NucNews - December 4, 2005


-------- NUCLEAR 

Over 200 ‘abnormal events’ at nuclear plants since 2000

By Rob Edwards
04 December 2005 UK Sunday Herald

http://www.sundayherald.com/53177
 
A DELIBERATE attempt to disrupt security with a tripwire is one of more than 200 “abnormal events” at Scotland’s two nuclear power stations revealed in documents obtained by the Sunday Herald.

Other safety incidents recorded at Torness in East Lothian and Hunterston in North Ayrshire include unauthorised waste discharges and problems with reactor fuel and fires. The environment and equipment at the sites have also been contaminated with radioactivity.

On a couple of occasions, manning levels have breached those required by site emergency arrangements. And once the wrong computer software was loaded into a reactor control system.

The incidents were all reported to the government’s Health and Safety Executive (HSE) by the nuclear power company British Energy in the last five years. The HSE released summaries of the incident reports in response to a freedom of information request from the Sunday Herald.

The most serious incident was the discovery of the tripwire at Torness. Police were called to the plant in March 2003 after a black cable was found stretched across the top of a flight of stairs.

This had caused a security guard patrolling the nuclear site to trip and fall down the stairs. Both the police and British Energy launched investigations to try and trace the culprit.

The cable was found to have been cut from a coil at Torness, but forensic and other tests were unable to track down the culprit. Investigations had to be abandoned due to a lack of evidence.

The revelation of the incident has rekindled fears that nuclear plants could be vulnerable to sabotage by terrorists. Police chief superintendent David McCracken told East Lothian councillors last week that Torness was a target for international terrorist groups.

Pete Roche, a consultant to the anti-nuclear group Greenpeace, described the tripwire incident as “particularly worrying”. The unknown insider who had set the trap could still be working at Torness, he pointed out.

He said: “When considering whether we want another nuclear station at Torness, we should ask ourselves what kind of energy policy would Osama bin Laden want us to adopt.”

Roche argued that many of the other incidents at Torness and Hunterston were not trivial. “They illustrate well that just saying we have never had a serious accident doesn’t mean we never will,” he said.

Between June 2000 and June 2005 British Energy filed 230 incident reports about Torness to the HSE, 39 of then in the past six months. A further 59 reports were filed for Hunterston B, 26 of them in 2005.

On February 17, 2005 at Torness, according to one report, “a nuclear safety-related door in the essential supply building was left open, thus degrading the hazard boundary”. At Hunterston on March 26, 2001 there was a “potential discharge of boiler water via unconsented discharge route”.

British Energy, however, argued that most of the incidents were minor, reflecting the fact that it reported any anomaly to the safety regulators. “By capturing and dealing with the minor anomalies, the company and the industry ensures nothing serious ever happens,” said a company spokeswoman.

“The regulator is also able to prove that it is holding us to account on the minute details so that the public can be reassured about the attention to detail on safety. We believe the public wouldn’t want it any other way.”

The tripwire incident had been taken very seriously by British Energy, but nothing like it had happened before or since. “Safety is one of the company’s fundamental priorities and any safety contravention is treated very seriously,” the spokeswoman added.

“In the nuclear industry there are no grey areas. Something is either right or it is not. There are no degrees of right or wrong.”



-------- asia

Myanmar downplays UN Security Council decision on briefing

Sunday December 4, 2005 3:06 AM AFP

http://sg.news.yahoo.com/051203/1/3x08d.html
http://www.spacewar.com/2005/051203105928.2fd17b6q.html

Myanmar's military regime downplayed a decision by the UN Security Council to call for a formal briefing on the situation in the country.

The junta also strongly denied accusations by the US ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, that it was "seeking nuclear power capabilities," saying they were "baseless".

Myanmar Information Minister Brigadier General Kyaw Hsann, at a rare news conference here, said "regarding the UN Security Council, we are continuing with what we have to do. Their accusations are wrong," he said.

"It has been said that there is a nuclear reactor in our country, but we don't have anything. Everyone knows we don't have a nuclear reactor. We are fighting baseless accusations," the minister added.

His comments came after Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) lawmakers called for the possible expulsion of Myanmar from the group unless its military rulers carry out substantial democratic reforms within a year.

The chairman of ASEAN's Inter-parliamentary Myanmar Caucus (AIPMC), Zaid Ibrahim, said the regional grouping had to show it was not complicit with the military junta in Yangon.

"I think the longer the situation goes, this lack of progress and this lack of reform in Myanmar, for ASEAN to do nothing would suggest ASEAN is supporting the regime," Zaid told AFP.

"We must do something about the membership of Myanmar. Either a suspension or an expulsion," he said.

Malaysian opposition lawmaker and AIPMC member Lim Kit Siang said promises from Yangon to move towards democracy had been broken, pointing to the recent extension of house detention for pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

"No light is appearing at the end of the tunnel," said Lim.

"We've seen Aung San Suu Kyi's detention renewed and the junta uprooting itself and relocating to a deserted spot when even basic infrastructure is not available," he said.

The junta is in the process of moving the government to Pyinmanar, a mountain town 320 kilometers (200 miles) north of Yangon, because it is more centrally located with easy access to highways and railways.

In his letter to the Security Council president, Bolton pointed to press reports that the regime was "seeking nuclear power capabilities, diverting scarce resources better used to address the needs of the Burmese people".

The council's agreement does not mean the Security Council will put Myanmar on its formal agenda, but that a senior UN official will brief member states on the situation in the country.

Russia's UN envoy Andrei Denisov said Friday the agenda was "overloaded", while his country and Asian members of the council said they believed Myanmar posed no immediate threat to international or regional security.

On Thursday, an Asian human rights group released in Washington what it called the most comprehensive report on torture in Myanmar, accusing the military junta of "brutal and systematic" abuse of political prisoners.

The 124-page report by the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners was based on interviews with 35 former political prisoners and, for the first time, identified military officers directly responsible for the torture.

The group detailed physical, psychological and sexual abuses as well as poor prison conditions and medical negligence purportedly encouraged by the regime.

US Senator John McCain said the report "demonstrates that torture of political prisoners is a state policy" of Myanmar's junta.

Last month, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution slamming Yangon's systematic violations of human rights, including extrajudicial killings, use of torture, rape, forced labor and harassment of political opponents.



-------- britain

BE seeks nuclear green light

GUY DIXON
Last updated: 04-Dec-05 01:27 GMT

http://business.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=2347572005

UNCERTAINTY over the government's energy policy is deterring financial institutions from investing in the industry, according to the boss of one of Britain's biggest energy companies.

Bill Coley, chief executive of nuclear generator British Energy, said institutions are waiting until next summer - when Tony Blair will announce the outcome of the government's review of the nuclear industry - before deciding whether to pump billions into building the next generation of nuclear reactors.

If, as expected, the Prime Minister gives the green light for nuclear, energy producers including BE will have to go to the institutions to raise funds to cover the huge construction costs. Mitsui Babcock, the engineering services company, estimates that it will cost around £12bn to build 10 nuclear stations.

Coley said the Prime Minister must give a clear answer when he does report next summer. He said: "I think it's great Tony Blair is moving forward on energy policy. If people can have a degree of certainty that the way is clear to make an investment and build assets, the energy business can find the money.

"I don't believe that there's a shortage of money if investors are certain that the assets can be built. They need signals that would take uncertainty out of the way. I have heard people talk very favourably about nuclear investment."

Coley would not be drawn on the outcome of the government's review, but said: "I hope there are some clear signals. What I would say is at this point, the available generating capacity is declining, and nowhere in the country is there a significant commitment to building new capacity."

BE, a member of the FTSE 100 which generates around one-fifth of the UK's electricity, operates eight nuclear power stations, including two in Scotland - Torness in East Lothian and Hunterston B in Ayrshire - and one coal-fired plant at Eggborough in Yorkshire. The company's ageing fleet is gradually being decommissioned.

Coley, a veteran of the US power industry from his time with Duke Power, part of the $27bn revenue Duke Energy giant, was parachuted into BE in March to turn around the company, which survived a financial meltdown last year only with government support.

Faced with the prospect of one of the country's most strategically important businesses falling into administration last year, the government stepped in with a £5bn rescue package for BE.

A controversial £1bn debt-for-equity swap was arranged - resulting in millions of pounds of shareholders' funds being wiped out - and BE re-listed on the stock market in January.

Coley said he was not currently interested in raising funds and was concentrating on improving the company's financial performance, ensuring the plants run smoothly and extending the life span of some of its plants.

He said that if the next generation of nuclear fission plants are given the green light, they will be more cost-efficient to build and run and will also produce less waste.

But he would not be drawn on whether this means that fewer new nuclear plants would need to be built in order to maintain current output.

One legacy of the government's bail-out of BE in 2002 is a complicated financing system, which results in 65% of BE's earnings above a certain level immediately being paid to the Nuclear Decommissioning Fund.

The fund is supposed to cover the billions needed to pay for the time-consuming and costly process of decommissioning the nuclear generators. But it also makes it hard for investors to value BE. Since re-listing, BE's shares have risen from 286p to close at 484.25p on Friday.

This article: http://business.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=2347572005



-------- canada

Pembroke divided over effects of nuclear waste
Residents say manufacturer has polluted area; mayor labels them 'anti-nuclear'
 
Hayley Mick
The Ottawa Citizen
Sunday, December 04, 2005

http://www.canada.com/ottawa/story.html?id=7a7723e1-ac91-4e7a-a24f-58b64f115709&k=70288

A Pembroke company that uses nuclear waste to manufacture glow-in-the-dark signs has contaminated the town's groundwater with radioactive material and created a rift among its residents.

Concerned residents say SRB Technologies has spiked their vegetables, pools and groundwater with dangerous radioactive tritium -- and they have the tests to prove it.

But others, including the mayor, say the whistleblowers are "purveyors of fear" trying to rid the town of nuclear operations at any cost.

SRB Technologies manufactures glow-in-the-dark signs using tritium, a waste product taken from Ontario's nuclear power plants.

Staff at the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC), the country's nuclear watchdog agency, say the company has created a pool of radioactive groundwater more than a kilometre long under the community of 15,000. The most contaminated water had tritium levels more than 700 times normal.

The company's current five-year licence expires on Dec. 31.

Last week, the CNSC recommended that the company be allowed to have another short-term, one-year licence, provided it follows new restrictions forcing it to clean up its environmental act.

The plant has temporarily shut down in order to figure out how to do just that. Regulators at the commission are now reviewing the recommendation.

However, some residents say they still have grave concerns about tritium pollution and are so afraid for their health that they may leave town.

Tritium is a radioactive form of hydrogen, which is used to manufacture everything from hydrogen bombs to glowing signs.

Kelly O'Grady lives less then two kilometres from the SRB plant, which is near residential homes, a skating arena and a family restaurant. She says she no longer feels safe in the town where she grew up and is raising a family.

"Every time the kids go play out in the snow, I wonder how much tritium they're picking up, and when it's raining, how much tritium is being brought down from the atmosphere."

For six years, a group calling itself Concerned Citizens of Renfrew County has been taking samples and paying to have them tested at the University of Waterloo.

They have found levels that are hundreds of times above normal in locally grown vegetables, pools and wells.

Pollutants are "being released into an urban area with no surrounding protective zone, which would limit exposure to the public," said Ole Hendrickson, an ecologist with Environment Canada and longtime Pembroke resident.

The company has been allowed to operate without proper environmental checks and balances for years, he says.

But Pembroke's mayor insists the town's air and water is safe. He suggests the group is skewing their numbers to rid the town of the plant.

"To put it bluntly, they're anti-nuclear," said Edward Jacyno.

While SRB Technologies may have some work to do, they've been "pretty responsible" since they first came to town in 1991. The company employs about 40 people in Pembroke.

That kind of business is "vital" to the town, according to the mayor, and the controversy surrounding its licence renewal has been front-page news in recent weeks.

Dozens of Pembroke residents made the 11/2-hour journey to Ottawa last week to attend a two-day public hearing on the issue.

Earlier this month, the CNSC recommended the plant be closed, after discovering the company couldn't provide reliable estimates on the amount of radioactivity being released into the Pembroke area.

But on the eve of the public hearing, CNSC staff changed their minds and granted the company a one-year licence with some new restrictions attached. The company must adhere to new environmental guidelines that include:

* More accurate measures of the company's emissions.

* Use of stacks that are at least 27.8 meters tall.

* A decrease by a factor of 15 in the maximum allowable weekly emissions.

* The use of an independent third party to monitor exhaust flow rates, emissions, and conduct environmental tests.

A groundwater contamination study will also be conducted in the area surrounding the plant and a report on its findings should be issued by next March.

SRB Technologies president Stephane Levesque was not available for comment yesterday, but said in an e-mail that the company had been working "diligently" for months to address concerns raised by the CNSC.

"We agree and understand that we have to improve our programs," he said. The plant will be closed indefinitely until those issues are addressed.

Mr. Jacyno is convinced that the right decision was made. The company's most vocal critics, too, say it is a step in the right direction.

"Progress was made, so I guess we can't be too disappointed," said Lynn Jones, who spoke on behalf of the Concerned Citizens of Renfrew County at last week's public hearing.



-------- israel

Israel warns diplomacy on Iran nuclear work will fail

TEL AVIV, Dec 4 (AFP) Dec 04, 2005

http://www.spacewar.com/2005/051204130547.rfov1sdr.html

Israel's army chief Dan Halutz predicted Sunday that diplomatic efforts on arch enemy Iran's controversial nuclear programme would fail but suggested a military strike was not yet on the cards.

"I believe that the political means that are being used by the Europeans and the Americans to convince the Iranians to stop will not end in stopping them," Halutz told reporters.

"The Iranians are determined to get a nuclear capability. From Israel's viewpoint such a situation is unacceptable... We should be prepared for the worst scenario."

But referring to the possibility of a pre-emptive strike against Iran, Halutz said: "Alternatives (to diplomacy) are not being considered yet."

"The other pressure is physical pressure. The question is who will be the one to implement it. When will it happen? I am not going to answer that but there are options worldwide," he added.

The Europeans are involved in efforts to persuade Iran to abandon uranium enrichment, a process which can make both nuclear fuel and the explosive core of a weapon.

The United States and Israel accuse Iran of using a nuclear fuel programme as a cover for developing the atomic bomb, charges Tehran has consistently denied.

Asked when Iran may have nuclear weapons capabilities, Halutz said: "Enrichment is the next step in order to have all the ingredients to create a meal.

"But cooking will take a few years...it varies from three six years, unless they already have a warhead. Maybe they have something, no-one knows."

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon meanwhile reiterated his pldege that Israel would not allow Iran to come into possession of nuclear weapons and expressed hope that Tehran would soon be dragged before the UN Security Council over its nuclear ambitions.

"I hope that Iran will be brought soon before the security council and sanctions will be imposed against her so that the nuclear process will stop," the prime minister said at a press conference in Jerusalem.

----

Israel voices worry over Iran-Russia missile deal

JERUSALEM (AFP) Dec 04, 2005

http://www.spacewar.com/2005/051204152346.oxjl8eaz.html

Israel on Sunday lambasted Russia over the sale of anti-missile systems to arch-enemy Iran, the latest round of what the local press has dubbed the "Iranian-Israeli arms race."

Iran, already under intense international pressure over its nuclear activities, has reportedly bought 29 mobile air defence systems from Moscow in a deal worth more than 700 million dollars.

"When a country sells arms to Iran, it strengthens the military strength of the state and serves only the interests of the most negative elements in the region," Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Marc Regev told AFP.

The contract with Russia, which is already helping Tehran build a nuclear reactor in Bushehr, coincided with an Israeli announcement it had successfully testfired an Arrow defence missile against a mock Shahab missile.

Tehran's rapid progress on its ballistic missile programme is a major cause for concern in the international community. Israel's own fears were heightened in October when Iran's hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the Jewish state must be "wiped off the map".

Iran has been constantly upgrading the Shahab-3 missile, a single-stage device that is believed to be based on a North Korean design and have a range of at least 2,000 kilometres (1,280 miles) -- meaning that arch-enemy Israel and US bases in the region are well within range.

"For the first time we have verified the Arrow's capabilities against the Iranian Shahab and this test has allowed us to demonstrate that we have the means to counter Iranian threats," Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz said Sunday.

The latest test of the Arrow, or Hetz in Hebrew -- which is not yet operational -- followed a pledge by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon that Israel would never allow Iran to come into possession of nuclear weapons.

The Shahab-3, which means "Meteor" or "Shooting Start" in Farsi, was once described by Israel's Mossad spy agency as the greatest threat to the Jewish state's existence since its creation in 1948.

First launched in 1988 during the now-defunct Star Wars strategy under former US president Ronald Reagan, the US-inspired Arrow programme was stepped up after Israel was hit by 39 Iraqi Scud missiles that left two people dead during the 1991 Gulf war.

Development of the Arrow is half-funded by the United States, which provides Israel with about three billion dollars in military and civilian aid each year.

Israel has repeatedly warned that Iran may be close to developing a nuclear weapon, saying the Islamic republic might be as little as six months away from having the means to build the bomb.

Its army chief Dan Halutz predicted Sunday diplomatic efforts to halt Iran's nuclear ambitions would fail but suggested a military strike was not yet on the cards.

"The Iranians are determined to get a nuclear capability. From Israel's viewpoint such a situation is unacceptable... We should be prepared for the worst scenario," he said.

Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, defended the Russian deal in an interview with AFP.

"Is this a problem? Do we need permission?" he said.

Russia's news agency ITAR-TASS on Friday quoted an unnamed top Russian defence ministry official as saying the deal involved 29 Tor M-1 mobile systems capable of bringing down both aircraft and missiles.

Israeli newspapers noted the weapons build-up with some alarm, with respected military commentator Alex Fishman calling the arms race a "cancerous illness" in a column in the top-selling Yediot Aharanot newspaper.

"The Iranians do not yet have nuclear weapons, but we are already at the early stage of the game: we are running an arms race against them for defensive weapons, trying to understand where they're headed and to run a few steps ahead," Fishman wrote.

"The race will go on unless some sort of miracle happens to stop this lunacy, which sucks billions of dollars from each side."

----

Iran threatens counter-strike

Dec 4, 2005 Iranian

http://www.iranian.ws/iran_news/publish/article_11293.shtml

An Iranian foreign ministry spokesman, Hamid Riza Asaffi, speaking with journalists in Teheran, said that recent Israeli statements on Iran's nuclear project showed that the Israeli government is frustrated from a failure to bring pressure from the international community to on Iran.

He claimed that a "serious crisis" within the "Zionist authorities" was the main factor behind what he described as Israeli threats. His comments were reported by the Islamic Republic News Agency.

"The Zionist authorities are well aware that if they make a foolish mistake against Iran, Iran's harsh response will be destructive and determined," said the spokesman. "Their approach comes from their anger over the fact that they can't realize their plans," he added.

----

Israel scorns Iran nuclear talks
Iran says its nuclear programme is for purely peaceful purposes

Sunday, 4 December 2005 (BBC)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4497286.stm

Israel's military chief says he doubts diplomatic efforts will prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.

Lt-Gen Dan Halutz said Iran had managed to fend off international pressure "time after time".

Gen Halutz said there were military options available to block Iran's nuclear project, but that these were not being considered yet.

Some Western countries suspect Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapons, but Tehran says its programme is peaceful.

It says it has the right to enrich uranium and use it to generate energy.

However, enriched uranium can also be used in nuclear bombs.

Iranians 'determined'

The EU, with the backing of the US, has been leading efforts to persuade Iran to give up its enrichment attempts.

However, they have not yet roused enough international support to take the matter to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions.

"The fact that the Iranians are successful time after time in getting away from international pressure... encourages them to continue their nuclear project," Gen Halutz said.

"I believe that the political means that are being used by the Europeans and the Americans to convince the Iranians to stop will not end in stopping them."

"The Iranians are determined to get a nuclear capability. From Israel's viewpoint such a situation is unacceptable."

There are military options to deal with Iran, he said, but those "alternatives are not being considered yet".

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon repeated that Israel would not allow Iran to become nuclear-armed.

"I hope that Iran will be brought soon before the Security Council and sanctions will be imposed against her so that the nuclear process will stop," he said.

He said Israel was a "partner" in attempts to block Iran's programme, but was not leading them.

Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said on Sunday he believed a resumption of talks with the EU - suspended when Iran restarted uranium conversion in August - could yield "important results".

But he rejected the notion of direct talks with the US. 

IRAN'S NUCLEAR STANDOFF
September 2002: Work begins on Iran's first nuclear reactor at Bushehr
December 2002: Satellite photographs reveal nuclear sites at Arak and Natanz. Iran agrees to an IAEA inspection
September 2003: IAEA gives Iran weeks to prove it is not pursuing atomic weapons
November 2003: Iran suspends uranium enrichment and allows tougher inspections; IAEA says no proof of any weapons programme
June 2004: IAEA rebukes Iran for not fully co-operating with nuclear inquiry
November 2004: Iran suspends uranium enrichment as part of deal with EU
August 2005: Iran rejects EU proposals and resumes work at Isfahan nuclear plant



-------- pakistan

Information about any nuclear scientist to be provided to IAEA through govt channels: FO

Sunday December 04, 2005 (0038 PST) PakTribune.com

http://www.paktribune.com/news/index.php?id=127331

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has said information about any Pakistani nuclear scientist will be provided to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) through government of Pakistan.

This was said by foreign office spokesperson Ms Tasneem Aslam while commenting on IAEA Director Mohamed El Baradei statement in which he had said that he wanted to see and talk directly with father of Pakistan nuclear program Dr A.Q. Khan.

FO spokesperson said Pakistan had been extending full cooperation to IAEA with reference to nuclear non proliferation. The IAEA has also appreciated this cooperation from our side.

President General Pervez Musharraf had made it clear on several occasions that any information in respect of any nuclear scientist will be provided through the channel of government of Pakistan, she underlined.



-------- russia

Russia not mediating between EU and Iran: Lavrov

(AFP) Dec 04, 2005

http://www.spacewar.com/2005/051204195931.0murlyfb.html

LJUBLJANA - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Sunday that Moscow supports the negotiations between the European Union and Iran over Tehran's nuclear program but that it is not a mediator between the parties.

Lavrov, who is in the Slovenian capital for a meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) that opens Monday, did not give any further details about efforts to re-start talks between the so-called EU-3 -- Britain, France and Germany -- and the Iranians.

"Russia supports the initiative of the EU troika," Lavrov told reporters. "Russia wishes now the resumption of the negotiations as soon as possible ... and we will continue our parallel efforts."

He added: "We consult with our European partners, we can contribute to the negotiations, but there is no mediation."

On Saturday Lavrov had said Tehran was ready to resume talks with the EU-3, which put off seeking to have the UN nuclear watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) refer Iran to the Security Council for possible sanctions in order to allow Russian diplomacy to work.

Lavrov also reiterated Moscow's proposal to allow Iran to conduct uranium enrichment outside the country in Russia. In that way Iran would not be able to obtain the nuclear technology crucial to making atom bombs.

But Iran insists on its right to make enriched uranium, which can be nuclear reactor fuel or atom bomb material, on its territory.

Backed by the United States, the EU is seeking talks with Iran on guaranteeing that the Islamic Republic is not secretly developing nuclear weapons, as Washington claims it is.

Neither a date or a location for a new meeting between the parties has been set, according to diplomatic sources.



-------- security

September 11 Panel Leaders Say US Still at Risk

By REUTERS
Published: December 4, 2005
Filed at 6:26 p.m. ET

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/politics/politics-security-usa.html

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is still unprepared for another inevitable terrorist attack after not doing enough to improve communications for emergency personnel and bolster security at nuclear plants, the heads of the former September 11 Commission said on Sunday.

Former commission chairman Thomas Kean said preparing for another attack has not been a high enough priority for President George W. Bush and Congress.

``A lot of the things we need to do really to prevent another 9/11 just simply aren't being done by the president or by the Congress,'' Kean, the former Republican governor of New Jersey, said on NBC's ``Meet the Press.''

The comments come ahead of the commission's final update, which will be released Monday, grading the status of its post-September 11 security recommendations and in most cases the Bush administration and U.S. lawmakers earned a failing grade, said Kean and Lee Hamilton, the former Democratic representative from Indiana who was the September 11 Commission's vice chairman.

While there has been a little progress in some areas, several major issues remain, Kean and Hamilton said. Among the major shortcomings they cited was setting aside radio airwaves for police, firefighters and other first responders to use in an emergency.

Allocating funds in areas most at risk and setting up a central command system with clear leaders also is floundering, they said.

``We believe that another attack will occur and we had better get to it and protect the American people,'' Hamilton said. ``It's not a question of if.''

In the last of a series of updates since the commission's official report was released in August 2004, Hamilton said they plan to highlight ``that there is a lack of a sense of urgency'' in making reforms.

Work by the Department of Homeland Security to evaluate the risk of attack at nuclear power plants and chemical plants was ''totally inadequate,'' Kean said.

``It doesn't set the priorities out,'' he said. ``It just sets basically vague guidelines, what the priorities should be.''

Congress is working to finish two bills on the first responder issue and the appropriations process.

``If these two bills are passed on radio spectrum and allocation of funds, the grades will quickly switch to a B or an A,'' Kean said.

The chairmen also criticized the Transportation Security Administration's decision last week to allow small scissors and screwdrivers back on U.S. airplanes as a step backward.

They said efforts to conduct random passenger checks were misguided and more should be done to screen cargo for explosives.



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


-------- nevada

Critics tackle a mountain of comments on Yucca

By Benjamin Grove <grove@lasvegassun.com>
Las Vegas Sun December 04, 2005

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/lv-other/2005/dec/04/519764276.html

WASHINGTON -- Yucca Mountain has been the focus of controversies big and small . Call the latest Commentgate. At issue: Just how many public comments were submitted to the Environmental Protection Agency about its draft radiation standard for the proposednuclear waste repository?

The EPA is reviewing the comments before making the proposed standard final . The agency had posted 186 comments as of Friday (the comment d is over). But several Yucca activists say there are far more than that.

Five of the comments are marked as "mass comment campaigns" organized by anti-Yucca groups including Citizen Alert in Nevada and the Washington-based Nuclear Information and Resource Service, in which people signed identical postcards and e-mails. A total of 2,259 people took part in the campaigns. Citizen Alert leader Peggy Maze Johnson said the EPA should count each as an individual comment even if they are identical, which would mean an overwhelming majority of the comments opposed the standard.

Another controversy: The EPA had posted the public comments on its Web site until last weekend when the posts suddenly disappeared, prompting Yucca critics to wonder if their criticisms had been trashed already.

Conspiracy? No, the EPA said. Just bureaucracy.

The comments were moved to a government documents clearing house at www.regulations.gov. But the comments last week were not easily found. Users must navigate a complex search and they must know to type in the Yucca docket ID number -- OAR-2005-0083 -- into the Web sites search engine.

"Its just nuts," Johnson said.

"They dont make it easy to be an informed or concerned citizen."

An EPA spokeswoman apologized for moving the comments without notice and for the comments being so hard to find. "Sometimes there are a few glitches in the system," spokeswoman Suzanne Ackerman said.

The Politics of Iraq

The House returns to Washington this week after a Thanksgiving recess amid heightened political tensions over Iraq (the Senate is due back next week). As expected, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., continued to trade barbs with Republicans during the holiday break. After a widely anticipated Bush speech at the Naval Academy last week, Reid said the president had "missed an opportunity to lay out a real strategy for success in Iraq that will bring our troops safely home."

The Republican National Committees research department fired an e-mail about Reid to reporters under the heading "Senator Sieve." It contained the words of conservative columnist John Fund who blasted Reid for telling a Nevada television news program that he had been informed that Osama bin Laden was killed in the Pakistan earthquake.

"Heres hoping al-Qaida figures arent soon appearing on Al Jazeera television chortling about the clueless Mr. Reid," Fund wrote.

Reids PR Machine

As an extension of Reids communications war room efforts, Senate Democrats have primed their public relations operation in advance of a muchanticipated roll-out of a sweeping new party agenda expected in January, Roll Call reported. The plan includes a new media booking effort to get more Senate Democrats on radio and cable television talk shows to compete with Republicans, the Capitol Hill newspaper reported. Democratic leaders are keeping careful notes about who appears and who doesnt -- 32 senators appeared on 175 cable shows and 73 radio programs between Oct. 3 and Nov. 18, aides to Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., told Roll Call.

There is overt pressure to join the effort: Democratic senators at a weekly party lunch are subjected to a "highlight" video of senators who best delivered the party message in speeches and interviews that week.

Waste Reprocessing Concerns

Some prominent scientists and public policy experts are shocked that some members of Congress are giddy over the prospects of "reprocessing," or recycling, nuclear waste. Congress this year set aside $50 million to research the controversial technology that removes plutonium from waste and could reduce the toxicity of waste bound for Yucca Mountain.

The process has not been used in this country largely because of fears of whether the plutonium could fall into the hands of terrorists. Some experts outside Congress say there is no reason to pursue the technology. Last week a three-member panel at a Federation of American Scientists conference in Washington said reprocessing is expensive, unnecessary, and undermines U.S. efforts to reduce proliferation of nuclear material.

The government is going to have a difficult time telling other countries not to reprocess if it kickstarts its own program, said Steve Fetter, dean of the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland.

It would be "catastrophic" to U.S. nonproliferation policy, agreed Frank N. von Hippel, co-director of the Program on Science and Global Security at Princeton University. "It certainly doesnt make economic sense," he added.

Reprocessing is being wrongly viewed by some as a solution to the "political problem" that is Yucca Mountain, said Ernest Moniz, head of the Physics Department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He also added that there was no "technical pressure" to put waste underground at Yucca, just political pressure. The panel members generally agreed that storing waste at above-ground interim waste sites was a good waste solution.

Benjamin Grove can be reached at (202) 662-7436 or at grove@lasvegassun.com. 



-------- MILITARY


-------- arms 

U.S. missile parts at Pakistan al Qaeda target site

Sun Dec 4, 2005 4:00 PM GMT
By Haji Mujtaba (Reuters)
			 
http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2005-12-04T160026Z_01_MOL457534_RTRUKOC_0_UK-SECURITY-PAKISTAN-QAEDA.xml

HAISORI, Pakistan - Pakistani tribesmen on Sunday displayed parts of a U.S.-marked missile they said hit a house and killed two boys, evidence at odds with the government which says an explosion there killed a top al Qaeda commander.

Whatever the cause of the blast, the death of Abu Hamza Rabia would be a coup for Pakistan and the United States which describe him as al Qaeda's chief of international operations.

But his body has not been found.

Sat amid the ruins of his mud and concrete-walled home in the restive North Waziristan tribal agency, Haji Mohammad Siddiq told Reuters his 17-year old son and an eight-year-old nephew were killed in a missile attack, but denied there were any militants present.

"I don't know anything about them -- there were no foreigners in my house," Siddiq said. "I have nothing to do with foreigners or al Qaeda.

"We were sleeping when I heard two explosions in my guest room. When I went there I saw my son, Abdul Wasit, and my eight-year-old nephew, Noor Aziz, were dead," said the tall, moustachioed tribesman as he received condolences from a stream of relatives and neighbours.

Pakistan, sensitive to domestic public opinion, has denied U.S. drone aircraft have carried out missile strikes on its soil in the past and Washington has declined to comment.

But tribesmen in Haisori showed U.S.-marked fragments of missiles they said hit the village early on Thursday. One piece of casing clearly bore the words US and MISSILE.

"I heard more explosions and went out to the courtyard, and when I looked up at the sky, I saw a white drone," said Siddiq. "I saw a flash of light come from the drone followed by explosions."

The tribesman, in his 50s, has been asked to appear later this week before a court convened by government-appointed tribal agency officials.

"200 PERCENT SURE"

President Pervez Musharraf said on Saturday he was "200 percent" sure Rabia was dead.

But confirmation of Rabia's death is based on intelligence reports and message intercepts, intelligence sources said, and Pakistani security forces have still to find a body.

Officials say Rabia's corpse, along with those of two comrades, was removed by other fighters and buried secretly.

An Arab television channel, al Arabiya, received a telephone call from an unidentified caller denying Rabia was dead.

U.S. counterterrorism officials in Washington confirmed the significance of Rabia's death, but gave no comment on how he might have been killed.

Rabia's death would have a profound impact on al Qaeda's ability to maintain its standing as the pre-eminent global militant organisation, as most veterans had been killed or captured, according to Rohan Gunaratna, security analyst at Singapore's Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies.

"He was in many ways the last leader to have an understanding of how the network operates outside Pakistan and Afghanistan," Gunaratna said.

U.S. drones are reported to have operated in the area before, and in May a drone missile attack was reported to have killed al Qaeda bombmaker, Haitham al-Yemeni, in North Waziristan.

Pakistan denied an attack happened while the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency declined to comment.

If a U.S. Predator drone did carry out Thursday's attack, neither the United States or Pakistan would be likely to admit it. Although Pakistan is a key ally in the war on terrorism, it refuses to allow foreign troops on its soil, particularly the sensitive semi-autonomous tribal areas.

Hundreds of militants fled to Pakistan after U.S.-led forces overthrew Afghanistan's Taliban government in late 2001 for harbouring Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden himself is believed to have passed through North Waziristan during his escape.



-------- prisoners of war

Wrongful Imprisonment: Anatomy of a CIA Mistake
German Citizen Released After Months in 'Rendition'

By Dana Priest
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, December 4, 2005; A01

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/03/AR2005120301476_pf.html

In May 2004, the White House dispatched the U.S. ambassador in Germany to pay an unusual visit to that country's interior minister. Ambassador Daniel R. Coats carried instructions from the State Department transmitted via the CIA's Berlin station because they were too sensitive and highly classified for regular diplomatic channels, according to several people with knowledge of the conversation.

Coats informed the German minister that the CIA had wrongfully imprisoned one of its citizens, Khaled Masri, for five months, and would soon release him, the sources said. There was also a request: that the German government not disclose what it had been told even if Masri went public. The U.S. officials feared exposure of a covert action program designed to capture terrorism suspects abroad and transfer them among countries, and possible legal challenges to the CIA from Masri and others with similar allegations.

The Masri case, with new details gleaned from interviews with current and former intelligence and diplomatic officials, offers a rare study of how pressure on the CIA to apprehend al Qaeda members after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks has led in some instances to detention based on thin or speculative evidence. The case also shows how complicated it can be to correct errors in a system built and operated in secret.

The CIA, working with other intelligence agencies, has captured an estimated 3,000 people, including several key leaders of al Qaeda, in its campaign to dismantle terrorist networks. It is impossible to know, however, how many mistakes the CIA and its foreign partners have made.

Unlike the military's prison for terrorist suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba -- where 180 prisoners have been freed after a review of their cases -- there is no tribunal or judge to check the evidence against those picked up by the CIA. The same bureaucracy that decides to capture and transfer a suspect for interrogation-- a process called "rendition" -- is also responsible for policing itself for errors.

The CIA inspector general is investigating a growing number of what it calls "erroneous renditions," according to several former and current intelligence officials.

One official said about three dozen names fall in that category; others believe it is fewer. The list includes several people whose identities were offered by al Qaeda figures during CIA interrogations, officials said. One turned out to be an innocent college professor who had given the al Qaeda member a bad grade, one official said.

"They picked up the wrong people, who had no information. In many, many cases there was only some vague association" with terrorism, one CIA officer said.

While the CIA admitted to Germany's then-Interior Minister Otto Schily that it had made a mistake, it has labored to keep the specifics of Masri's case from becoming public. As a German prosecutor works to verify or debunk Masri's claims of kidnapping and torture, the part of the German government that was informed of his ordeal has remained publicly silent. Masri's attorneys say they intend to file a lawsuit in U.S. courts this week.

Masri was held for five months largely because the head of the CIA's Counterterrorist Center's al Qaeda unit "believed he was someone else," one former CIA official said. "She didn't really know. She just had a hunch."

The CIA declined to comment for this article, as did Coats and a spokesman at the German Embassy in Washington. Schily did not respond to several requests for comment last week.

CIA officials stress that apprehensions and renditions are among the most sure-fire ways to take potential terrorists out of circulation quickly. In 2000, then-CIA Director George J. Tenet said that "renditions have shattered terrorist cells and networks, thwarted terrorist plans, and in some cases even prevented attacks from occurring."

The Counterterrorist Center

After the September 2001 attacks, pressure to locate and nab potential terrorists, even in the most obscure parts of the world, bore down hard on one CIA office in particular, the Counterterrorist Center, or CTC, located until recently in the basement of one of the older buildings on the agency's sprawling headquarters compound. With operations officers and analysts sitting side by side, the idea was to act on tips and leads with dramatic speed.

The possibility of missing another attack loomed large. "Their logic was: If one of them gets loose and someone dies, we'll be held responsible," said one CIA officer, who, like others interviewed for this article, would speak only anonymously because of the secretive nature of the subject.

To carry out its mission, the CTC relies on its Rendition Group, made up of case officers, paramilitaries, analysts and psychologists. Their job is to figure out how to snatch someone off a city street, or a remote hillside, or a secluded corner of an airport where local authorities wait.

Members of the Rendition Group follow a simple but standard procedure: Dressed head to toe in black, including masks, they blindfold and cut the clothes off their new captives, then administer an enema and sleeping drugs. They outfit detainees in a diaper and jumpsuit for what can be a day-long trip. Their destinations: either a detention facility operated by cooperative countries in the Middle East and Central Asia, including Afghanistan, or one of the CIA's own covert prisons -- referred to in classified documents as "black sites," which at various times have been operated in eight countries, including several in Eastern Europe.

In the months after the Sept. 11 attacks, the CTC was the place to be for CIA officers wanting in on the fight. The staff ballooned from 300 to 1,200 nearly overnight.

"It was the Camelot of counterterrorism," a former counterterrorism official said. "We didn't have to mess with others -- and it was fun."

Thousands of tips and allegations about potential threats poured in after the attacks. Stung by the failure to detect the plot, CIA officers passed along every tidbit. The process of vetting and evaluating information suffered greatly, former and current intelligence officials said. "Whatever quality control mechanisms were in play on September 10th were eliminated on September 11th," a former senior intelligence official said.

J. Cofer Black, a professorial former spy who spent years chasing Osama bin Laden, was the CTC's director. With a flair for melodrama, Black had earned special access to the White House after he briefed President Bush on the CIA's war plan for Afghanistan.

Colleagues recall that he would return from the White House inspired and talking in missionary terms. Black, now in the private security business, declined to comment.

Some colleagues said his fervor was in line with the responsibility Bush bestowed on the CIA when he signed a top secret presidential finding six days after the 9/11 attacks. It authorized an unprecedented range of covert action, including lethal measures and renditions, disinformation campaigns and cyber attacks against the al Qaeda enemy, according to current and former intelligence officials. Black's attitude was exactly what some CIA officers believed was needed to get the job done.

Others criticized Black's CTC for embracing a "Hollywood model" of operations, as one former longtime CIA veteran called it, eschewing the hard work of recruiting agents and penetrating terrorist networks. Instead, the new approach was similar to the flashier paramilitary operations that had worked so well in Afghanistan, and played well at the White House, where the president was keeping a scorecard of captured or killed terrorists.

The person most often in the middle of arguments over whether to dispatch a rendition team was a former Soviet analyst with spiked hair that matched her in-your-face personality who heads the CTC's al Qaeda unit, according to a half-dozen CIA veterans who know her. Her name is being withheld because she is under cover.

She earned a reputation for being aggressive and confident, just the right quality, some colleagues thought, for a commander in the CIA's global war on terrorism. Others criticized her for being overzealous and too quick to order paramilitary action.

The CIA and Guantanamo Bay

One way the CIA has dealt with detainees it no longer wants to hold is to transfer them to the custody of the U.S. military at Guantanamo Bay, where defense authorities decide whether to keep or release them after a review.

About a dozen men have been transferred by the CIA to Guantanamo Bay, according to a Washington Post review of military tribunal testimony and other records. Some CIA officials have argued that the facility has become, as one former senior official put it, "a dumping ground" for CIA mistakes.

But several former intelligence officials dispute that and defend the transfer of CIA detainees to military custody. They acknowledged that some of those sent to Guantanamo Bay are prisoners who, after interrogation and review, turned out to have less valuable information than originally suspected. Still, they said, such prisoners are dangerous and would attack if given the chance.

Among those released from Guantanamo is Mamdouh Habib, an Egyptian-born Australian citizen, apprehended by a CIA team in Pakistan in October 2001, then sent to Egypt for interrogation, according to court papers. He has alleged that he was burned by cigarettes, given electric shocks and beaten by Egyptian captors. After six months, he was flown to Guantanamo Bay and let go earlier this year without being charged.

Another CIA former captive, according to declassified testimony from military tribunals and other records, is Mohamedou Oulad Slahi, a Mauritanian and former Canada resident, who says he turned himself in to the Mauritanian police 18 days after the 9/11 attacks because he heard the Americans were looking for him. The CIA took him to Jordan, where he spent eight months undergoing interrogation, according to his testimony, before being taken to Guantanamo Bay.

Another is Muhammad Saad Iqbal Madni, an Egyptian imprisoned by Indonesia authorities in January 2002 after he was heard talking -- he says jokingly -- about a new shoe bomb technology. He was flown to Egypt for interrogation and returned to CIA hands four months later, according to one former intelligence official. After being held for 13 months in Afghanistan, he was taken to Guantanamo Bay, according to his testimony.

The Masri Case

Khaled Masri came to the attention of Macedonian authorities on New Year's Eve 2003. Masri, an unemployed father of five living in Ulm, Germany, said he had gone by bus to Macedonia to blow off steam after a spat with his wife. He was taken off a bus at the Tabanovce border crossing by police because his name was similar to that of an associate of a 9/11 hijacker. The police drove him to Skopje, the capital, and put him in a motel room with darkened windows, he said in a recent telephone interview from Germany.

The police treated Masri firmly but cordially, asking about his passport, which they insisted was forged, about al Qaeda and about his hometown mosque, he said. When he pressed them to let him go, they displayed their pistols.

Unbeknown to Masri, the Macedonians had contacted the CIA station in Skopje. The station chief was on holiday. But the deputy chief, a junior officer, was excited about the catch and about being able to contribute to the counterterrorism fight, current and former intelligence officials familiar with the case said.

"The Skopje station really wanted a scalp because everyone wanted a part of the game," a CIA officer said. Because the European Division chief at headquarters was also on vacation, the deputy dealt directly with the CTC and the head of its al Qaeda unit.

In the first weeks of 2004, an argument arose over whether the CIA should take Masri from local authorities and remove him from the country for interrogation, a classic rendition operation.

The director of the al Qaeda unit supported that approach. She insisted he was probably a terrorist, and should be imprisoned and interrogated immediately.

Others were doubtful. They wanted to wait to see whether the passport was proved fraudulent. Beyond that, there was no evidence Masri was not who he claimed to be -- a German citizen of Arab descent traveling after a disagreement with his wife.

The unit's director won the argument. She ordered Masri captured and flown to a CIA prison in Afghanistan.

On the 23rd day of his motel captivity, the police videotaped Masri, then bundled him, handcuffed and blindfolded, into a van and drove to a closed-off building at the airport, Masri said. There, in silence, someone cut off his clothes. As they changed his blindfold, "I saw seven or eight men with black clothing and wearing masks," he later said in an interview. He said he was drugged to sleep for a long plane ride.

Afghanistan

Masri said his cell in Afghanistan was cold, dirty and in a cellar, with no light and one dirty cover for warmth. The first night he said he was kicked and beaten and warned by an interrogator: "You are here in a country where no one knows about you, in a country where there is no law. If you die, we will bury you, and no one will know."

Masri was guarded during the day by Afghans, he said. At night, men who sounded as if they spoke American-accented English showed up for the interrogation. Sometimes a man he believed was a doctor in a mask came to take photos, draw blood and collect a urine sample.

Back at the CTC, Masri's passport was given to the Office of Technical Services to analyze. By March, OTS had concluded the passport was genuine. The CIA had imprisoned the wrong man.

At the CIA, the question was: Now what? Some officials wanted to go directly to the German government; others did not. Someone suggested a reverse rendition: Return Masri to Macedonia and release him. "There wouldn't be a trace. No airplane tickets. Nothing. No one would believe him," one former official said. "There would be a bump in the press, but then it would be over."

Once the mistake reached Tenet, he laid out the options to his counterparts, including the idea of not telling the Germans. Condoleezza Rice, then Bush's national security adviser, and Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage argued they had to be told, a position Tenet took, according to one former intelligence official.

"You couldn't have the president lying to the German chancellor" should the issue come up, a government official involved in the matter said.

Senior State Department officials decided to approach Interior Minister Schily, who had been a steadfast Bush supporter even when differences over the Iraq war strained ties between the two countries. Ambassador Coats had excellent rapport with Schily.

The CIA argued for minimal disclosure of information. The State Department insisted on a truthful, complete statement. The two agencies quibbled over whether it should include an apology, according to officials.

Meanwhile, Masri was growing desperate. There were rumors that a prisoner had died under torture. Masri could not answer most questions put to him. He said he steadied himself by talking with other prisoners and reading the Koran.

A week before his release in late May 2004, Masri said he was visited in prison by a German man with a goatee who called himself Sam. Masri said he asked him if he were from the German government and whether the government knew he was there. Sam said he could not answer either question.

"Does my wife at least know I'm here?" Masri asked.

"No, she does not," Sam replied, according to Masri.

Sam told Masri he was going to be released soon but that he would not receive any documents or papers confirming his ordeal. The Americans would never admit they had taken him prisoner, Sam added, according to Masri.

On the day of his release, the prison's director, who Masri believed was an American, told Masri that he had been held because he "had a suspicious name," Masri said in an interview.

Several intelligence and diplomatic officials said Macedonia did not want the CIA to bring Masri back inside the country, so the agency arranged for him to be flown to Albania. Masri said he was taken to a narrow country road at dusk. When they let him off, "They asked me not to look back when I started walking," Masri said. "I was afraid they would shoot me in the back."

He said he was quickly met by three armed men. They drove all night, arriving in the morning at Mother Teresa Airport in Tirana. Masri said he was escorted onto the plane, past all the security checkpoints, by an Albanian.

Masri has been reunited with his children and wife, who had moved the family to Lebanon because she did not know where her husband was. Unemployed and lonely, Masri says neither his German nor Arab friends dare associate with him because of the publicity.

Meanwhile, a German prosecutor continues to work Masri's case. A Macedonia bus driver has confirmed that Masri was taken away by border guards on the date he gave investigators. A forensic analysis of Masri's hair showed he was malnourished during the period he says he was in the prison. Flight logs show a plane registered to a CIA front company flew out of Macedonia on the day Masri says he went to Afghanistan.

Masri can find few words to explain his ordeal. "I have very bad feelings" about the United States, he said. "I think it's just like in the Arab countries: arresting people, treating them inhumanly and less than that, and with no rights and no laws."

Staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this article.



-------- POLITICS


-------- us politics

A 'Big Four' coalition emerging?

By Martin Walker
UPI Editor
Published December 4, 2005

http://www.wpherald.com/storyview.php?StoryID=20051204-034200-4385r

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration is quietly seeking to build with Britain, Japan and India a globe-spanning coalition system that can contain China, claims a leading neo-conservative thinker.
    
    "Over the past six months, the Bush administration has upgraded its budding strategic partnerships with India and Japan. Along with the steady special relationship with Great Britain, what is beginning to emerge is a global coalition system -- it is too soon to call it a true alliance -- for the post-Cold War world," argues Thomas Donnelly, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.
    
    In a new essay just published by the AEI, titled "The Big Four Alliance: The New Bush Strategy," Donnelly says that "far from maintaining a unilateralist approach to American security," the Bush administration has been forging a strategic partnership structure that can help to manage the rise of China, while also buttressing the liberal international order of free trade, free markets and expanded democracy.
    
    "You might call this emerging set of alliances the 4x4 strategy," Donnelly suggests. "It is built around four great powers -- the United States, Great Britain, Japan, and India -- who share four basic strategic principles: that the dangers of radicalism, failing despotic governments, and nuclear proliferation in the greater Middle East are too great to ignore; that the growing military strength and political ambitions of Beijing's autocrats make it far from certain that China's 'rise' will be a peaceful one; that the spread of representative forms of government will increase the prospects for a durable peace; and that military force remains a useful and legitimate tool of national statecraft."
    
    What is striking and new is that Donnelly, a powerful advocate of a strong U.S. defense, now acknowledges that the American role is overstretched and can no longer sustain its lonely superpower role.
    
    "We need help," he suggests.
    
    "It is clear that the Defense Department's initial conception of 'transformation' -- substituting capital for labor, firepower for manpower -- has not removed the inherent constraints imposed by a small force, reduced by 40 percent from its final Cold-War strength. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's preference for temporary 'coalitions of the willing' has been supplanted by a new understanding that preserving the Pax Americana requires more permanent arrangements. This is not to suggest that the emerging Big Four allies are not willing partners, but simply to grasp that the immensity and difficulty of the military and broader security tasks have stretched current U.S. armed forces to a degree that they cannot sustain. We need help."
    
    Donnelly, formerly with the Lockheed Corporation and also former policy director at the House Committee on National Security, was one of the leading figures in the Project for the New American Century, the group from which the highly influential neo-conservatives emerged to dominate the thinking of the Bush administration after the terrorist attacks of 9/11. A highly controversial figure to many Democrats and to opponents of the Iraq War, Donnelly also played an important role in Congressional relations with the Pentagon, particularly over the 1997 and 2001 Quadrennial Defense Reviews.
    
    "The central pillar of the new alliance is, of course, the United States," Donnelly writes. "Just as the Truman Doctrine committed the United States to lead the Cold War allies, so has the Bush Doctrine cast the country as primus inter pares among today's allies; Britain, India, and Japan are becoming partners in a Pax Americana that is generally accepted across the political spectrum.
    
    "No other power can perform this essential organizing and leadership role," Donnelly writes. "The Clinton administration took the primacy of the United States as much for granted as has the Bush administration. There is no reason to think that the next Democratic administration will change this fundamental approach."
    
    Donnelly leans heavily on the British alliance, which he calls "our most constant source of strategic and military help" and praises their "superbly professional forces, on a par with U.S. forces and possessed of particular strengths in special operations and expeditionary warfare.
    
    "The Anglo-American military alliance remains the gold standard against which all others are measured and to which others -- particularly the Japanese alliance -- aspire," he argues. In Tokyo, "politicians across the spectrum now accept the premise that Japan should act like a 'normal' nation and should assume some role in 'collective self-defense' -- a euphemism for an alliance with the United States.
    
    "Greater still is the gap between India's potential as an alliance partner and the current reality," Donnelly notes. "Nevertheless, it may be that, over the course of time, the strategic relationship between Washington and New Delhi can become the keystone to preservation of the Pax Americana. The CIA has concluded that India is the most important 'swing state' in the international system."
    
    India has a long way to go, Donnelly concedes, both in modernizing its largely Soviet-made weaponry and in learning inter-operability with U.S. forces
    
    "Translating diplomatic desire into hard-core military power and interoperability between Indian and U.S. forces will take many years," he writes. "Military-to-military contacts with U.S. forces are increasing, but neither Indian nor Japanese forces yet enjoy the kind of close professional relationship that has existed for many years between U.S. and British armed services.
    
    "In truth, the whole concept of a 'Big Four' global partnership is more potential than real," Donnelly concedes. "There is not much chance of any Big Four summits or alliance charters on the horizon. Indeed, such a summit would be counterproductive; even if successful, this would be an alliance that dares not speak its name. The open question is whether common interests and common values can make this coalition a more permanent basis for American strategy." 



-------- ACTIVISTS

British peace activist visits Iraq to plead for hostage

By Mary Braid and Tom Anderson
Published: 04 December 2005 UK Independent

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article331062.ece

A leading member of the British anti-war movement arrived in Iraq yesterday to seek the release of Norman Kember, the 74-year-old Christian peace activist kidnapped last weekend.

Anas Altikriti, who is representing the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB), Stop the War and CND, will have talks with influential Sunni organisations to try to convince the hostage-takers that Mr Kember should never have been seized.

He and the three men kidnapped with him ­ American Tom Fox, 54, and Canadians James Loney, 41, and Harmeet Singh Sooden, 32 ­ were shown in a new video, in which their captors, the previously unknown Swords of Righteousness Brigade, threatened to kill them unless Iraqi prisoners were released by Thursday.

Mr Altikriti "will try to explain that by holding Mr Kember, they are doing a great injustice", a MAB spokesman said. "If they continue holding him, or carry out their threats, it will be very damaging for the insurgency because people will see that this is the very person who campaigned against the occupation of Iraq, and for freedom and democracy. Norman Kember is a true friend of Iraq and there is no justice in holding him."

Mr Kember's captors have claimed that he and the other three hostages are " spies of the occupying forces", an allegation dismissed by his family and friends. Members of his local Baptist church gathered yesterday, heads bowed, around a single flickering candle to pray for him, stunned by the release of the new video in which his kidnappers set a deadline for his threatened execution.

The retired professor of physics and lifelong pacifist attends the church at least twice a week, is editor of the church magazine, and secretary of its Sunday school. At the Kember family home in Pinner, Middlesex, Pat, his wife, was being comforted yesterday by friends and family, including her daughters, Jo and Sally.

The Foreign Office has asked the family to say nothing to the media. A spokesman said the department was hopeful that Mr Kember and the other hostages would be released unharmed. He and his captured colleagues are members of the Christian Peacemakers Team, one of the last aid organisations left in Iraq.

n A British general may be charged over alleged attempts to prevent an investigation into the deaths of Sergeant Stephen Roberts, a tank commander, and an unarmed Iraqi civilian, Zahir Zabati, on 24 March 2003. Major-General Peter Wall has been interviewed by the Met.

Two soldiers from the 2nd Royal Tank Regiment face murder charges following the death of Mr Zabati while another soldier from the same regiment faces manslaughter charges. An investigation found that Sgt Roberts may have been killed by one of his own men. His death caused public outrage when it emerged that he had no body armour.

----

The Politics of the Anti-War Movement & the Intractable Dilemma of ANSWER

by Bill Weinberg, December 4, 2005 Portland Indymedia

http://publish.portland.indymedia.org/en/2005/12/329768.shtml

The Sept. 24 anti-war protest in Washington DC was hailed as a revival of a movement which had become somewhat moribund even as the quagmire in Iraq deepens with horrifying rapidity. The march brought out 300,000, by organizers' estimates—making it the largest since the start of the US invasion in March 2003. After a summer in which Cindy Sheehan's campaign to demand personal accountability from the vacationing George Bush had riveted the nation, the march brought out record numbers of military veterans and grieving families—giving the movement an unassailable moral credibility.

But it is significant that this credibility arose from the rank-and-file marchers—while that very credibility may have been actually undermined by elements of the organizational leadership.

Since the prelude to the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, the large, visible anti-war protests in the US—especially the marches in Washington, New York and San Francisco—have been led by two organizations, which have at times cooperated but have frequently been at odds: United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ) and International ANSWER (for Act Now to Stop War and End Racism). In the Sept. 24 march, they agreed to cooperate; they divided the stage time equally, with different speakers and different banners, although ANSWER actually held the permit.

Both UFPJ and ANSWER have been criticized by some activists as top-down and insufficiently democratic. But concerns are growing over ANSWER's links to a doctrinaire neo-Stalinist organization called the Workers World Party (WWP), which has a history of seeking to dominate coalitions, and has some embarrassing ultra-hardline positions.

Steve Ault, a gay activist in New York City since 1970, served as UFPJ's logistics coordinator for the historic pre-war mobilization of Feb. 15, 2003, last summer's Republican National Convention protests and the May 1, 2005 march for nuclear disarmament. He charges that ANSWER is a front group for the WWP. Speaking as an individual—not on behalf of UFPJ—he decries what he sees as an imbalance between the two major anti-war formations: "One small sectarian group has equal power with a genuine coalition. We aren't going to be able to have a real movement until they are called out on the carpet for it."

Ault says he has for 20 years witnessed WWP use "stacking meetings and undemocratic tactics" to control left coalitions. "When Workers World forms a so-called coalition, its not a coalition at all, its a vehicle to attempt to amplify their power and control. Its not a genuine coalition like UFPJ which has no controlling faction—it has communists, Greens, pacifists, anarchists."

International ANSWER formed after 9-11 around the core of the International Action Center (IAC), itself formed by the WWP after former US attorney general Ramsey Clark joined with the party's leaders to oppose the 1991 attack on Iraq in a surprising alliance. ANSWER's most visible spokespersons have almost invariably been longtime AIC/WWP adherents. WWP is so orthodox that it supported the 1956 Soviet invasion of Hungary, the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre and—more recently—former Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic in his battle against war crimes charges at The Hague. And its current stance on Iraq's armed insurgents has been a key source of tension with UFPJ and other groups in the movement.

Many in the movement are unaware of WWP's past problematic positions. On the seventh anniversary of the Tiananmen Square events in 1996, the Workers World newspaper ran an article charging that the protesters had launched "violent attacks on the soldiers," prompting the Chinese government to declare the movement "a counter-revolutionary rebellion." It protested that "There was immediately a worldwide media campaign condemning China and characterizing the events as a massacre."

In April 2002, the Workers World paper covered the celebrations of the 90th birthday of the late North Korean dictator Kim Il Sung in glorifying terms. And repeatedly, throughout the Bosnian war in the 1990s, Workers World portrayed reports of atrocities and mass rape by the Serb forces as "imperialist lies." Ramsey Clark, the visible leader of the International Action Center, is a founder of the International Committee to Defend Slobodan Milosevic, and has also provided legal representation for some accused of participating in the 1994 Rwanda genocide. He has more recently volunteered for Saddam Hussein's legal team.

Merely providing legal representation, even for mass murders, is legitimate. But Clark has gone beyond legal work to political advocacy, and has consistently followed the Workers World party line in both. In the '90s, he repeatedly traveled to Bosnia to meet with Serb rebel leader Radovan Karadzic, today a fugitive from war crimes charges. In September 2002, in Baghdad for meetings with high-level figures in Saddam's regime, he was interviewed by CNN's Wolf Blitzer about his public support for Iraq's refusal to allow UN inspectors back in. When Blitzer noted that Saddam used chemical weapons against his own people at the 1988 attack on the Kurdish city of Halabja, Clark responded dismissively: "Wolf, that's pretty tired, you know. People have worked that for years and years..."

Workers World itself has undergone a recent factional split, with a breakaway group apparently taking most of ANSWER with it. This has led the IAC and the faction that still calls itself Workers World to help found a new coalition, Troops Out Now! Both Troops Out Now! and ANSWER continue to take positions many activists feel uncomfortable with.

On May 1, 2005, both UFPJ and Troops Out Now! held separate marches in New York City, with Troops Out Now! rejecting UFPJ's pro-disarmament theme. Dustin Langley, a spokesperson for Troops Out Now! and member of the IAC, told journalist Sarah Ferguson of the Village Voice: "Personally I think to talk about global disarmament misses the point of who has weapons and who they are being used against. We say Iran and North Korea have a right to get any kind of weapon they need to defend themselves against the largest military machine on the planet. Considering that Bush has listed them as two potential targets, they have as much right to nuclear weapons as any other country."

This division was also evident during the March 2004 rally in New York commemorating the one-year anniversary of the Iraq invasion, which ANSWER and UFPJ co-organized in an uneasy alliance. As in the recent Washington rally, they divided the stage time. During ANSWER's half of the rally, someone taped a photo to the speakers' platform of Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani scientist who was accused of peddling nuclear materials to North Korea and Libya. No move was made to remove it.

History of Dissension

For some veteran activists, the persistent division brings back bad memories of the movement to oppose the first attack on Iraq in 1991, when WWP provoked a split by refusing to condemn Saddam's invasion of Kuwait. This resulted in two separate national marches on Washington, just days apart—one by the WWP-led National Coalition Against US Intervention in the Middle East, the other by the Campaign for Peace in the Middle East, a coalition consisting of War Resisters League, Fellowship of Reconciliation, Women's International League for Peace & Freedom, and other traditional peace groups.

This division even goes back to the 1960s, when the WWP-led Youth Against War & Fascism (YAWF) was posed against the more mainstream National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam.

WWP's origins actually trace to a split in the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) over the Soviet invasion of Hungary to put down a workers' insurrection in 1956. The Trotskyist SWP opposed the invasion; a breakaway faction around Sam Marcy supported it, arguing that the Hungarian workers were "counter-revolutionary" (the same line WWP would take on the Tiananmen Square protesters a generation later). Breaking from the SWP, the Marcy group founded Workers World, which moved in a more Stalinist direction. Marcy remained the ideological leader of the party until his death in 1998.

The recent split doesn't seem to have been about anything substantive, but the tactical question of whether to support WWP's presidential ticket last year or to acquiesce to the left's "anybody but Bush" (meaning pro-Kerry) position. Behind this question seems to be a turf war between WPP cadre in New York and San Francisco, the party's two principal power bases. The breakaway faction, based mostly in San Francisco, is calling itself the Party for Socialism and Liberation.

Brian Becker, a longtime IAC/WWP leader who is national coordinator of ANSWER, is now with the breakaway party. Troops Out Now!, which endorsed the Sept. 24 march despite the split, remains based at the International Action Center's New York address (39 West 14th St. #206). Its visible leaders such as Larry Holmes are also longtime IAC/WWP figures.

The fundamental issue which has led to tensions with UFPJ was not a factor in the split: WWP's refusal to countenance any criticism of the Iraqi "resistance." Troops Out Now! comes closest to taking an open stance in support of the armed insurgents, calling in their literature for the anti-war movement to "acknowledge the absolute and unconditional right of the Iraqi people to resist the occupation of their country without passing judgement on their methods of resistance."

This seems to ignore the reality that the armed insurgents in Iraq are increasingly blowing up civilians—not US troops. The targets of their attacks are more and more perceived ethnic and religious enemies, and in their areas of control they are enforcing harsh shariah law and radically repealing women's basic rights.

These inconsistencies provide easy ammo for those who wish to dismiss the anti-war movement as deluded and hypocritical. For instance, they allowed the born-again interventionist Christopher Hitchens to write for Slate magazine after the Sept. 24 march a piece entitled "Anti-War, My Foot: The phony peaceniks who protested in Washington." Hitchens decried the central position of "'International ANSWER,' the group run by the 'Worker's World' party and fronted by Ramsey Clark, which openly supports Kim Jong-il, Fidel Castro, Slobodan Milosevic, and the 'resistance' in Afghanistan and Iraq, with Clark himself finding extra time to volunteer as attorney for the genocidaires in Rwanda... 'International ANSWER' [is] a front for (depending on the day of the week) fascism, Stalinism, and jihadism."

Palestine: the New "Wedge Issue"

But Steve Ault argues that some controversial positions have actually been useful to ANSWER. "They come up with a wedge issue to use against the other coalition, and they scream 'racism,'" he says. "And they do it very well."

The question of Palestine is currently ANSWER's principal "wedge issue." UFPJ's own hedging on "linkage" of the struggles in Palestine and Iraq has served ANSWER well. In the prelude to the March 2004 rally in New York, ANSWER insisted on making an end to the occupation of Palestine a central demand of the demonstration. UFPJ balked, stating that while they agreed it was important to address Palestine, the main purpose of the march was to express broad opposition to the war in Iraq. ANSWER responded by circulating a letter on-line, signed by numerous Arab and Muslim groups, charging that it was "racist" of the anti-war movement not to give the Palestinian cause equal footing.

UFPJ's member groups have "agreed to disagree" on how to achieve peace in the Middle East, taking no stance, for instance, on a right of return for Palestinian refugees—a demand embraced by ANSWER. And unlike ANSWER, UFPJ has put out a position criticizing all attacks on civilians—whether by the Israeli military or Palestinian militants.

Some have perceived UFPJ's "agree-to-disagree" position as an equivocation which has rendered the coalition vulnerable on this "wedge issue." In any case, ANSWER has proved itself adept at building coalitions with Arab and Muslim groups.

Ibrahim Ramey, national disarmament coordinator for the faith-based pacifist organization Fellowship of Reconciliation, says: "ANSWER has done much more organizing in pro-Palestinian Islamic communities. Activists need to have a debate over this difficult issue: the question of Zionism, and I use the term deliberately. There is no principled discussion on it."

Ramey recognizes the contradiction that some of the same figures now pushing the Palestine question in the movement are also sympathetic to Milosevic, who is accused of genocide against Muslims. "I don't believe despots and mass murderers need to be lauded because they occasionally wave the banner of opposition to the United States. Milosevic was not a great hero because he happened to bombed by NATO war planes."

And Ramey admits that IAC's "position on Milosevic isn't something there is a lot of awareness of in the Muslim communities where ANSWER has been successful in organizing."

Mahdi Bray, executive director of the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation, which works with ANSWER while not being an official member of the coalition, is aware of it, and makes no bones about his disagreement. "I don't support that line. I think Milosevic was a genocidal butcher. But we can work with people we have disagreements with."

Bray credits ANSWER with "forcing the debate on Palestine within the movement. That was healthy and necessary. You cannot discuss peace in the Middle East region without discussing the occupation of Palestine." And he sees the question of which issues get prioritized as linked to the broader tendency of "a paternalistic and elitist attitude within the movement."

"Why is it that we can mobilize thousands of people and you don't see many African Americans?" he asks. "You've got myself and few others onstage, but you don't see that many in the crowd. Is it that African Americans aren't concerned about their sons over in Iraq? Or does it have to do with our organizing methods? Neither UFPJ or ANSWER has addressed this issue well, and it is a bigger issue than the factional splits within the movement."

Liberal versus Radical Critique

Complicating the situation is that many of the commentators speaking out against ANSWER's problematic role in the anti-war movement have offered a liberal rather than radical critique. In addition to the Palestine question, ANSWER has been repeatedly criticized for espousing the cause of Mumia Abu-Jamal, the journalist and former Black Panther on Death Row in Pennsylvania after an evidently wrongful conviction. In the October issue of Rolling Stone, writer Tim Dickinson quotes Paul Rieckhoff, director of the Iraq veterans group Operation Truth, which boycotted the Sept. 24 march. "When some guy gets up there and rails about Palestine, Karl Rove is kicking back in his chair, saying, 'Please continue,'" said Rieckhoff. "It's not about Palestine, it's not about Mumia—it's about one focused message: Let's find a way to end this war. If you really want to push back against the administration, you've got to get your shit together. Right now they don't."

Similarly, Marc Cooper warned in the LA Weekly in 2002 that "the new anti-war movement would be...doomed if the shrill rhetoric of the Workers World...loonies would dominate. Fronting for Saddam Hussein (and Slobodan Milosevic) as self-appointed peace leader Ramsey Clark has and exhorting the peace protesters to defend convicted cop killers like Mumia Abu-Jamal and H. Rap Brown as Workers World does...was hardly the way to win over the millions we need to stop Bush."

From a purely tactical standpoint, there may be some logic to de-emphasizing unpopular issues in the interests of building a broad front around a single issue (Iraq). But from a moral standpoint, attacking ANSWER's positions on Palestine and Mumia rather than (or even in addition to) Milosevic and Tiananmen Square dangerously muddies the water. The prior two causes may be unpopular, but they are perfectly legitimate; in contrast, the Workers World positions on Bosnia and Tiananmen Square constitute defense of the indefensible.

Christopher Hitchens (who can no longer be said to be on the left) commits a similar error, in his list of foreign strongmen WWP supports: he indiscriminately lumps Fidel Castro in with the far more sinister Milosevic and Kim Jong Il.

Writer Todd Gitlin also "fumed" to Rolling Stone's Dickinson against the inclusion of "US out of the Philippines!" among ANSWER's demands at the Sept. 24 rally. Shortly after 9-11, the Pentagon dispatched hundreds of Special Forces troops to the Philippines to help oversee the counter-insurgency war on the Muslim-majority island of Mindanao. US forces in Mindanao have already engaged in direct combat with Islamic guerillas. Why is this not a legitimate issue?

Such rhetoric allows ANSWER to assume a lefter-than-thou high ground, and plays into the liberal-baiting strategy. Steve Ault recognizes this danger. "I work with communists, and I have no problem doing so," he says. "My real problem with ANSWER is their process, or lack of it. Workers World gives communism a bad name. They use the charge of red-baiting to silence criticism in an unprincipled way. And much of the criticism against them comes from people arguably further to the left than they are."

One person who might fall into this category is Mahmood Ketabchi, an exiled follower of the Worker Communist Party of Iran now living in New Jersey and active in support work for workers' and women's movements in Iraq. "ANSWER is part of a long tradition of supporting anyone who picks up a gun and shoots at an American soldier, regardless of their politics," he says.

Ketabchi sees this as a paradoxical "nationalist leftist position that puts the US at the center of the world. That's a bogus position. What is the Iraqi quote-unquote resistance fighting for? What kind of future do they envision? Do these groups defend women's rights? Are they socialist? This is a position the left in Iran took 20 years ago, when we thought we could have a united front with Khomeini against the Shah. So the American left is 20 years behind us."

Which Way Forward?

Even among activists who see ANSWER as problematic, there is little consensus on how to address the issue.

Joanne Sheehan, who chairs the New England office of War Resisters League in Norwich, CT, says "ANSWER does not foster grassroots activism. It is totally hierarchical, and I don't think it empowers people. ANSWER is not the answer."

Speaking on WWP's controversial positions, she says, "They do what the Administration they criticize does—here are the 'good guys' and here are the 'bad guys.' They have this view left over from the Cold War that my-enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend, and that's a very narrow way of thinking."

But she also feels the intrigues of national movement leadership have drained vital energies. "We put too much emphasis on these big demonstrations and not enough on grassroots strategy, which is where we should emphasize. After the big demo, there is always a sense of 'now what?' Do we just wait for the next big demo? I guess we have to have them to be visible, but there has to be a bigger strategy."

Sheehan explicitly does not fault ANSWER for emphasizing issues such as Palestine and Mumia Abu-Jamal. "My criticism is not that they toss too many issues together. I think it is important to help people understand how the issues are connected. But we need to do that in our grassroots work—not from a podium."

Ibrahim Ramey says that while "ANSWER is problematic in areas of both politics and organizing style for some organizations in the broad anti-war movement," he still believes that "principled cooperation in a united front that understands its political differences is possible. That is my hope, that we can do that." But he also stresses that this can only happen if there is "broad democratic debate, and I recognize that there are major obstacles."

Steve Ault takes the hardest line on the question: "Everyone says unity, unity, unity. Sure, making the argument for not working with ANSWER is problematic. But I think they need to be exposed for what they are. There needs to be a full-blown discussion on this if we are going to build an effective movement."

This story, in abridged form, first appeared in the December issue of The Nonviolent Activist, magazine of the War Resisters League.

RESOURCES:

United for Peace & Justice
 http://www.unitedforpeace.org/

International ANSWER
 http://www.internationalanswer.org/

Troops Out Now!
 http://www.troopsoutnow.org/

Workers World Party
 http://www.workers.org/

Party for Socialism and Liberation
 http://socialismandliberation.org/

International Committee to Defend Slobodan Milosevic
 http://www.icdsm.org/

"China's Tiananmen Square: History Clarifies What Happened in 1989," Workers World, June 20, 1989
 http://www.workers.org/ww/tienanmen.html

"North Korea: Celebrations display popular unity against Bush's threats," Workers World, April 25, 2002
 http://www.workers.org/ww/2002/korea0425.php

Ramsey Clark quoted on the Halabja massacre, WW4 REPORT #49
 http://www.ww3report.com/49.html#iraq7

"Anti-War, My Foot: The phony peaceniks who protested in Washington," by Christopher Hitchens, Slate, Sept. 26
 http://slate.msn.com/id/2126913/?nav=navoa

"Give Peace a Chance: Is the anti-war movement too fractured to be effective?" by Tim Dickinson, Rolling Stone, October 2005
 link to www.rollingstone.com
ayer=true&version=6.0.12.1059

"Our Peace Movement, Not Theirs," by Marc Cooper, LA Weekly, Dec. 13-19, 2002
 http://laweekly.com/ink/03/04/dissonance-cooper.php

What you should know about ANSWER, the Workers World Party and the International Action Center, and exposé from Infoshop.org
 http://www.infoshop.org/texts/wwp.html

"The Mysterious Ramsey Clark: Stalnist Dupe or Ruling-Class Spook?" by Manny Goldstein, The Shadow, 2001
 http://shadow.autono.net/sin001/clark.htm

"Bombs Away: Global Activists Gather in New York to Revive Nuclear Disarmament Call," by Sarah Ferguson, WW4 REPORT, May 2005
 http://www.ww4report.com/node/458