because where he was was somewhere I wasn't going to find.
And so, when that car pulled up about seven days after he disappeared, when that car pulled up in front of me, I knew they were coming for me, because it was just standard. I was a friend of Raf’s. They had arrested Raf Schyvens, were going to pin the bombing on him, at least the second bombing on him. I was a friend of Raf's. I was also known to the secret police or to the intelligence -- Ministry of Interior intelligence people, because I had been involved in assisting a number of Westerners on different occasions with difficulties they had at police stations over infringements of alcohol laws or socializing laws that they have in Saudi Arabia. It is, for example, illegal for the conversation that is taking place to happen out there. I'm not married to you. You're not related to me. I can’t be technically in your presence socially, and I can be arrested for that, and so can you. And these types of minor infringements, Alexander Mitchell and myself had been involved in smoothing over the process at the police station so that the paperwork didn't get too sticky for most people.
With that on our background, and we obviously seemed to fit the frame, and on December the 17th, I disappeared, as I found myself in this police cell, and there the beatings started from the very, very start. Within a couple of days, the beatings had progressed from just punching, kicking, being thrown around the room, having my testicles stood on, to being lain down on the floor in a hog-tied position, hands shackled behind my back and attached to my ankles, and then beaten over the soles of the feet. And this then followed on to something called falanga, where you are strapped over a metal bar and hung upside-down off the floor so that your feet and buttocks are prominently exposed, and then you are beaten across the soles off the feet, across the buttock, and then every once in a while I would have a quick shot into my scrotum. The damage that was done there, I mean, within a few days of that, I literally had testicles the size of oranges. And my feet were swollen. I discovered I was just a tapestry of bruises.
AMY GOODMAN: Who was doing to this to you?
WILLIAM SAMPSON: My Saudi Arabian interrogators. Two individuals, Ibrahim al-Dali and Khaled al-Saleh, principally. There was in those initial days, a third individual who was torturing me, but I was never able to determine his name. And that, as I said, went on until after about six-and-a-half days. I broke, and I told them what they wanted to hear. But everything that –
AMY GOODMAN: What --
WILLIAM SAMPSON: – they wanted me to confess to was that it was the car bombing that killed Christopher Rodway. They initially started off accusing me of the three car bombings, the ones on the 17th, the 22nd of November and then the one on December 15. They couldn't fit the one on December 15 to me, because it would have been impossible for me to be in Riyadh and in Daman, three-and-a-half hours drive away, and back in Riyadh again. I couldn’t – the timings of it just wouldn't work for me actually being up there to be fitted for that one. So, they backed off on that, and then just focused in the initial phase on the first car bombing, the one that killed Christopher Rodway.
There's obviously – you’re obviously going to resist confessing to something which you know in Saudi Arabia carries the death penalty, which is murder, but all the while that they're actually interrogating me, they're actually giving me the information that they want me to confess to. They're not asking me any direct questions about my activities, they're telling me where I went, what I did, who I saw, how I did it, and they're repeating this over and over again and telling me that you're going to confess and continuing the beatings, and then eventually, I just couldn't take any more pain, and I began to tell them what they told me.
AMY GOODMAN: When did they videotape your confession?
WILLIAM SAMPSON: That was about six-and-a-half weeks in. Now, I had, as I said, an initial period of about eleven days of imprisonment, my first eleven days of imprisonment, in one of their interrogation centers where I was tortured, was broken to confess to (1) committing the bombings that killed Christopher Rodway, and (2) to being a British spy, doing it at the behest of the British government, which was to my mind absolutely crazy. I mean, if there's ever a government that’s helped keep the Al-Sauds in power, it’s the British government, and yet here I was confessing to being a spy and trying to destabilize that self-same government, but that’s what they wanted me to confess to.
I got transferred to another prison, to the main political prison in Al-Hayar, where I was tortured over another about 14 or so days. I then had about two weeks off after that, and I had a visit with my embassy. But unlike the normal, the sort of norm in those situations which is that you have free and unhindered access to your diplomats and that you have a private conversation with them, the two people that were torturing me were in the room during the entire conversation, and I was briefed by them before I went into –
AMY GOODMAN: Khaled and Ibrahim.
WILLIAM SAMPSON: Khaled and Ibrahim. I was briefed by them before I went in there as to what would happen to me if I told my embassy officials anything of what had happened to me. A couple of day after that –
AMY GOODMAN: Didn't you embassy officials insist that they leave?
WILLIAM SAMPSON: Never, never, never, never.
AMY GOODMAN: What did the Canadian government do for you?
WILLIAM SAMPSON: Told me that I was guilty to my face. That's about all that they did for me. And they also told my father the same thing. That was the full extent of it. And yet, I know that the Canadian government has never been provided with any forensic evidence that would confirm my guilt. They have never been given a sight of the confessions I signed. And I signed more than twenty different books of confessions, each one variations on a theme, and each one almost contradictory of the others, because they were refining the story as they went along.
AMY GOODMAN: You mean, when they weren't satisfied with the first, they would say to do it again.
WILLIAM SAMPSON: They would come back in after a couple of hours of giving me a break, start beating the hell out of me again, and then start on a new confession.
AMY GOODMAN: Did they speak English?
WILLIAM SAMPSON: My interrogator, one of my interrogators, Khaled, he was the English speaker there, and he did all of the English work, so to speak, of the interrogation sessions. Ibrahim focused on asking questions in Arabic, and he was the main swinger of the bat on it, I would say. He was the one who did most of the physical brutality during the interrogations. But –
AMY GOODMAN: How did they do the videotape confession?
WILLIAM SAMPSON: Oh, it was relatively simple. It was done at Al-Hayar Prison, up in the interrogation suites. They had taken one of the rooms and sort of made it up into – cleaned it up a little bit and made it look a bit more presentable, put a rather fancy desk in there and a board and the rest and had basically a small studio set up in one corner. We came -- we were brought in and sat down and basically told to read off a script.
Now, before the confessions – before I was led in to do the confession, I was taken into one of the other interrogation rooms and told that I was being made – I was going to make a video, which was to be shown to members of the royal family so they didn't have to come down to the prison to see me testify to them directly. I – firstly, I knew that was the biggest load of nonsense I’d ever heard. I knew that they were taping this for general broadcast, but I was hardly in a position to challenge them on the veracity of their statements. So, they began telling me what I had to say, and I persuaded my captors that I should be allowed to write a script for it, in which I then tried to make my language as stilted and odd as possible, because I would have had difficulty actually being that stilted naturally for some reason.
I went in and did various takes after take after take of the video confession, going over and over, sometimes with the script in front of me, sometimes without it in front of me, sometimes indicating at the wall chart that had been – with the movements that I was supposed to have taken part in on the night of the bombings. And that went fine, and then a couple of days after that, they came up and they wanted now, they said, “Oh, we have to do some more videoing for the royal family.” Once again, I knew it was a load of nonsense, but this time, the videos contained, not the mechanics of the bombing, which is what the first ones were, but the second video session was all about why we did it and why I was a spy for the British government, and what I hoped to achieve in setting off bombs, which were ostensibly against Western targets within Saudi Arabia. And from that, they made what you have seen on television, that which was broadcast on Saudi Arabian television.
AMY GOODMAN: William Sampson, I want to play an audio excerpt of that so-called confession.
WILLIAM SAMPSON: I admit and acknowledge that I participated with Mr. Alexander Mitchell in setting up an explosive device on the vehicle belonging to Mr. Christopher Rodway, a British national. I detonated the explosive device using a remote control switch. Mr. Mitchell and I then headed South towards Al-Jazeera. Two days later, Mr. Mitchell ordered me to set up a second explosion with the participation of Mr. Raf Schyvens, a Belgian national.
AMY GOODMAN: That was William Sampson in 2001, after how many weeks of imprisonment and torture?
WILLIAM SAMPSON: That would have been, as I said, six weeks, two days -- six weeks, three days, when that video was made. It wasn't broadcast until February 5th, oddly enough, my father's 70th birthday.
AMY GOODMAN: And the response of people around the world?
WILLIAM SAMPSON: Those who knew me did not believe that I had done those crimes, and they believed that I had been forced to make those confessions. I am certain that there may have been other people out there who would think, well, he's confessing, he must have done it, but then they don't know the background behind those tapes, and they aren’t experienced enough to analyze that video performance. I have certainly seen a number of reports from psychologists who reviewed it, and they have basically said whoever was making those statements had been coerced into them. They said that about my statements. They said that about those of all of the detainees that were forced to do the same thing.
AMY GOODMAN: When did your father first get to see you?
WILLIAM SAMPSON: He didn't get to see me until the summer. He first got to see me on February 5th, on his birthday, as I said, when he saw those videos, but he didn't see me personally until in June of 2001. He came out to Saudi Arabia on a visit. And that was part and parcel of a – all I can think of, as a propaganda exercise. I had had a couple of heart attacks as a result of the torture.
AMY GOODMAN: How old are you?
WILLIAM SAMPSON: Forty-seven, well, forty-six going on forty-seven, and at the time that I had the heart attacks, that would have been 2001. I would have been forty-two.
AMY GOODMAN: And did you have a history in your family of heart trouble?
WILLIAM SAMPSON: Yeah, when they're about eighty years old. Most of my family die of heart disease at some stage. Usually some stage between about – let’s see, my uncle Bill was one of the younger ones. He died at seventy-eight. He was a life-long smoker, as well. Most of the rest of them died in their mid-eighties and up to their nineties. So, yes, we have heart disease in the family, but it doesn't tend to take us out until we're of a ripe old age, as is most cases with most families. So, I wasn't a prime candidate for heart disease at that age. I would have been forty-two, although my cardiologist that I have been seeing in London has said to me that sleep deprivation, which I had been subjected to quite prolonged periods of was probably the single the most important factor in causing the heart condition.
AMY GOODMAN: We're talking to William Sampson, who was imprisoned by the Saudi regime for over two-and-a-half years and has written a book that is brand new, just out, Confessions of an Innocent Man: Torture and Survival in a Saudi Prison. He was released in 2003. Can you talk about your first hallucination?
WILLIAM SAMPSON: Well, that happened about five days into my imprisonment, and I hadn't had – as I said, I was under a regime of sleep deprivation, chained to my door so I couldn't sit down and I couldn’t sleep. And all I can remember was seeing something moving on the wall. I don't like spiders. I have never liked spiders. And what I thought was moving on the wall was a spider, and within a few minutes I had a prison cell full of spiders, the sort of – how does one put it? -- the sort of things you might see in some ridiculous horror film or at the New York Zoo or something like that, the sort of Amazonian bird-eating spiders, the things that are about the size of your hand. And I saw these walking all around my prison cell. And then I could feel the sensation of something creeping over my body, my entire skin tingling with it, and I spent my time in the cell – I – one part of me was battling with the fact that these were illusions, this was an hallucination. The other part of it thought it was completely real. And it was – you know, it drives you to the edge – that was driving me at that time to the edge of sanity.
AMY GOODMAN: How long hadn't you slept for?
WILLIAM SAMPSON: By that stage, five days, a full five days. And I wouldn't sleep until I had been – had gone through a total of eleven days of sleep deprivation on that first session. Then the next session of sleep deprivation was fourteen days. I had the hallucinations again, but I had learned to cope with them better. My third period of sleep deprivation, which led to my heart attack, was twenty days.
AMY GOODMAN: We're going to come back to our discussion with William Sampson, find out about his meetings with his father, what the Canadian and British governments were doing, what the Saudi regime was saying, how he finally got out. This is Democracy Now!, DemocracyNow.org. Our guest is William Sampson, author of Confessions of an Innocent Man.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: Our guest is William Sampson, a Canadian citizen, also British citizen, held in a Saudi jail for close to three years, has written a book, Confessions of an Innocent Man: Torture and Survival in a Saudi Prison. So, you're talking about your time in prison. They tortured you, you say?
WILLIAM SAMPSON: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: Raped you?
WILLIAM SAMPSON: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: Who?
WILLIAM SAMPSON: Khaled and a chap I call the Spiv. I never had his name; I never knew what his name was. But about day nine, after I had confessed to being a bomber, but before I confessed to being a spy, they had begun to soften me up again with demands to confess to being a spy. And one day, as I said, on day nine, I was led into the office. The usual participants, Khaled and Ibrahim weren’t there, and I was only in the company of Spiv who had always --
AMY GOODMAN: You nicknamed him that?
WILLIAM SAMPSON: I nicknamed him that. I had no other name for him. So I just gave him a nickname, because of what he reminded me of. He had this very thin little moustache that sort of reminded me of a particular period of fashion for that sort of thing back in the 1940s. Worn by sort of --
AMY GOODMAN: Is this how you kept your sanity, by --
WILLIAM SAMPSON: By these sort of references and these sort of rude remarks about my captors under my breath, yes. That was one of the methods, one of the tactics that I used. Dehumanizing them to a certain extent in the way that they were trying to dehumanize me, I guess, would be one way of putting it.
But all throughout the interrogation, I had always found him a bit strange or a bit unsettling, because he had been using sort of almost sexual intimidation as part of his interrogation strategy. But rather than it just seemed to be sexual intimidation, it did actually seem to be some real sexual overture in it. And I then discovered that there was, because I was taken across the hall from where -- from the interrogation office into the room where I had normally been beaten, and there I was raped by him and then I was raped by Khaled, the next. And that seems to have been done with everyone's foreknowledge, because the next day he repeated the process, and he got into an argument with Khaled about it. So obviously, day nine I was supposed to have been raped, but day ten I wasn't supposed to have been.
AMY GOODMAN: How did you keep your sanity?
WILLIAM SAMPSON: It was very, very hard to. I think at the time of the rape on day nine I came as close to losing sanity, of coming to a complete mental and emotional breakdown, as I was ever likely to. And I, just as I said, had a realization -- I mean, describing it takes longer than the actual realization itself. And the realization came in a split second. A piece of poetry filtered into my mind from my childhood, from my adolescence, and I had this realization that nothing they could do to me, no matter what pain they inflicted upon me, could be any worse than had already happened, and I had survived that. And I was still -- there was still some small part of me intact that I could find and retreat into. And at that moment, I knew I could endure, but I -- you know, and I knew that I could survive. And that was it, from that point on, I was -- let's say, not -- I was on my way back. I wasn't going to be up to resist the torture and not give them what they wanted, but I could survive emotionally intact nonetheless.
AMY GOODMAN: When you see the pictures at Abu Ghraib, the reports of what’s happened at Guantanamo, what is your response?
WILLIAM SAMPSON: It's damned barbaric. It’s that simple. It is morally wrong. There is no other way of describing it. And not only is it morally wrong, it's a political mistake. And it is also a mistake in terms of intelligence gathering. Politically it's a mistake, because all it is going to do is continue to store up ill-will towards the United States and towards the Western countries that are allies of the United States in various regions around the world. And that is not going to make anyone any safer, regardless of the information that they gartner from the techniques that they apply in places like Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. But worse still is the fact that in doing that, the information that they gather is oftentimes, most of the time, it is bad information, bad intelligence.
AMY GOODMAN: As in your case? What you confessed to?
WILLIAM SAMPSON: I can point to at least nine confessions that I know of in Saudi Arabia, including my own, that were false, myself and my fellow detainees that were held in Riyadh. But I can also point to false confessions of British nationals held in Guantanamo, such as the Tipton Three, three British nationals of Pakistani ethnic origin, who were released from Guantanamo, although they had confessed to being al-Qaeda operatives that had been in Tora Bora with Osama bin Laden. Unfortunately, during the timings of their supposed confessions extracted from them in Guantanamo, British intelligence actually discovered CCTV footage of them being at their workplace in Tipton, Yorkshire at the Currys electrical goods store.
That's the product of coercive -- what the people in Guantanamo are trying to define as coercive interrogation, but which does conform to torture under the United Nations Convention Against Torture. That’s what you get from it. You get bad information that has the wrong people in prison and has your intelligence operatives following bad leads. It does not make you safer. It does not protect you as a society.
AMY GOODMAN: The Bush administration is seeking a C.I.A. exemption from torture, cruel, inhuman, degrading punishment?
WILLIAM SAMPSON: I'm sure Adolf Hitler did the same thing in 1939. It's as simple as that in my mind. It's wrong. And you should be -- anybody who -- anybody who indulges in an act of torture should be liable for prosecution. That's it.
AMY GOODMAN: Are you suing?
WILLIAM SAMPSON: No exemptions because you're working for a government, no exemptions because you're claiming right on your side. It is morally wrong, and it is a bad thing to do. It's bad, as I said, morally, it is bad politically, and it’s bad in terms of intelligence. And you should be held accountable for doing it.
AMY GOODMAN: Are you suing your captors?
WILLIAM SAMPSON: Yes. In a British courtroom. Because I have no chance of redress in Saudi Arabia and little chance in Britain, but at least a little bit more.
AMY GOODMAN: How are you going about this? Are you suing the Saudi regime itself?
WILLIAM SAMPSON: No, we're suing the individuals, because we have something in Britain called the State Immunity Act 1978, which prevents us from suing the state. So what we have -- what my lawyers, Geoffrey Bindman, quite intelligently decided to do, because he has been involved in attempting to overturn state immunity in a previous case and wasn't successful, so in our case, we decided to pursue the individuals, but not just the individuals who tortured us, but also the individuals who we could name, who colluded in the torture or who ordered the tortures.
So we are suing Khaled and Ibrahim, because we can name them, and they are the torturers. We are suing Mohammed Said, who is the governor of the prison, who ensured that we were prepared for torture, when he should have prevented it, as we were his responsibility. And we are suing Prince Naif, because he was the one who has constructed a regime in which torture is legitimized as a normal state tool when that is not supposed to be the case.
AMY GOODMAN: Did the British or Canadian government ever contest that torture went on in Saudi Arabia?
WILLIAM SAMPSON: Against us, no, they never did. They have actually denied it, and they have been silent about that. Privately, they have sort of -- privately, the British government, in example, has sort of said that they believe that we are innocent and that they believe that we were tortured. They, the British government, has actually got medical reports from a number of us who have had medical investigations that prove torture.
AMY GOODMAN: You and --
WILLIAM SAMPSON: Myself, Alexander Mitchell, Les Walker, James Cottle, Peter Brandon --
AMY GOODMAN: These are all men who were picked up for these bombings?
WILLIAM SAMPSON: All men picked up for these bombings. Ron Jones is another one. There's a total of six Britons, I believe, who got -- who have been to the Parker Institute and had the medical examinations done there, and have confirmatory evidence, evidence that can stand up in court from a medical technique that has being peer-reviewed in the scientific literature.
AMY GOODMAN: The Canadian embassy officials who came to see you, did they know you were being tortured at the time?
WILLIAM SAMPSON: No, they did not. They were working under the -- it would seem that they were working under the assumption that I wasn't being tortured, or they certainly didn't want to know if I was.
AMY GOODMAN: Could you convey it to them in your meetings?
WILLIAM SAMPSON: The answer to that is, not really. I should have conveyed it to them in my meetings, but the problem for me was that all of my meetings that were conducted with the Canadian embassy officials were done in the presence of the two men that tortured me. Although, one or two of the meetings were done in just the presence of one of the ones who tortured me, it was normal that somebody who had tortured me was there at the meetings with the embassy officials.
AMY GOODMAN: You were afraid?
WILLIAM SAMPSON: Oh, yeah. I mean, the first couple of meeting -- before – in just about every embassy meeting I had, I would be taken before Khaled and Ibrahim prior to the meeting and told what I could and could not say and threatened. And the result is that when I had the first meeting at about week six, I had just come through 28 days of extreme brutality and during which I had been sodomized. I was not in a frame of mind that had enough courage to actually turn around and say that I had been tortured. I eventually did so when I got so -- became angry enough to do it, but that took a while before that happened?
AMY GOODMAN: Can you explain how you communicated with your father, when he came to visit you, in code?
WILLIAM SAMPSON: Well, the simple fact was that my father knew my background better than anyone else. And I reckon that if he -- if I said something to him, which contained deliberate mistakes at the beginning, he would get that I was trying to say something to him. He would understand that there was, you know -- I don't recognize what he is saying now, and this must be a deliberate mistake; maybe there's something in what he’s going to say.
AMY GOODMAN: Or he would think you were just crazy.
WILLIAM SAMPSON: No. I knew my father better than that. And he knew me better than that. And so, I delivered him a message about, you know, tell the boys in St. Stephen’s – well, I have never been to a school called St. Stephen’s in all of the academic institutions I have attended in my life -- that it’s just like being back in boarding school – well, I have never been in a boarding school. I have gone to a -- I was educated in a private school, but I was not a resident of that school. But it's just like being back in boarding school, the mattresses are lumpy, the food is lousy, and there's plenty of attention from Dr. Birching. That was again a sort of semi-coded reference again to the practice of birching, the medieval practice of birching in the United Kingdom, which is being beaten with a stick; alright, which my father understood. I also pointed out to him that he should remember me to my friends in Rosyth, which is a British naval dockyard, which I have never been to and which I don't have any friends in, and my father would know that.
AMY GOODMAN: And why did you say that?
WILLIAM SAMPSON: Because of the fact I said, to remember me to my friends in Rosyth, tell them it's just like being back in the navy. It's just like being in the navy; there's no rum, but there's plenty of the other two. And that’s response to the sort of criticism of the royal navy, that it was nothing, but rum, sodomy and the lash. By saying that there's no rum but plenty of the other two, he would understand the other two meant sodomy and the lash. And he picked up on both of those things, and he informed the embassy, I believe my son is being beat and brutalized, and they were in denial about it, so much in denial about it that they actually told him during one of his visits that I was guilty of the crimes that I had committed. Yet they had, as I said, never seen any evidence of that.
AMY GOODMAN: How did you get out?
WILLIAM SAMPSON: Well, we were released in August of 2003, but how -- and lots of things were talked about, you know, back-channel diplomacy and building bridges, but what really got us out was, plain and simple, an illegal hostage exchange. We were exchanged for five Saudi Arabians detained in Guantanamo as al-Qaeda operatives. Now, whether or not these people were genuine al-Qaeda operatives, I cannot say. They could have been innocent, just as we were, or they could have been guilty. In either case, what was then conducted was something which was completely and utterly illegal. You had at least what would have been eight innocent men, eight, nine innocent men in Riyadh being bartered for five people of a status I can’t comment on one way or another. And I haven’t heard anywhere that that sort of thing is legal. As a matter of fact, I keep hearing countries like Britain and the United States saying they don't negotiate in hostage taking situations. Well, what were they doing in our case?
That all took -- started around about October 2002 and was finalized sometime in February. The process was speeded up because -- I think as a means of speeding the process up and reaching the final agreement on it, the Saudi Arabian Appeal Court finally handed down their final verdict on myself and Alexander Mitchell and sentenced us to death in February of 2003. We had already been sentenced to death, but we had undergone a second set of appeals, and that was finally handed down around about January/February of 2003. And then the process of finalizing the negotiations for our release was done. The Saudis were supposed to be released in May 2005; they were. We were supposed to go home either at the end of May or the beginning of June, and we didn't. And then followed some further arm-twisting.
AMY GOODMAN: They were released in 2005?
WILLIAM SAMPSON: 2003.
AMY GOODMAN: 2003.
WILLIAM SAMPSON: 2003. Sorry. And as I said, we were supposed to be released within a couple of weeks of them; that didn't happen. And there were various -- there was various questions raised about this, particularly by the Belgians who were taking a back seat in the negotiations, because the negotiations centered around, as far as I have been made aware, the British, American, and Saudi Arabian governments were involved in this. The Canadian and the Belgian governments who had nationals involved were on the sidelines. They were informed, but they were not involved.
AMY GOODMAN: We have to go. For ten seconds, your life right now, what are you doing?
WILLIAM SAMPSON: Basically, I’m promoting the book, obviously. I have been doing a lot of work with human rights organizations over the last couple of years. And I'm getting ready to go back to law school.
AMY GOODMAN: William Sampson, I want to thank you for being with us. He tells the story of his imprisonment in a Saudi jail in his book, Confessions of an Innocent Man: Torture and Survival in a Saudi Prison.
-------- POLITICS
-------- propaganda wars
Al Jazeera Demands Answers from Bush Administration
Monday, November 28th, 2005
Headlines Democracy Now!
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/28/1455246
The director-general of the Arabic tv network Al-Jazeera has demanded Washington respond to reports that President Bush wanted to bomb the network's headquarters in Doha. Last week the Daily Mirror cited a secret British memo revealing that Bush told Tony Blair last year of his desire to bomb the news outlet. The Bush administration has described the Daily Mirror's report as "outlandish." Officials at Al Jazeera are now questioning whether the U.S. might have been targeting the network when it bombed its bureaus in Afghanistan in 2001 and in Baghdad in April 2003. The attack in Iraq killed Al Jazeera's correspondent Tariq Ayub. Ayub's widow, Dima, said she is now considering suing the U.S. government for her husband's death. She said "America always claimed it was an accident. But I believe the new revelations prove that claim was false or at least not trustworthy." Meanwhile in Britain a ban remains in place on all media outlets from disclosing the contents of the secret memo. But a member of parliament - Boris Johnson - has vowed to publish the memo and risk jail time if anyone leaks him the document.
-------- OTHER
-------- environment
Chinese City Turns Taps Back on After Toxic Spill
Story by Benjamin Kang Lim
REUTERS CHINA: November 28, 2005
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/33678/newsDate/28-Nov-2005/story.htm
BEIJING - China's northeastern city of Harbin turned on the taps again on Sunday after a toxic spill into its river left millions without water for five days and an 80-km (50-mile) slick still flowing beyond the city.
Water supplies in Harbin, capital of Heilongjiang province, were resumed at 1000 GMT and provincial Governor Zhang Zuoji drank tap water to prove it was safe, state media said.
Hospitals, schools, homes and party and government institutions will be given priority access to water, but bath houses and car washes will remain closed, state television said.
Tests by environmental protection officials at 0600 GMT showed the level of nitro-benzene in the water at 0.0034 milligrams per litre, meeting national standards, the local government Web site said. No traces of benzene were found.
The water was 30 times above official safety limits two days ago. Water was discharged from nearby reservoirs to dilute the toxic spill and 1,000 soldiers raced to ensure water would be drinkable by installing charcoal filters at water plants.
An explosion at a chemical plant in nearby Jilin province about two weeks ago poured an estimated 100 tonnes of cancer-causing benzene compounds into the Songhua river from which the city of nine million pumps its water.
The Harbin crisis has raised wider questions about the costs of China's breakneck economic boom. Around 70 percent of its rivers are contaminated, and the cabinet recently described the country's environmental situation as grim.
"Environmental problems in China are not something far away, but are threatening our daily life," Pan Yue, vice minister of environmental protection, told the official Xinhua news agency.
In Lengshuijiang city in the southern province of Hunan, water supplies were suspended for 12 hours on Friday after fertiliser maker Jinxin Chemical Co. Ltd. accidentally spilled more than 100 cubic metres of ammonia nitrate into the Zijiang river, the Beijing Youth Daily said on Sunday.
The city, which has a population of 100,000, resumed water supplies after tests showed pollutants in the water did not exceed acceptable levels, the newspaper said, adding that the spill would not have any impact on cities downstream.
THOUSANDS STILL AT RISK
Environmentalists have complained China is not sharing enough information about the Harbin spill to protect Russia's rivers and residents, including 1.5 million people in the Siberian city of Khabarovsk, which draws water from the Amur River, fed by the Songhua.
Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing on Saturday expressed regret to Russia's ambassador over the incident and briefed him on the situation.
The river slick had passed Harbin by early Sunday morning, the Heilongjiang provincial Environmental Protection Bureau said.
But it could still affect hundreds of thousands more people in China alone as it heads downstream.
The Jilin chemical plant's parent, China National Petroleum Corp., has apologised for the pollution in the Songhua river.
But one newspaper accused Jilin of trying to hush up the disaster, and even Xinhua called on officials to be more frank.
Premier Wen Jiabao visited Harbin on Saturday and pledged openness about the incident on behalf of a communist leadership often accused at home and abroad of covering up the truth of disasters, disease outbreaks and social problems.
He also urged university students to stay calm and stopped at a supermarket to check the prices of bottled water. Store shelves were cleared of bottled water by panicking residents last week but calm has returned to the city.
Two residents have lodged court claims for damages in Harbin courts, a rare step in China.
----
China's Water Crisis Displays Party Power, Secrecy
Story by Chris Buckley
REUTERS CHINA: November 28, 2005
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/33671/newsDate/28-Nov-2005/story.htm
HARBIN, China - As residents of Harbin waited to turn their taps back on after a five-day shutdown, China's Communist Party officials was already lauding the pollution crisis as a display of its strength and authority.
On Sunday the toxic chemical spill on the Songhua river that threatened water supplies passed beyond the northeastern city of 9 million, and piped water was due to be restored within the day.
"People have seen the government's ability and decisiveness in dealing with the water shutdown, and the rapid victory has created confidence in the government," commented the official Xinhua news agency.
Indeed, over the past week, Harbin reverted to traditional Communist mobilisation of thousands of party members, officials and soldiers to ensure the city's water shutdown did not spark wider social unrest.
About 300 teams of officials were organised to manage queues of residents waiting at trucks distributing free water, and over 1,000 troops installed new charcoal filters to purify the city's water. Now the city faces a glut of bottled water.
But if the city's ordeal demonstrated the Party's continued organisational muscle, it also laid bare Chinese officials' habitual reluctance to share information with citizens.
At a time when China faces major health threats such as bird flu and AIDS, this habitual secretiveness can worsen the very crises the Party aims to solve, said Mao Shoulong, a public policy expert at the People's University of China in Beijing.
"China still has powerful organisational resources, and they can be mobilised to cope with crises, but they can also become an obstacle to communication and coordination," he said.
After a chemical plant in nearby Jilin exploded on Nov.13, officials there hid the fact that 100 tonnes of benzene had washed into the nearby Songhua river. They hoped the poisons would dilute before doing major damage, said Mao, the academic.
Two Harbin businessmen who deal regularly with senior officials there said Jilin told Harbin about the impending problem on Nov. 18. and pressured the city to deal quietly with the spill.
"Jilin went directly to Harbin, not to the provincial or central government, because it hoped to deal with this secretly," said one of the businessmen, who requested anonymity.
"WARNING BELL"
Last Monday, Harbin officials notified citizens that the city's taps would be shut off for maintenance, but word of the chemical spill soon spread amid rising panic as residents scrambled to buy bottled water or leave the city.
This prompted officials to decide to reveal the true reason for the shutdown on Tuesday.
Some residents even said the government deliberately stoked rumours of an imminent earthquake as a cover for the water crisis.
Li Yizhong, a central government official sent to conduct an enquiry, said on Saturday that Jilin officials found responsible for the spill and apparent cover-up may be prosecuted.
Even Chinese newspapers chided the government for hiding the truth from citizens. And Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao urged officials to be truthful in the face of crisis.
Chinese environmental campaigners said the widely reported drama of a major city kept thirsty and unwashed by pollution may spur greater official candour about pollution.
"China is becoming more open with information, but it's a process," said Wang Yongchen, a Beijing-based environmental campaigner. "This was a warning bell for China."
But officials also sought to draw another lesson from the crisis: that China's 70-million strong Communist Party remains a vital guarantor of people's needs in times of need. "The people's servants and the public are intertwined like rope, and residents and the government have drawn close," Xinhua said.
Mao, the academic, said Harbin's experience highlighted the limits of the Party's "mobilising" approach to crisis.
"Officials still don't grasp how powerful public opinion has become -- powerful enough that secrecy just won't work any longer," he said.
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Quake in East China Kills Fourteen
REUTERS CHINA: November 28, 2005
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/33690/newsDate/28-Nov-2005/story.htm
BEIJING - An earthquake killed 14 people, injured nearly 400 and destroyed 8,500 homes in Jiangxi province in eastern China on Saturday morning, the official Xinhua agency reported.
Some 130,000 homes were damaged in the worst-hit Jiujiang and Ruicheng counties, while 420,000 people moved to safer areas. Emergency officials rushed tents to the zone to shelter the homeless and earthquake specialists flew down from Beijing.
The quake, which measured 5.7 on the Richter scale, hit at 8.49 am local time. It was followed around 20 minutes later by two aftershocks, Xinhua said.
State media showed images of crumpled or cracked houses, a mother crying outside the home where her daughter was trapped and residents moving their bedding outside for fear of damaged buildings or aftershocks.
By noon local time 6 people were reported dead in Jiujiang county, while 247 were injured, 8000 houses had collapsed and 29,000 were damaged, Xinhua said.
The US Geological Survey said on its website (www.earthquake.usgs.gov/recenteqsww/Quakes/usfwbf.htm) that the earthquake was "moderate" and of magnitude 5.5 at a depth of 10kms (6.2 miles).
In Ruicheng county, 6 people died, 130 were injured, 500 houses collapsed and 100,000 were damaged, Xinhua said. It was not clear where the other two victims were killed.
Jiujiang's earthquake management office said the epicentre lay near the boundary between the two counties.
In Ruicheng's Baiyang town, a carpenter fell to his death from a building he was mending, said an official from the town of 10,000, adding that many buildings had collapsed.
"We have no tents so we are worried about the health of the old and the young if they have to sleep outside."
Many people are scared to return home even to collect food or clothes, and the government was encouraging people to spend the night in the open air, although temperatures could slide to 8 degrees Celsius, said another official surnamed Zhang.
The quake was also felt in neighbouring Hunan, Hubei and Anhui provinces, state television reported, while in the industrial hub of Wuhan, people frightened by the tremors rushed into the street.
"We were having breakfast when we heard someone outside shouting 'earthquake', so we ran out. The streets were packed with people," retiree Zhang Zhen told Reuters by telephone.
-------- ACTIVISTS
Cindy Sheehan Returns to Crawford Texas
Monday, November 28th, 2005
Headlines Democracy Now!
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/28/1455246
And anti-war protests returned to Crawford Texas last week where President Bush was celebrating Thanksgiving. On Wednesday about a dozen protesters - including Daniel Ellsberg - were arrested. They were charged with violating new rules put in place after thousands gathered for a month-long vigil in August organized by Cindy Sheehan, whose son died in Iraq. "We're here to say that the killing has to stop. That we're not going to justify any more killing on our losses. And we will, we're not going away," said Sheehan. "We don't hate anybody. We just want people to be held accountable. And just because someone is the president of the United States it doesn't guarantee them immunity from accountability." That was Cindy Sheehan whose son Casey died in Iraq
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War protesters pack up, leave campsite near Bush ranch
11/28/2005 12:12 PM (AP)
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-11-28-war-protesters_x.htm
CRAWFORD, Texas — Dozens of war protesters packed up their tents and left their campsite near President Bush's ranch after a weeklong demonstration, but they promised to return at Easter if U.S. troops are still in Iraq.
About 200 people participated in the protest, which coincided with Bush's Thanksgiving holiday visit to his ranch and wound up Sunday. It was a continuation of the August demonstration led by activist Cindy Sheehan, of Vacaville, Calif., whose son Casey was killed in Iraq last year.
Protesters credit the summer vigil, which they say attracted some 12,000 people over 26 days, with shifting American sentiment about the war. They said they returned during Thanksgiving week to keep pressure on Bush to end the war, even though they knew turnout would be lower during the holidays.
A few Bush supporters gathered again Sunday in the Crawford Coffee Station parking lot, where a store marquee read: "You are home. We support you. Happy Thanksgiving." One Bush supporter had signs — "Score: Cindy, 3. USA, 403" — referring to House Republicans' recent vote on a non-binding resolution to pull out the troops from Iraq that was rejected 403-3.
In addition to promising a return for Easter, many protesters plan to return to the area for the January court date of 12 activists arrested last week. They challenged the new county bans on roadside parking and camping by setting up tents at Sheehan's original site, in ditches off the main road leading to Bush's ranch.
"We're here for the long haul. As long as this country is at war with Iraq, we'll be here to oppose it," said Hadi Jawad, a co-founder of the Crawford Peace House, which opened a month after the war began in March 2003. "I think Crawford has become a point of pilgrimage to a lot of people. This has become hallowed ground."
The landowner who let the anti-war demonstrators use the property the last few weeks of the August vigil has leased it to them through next year. And before last week's demonstration, the group had water and electricity installed.