NucNews - December 14, 2005 -------- NUCLEAR Global Nuclear Survey: Public Support for New Power Plants Remains Tentative IAEA Press Release 2005/16 14 December 2005 http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/PressReleases/2005/prn200516.html A new 18-country opinion survey sponsored by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) found that "while majorities of citizens generally support the continued use of existing nuclear reactors, most people do not favour the building of new nuclear plants." Indeed, the findings of the survey, conducted by Globescan Inc. show that "six in ten citizens (62%) overall believe that existing nuclear reactors should continue to be used, yet six in ten (59%) do not favour new nuclear plants being built." At a time when the nuclear power option is being vigorously pursued in the fast developing countries of Asia and being reconsidered in some European nations and the USA, the findings raise questions as to whether the nuclear industry and politicians have sufficiently raised public confidence in the safety and efficiency of the nuclear power option. Regionally, support for nuclear power is highest in South Korea, the United States and India, where clear pluralities support the building of new nuclear plants. In Morocco, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Cameroon, pluralities prefer that all existing plants be shut down. The IAEA-sponsored survey was conducted between May and August this year in 18 countries representing all regions. Approximately 18,000 people were polled by telephone and in-person interviews. The opinion poll fielded six distinct questions, ranging from awareness of the IAEA and the effectiveness of IAEA inspections to support for peaceful nuclear applications and views about the security of nuclear materials and facilities and the threat of nuclear terrorism. Among the many revealing findings from the survey: * Pluralities of citizens in all but three of the 18 countries surveyed believe that IAEA inspections are not effective in monitoring countries´ nuclear programmes. An average of 46 percent of people across the 18 countries surveyed say that IAEA inspections are not effective, while three in ten people (29%) say that they are. * Majorities in 14 of the 18 countries - and pluralities in the remaining four countries - believes that the risk of terrorist acts involving radioactive materials and nuclear facilities is high because of insufficient protection. A majority of 54 percent across all countries surveyed believe the risk of nuclear terrorism to be high, while three in ten (28%) say that the risk is low. * People appreciate the value of nuclear technology. When asked to consider the peaceful uses of nuclear technology, people in all but three countries are most supportive, by far, of medical applications, followed by electricity generation. Across the 18 countries surveyed, respondents are most likely to choose the use of nuclear technology to treat human diseases as their preferred application (39%). This is followed by electricity generation (26%). * Stressing the climate benefits of nuclear energy positively influences one in ten people to be more supportive of expanding the role of nuclear power in the world, but there is still a general reluctance to build more nuclear plants. * Awareness of the IAEA among the general population is generally low. However, one in four citizens across the 18 countries surveyed say that they have heard or read "a lot" or "some" about the agency, with higher awareness in Asia and the Middle East. The full report, Global Public Opinion on Nuclear Issues and the IAEA - Final Report from 18 Countries, is being released today by the IAEA in Vienna. The countries surveyed included: Argentina, Australia, Cameroon, Canada, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Japan, Jordan, Mexico, Morocco, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, and the United States. Press Contacts Melissa Fleming Head, Media and Outreach Section Spokesperson Division of Public Information [43-1] 2600-21275 [43] 699-165-21275 (mobile) m.fleming@iaea.org David Kinley Media and Outreach Section Division of Public Information [43-1] 2600-22446 d.kinley@iaea.org About the IAEA The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) serves as the world's foremost intergovernmental forum for scientific and technical co-operation in the peaceful use of nuclear technology. Established as an autonomous organization under the United Nations (UN) in 1957, the IAEA carries out programmes to maximize the useful contribution of nuclear technology to society while verifying its peaceful use. NOTE TO EDITORS: For additional information visit the Press Section of the IAEA's website (http://www.iaea.org/Resources/Journalists/), or call the IAEA's Division of Public Information at (431) 2600-21270. International Atomic Energy Agency, P.O. Box 100, Wagramer Strasse 5, A-1400 Vienna, Austria Telephone (+431) 2600-0; Facsimilie (+431) 2600-7; E-mail: Official.Mail@iaea.org -------- europe Czech court cuts jail sentences for Slovak uranium sellers PRAGUE (AFP) Dec 14, 2005 http://www.spacewar.com/2005/051214150122.29ovm5zy.html The jail sentences of two former Slovak army officers found guilty of attempting to sell uranium were cut by the Czech Republic's highest court on Wednesday after it accepted that the raw material was low quality. The Brno-based court cut the sentence on Juraj Vagassky from 10 years to eight years and his partner, Peter Moravcik, from eight years to six. "The product was not dangerous in its state and could not have affected health," said the judge, Milada Samalova. Experts said the uranium could not have been used to make nuclear bombs. The two men were arrested by police at a hotel outside Brno, the Czech Republic's second city, in November 2003 after they tried to sell three kilogrammes of uranium for around 600,000 dollars. Vagassky said the Russian mafia had forced him to sell it and that he had brought his friend, Moravcik, along. The two men were originally sentenced by the Brno regional court last year. -------- iran Tehran gives first praise for Russian nuclear plan MOSCOW (AFP) Dec 14, 2005 http://www.spacewar.com/2005/051214010505.9qepnvpq.html A senior Iranian official for the first time on Tuesday implicitly praised Moscow's plan to allow Tehran to enrich uranium in Russia. "We salute all initiatives seeking to create an atmosphere of confidence, if Iran's rights to peaceful nuclear activities are recognised," the speaker of Iran's parliament said in Moscow, responding to an AFP question on Russia's face-saving plan. But, "during my visit, the question of uranium enrichment in Russia was not mentioned concretely," Gholam Ali Haddad Adel told a press conference in the Russian capital. The existence of the Russian plan had not previously been confirmed by Tehran. The Iranian speaker also noted that Russia's construction of a nuclear station at Bushehr is in line with IAEA standards, charging the United States with "solely political" motives in opposing it. "We know that objections posed by the Americans to our cooperation, particularly concerning Bushehr, are solely political," he said. Russia is currently helping Iran build the Bushehr nuclear power plant and earlier this month signed an agreement on supplying Tehran with sophisticated TOR M1 mobile surface-to-air missile defence systems. -------- israel Israel Troubled by Bush's Priorities by Jim Lobe, December 14, 2005 Inter Press Service http://www.antiwar.com/lobe/?articleid=8257 Despite their mutual enthusiasm for ousting Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, Israel and the United States appear increasingly at odds over what to do about the larger Middle East region. While the administration of President George W. Bush favors, or is at least indifferent to, the collapse of the Ba'athist regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad, the Israelis reportedly made it very clear in high-level talks in Washington late last month that they do not see the alternatives to the young leader as particularly attractive. At the same time, while Washington appears relatively content with Europe and Russia taking the lead in diplomatic efforts to persuade Iran to curb its nuclear program well short of any weapons capacity, Israel is growing concerned that Washington's threats to push for international sanctions or even attack suspected nuclear targets in Iran are becoming less and less credible. The government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, whose new party is expected to emerge as the strongest in elections next year, is also increasingly worried about Washington's pro-democracy drive for the region. In its view, the U.S. campaign risks empowering Islamist groups that are ideologically even more hostile to Israel than the authoritarian regimes they are challenging. In that respect, the strong showing by the candidates affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood in recent parliamentary elections in Egypt, the Arab state with which Israel first established peace, is considered particularly ominous. The notion that Sharon is unhappy with the direction of U.S. policy in the region naturally challenges the view that Israel exercises a dominant – if not decisive – influence over Washington's Middle East policy, particularly since the rise within the Bush administration after the September 2001 attacks of neoconservatives for whom Israel's security is considered a core principle. But neoconservatives have generally held their own views about how that security can be best ensured – usually in ways that are much closer to the right-wing Likud Party, whose ranks Sharon has just deserted, than to an Israeli government whose policies they consider too dovish. Thus, while they cheered Sharon for his harsh crackdown against the second Palestinian Intifada, many neoconservatives broke with him over his disengagement from Gaza. In spite of their gradual decline in influence in the Bush administration since the Iraq invasion, neoconservatives have been lobbying hard for the past two years for a policy of "regime change" in Syria. If necessary, this would include limited military strikes designed to humiliate Assad and punish him for his alleged failure to dismantle operations by the Iraqi insurgency and "foreign fighters" in Syria. They have been backed by the same hardliners who championed the Iraq invasion, notably Vice President Dick Cheney and some senior Pentagon officials. In the past year, neoconservatives have also argued that overthrowing the Ba'athist regime in Syria would add momentum to U.S. efforts to spread democracy in the region, particularly in the wake of Damascus' withdrawal of its military and intelligence forces from Lebanon after the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in February. The withdrawal, as well as the subsequent UN investigation that has pointed the finger at Damascus, has strengthened those in the administration who favor "regime change." But Israel, whose own analysis of the situation in Syria echoes that of regional experts in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the State Department, has voiced strong reservations, most recently at last month's strategic dialogue. According to an account of Israel's presentation by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA), the Israeli representatives cited three possible post-Assad scenarios, "none of them good." They included chaos that could actually see the spread of Iraq's burgeoning sectarian conflict engulfing Syria and even Lebanon; the seizure of power by the Muslim Brotherhood; or the emergence of another leader from Assad's minority Alawite sect who would be far more authoritarian. In their view, both Assad's secular domestic opposition and his exiled foes, notably neoconservative favorite Farid Ghadry, are far too weak and disorganized to rally a mass following or seriously contest power. To the Israelis, according to an account in The Forward, the main U.S. Jewish newspaper, Assad "is more than 'the devil you know,' he is the only Syrian that can maintain order." "The status quo in Syria seems to Israel to be the least bad scenario; a weak, impotent leader without any cards to play," said Leon Hadar, an Israeli-born expert whose recent book, Sandstorm, argues for a much-reduced U.S. role and presence in the region. "The short- and medium-term Israeli interest is clearly not to see anarchy or chaos in either Lebanon or Syria with all the mess they have to deal with in the West Bank and Gaza," he said. If the Israeli government fears the administration's activism when it comes to Syria, it is far more concerned about U.S. passivity over Iran's alleged nuclear weapons program. This is particularly so in light of recent threats against the Jewish state by Tehran's new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and an Israeli military intelligence assessment that such a program could become irreversible as early as next March. At last month's talks, Israeli officials reportedly reproached their U.S. interlocutors for agreeing to delay an effort to press the board of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to refer Iran to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions in light of a previous IAEA finding that Tehran had withheld information about its nuclear program Washington instead agreed to delay a campaign to bring the issue to the Security Council in order to permit the so-called EU-3 (France, Germany, and Britain) to present a Russian proposal to resolve the current standoff over Iran's uranium enrichment plans. Israel's complaints coincided with an extremely rare public criticism of the administration by the chief Zionist lobby in Washington, the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee. The group, which is particularly powerful in Congress, warned that further delay "poses a severe danger to the United States and our allies, and puts America and our interests at risk." The Israelis were particularly taken aback, according to The Forward, by the administration's failure to vigorously object to a recent Russian deal to sell Tehran more than one billion dollars worth of anti-aircraft missiles, "which could be used to help Iran protect its nuclear facilities against a possible air strike." They were also displeased by the announcement that the U.S. ambassador in Baghdad, Zalmay Khalilzad, has received presidential authority to resume direct talks with Iran about its interests and activities in Iraq that were cut off by administration hardliners two and a half years ago. The Israelis and their supporters in the U.S. fear that Washington's need for Tehran's cooperation in stabilizing Iraq and thus permitting most U.S. forces there to withdraw over the next year has weakened the administration's leverage to push for stronger action against Iran on the nuclear issue, even as it continues to insist that Iran's acquisition of a nuclear weapons capability is "unacceptable." ---- Nuclear adventures By: Gideon Spiro Hagada Hasmalit 14 December 2005 http://www.hagada.org.il/hagada/html/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=4152 Translated from Hebrew by Mark Marshall The London Newspaper Sunday Times published a story according to which Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has already issued the order to the air force to prepare for the bombing of the Iranian nuclear reactor, to be carried out in the second half of the month of March, a few days before the election. The story fits in well with the ongoing media spin that has been taking place in the Israeli press regarding the "Iranian bomb" and which is preparing Israeli public opinion for the possibility that Israel will initiate a military attack, even though there have not been any dramatic developments in Iran recently. I have no doubt that Sharon wants to imitate the late Prime Minister Menahem Begin who initiated the bombing of the Iraqi reactor in 1981 a short time before elections. That action played a decisive role in guaranteeing a second term for Begin. A similar action in Iran, if it goes well, will send Prime Minister Sharon's shares flying upwards and ensure his ultimate victory in the elections. Except that Iran is not Iraq, and the gamble here could also end in a failure that is likely to lead to a military and political catastrophe. Iran has spread its nuclear industry over various sites, and even if we assume that Israel has the capacity to bomb one or two sites (and there are those who have doubts about that), it will not lead to the elimination of the nuclear industry; on the contrary, the assessment is that such an action will spur Iran to double and triple its efforts at nuclear armament, not to speak of retaliatory actions that are likely to send the region on a course to conflict with weapons of mass destruction. Not only are we threatened by the Iranian missiles that can reach anywhere in Israel, but also by hundreds and maybe thousands of Hizbullah Katyushas that can reach Haifa Bay and can hit the oil refineries and chemical industries and cause huge fires and environmental contamination that will necessitate the evacuation of Haifa and its periphery. We must also take into consideration the fact that the Iranian missiles can reach the nuclear reactor in Dimona and cause devastation to the extent of covering the southern region with a radioactive cloud that would make it uninhabitable. Sharon has already proved with the Lebanon war that he is a dangerous adventurer, and this quality is likely to manifest itself again, especially if his good showing in the opinion polls diminishes as the elections approach. Then, I fear, he will enter a state of atomic stress, and be unable to resist the temptation, and will take a gamble on the fate of all of us and initiate a grandiose military action against Iran the consequences of which could be fraught with disaster. In that regard my advice to Sharon's opponents in the various parties, especially Amir Peretz, is to condition their refusal to support an alternative government composed of 61 Knesset members on a public promise by Sharon that he will not initiate any military action against Iran. -------- korea South Korea urges North Korea to end nuclear stalemate JEJU, South Korea (AFP) Dec 14, 2005 http://www.spacewar.com/2005/051214043808.piy3qbyt.html South Korea opened cabinet-level talks with North Korea here Wednesday with a plea to the communist state to return to six-party talks on its nuclear program at an early date. South Korea's Unification Minister Chung Dong-Young, Seoul's chief delegate, said in his opening remarks that North Korea should quickly end a dispute over US financial sanctions imposed on North Korea. "We urged them to remove an obstacle to the sixth round of six-party talks as soon as possible," Kim Chun-Sig, spokesman for South Korea's delegation, said." Our side also called for the early resumption of six-party talks." South Korea said the implementation of an agreement on ending North Korea's nuclear weapons drive reached at the fourth round of six-nation talks in September would spur inter-Korean cooperation, he added. North Korea's chief delegate Kwon Ho-Ung, a cabinet councilor, made no immediate response. Instead he insisted that South Korea end all joint military exercises with the United States, Kim said. "There was no immediate answer from the North Korean side. They just listened sincerely to what our side said," he said. Seoul and Washington, which stations 32,500 troops in South Korea, have been military allies for decades and regularly stage joint military drills aimed at deterring North Korean aggression. Pyongyang's long-term strategy of driving a wedge between the two allies has been eased by recent differences over the nuclear standoff between hardliners in Washington and Seoul's policy of reconciliation with North Korea. Chung is scheduled to travel Sunday to Washington for talks with policymakers there on the nuclear stalemate. Separately, South Korea's chief envoy to the six-party talks, Song Min-Soon, attended the welcome dinner here Tuesday for the North Korean delegates, Unification Ministry spokesman Yang Chang-Seok said. He did not say whether Song had separate talks with North Korean officials. North Korea said on Sunday that nuclear disarmament talks would be suspended indefinitely because of US financial sanctions imposed on it. North Korea agreed in principle at the fourth round of six-party talks in Beijing in September to dismantle its nuclear weapons program in exchange for diplomatic and economic benefits and security guarantees. The latest session, however, ended in stalemate last month, with Pyongyang urging Washington to lift sanctions on its firms. The US Treasury Department in September told US financial institutions to stop dealing with a Macau bank, Banco Delta Asia, which it accused of being a willing front for North Korean counterfeiting. A month later the US blacklisted eight North Korean companies allegedly involved in the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Last week US ambassador to Seoul Alexander Vershbow called Pyongyang a "criminal regime" engaged in illegal activities including money laundering and counterfeiting. North Korea angrily denounced Vershbow's remarks as a "declaration of war" and on Wednesday called for his expulsion from South Korea. South Korean officials said the inter-Korean dialogue also covered other thorny issues such as prisoners of war, military talks and the delayed opening of cross-border railways. South Korea says 546 prisoners of war captured by North Korea during the 1950-53 Korean War and some 485 civilians, mostly fishermen abducted since the conflict, are still alive in the North. Though economic exchanges have greatly increased following an inter-Korean summit in 2000, North Korea has balked at holding high-level military talks on easing tension, after two initial rounds in June 2004. "Our side stressed that progress in the military field is essential to development of inter-Korean relations," Kim said. ---- KEPCO signs deal to help Indonesia build nuclear plant By Ko Kyoung-tae (kkt@heraldm.com) 2005.12.14 Korea Herald http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/SITE/data/html_dir/2005/12/14/200512140016.asp The country's electricity monopoly Korea Electric Power Corp. announced yesterday it agreed to cooperate with an Indonesian state-run electric company to build its first nuclear power plant. Under the memorandum of understanding between KEPCO, its affiliate Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power Co. and PT Perusahaan Umum Listrik Negara, the three companies will co-establish the business plan for the nuclear power plant construction over the next one year. KEPCO said the two Korean companies will help PLN to lay out a scheme on power plant management, project financing and technology introduction, based on their experiences and advanced skills. After the one-year project, the Indonesian power generator is scheduled to put its 1000 megawatts nuclear power plant out to an international tender. "The deal is expected to help us take the lead in bidding for the Indonesian nuclear power plant construction," said KEPCO's spokesperson Park Yong-Seong. "It will also revitalize the Korean companies' penetration in the overseas market," he added. If KEPCO's bid is accepted, it will mark the first export of its optimized power reactor with a capacity of 1,000 megawatts based on home-grown technologies. PLN plans to commercialize its nuclear-based electric power across Indonesia in 2016, adding three more nuclear power plants to the Southeast Asian country by 2025. Details on the planned plant construction, including its venue and costs, were not immediately unveiled. Since Korea's first nuclear power generator went into commercial operation in 1978, the country currently has 20 operating nuclear reactors nationwide, providing four-tenth of the nation's total electricity requirement. The government aims to develop its nuclear power industry into one of the global top five between the year 2007-11, according to its third comprehensive nuclear energy development plant. -------- mideast Ankara [Turkey] unveils nuclear energy plant plans 14/12/2005 | Reuters http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1543225/posts ANKARA - The Turkish government will announce by the end of January a decision to build between three and five nuclear power plants with a total 5,000 megawatts capacity, sources close to the government said yesterday. The government may ask the electricity distribution companies to buy 7-10 percent of the energy produced in nuclear power plants, the sources said. “There will be no Treasury guarantee in this model, but the energy sector itself will provide the guarantee,” an official said. Turkey hopes nuclear power will help cover a projected energy shortage in the future, but its efforts on two other occasions in the last 30 years to build a nuclear power station failed due to cost and opposition from environmentalists. The country has no nuclear power production plants at present. Oil and natural gas imports, along with coal and hydroelectric power account for most of Turkey’s current energy needs. Construction of the plants will be funded partly by the public sector but mostly by private financiers, the sources said. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan will announce the location, starting date, and financing and technology to be used in the plants in January, an official said. Turkey aims to put its nuclear power plants into service in 2012 under its Energy Ministry projections. Turkey’s Atomic Energy Institute (TAEK) has started talks with leading nuclear power producers such as the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China on technology transfer and the costs. An official said that Turkey did not have a plan to buy a nuclear power plant, but a plan to develop its nuclear energy production technology. A failed tender to build a plant in 1997 attracted bids from three consortia led separately by US-based Westinghouse, Germany’s Siemens and Canada’s AECL. The bids neared $5 billion in this tender. -------- russia Nuclear power future lies in fast neutron reactors - Kiriyenko 17:03 | 14/ 12/ 2005 (RIA Novosti) http://en.rian.ru/russia/20051214/42489743.html YEKATERINBURG, December 14 - The future of nuclear power lies in fast neutron reactors, the head of the Russian Federal Agency for Nuclear Power Sergei Kiriyenko said Wednesday. "The BN-600 fast neutron reactor at the Beloyarsk nuclear power plant [in the Ural Federal District] is unique," Sergei Kiriyenko said, adding that these reactors were much safer. "This is an area of our competitive advantages," he said. "Russia is a doubtless leader here. The next move is the construction of a BN-800 [reactor]." Kiriyenko, who visited the Beloyarsk nuclear power plant Wednesday, highlighted progress in the construction of the BN-800 reactor, worth $46 billion. He said $35 million would be allocated from the 2006 federal budget for the BN-800 construction. Kiriyenko also said the Federal Agency for Nuclear Power would be turned into a joint stock company, but it would seek state, not private, investments. He said Russia was involved in the construction of five nuclear power plants abroad, adding that NPP tariffs were more profitable than the tariffs of other types of power plants. Kiriyenko also said the number of NPP facilities should be increased to prevent energy crises. -------- u.n. In message to Nobel winner, pope says nuclear threat continues Posted on December 14, 2005 http://www.totalcatholic.com/universe/index.php?news_id=493&start=0&category_id=&parent_id=0&arcyear=&arcmonth= In a message congratulating a winner of this year's Nobel Peace Prize, Pope Benedict XVI warned that the world continues to be threatened by the spread of nuclear weapons. The pope's comments came in a telegram Dec. 10 to Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency and the chief U.N. nuclear inspector, who accepted the peace prize the same day at a ceremony in Oslo, Norway. ElBaradei, an Egyptian, shared the prize with the atomic energy agency, based in Vienna, Austria. "Even today, 60 years after the devastating attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it is clear that the peace of the world continues to be at risk from the spread of nuclear weapons," the pope said. He praised ElBaradei's service to the world in promoting nuclear nonproliferation and promoting nuclear disarmament. "I pray that God will continue to guide the efforts of all who work for peace, and especially those who seek to prevent any further use of weapons of mass destruction," the pope said. At U.N. and other international meetings, the Vatican has been one of the strongest voices insisting on nuclear disarmament. It was sharply critical of world leaders last September for sidestepping the issue at a summit in New York. When he accepted the award, ElBaradei said the world was in "a race against time" to avoid nuclear disaster of some kind. He said that if humanity hopes to escape self-destruction, nuclear weapons must have no role in security. ---- World opinion against the building of new nuclear plants: IAEA VIENNA (AFP) Dec 14, 2005 http://www.spacewar.com/2005/051214153606.7kx5kbxq.html A majority of those surveyed in 18 countries around the world said they were opposed to the building of new nuclear plants, according to a poll published Wednesday by the UN nuclear watchdog. "Six in ten citizens (62 percent) overall believe that existing nuclear reactors should continue to be used, yet six in ten (59 percent) do not favour new nuclear plants being built," the survey of about 18,000 people showed. These findings come "at a time when the nuclear power option is being vigorously pursued in the fast developing countries of Asia and being reconsidered in some European nations and the USA," said the International Atomic Energy Agency. Only in South Korea do a majority of people support the building of new nuclear plants, said the report from the Vienna-based organsiation. Moreover, only 29 percent of those surveyed found the IAEA inspections to be "effective," against 46 percent who said they were not. A majority of people (54 percent) also thought the risk of nuclear terrorism was "high", compared to 28 percent who said it was "low." The IAEA is currently carrying out inspections in Iran to determine whether the country's nuclear programme is strictly peaceful or whether it has military purposes, as the United States and the European Union fear. The poll was carried out from May to August by the American institute Globescan Inc., in Argentina, Australia, Britain, Cameroon, Canada, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Japan, Jordan, Mexico, Morocco, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Korea and the United States. -------- u.s. nuc weapons An uncertain role for US nuclear weapons Arms control experts and politicians have become alarmed about the apparent direction of the Bush administration’s nuclear policy. US DOD By Sara M. Kuepfer for ISN Security Watch (14/12/05) http://www.isn.ethz.ch/news/sw/details.cfm?ID=13862 It was with much relief for many arms control advocates, that the US Congress last October rejected for the second time the appropriation of funds for the development of Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrators (RNEP), also known as bunker busters. These earth-penetrating nuclear warheads would have been designed to destroy hardened and deeply buried targets, such as underground military bunkers or weapons facilities. In theory, bunker busters were supposed to limit the amount of nuclear radiation by confining the explosion underground. Congress has further denied administration requests for a new facility to build plutonium cores for nuclear weapons and for reducing the wait period for the resumption of nuclear weapons tests. However, these congressional vetoes do not end the controversies surrounding the nuclear policy objectives of the administration of George W. Bush. The future role of US nuclear weapons - both existing and potentially new ones - is far from certain. Last March, the Pentagon issued a new nuclear draft doctrine - the Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations - which briefly became available on a military website this September. The final version of the doctrine, scheduled to come out this fall, is still outstanding. The draft doctrine, which draws on the Bush administration’s 2001 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), has led to much controversy in the US and abroad, as it discusses the possibility of using nuclear weapons as a preventative measure even against non-nuclear weapons of mass destruction (WMD) threats. “This really constitutes a big shift in nuclear doctrine,” says Victoria Samson, a research analyst at the Center for Defense Information (DCI) in Washington, DC. According to a 8 December article by Hans Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project with the Federation of American Scientists, the scenarios for the possible use of nuclear weapons outlined in the draft doctrine “have little to do with deterrence based on last resort, but everything to do with good old nuclear war fighting scenarios where nuclear weapons are just another tool in the toolbox”. The US Department of Energy’s nuclear laboratories currently spend over US$6 billion annually on weapons research, development, and production - compared to an annual average of US$3.8 billion during the Cold War. Nuclear non-proliferation experts maintain that by continuing to emphasize the military value of nuclear weapons, the US puts itself in a weak position to convince other nations not to acquire some of their own. Dr. Waheguru Pal Singh Sidhu of the Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP) told ISN Security Watch: “If the US, which is today the unrivalled hyper-power in the world with the best of nuclear and conventional weapons, feels the need to develop a new generation of nuclear weapons with the objective of possibly using them in a conventional conflict, then what about the rest of the poorly armed countries living in dangerous neighborhoods?” Besides arms control experts, politicians also have become alarmed about the apparent direction of the Bush administration’s nuclear policy. On 5 December, 16 Democratic members of the US Congress wrote a letter to President Bush voicing concern about the draft nuclear document. “We believe this effort to broaden the range of scenarios in which nuclear weapons might be contemplated is unwise and provocative,” the letter states. However, a former US official, who spoke to ISN Security Watch on condition of anonymity, emphasizes that the draft document, which has been written by military staff, does not necessarily reflect official US policy. “It is important to keep in mind that all decisions about the use of nuclear weapons are made by the President […] and it has been a clear policy of this administration, both publicly and privately, to reduce the role of nuclear weapons.” Nuclear policy experts close to the administration also maintain that states such as Iran and North Korea pursuing nuclear weapons do so for their own reasons, regardless of US nuclear policy. The role of nuclear weapons labs Going back to President Dwight Eisenhower’s warning about the increasing influence of the “military-industrial complex”, a frequent argument in the context of this debate is that US nuclear scientists and weapons corporations are successfully lobbying the Bush administration to provide more funds for nuclear weapons research. “By arguing that today’s nukes are too big, and that we need smaller warheads to make them more usable,” Samson explains, nuclear scientists can convincingly “stress the military need for new generations of nuclear weapons”. With the Bush administration, says Samson, nuclear scientists seem to have found an open ear for their concerns: “Certainly, there is more credulousness [in this administration] about what the labs are saying. This administration is much more willing to see worst case scenarios, and more likely to have all military options open.” But a former US official who worked on US nuclear weapons policy for 25 years, denies any such accusations. He told ISN Security Watch on condition of anonymity that it was not the scientists who were making nuclear policy. He also said pressure from weapons manufacturers has never made any difference in the making of nuclear policy. The future of nuclear deterrence Administration officials advocating the development of a new generation of nuclear weapons stress the necessity of adjusting US nuclear capabilities to the new security environment. In particular, the argument goes, the large strategic warheads designed to deter a Soviet nuclear attack based on the principle of mutually assured destruction (MAD) may no longer deter America’s new enemies, including rogue states such as North Korea and Iran. Critics, however, argue that during the Cold War, the goal of nuclear deterrence was to prevent the use of the weapon. By developing low-yield precision weapons, the likelihood of nuclear weapons actually being used may increase. Yet a former US official told ISN Security Watch that such fears were not warranted. “If a president was ever forced by circumstances to use a nuclear weapon, he or she would have to use whatever is in the arsenal, so having a bunker buster or not doesn’t make it more or less likely.” While slashing the funds for the development of bunker busters, US Congress meanwhile approved a seemingly more modest program called reliable replacement warhead (RRW) aimed at maintaining America’s existing nuclear capabilities. Still, some experts caution that the RRW program is too elastic. As Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, argues: “The RRW program could, if not carefully circumscribed, become a back door for the administration to circumvent congressional opposition to new warhead designs for new and destabilizing nuclear strike missions.” Fears about potential loopholes aside, the adopted RRW program will first and foremost allow the US government to keep its already existing nuclear weapons in proper working condition. And this is an important prerequisite if the US wants to keep a nuclear deterrent in the 21st century. As a former US official explained: “The worst thing to have is the notion that you have a deterrent but it’s based on systems that you can’t rely on.” But just how much research, modernization, and potentially new testing is needed to keep up a credible US nuclear deterrent remains an open question. The controversy about the future of American nuclear weapons is far from over. Sara M. Kuepfer is an employee of the Center for Comparative and International Studies, Zurich, Switzerland. -------- u.s. nuc facilities -------- nevada Senators offer Yucca alternative Reid, Ensign to introduce legislation on nuclear waste By Benjamin Grove December 14, 2005 Las Vegas Sun Washington Bureau http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/text/2005/dec/14/519817909.html WASHINGTON -- Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid and Sen. John Ensign are expected today to unveil long-anticipated legislation that formally proposes their alternative to Yucca Mountain -- leaving waste at the nuclear power plants that produced it. With that, the Nevada senators will have fired an opening salvo in what is expected to be a war of wills next year with the Bush administration and key lawmakers over the nation's shifting nuclear waste policy. The Energy Department is still forging ahead with the planned nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, but reworking the plan to simplify it. One of the repository's strongest proponents, Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., recently said Yucca was not "the final answer" but would play a role in the nation's nuclear waste plan. The senators spent the year drumming up support for their bill, but it is not expected to have more than three sponsors. Reid, Ensign and Sen. Robert Bennett, R-Utah, who dropped his support for Yucca in September, publicly advocated on-site storage this year. It's possible Reid and Ensign will gather more support in the next year, Reid spokeswoman Tessa Hafen said. "The tide really is turning against Yucca Mountain," Hafen said. "There are a lot of alternatives being discussed, and this is one alternative." Hafen declined to discuss the bill in detail until it was officially introduced. Ensign, returning from a night on the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan docked off California, was unavailable Tuesday. "The purpose of the bill is to provide a viable alternative to transporting nuclear waste," Ensign spokesman Jack Finn said, previewing one argument for the legislation that the senators are likely to make repeatedly. The bill's introduction has an important broader context, as Congress and the Energy Department consider significant changes to the nation's nuclear waste policy. The current 18-year-old strategy for dealing with the highly radioactive waste -- produced by 103 operating U.S. commercial nuclear reactors, as well as Defense Department waste from nuclear submarines and other sources -- has been to bury it all in underground tunnels at Yucca Mountain. But Yucca has long been delayed. The bill by the two Nevada senators scraps that plan and directs the federal government to "take title" -- ownership -- of the waste and pay to store and secure it in the waste pools and above-ground containers at the plants where it is produced. Reid and Ensign wanted to introduce the bill in the final days of this year's congressional session because they wanted to give themselves a full year to press for it in 2006. They will have competition. The Energy Department is crafting its own nuclear waste policy changes. The department is committed to building Yucca Mountain, but other proposed policy shifts have been kept under wraps. There has been much speculation about what the department might propose. For instance, it's possible it will outline its plans on whether to pursue the controversial and costly technology used to recycle nuclear waste. The Energy Department this spring will have to account for how it plans to spend $50 million approved by Congress to research the recycling technology. Another policy change may involve storing some waste at an interim site or sites -- possibly, even, Yucca Mountain. Creating such a temporary waste site is part of an "ongoing dialogue" at the department, spokesman Craig Stevens said. Making Yucca that site is "not off the table." There are also rumors that the department could aim to take Yucca Mountain "off-budget," curbing the ability of Congress to set annual Yucca budgets and giving the department more direct access to an $18 billion national nuclear waste fund. That proposal has the support of a few key lawmakers, but it has been rejected by Congress in the past. Any of those kinds of major changes would take an act of Congress -- and would be strongly opposed by Democratic leader Reid and the rest of the Nevada delegation. Likewise, the Reid-Ensign legislation will meet with resistance in Congress and outright opposition by the nuclear power industry. The industry has not supported storing waste on-site indefinitely, even if the government takes responsibility for it, said Trish Conrad, spokeswoman for the Nuclear Energy Institute. Meanwhile investors and the nuclear industry, which has proposed an ambitious plan to begin constructing a new generation of nuclear power plants, will be watching the Energy Department and Congress closely next year to see how the government redefines its nuclear waste policy, analysts said. "The financial community is certainly worried about resolving this issue for existing plants, and so far, the Yucca Mountain plan has been the preferred option for the indus try,( said Caren Byrd, a nuclear analyst with Morgan Stanley. "It's something that as a nation we have to come to grips with. This is one of the things that has to be resolved before we can commit to new nuclear (plants). Benjamin Grove can be reached at (202) 662-7436 or at grove@lasvegassun.com -------- new mexico N.M. senators plug energy issues in Europe, at home By ALBUQUERQUE TRIBUNE STAFF December 14, 2005 http://www.abqtrib.com/albq/nw_national_government/article/0,2564,ALBQ_19861_4314511,00.html WASHINGTON - Even separated by an ocean, New Mexico's Sens. Pete Domenici and Jeff Bingaman seldom get away from the issue of energy. Domenici, the Albuquerque Republican who chairs the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, is returning today from a quick trip to Europe where he became the first American to receive the "Grande Medaille" from the French Nuclear Energy Society for his contributions to furthering the use of nuclear energy. "I look forward to a global renaissance in the use of nuclear energy," said Domenici, noting that eight U.S. utilities announced plans to build 13 nuclear power plants after passage of the energy bill. Domenici also visited the site of a uranium enrichment plant at Amelo, Netherlands, operated by Urenco, the same company that is proposing to build a similar plant in Eunice in southeastern New Mexico. In three decades the Netherlands plant has never experienced any significant accidents, Domenici told reporters in a conference call. Meanwhile, Bingaman, the Silver City Democrat who is the ranking minority member on the energy committee, on Tuesday was helping a coalition of utilities, government agencies and trade associations kick off a campaign to encourage conservation. "The Power Is in Your Hands" campaign will include print ads and media events. "If we were to spend about a third as much on educating people on energy conservation as we do on Viagra, we'd probably get this problem fixed in a hurry," Bingaman cracked at a news conference in Washington, D.C. For more information go to www.powerisinyourhands.org. -------- south carolina Utilities file letter of intent for nuclear plant Associated Press Wed, Dec. 14, 2005 http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/mld/myrtlebeachonline/news/local/13406624.htm CHARLESTON, S.C. - Two South Carolina electric utilities - Scana Corp. and Santee Cooper - have filed a letter of intent with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to seek a permit to build a new nuclear power plant. There has been no final decision on building a reactor or where it would be built. The V.C. Summer plant in Jenkinsville near Columbia and land at the Savannah River Site near Aiken are being considered. "We have not ruled out other options as well as far as generation is concerned," said Scana spokesman Robin Montgomery. "This just allows us to keep our place in line." Congress recently gave the industry new subsidies to promote new reactor construction including insurance against financial losses caused by regulatory delays. No new commercial nuclear power plant has been ordered in the United States in more than 30 years. Scana, the parent firm of South Carolina Electric & Gas, and Santee Cooper co-own the 23-year-old V.C. Summer plant. Last year the plan won a permit extension allowing it to operate until 2042. Santee Cooper, even though it will add new coal turbines in 2007 and 2009, will have to buy power from other utilities by 2011 if the pace of growth in the state continues. "We need a unit in 2012 and we need another in 2015," said Bill McCall, Santee Cooper's chief operations officer. "You don't need to look at the numbers long to realize that." "This is the most challenging generation plan I've ever looked at," said Santee Cooper Chief Executive Officer Lonnie Carter. "We're not going to get by just with nuclear." Carter said the Summer facility would be "the site to beat" in building a new reactor. The site already has security and room for another cooling tower. A consortium of other utilities, a group including Duke Energy, had also been considering the Savannah River Site as one of six sites to build a new nuclear reactor. But in September, the consortium Nustart Energy Development, narrowed the potential sites to a Tennessee Valley Authority site near Scottsboro, Ala., and a site in Mississippi operated by Entergy near Port Gibson, Miss. -------- MILITARY -------- asia India presses China on arms sales to Nepal By Jo Johnson and Binod Bhattarai in Kathmandu Published: December 14 2005 02:00 Financial Times http://news.ft.com/cms/s/9cb011ea-6c55-11da-bb53-0000779e2340.html India has called on China to stop supplying arms and ammunition to Nepal and join international efforts to force King Gyanendra to restore democracy following his takeover in February. Shyam Saran, Indian foreign secretary, said on Tuesday on a visit to Nepal: "The international community has taken a position in order to foster the process of reconciliation among political forces here and we would hope that not only China but other countries join in that effort." India, the US and the UK imposed an arms embargo on Nepal in February, cutting off supplies to the Royal Nepalese Army. Traditionally loyal to the king, the army has since late 2001 been leading the fight against the strengthening Maoist insurgency. Nepal has turned to China and Pakistan, India's regional rivals, for arms and last month there were reports it secured a large consignment of military supplies. Last month Nepal played its "China card", a foreign policy tactic used during the cold war, by inviting Beijing to be an observer in the seven-nation South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation, ostensibly as a condition for accepting Afghanistan as a member. "Nepal's efforts to lure a largely Tibet-focused China into showing it can play a role in south Asia may not be worth angering India. Feeling in New Delhi is already quite anti-king," a western diplomat said. Nepal's political equilibrium shifted in mid-November when a seven-party alliance accounting for 90 per cent of the last elected parliament struck an 12-point understanding with the Maoist leadership. -------- europe European Investigation Finds Evidence of CIA Abductions Wednesday, December 14th, 2005 Headlines, Democracy Now! http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/14/154203 In Europe, an investigation into the existence of secret CIA prisons has found evidence that reportedly bolsters recent allegations U.S. operatives kidnapped and transferred detainees on European soil. In an interim report submitted Tuesday, Dick Marty, the Swiss parliamentarian heading the investigation for the Council of Europe, wrote : "the information gathered to date reinforced the credibility of the allegations concerning the transport and temporary detention of detainees -- outside all judicial procedure -- in European countries." Marty also criticized Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice for not giving an adequate explanation during a visit to Europe last week. Marty said he has asked Romania and Poland for specific information concerning allegations the countries played host to the secret prisons. Both countries have denied this charge. Marty said he believes the secret prisons have been shut down and moved to North Africa. European Officials Say Rendition Uproar May Harm Intelligence Cooperation Meanwhile, European officials are saying the row over the secret prisons and rendition threatens to harm foreign intelligence cooperation with the US. Zbigniew Siemiatkowski, Poland's former intelligence chief, said : "It makes everybody wonder, what is going on with such an institution as the CIA that top-secret information is being leaked and whether it is worth sacrificing, literally, life for cooperation with the agency." Rene van der Linden, president of the Council of Europe's parliamentary assembly, said: "If these allegations remain unresolved, they risk damaging the image of the USA in Europe and thus transatlantic relations, at a time when global security requires a strong alliance amongst our countries." -------- iraq Study Shows Civilian Death Toll in Iraq More Than 100,000 Wednesday, December 14th, 2005 Democracy Now! http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/14/154251 On the 1,000th day of the U.S. war on Iraq, we look at a subject that usually receives little attention -- the Iraqi civilian death toll since the war began. We speak with Dr. Les Roberts, the lead researcher of a study released last year on the number of deaths in Iraq, which put the toll at more than 100,000. [includes rush transcript] President Bush was asked about the Iraqi civilian death toll on Monday following his speech at the Philadelphia World Affairs Council. - Q: Since the inception of the Iraqi war, I'd like to know the approximate total of Iraqis who have been killed. And by Iraqis I include civilians, military, police, insurgents, translators. - THE PRESIDENT: How many Iraqi citizens have died in this war? I would say 30,000, more or less, have died as a result of the initial incursion and the ongoing violence against Iraqis. We've lost about 2,140 of our own troops in Iraq. President Bush’s comments took many by surprise because the administration has said little over the past 1,000 days on how many Iraqis have died because of the war and occupation. Since Bush spoke on Monday, several officials denied the government was keeping a tally on Iraqi deaths. White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said that Bush was "citing public estimates," not a government-produced figure. Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Barry Venable said there is no official tally of civilian deaths in Iraq. However, Venable said the U.S. military does collect data on deaths from insurgent attacks. If the government did keep close tabs on Iraqi civilian deaths, they might likely find the number is far higher than 30,000. Last year the prestigious British medical journal the Lancet published a study estimating that over 100,000 Iraqi civilians had died because of the war. The study determined that the risk of death by violence for civilians in Iraq is now 58 times higher than before the US-led invasion. We are joined in Washington by the lead researcher of that report. - Les Roberts, co-author of a 2004 study on civilian mortality in Iraq since the invasion. He is an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. JUAN GONZALEZ: We are talking with Sami Rousuli from Karbala, with the Christian Peacemaker Teams. We also have on the phone, from Beirut, independent journalist, Robert Fisk, but we would also like to on this 1,000th day of the U.S. war in Iraq, look back at the subject that usually receives little attention, the Iraqi civilian death toll since the war began. President Bush was asked about this on Monday following his speech at the Philadelphia World Affairs Council. AUDIENCE MEMBER: Since the inception of the Iraq war, I'd like to know the approximate total of Iraqis who have been killed, and by Iraqis, I include civilians, military, police, insurgents, translators. PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: How many Iraqi citizens have died in this war? I would say 30,000, more or less, have died as a result of the initial incursion and the ongoing violence against Iraqis. We have lost about 2,140 of our own troops in Iraq. JUAN GONZALEZ: President Bush's comments took many by surprise, because the administration has said little over the past 1,000 days on how many Iraqis that have died because of the war and occupation. Since Bush spoke on Monday, several officials denied the government was keeping a tally on Iraqi deaths. White House Press Secretary said that Bush was, quote, “citing public estimates, not a government-produced figure.” Pentagon spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Barry Venable said, “There's no official tally of civilian deaths in Iraq.” However, Venable said the U.S. military does collect data on deaths from insurgent attacks. If the government did keep close tabs on Iraqi civilian deaths, they might likely find the number is far higher than 30,000. Last year, the prominent British medical journal, Lancet, published a study estimating that over 100,000 Iraqi civilians had died because of the war. The study determined that the risk of death by violence for civilians in Iraq is now 58 times higher than before the U.S. invasion. We are joined in Washington by the lead researcher of that report, Dr. Les Roberts, who is an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. LES ROBERTS: Good morning, Juan. JUAN GONZALEZ: Welcome. Your reaction to the President finally saying something about the civilian deaths, and his numbers? LES ROBERTS: I have a couple of reactions. I guess, politically, he has to downplay this issue, but for him to say a number, that of the eight estimates out there is probably the lowest one, really is not a strategic thing to do in terms of winning hearts and minds in Iraq. Secondly, I’m even more struck that here a year after our study came out, the first time the President has been asked about this was not by a reporter, but by someone from the public when he took a question. JUAN GONZALEZ: And have you continued to do follow-ups on your initial study? LES ROBERTS: Actually, we haven't. We just did our nationwide survey where we visited about 1,000 houses, mostly in September of last year, and asked them had anyone in their household died since January 1, 2002. So, there we had about 14 months before the invasion and about 18 months after. And we could compare in each household the death rate before and after. And since that time, we have not followed up. Iraqi Body Count has actually found a higher rate per day after than before, and another surveillance system, which has since gone defunct for lack of funding, called the NGO Coordinating Committee in Iraq, found something similar, but as far as us following up on the ground, no, that hasn't happened. JUAN GONZALEZ: Your study, when it came out, came under enormous attack, especially from conservative forces here in the United States. Do you still stand by the methodology, and could you talk a little bit about that methodology? LES ROBERTS: Sure. What we did was the standard way of estimating malnutrition and immunization coverage and mortality in the developing world. We got a list of how many people lived in what cities and towns and villages. We randomly allocated 33 points, in which we would go visit, and we went out to the villages or towns and picked up that point, and visited the 30 houses close. We’ve got 33 neighborhoods. We visited 30 houses in each one. And we asked people: Who lives here now? Who lived here the first of January, 2002? Had anyone been born? Had anyone died? And at the end of the interview, if they had reported someone dead, on a sub-sample, we asked, can you show us the death certificate? And about 82% of the time, they could do that. And we found that the death rate after the invasion was far, far higher than before. The criticism of our report isn't in the method. It isn’t in the validity of our conclusion that mortality is up. It's in the imprecision. And the reason that the imprecision was so high was in part because one of the randomly picked neighborhoods was in the city of Fallujah, and while in most neighborhoods about 2% of the population had died, in Fallujah about a quarter of the population in those houses left, where we knocked on the door, had died. And as a result, we had this really huge death toll attributable to Fallujah, less than that in our other 32 neighborhoods. So, what we did was we said, okay. We're going to set that Fallujah number aside and report that we think in all of those other neighborhoods, essentially, outside of Anbar Province, we think 100,000 are dead. And we're only 90% sure it's more than 44,000. So there's a distribution around that, and it's possible it could have been 90, and it's possible it could have been 110. But we said, well, when you consider then Anbar Province, as well, the chances that it’s under 100,000 are very, very low. That was a little nuance, I think, for the press to pick it up as a sound bite. And so, those who attacked us did not attack us for our methods. In fact, I think, if you read the reviews in the Wall Street Journal or The Economist, of what we did, the scientific community is quite soundly behind our approach. The criticism is of the imprecision. But realize the imprecision is: Was it 100,000 or was it 200,000? The question wasn't: Was it only 30 or 40? There's no chance it could have been only 30 or 40. JUAN GONZALEZ: And, Robert Fisk, you were saying earlier in the show that by your actual body counts in Baghdad -- ROBERT FISK: My body count, this was the official, secret, of course, Ministry of Health figures in Baghdad for July alone, just in Baghdad, was 1,100 dead. This was the highest figure for the city of Baghdad since records began. And these were figures which the British and American advisers to the Iraqi Ministry of Health have forbidden the ministry to give out to journalists. And it's just because I go often to the mortuaries, and physically count the dead in the heat and the dirt, that I know the mortuary officials well enough for them to trust me by showing me the screen figures. And in July, it is a fact that 1,100 Iraqis were -- died by violence in just July. I was there in August. So on one Monday morning, there were nine bodies brought to the mortuary. Death by violence by 9:00 a.m. At 12:00, there were 26, including a young woman who was brought in with her hands tied behind her back, shot three times in the brain and a baby shot in the face. These are real figures. These are real people. This is not extrapolation. This is the reality. JUAN GONZALEZ: And I'd like to ask Sami Rousuli, as we try to wrap up this segment, from Karbala, your thoughts here on the eve of pretty much of the election that is going to occur? SAMI ROUSULI: I’m sorry, the question again? JUAN GONZALEZ: Your thoughts as the Iraqi civilians prepare for an election this week? SAMI ROUSULI: Yes, indeed. They are excited just to hear anything they might see a light at the end of the tunnel. They have been doing this since the beginning of this year, but now with this election, which will be held tomorrow, the new thing about it that, as I indicated, Ayatollah Sistani didn't prefer any slate [inaudible] and also the Sunnis are participating for the first time in this election, which they are representing between about 25% to 35% of the population. So, also the Iraqis are anticipating, if this legislature will be elected tomorrow for four years, and maybe within two years, a law will be run and set for the new Iraq, and probably by then, the occupation forces will be leaving by the end of 2007, and that came according to the agreement they reached in Cairo, all different factions, Kurds, Arab Sunnis, Arab Shiites and other minorities who met in Cairo under the auspices of the Arab League, when they called upon to schedule a timetable for the occupation forces to be leaving Iraq. So, this call is coming along with the call of Congressman Murtha in the U.S. and according also to the public opinion demanding the same thing in the U.S. and the West. JUAN GONZALEZ: Sami Rousuli, we’re going to have to end it there. Sami Rousuli from the Muslim Peacemaker Teams, thank you for being with us, as well as Les Roberts, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins University and author of the 2004 study on civilian mortality in Iraq, and thanks once again to Robert Fisk with the Independent, a Middle East correspondent for the London Independent. Thanks for being with us. ---- What Sunni voters want By Ilene R. Prusher and Jill Carroll December 14, 2005 Christian Science Monitor http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1214/p01s04-woiq.html?s=rss BAGHDAD AND HUSEYBAH, IRAQ – In a complete turnabout from last January's vote to select an interim assembly, Sunni Arabs are expected to turn out in large numbers Thursday to select Iraq's new parliament. In some cases, they are being driven to participate by a sense of disenfranchisement and a desire to gain more political sway in a country many see as being dominated by a powerful Shiite and Kurdish alliance. They are also motivated by a strong anti-US sentiment that runs throughout much of the Sunni community. In fact, some Sunni politicians are even using images of dead insurgents to attract support among those who are sympathetic to Iraq's violent rebellion. While most agree Iraq's permanent parliament will have greater Sunni representation, it will be an uphill battle for this minority to regain a foothold in the country they once dominated. Sunni anger grew Tuesday as news spread that Mizhal al-Duleimy, a prominent Sunni politician, was fatally shot while campaigning in the city of Ramadi, west of Baghdad. That comes on top of fresh reports that Sunnis arrested by Shiite forces are being mistreated and tortured in underground prisons. Iraq's interim prime minister, Ibrahim Jafaari, acknowledged that more abused prisoners have been found inside jails run by his interior ministry. "We kept telling the US and the UN that there are such prisons, and that all the prison are full of Sunnis," says Nabil Mohammed Yunis, a political scientist and consultant with the Iraqi Islamic Party, which is one of the prominent groups in a multiparty Sunni slate named the Iraqi Consensus Front. The prisons are an "issue that will push others to participate in the elections. People want to see that there will be a political balance in the government, so that such prisons will be closed, because most of the people in them are innocent." At an appliance shop in downtown Baghdad, several Sunni shop managers talk about the elections in hushed tones, stopping the conversation when their Shiite employees come within earshot. "A lot of bad things have been happening on the ground since Shiites captured the government," says Bassem As-Shumari, one of the managers. The men say that most government-employed Sunnis have been thrown out of their jobs, and there has been an increase in random arrests and disappearances. Co-worker Taha Sheikhli says that his brother-in-law was among a group of Sunnis brought before a Shiite-run court in Sadr City. He says his brother-in-law was released with the demand he pay 2 million Iraqi dinars [about $1,380] in protection money or see his family killed; they fled to Syria instead. "This is not a pure democracy," says Mr. Sheikhli. "We'll do our duty, so I'll vote for a Sunni party, but I what I really want is someone to unify the country, not increase divisions." Theirs is a familiar theme heard across Iraq's complicated ethnic and political spectrum. Sheikhli and Mr. As-Shumar, like many Sunnis, say they are voting for the Iraqi Consensus Front - a slate consisting of the three main Sunni parties - but say they also support Iyad Allawi, the former prime minister, who is a secular Shiite. "I like Allawi," says As-Shumar, "because he cares about Iraq, not which sect you're from." If they were able to cast two ballots, the men said, they'd give their vote for parliament to the Sunni parties, and a second vote to Mr. Allawi for prime minister. Indeed, they view Allawi as the figure who can crack down on Iraq's spiraling insecurity. But that tough image is read differently by others. Religious Shiites have been painting Allawi as a neo-Baathist, attacking him with posters that compare him to Saddam Hussein. Beyond the allegations of prisoner abuse, many Sunnis are heading to the ballot box hoping to prevent the country from being partitioned. The draft of the Iraqi constitution, passed in a referendum in October, raises the prospect of a federalist system that will increase autonomy for Kurds in the north and Shiites in the south. Many Sunnis fear that will leave them increasingly powerless - and potentially deprived of oil-wealth - in the middle. "Our campaign is against sectarian divisions, and so our first priority is to rewrite the constitution," says Naseer Al-Ani, a political officer for the Iraqi Islamic Party, one of the leading parties on the Sunni slate. The party's vice president, Ayad al-Samaray, says he fears interference in the election process at polling stations around the country, which are likely to be under the thumb of parties trying to get elected. In western Iraq, in the heart of the Sunni insurgency, voter turnout is also expected to be high. In the town of Huseybah, the campaign posters feature dead Iraqis, labeled as "martyrs." The posters promote a list of candidates headed by Adnan Dulaimi, a Sunni Arab leader whose tribe is one of the most influential in the region and is believed to have credibility with insurgents. He has made clear his opposition to the presence of American troops in Iraq, which has boosted his popularity in the eyes of many Arab Sunnis. His decision to participate and to encourage Sunnis to vote is seen by some American officials as a sign that Sunni leaders would depart from their murky support for insurgents, and instead use the political process to address their grievances. But as Mr. Dulaimi popularity indicates, some voters see democracy and support for the insurgency not as mutually exclusive ideas. Many Iraqis here say they support the American and Iraqi military presence in town to keep it safe, but they also plan to vote for Dulaimi or rival Sunni candidate Saleh Mutlaq. Both candidates have made opposition to the American military presence the cornerstone of their appeal to average Sunnis. "Saleh Mutlaq is personable and straigthtforward. He's a good man and he knows his country,'' says Watha Naqab, standing in a narrow street as US marines and Iraqi soldiers hand him a leaflet encouraging him to vote. "We want Adnan Dulaimi because we've known [his organization] for a long time,'' says Mohammed Mahdi, squatting next to an 18-wheel truck he's repairing. He lists the benefits he expects from the election. "We want security. Hopefully after the election everything will be better." The Sunni candidates here are also playing on themes of Sunni disenfranchisement and opposition to the new constitution. The more Sunnis that win seats in this national election, the greater their chance to alter the constitution when the body sits. "The Sunni parties have done a pretty good job about getting the word out about disenfranchisement,'' says Lt. Col. Robert Glover, who heads the Marines rebuilding and compensation programs in the area. ---- The Iraq Invasion: Day 1,000 Wednesday, December 14th, 2005 Democracy Now! http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/14/154243 1,000 days ago today, the U.S. invasion of Iraq officially began. Since then, over 2,300 coalition troops and as many as 100,000 Iraqis have been killed. Zero weapons of mass destruction have been found and the cost of the war has topped $200 billion dollars. We speak with Iraqi humanitarian Sami Rousuli in Karbala and Robert Fisk in Beirut. [includes rush transcript] President Bush took to the nation’s airwaves on March 19, 2003 to declare that the war to “disarm Iraq” had begun. Bush claimed the United States was entering the conflict reluctantly but that the war was needed to prevent Iraq from having what he called weapons of mass murder. The Independent newspaper of London has published a series of statistics to mark what has happened in the 1,000 days since then: # Zero weapons of mass destruction have been found. # At least 30,000 Iraqi civilians have died so far though some studies put the toll over 100,000. # 66 journalists have been killed. # 183,000 British and American troops remain in Iraq. # Over 2,300 U.S. and coalition troops have been killed. # At least 16,000 U.S. troops have been wounded in action. # $200 billion has already been spent by the U.S. And news reports today indicate the total cost of the Iraq and Afghan wars could top half a trillion dollars. # Between 60% and 80% of Iraqis still strongly oppose the presence of U.S. troops in their country. # 67% of Iraqis feel less secure because of the occupation. # There are currently an average of 90 attacks staged each day by the Iraqi resistance. # 8% of Iraq’s children are suffering acute malnutrition. - Sami Rousuli, he was living in Minnesota at the time of the invasion but has since returned to Iraq to live. He now heads up the Muslim Peacemaker Team. He joins us from Karbala. - Robert Fisk, Middle East correspondent for the London’s Independent who has reported extensively from Iraq during the war. JUAN GONZALEZ: To talk about these first thousand days of the Iraq war, we're joined from Iraq by Sami Rousuli. Sami was living in Minnesota at the time of the invasion, but has since returned to his native country to live. He now heads up the Muslim Peacemaker Team in Iraq. He joins us from Karbala. We are also still on the line from Beirut with journalist Robert Fisk, who has reported extensively from Iraq during the war. I'd like to begin with Robert. Your thoughts on this, the thousandth day of this war. ROBERT FISK: Well, I have said them before on your program, and I will say them again: The Americans must leave, the Americans will leave, and the Americans can’t leave, and that's the equation that turns sand into blood. An Iraqi was saying to me only yesterday, actually, in the Gulf area, you know, he said, “I don't want the Americans to go, because I’m fearful of what will happen, and they really must go as soon as possible, and I can’t wait for them to leave.” I'll be interested to see what your guest in Karbala has to say on this. I think that, you know, the whole operation has been a disaster, not just because of the lies which we maintained in order to enter Iraq and to invade it illegally, but primarily for the Iraqis themselves. I mean, I discovered in August in Baghdad by looking at the computers at the central mortuary, that 1,100 Iraqis had died by violence, been killed, many of them by death squads. In Baghdad alone, just in July, now, you spread that across, you know, Mosul, Kirkuk, maybe Irbil, all way down to Basra, through the months, and you must be talking of 3,000 to 4,000 a month. That's 36,000 to 48,000 a year. That makes that 100,000 figure, which you mentioned, as being quite conservative. And the Iraqis are suffering the greatest of all of us, and we don't care about who dies. We don't give them names or identities. We don't show pictures of their coffins with flags on. We don't show many pictures of American coffins with flags on for that matter. This is a gigantic tragedy which is being inflicted on the Iraqi people. And for what? You know, okay, well, many of them including the Shiites, in particular, the Shiites and the Kurds, are very happy Saddam is gone, but we have replaced it with a hell disaster. And more and more Iraqis are saying, “Well, you know, for what did we do this? What is it for?” And when I talk to them, I have no answer. Maybe your colleague, our compatriot in Karbala does or maybe you do, but I don't know what we say, because I don't think we care about Iraqis. I don't think we care about Arabs, in general. I don’t think we care about the Middle East as a people. We care about its oil and its resources. And those 1,000 days have been -- I mean, I’m using this word “hell disaster,” that was the phrase that Winston Churchill used about Palestine in 1947, and it certainly applies to Iraq today. JUAN GONZALEZ: I'd like to bring in Sami Rousuli in Karbala. Can you hear me? SAMI ROUSULI: I hear you well, and I really wish you, to the people in the West, happy holidays, while Christmas is approaching, and peace upon you, all of you, and we say “Salaam.” So, talking about the Iraqi situation for the last almost three years, I agree absolutely with Mr. Fisk. I have been reading his articles, and he said it well. People, tomorrow, are getting to the election polls, and they are excited, as they were in the beginning of this year, and it also when it was for the referendum of the constitution last October 15. They run when they hear the religious leaders, especially in Karbala and Najaf and the south, calling for a commitment to be done for the election as religious duty, and this time, Mr. Ayatollah Sistani, he sent his fatua just a couple of days ago informing his followers to go to the poll centers, casting their votes without preferring any slate, as he did in the past, which is the current government, but apparently, he is not happy with their work, and as he stated about a month ago that they didn't accomplish much, and they didn't represent the Iraqi needs. So, he also emphasized on two things to be assured by the Iraqis, when they go and cast their votes, they vote for a religious committed person, and he meant to seek justice by this religious representative, and justice, as you may know, one of God's 99 names in the Islamic teachings besides, salaam, peace, and truth. The second thing that he assured or emphasized the -- to be a nationalist representative that assured and secured the Iraqi unity. So, two of these factors, he called upon the Iraqis -- Shiites in the south -- to be adhered to when they cast their votes. JUAN GONZALEZ: Sami -- SAMI ROUSULI: They tried to -- yes. JUAN GONZALEZ: Sami, I'd like to ask you, you have been working very hard to free the four kidnapped Christian Peacemaker activists, and you yourself have had family members kidnapped and had them freed. What's the latest on your efforts in that area? SAMI ROUSULI: Kidnapping is a daily thing, besides assassinations and the killing machines that took place since the occupation started. In regard of our friends, four friends of the CPT, we still are continuing in praying and sending messages through the Iraqi media and from direct outlets to the kidnappers to hear our voices along with the voices across the globe, that those people are real friends of the Iraqi people, and they have no value within the U.S. and U.K. governments. So, we still, as MPT, Muslim Peacemakers Team members, and other organizations that friends -- and they know about the CPT and their work in Iraq -- are working hard to deliver the call to free those wonderful people who helped us personally -- I believe, they shifted the approval rate of the President Bush to be under 40% in the U.S., because they wrote many stories directly from the Iraqi daily life, who they lived side by side, helping them to free their loved ones, who were detained by the Iraqi forces and the U.S. forces since October 2002. So, no word from the kidnappers yet, but we are in video waiting for the positive outcome. JUAN GONZALEZ: We are talking with Sami Rousuli from Karbala, with the Christian Peacemaker Teams. We also have on the phone, from Beirut, independent journalist, Robert Fisk. -------- prisoners of war Search of Iraq Prisons Yields 120 Abused Prisoners Wednesday, December 14th, 2005 Headlines, Democracy Now! http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/14/154203 In other Iraq news, a US-led search of prisons in the country has led to the initial discovery of over 120 prisoners subjected to harsh treatment. Many of the prisoners required immediate medical attention. An Iraqi official said several of the prisoners were subjected to torture that included broken bones, pulled fingernails, cigarettes stamped into skin and electric shocks. The disclosure follows last month’s discovery of over 170 detainees in a locked basement of an Iraq Interior Ministry compound. At a news conference, US ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad said over 100 of them had been abused. Report: New Interrogation Techniques May Conflict With Torture Ban The New York Times is reporting the military has approved a new, classified set of interrogation techniques that may conflict with a proposed ban on torture pushed by Senator John McCain. Military officials told the Times the new guidelines could give the impression the Army was pushing the limits on legal interrogation. One Pentagon official said: "This is a stick in McCain's eye. It goes right up to the edge. He's not going to be comfortable with this." -------- spies Is the Pentagon spying on Americans? Secret database obtained by NBC News tracks ‘suspicious’ domestic groups By Lisa Myers, Douglas Pasternak, Rich Gardella and the NBC Investigative Unit Updated: 6:18 p.m. ET Dec. 14, 2005 MSNBC.com http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10454316/ WASHINGTON - A year ago, at a Quaker Meeting House in Lake Worth, Fla., a small group of activists met to plan a protest of military recruiting at local high schools. What they didn't know was that their meeting had come to the attention of the U.S. military. A secret 400-page Defense Department document obtained by NBC News lists the Lake Worth meeting as a “threat” and one of more than 1,500 “suspicious incidents” across the country over a recent 10-month period. “This peaceful, educationally oriented group being a threat is incredible,” says Evy Grachow, a member of the Florida group called The Truth Project. “This is incredible,” adds group member Rich Hersh. “It's an example of paranoia by our government,” he says. “We're not doing anything illegal.” The Defense Department document is the first inside look at how the U.S. military has stepped up intelligence collection inside this country since 9/11, which now includes the monitoring of peaceful anti-war and counter-military recruitment groups. “I think Americans should be concerned that the military, in fact, has reached too far,” says NBC News military analyst Bill Arkin. The Department of Defense declined repeated requests by NBC News for an interview. A spokesman said that all domestic intelligence information is “properly collected” and involves “protection of Defense Department installations, interests and personnel.” The military has always had a legitimate “force protection” mission inside the U.S. to protect its personnel and facilities from potential violence. But the Pentagon now collects domestic intelligence that goes beyond legitimate concerns about terrorism or protecting U.S. military installations, say critics. Four dozen anti-war meetings The DOD database obtained by NBC News includes nearly four dozen anti-war meetings or protests, including some that have taken place far from any military installation, post or recruitment center. One “incident” included in the database is a large anti-war protest at Hollywood and Vine in Los Angeles last March that included effigies of President Bush and anti-war protest banners. Another incident mentions a planned protest against military recruiters last December in Boston and a planned protest last April at McDonald’s National Salute to America’s Heroes — a military air and sea show in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. The Fort Lauderdale protest was deemed not to be a credible threat and a column in the database concludes: “US group exercising constitutional rights.” Two-hundred and forty-three other incidents in the database were discounted because they had no connection to the Department of Defense — yet they all remained in the database. The DOD has strict guidelines (.PDF link), adopted in December 1982, that limit the extent to which they can collect and retain information on U.S. citizens. Still, the DOD database includes at least 20 references to U.S. citizens or U.S. persons. Other documents obtained by NBC News show that the Defense Department is clearly increasing its domestic monitoring activities. One DOD briefing document stamped “secret” concludes: “[W]e have noted increased communication and encouragement between protest groups using the [I]nternet,” but no “significant connection” between incidents, such as “reoccurring instigators at protests” or “vehicle descriptions.” The increased monitoring disturbs some military observers. “It means that they’re actually collecting information about who’s at those protests, the descriptions of vehicles at those protests,” says Arkin. “On the domestic level, this is unprecedented,” he says. “I think it's the beginning of enormous problems and enormous mischief for the military.” Some former senior DOD intelligence officials share his concern. George Lotz, a 30-year career DOD official and former U.S. Air Force colonel, held the post of Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Oversight from 1998 until his retirement last May. Lotz, who recently began a consulting business to help train and educate intelligence agencies and improve oversight of their collection process, believes some of the information the DOD has been collecting is not justified. Make sure they are not just going crazy “Somebody needs to be monitoring to make sure they are just not going crazy and reporting things on U.S. citizens without any kind of reasoning or rationale,” says Lotz. “I demonstrated with Martin Luther King in 1963 in Washington,” he says, “and I certainly didn’t want anybody putting my name on any kind of list. I wasn’t any threat to the government,” he adds. The military’s penchant for collecting domestic intelligence is disturbing — but familiar — to Christopher Pyle, a former Army intelligence officer. “Some people never learn,” he says. During the Vietnam War, Pyle blew the whistle on the Defense Department for monitoring and infiltrating anti-war and civil rights protests when he published an article in the Washington Monthly in January 1970. The public was outraged and a lengthy congressional investigation followed that revealed that the military had conducted investigations on at least 100,000 American citizens. Pyle got more than 100 military agents to testify that they had been ordered to spy on U.S. citizens — many of them anti-war protestors and civil rights advocates. In the wake of the investigations, Pyle helped Congress write a law placing new limits on military spying inside the U.S. But Pyle, now a professor at Mt. Holyoke College in Massachusetts, says some of the information in the database suggests the military may be dangerously close to repeating its past mistakes. “The documents tell me that military intelligence is back conducting investigations and maintaining records on civilian political activity. The military made promises that it would not do this again,” he says. Too much data? Some Pentagon observers worry that in the effort to thwart the next 9/11, the U.S. military is now collecting too much data, both undermining its own analysis efforts by forcing analysts to wade through a mountain of rubble in order to obtain potentially key nuggets of intelligence and entangling U.S. citizens in the U.S. military’s expanding and quiet collection of domestic threat data. Two years ago, the Defense Department directed a little known agency, Counterintelligence Field Activity, or CIFA, to establish and “maintain a domestic law enforcement database that includes information related to potential terrorist threats directed against the Department of Defense.” Then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz also established a new reporting mechanism known as a TALON or Threat and Local Observation Notice report. TALONs now provide “non-validated domestic threat information” from military units throughout the United States that are collected and retained in a CIFA database. The reports include details on potential surveillance of military bases, stolen vehicles, bomb threats and planned anti-war protests. In the program’s first year, the agency received more than 5,000 TALON reports. The database obtained by NBC News is generated by Counterintelligence Field Activity. CIFA is becoming the superpower of data mining within the U.S. national security community. Its “operational and analytical records” include “reports of investigation, collection reports, statements of individuals, affidavits, correspondence, and other documentation pertaining to investigative or analytical efforts” by the DOD and other U.S. government agencies to identify terrorist and other threats. Since March 2004, CIFA has awarded at least $33 million in contracts to corporate giants Lockheed Martin, Unisys Corporation, Computer Sciences Corporation and Northrop Grumman to develop databases that comb through classified and unclassified government data, commercial information and Internet chatter to help sniff out terrorists, saboteurs and spies. One of the CIFA-funded database projects being developed by Northrop Grumman and dubbed “Person Search,” is designed “to provide comprehensive information about people of interest.” It will include the ability to search government as well as commercial databases. Another project, “The Insider Threat Initiative,” intends to “develop systems able to detect, mitigate and investigate insider threats,” as well as the ability to “identify and document normal and abnormal activities and ‘behaviors,’” according to the Computer Sciences Corp. contract. A separate CIFA contract with a small Virginia-based defense contractor seeks to develop methods “to track and monitor activities of suspect individuals.” “The military has the right to protect its installations, and to protect its recruiting services,” says Pyle. “It does not have the right to maintain extensive files on lawful protests of their recruiting activities, or of their base activities,” he argues. Lotz agrees. “The harm in my view is that these people ought to be allowed to demonstrate, to hold a banner, to peacefully assemble whether they agree or disagree with the government’s policies,” the former DOD intelligence official says. 'Slippery slope' Bert Tussing, director of Homeland Defense and Security Issues at the U.S. Army War College and a former Marine, says “there is very little that could justify the collection of domestic intelligence by the Unites States military. If we start going down this slippery slope it would be too easy to go back to a place we never want to see again,” he says. Some of the targets of the U.S. military’s recent collection efforts say they have already gone too far. “It's absolute paranoia — at the highest levels of our government,” says Hersh of The Truth Project. “I mean, we're based here at the Quaker Meeting House,” says Truth Project member Marie Zwicker, “and several of us are Quakers.” The Defense Department refused to comment on how it obtained information on the Lake Worth meeting or why it considers a dozen or so anti-war activists a “threat.” ---- Pentagon acknowledges use of info on US civilians to protect bases WASHINGTON (AFP) Dec 14, 2005 http://www.spacewar.com/2005/051214192830.xwroa63s.html The Pentagon said Wednesday it uses information gathered by US law enforcement agencies on US civilians to protect military installations but would not say whether it spies on anti-war groups in the United States. NBC News reported Tuesday that the Pentagon has compiled a secret database of suspicious incidents that includes four dozen anti-war meetings or protests in the United States. Pentagon spokesmen would not say whether the military is surveilling anti-war activists but insisted it could legally use information gathered by US law enforcement agencies on US civilians to protect US forces and installations. "The Defense Department has a legitimate interest in protecting its installations, protecting its people," said Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman. "And to the extent that they use information collected by law enforcement agencies to do that, that's an appropriate activity of the United States military," he said. The 400-page database obtained by NBC News listed 1,500 suspicious incidents over a 10-month period. One example cited in the report was a small gathering of activists at a Quaker meeting house in Florida to plan protests of military recruiting in high schools. A briefing document stamped "Secret" noted "increased communication between protest groups using the Internet" but not a "significant connection between incidents," such as "reoccurring instigators" or "vehicle descriptions," NBC said. The report indicates that information is being gathered about people who attended the meetings and the vehicles they used, a military analyst told NBC. -------- us Almost killed, a new view of the war MICHAEL RUBINKAM Associated Press Wed, Dec. 14, 2005 http://www.timesleader.com/mld/timesleader/13406031.htm Nearing the end of a year in Iraq, Army Sgt. Bob Knowles and his closest friends became disillusioned. And not because they thought the war was a mistake; they didn't have time to think about that. No, it was just the daily grind of battle. "Guys were away from their wives and their kids, away from their families and home. After 13 months, you're tired," says Knowles, 28, of Pottstown, Pa. "It's not a kind of tired you can sleep off in a couple days. It's long-term exhaustion." Although they gave each day's mission 100 percent, "We were doing it for each other more than anybody else," he says. "We wanted to keep each other alive, that was the biggest goal. Everything else was details. Everything else was back burner." Knowles, a tank gunner, just barely got out alive. On May 4, 2004, he was riding in an M1 Abrams tank that was ambushed. A rocket-propelled grenade hit the top of the tank. Since the hatch was open, Knowles was hit with shrapnel that entered his back and went out his shoulder. His helmet was also blown off. As he waited for a medical helicopter, he could feel himself going into shock; he thought about his German-born wife and their infant daughter. Doctors later told him that fragments had come within 1 millimeter of his heart and 2 millimeters of his lung. But he would be OK. Knowles left the service in October 2004. He suffers from occasional shoulder pain but otherwise has a normal life. He's now a train conductor for Norfolk Southern. He has since come to oppose the war. "After seeing friends die and almost dying myself, I think American soldiers are, I wouldn't say dying for nothing, but it's needless and I think we need to bring everybody home." -------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE -------- death penalty World Reacts to Execution of Stanley Tookie Williams Wednesday, December 14th, 2005 Headlines Democracy Now! http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/14/154203 As news of the execution of Stanley Tookie Williams spread Tuesday, reaction poured in from around the world. - Catholic Cardinal Renato Martino, the Pope’s top official on justice issues: "This is terrible because you know the death penalty is a penalty where there is no alternative, there is no possibility for the human being who happens to be a criminal - to be corrected, to reform, to become a good citizen. With the death penalty you don't give that alternative and that not taking into account the many many mistakes and errors, judicial errors that we discover from time to time were committed and innocent people were executed." In Austria, birthplace of California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, opposition politicians proposed stripping Schwarzenegger of citizenship and removing his name from a sports stadium in his hometown. One group suggested it be re-named “Stanley Tookie Williams Stadium.” In Britain, Amnesty International director Kate Allen said: "This is yet another sad milestone in the history of the US justice system. Williams' violent past was well known but he had become a textbook version of rehabilitation and his execution was a travesty of justice." Williams was executed early Tuesday after California Governor Schwarzenegger denied his bid for clemency. He had spent 24 years on death row for the murder of four people in 1979 – crimes he maintained he did not commit. After the execution, Lorna Owens, the stepmother of one of the victims, said: "I believe it was a just punishment long overdue." Family and supporters announced they would hold a large public funeral service for Williams in Los Angeles. At his request, Williams will be cremated and his ashes will be spread in South Africa. Barbara Becnel, a close confidante of Williams who attended his execution, vowed to clear his name. Bechnel said: “We are not going to forget… I am going to prove that Stan was innocent and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is a cold-blooded murderer." -------- homeland security / national intelligence An 11th-hour drive to amend Patriot Act Congress is set to vote Friday on extending parts of the law, but some say privacy needs protecting. By Gail Russell Chaddock The Christian Science Monitor Wednesday, 12/14/05 http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1214/p03s02-uspo.html?s=rss WASHINGTON – An unusual coalition of lawmakers and activists opposed to parts of the USA Patriot Act is mounting a last push to persuade Congress to take more time before voting to extend some of the law's most controversial provisions. At issue is whether Congress has been rigorous enough in assessing how the Patriot Act - which the White House calls vital to its war on terror - has been implemented. Many lawmakers were stunned by recent press reports, denied but not corrected by the Justice Department, that the FBI has issued as many as 30,000 "national security letters" since the law was passed nearly unanimously in 2001. The letters order private and public entities to turn over records and other private data about Americans - and remain silent about it. In the run-up to a vote later this week on extending controversial provisions of the act, civil liberties and privacy groups released their own research, based largely on documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, that they say signals numerous reporting violations and lax oversight. "Congress should not reauthorize the Patriot Act until these questions are resolved," says Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, which released FBI documents it had obtained, at a press briefing Tuesday. On paper, the coalition urging a delay is the strongest to lobby Congress on any issue. Its backers range from conservative and libertarian groups - including the American Conservative Union, Americans for Tax Reform, and gun groups - to the American Civil Liberties Union. Within the Senate, a bipartisan group of lawmakers looking to tighten privacy protections wants to put off the vote for three months. (Parts of the Patriot Act are set to expire this month.) If these concerns aren't met, some, including Sens. Russell Feingold (D) of Wisconsin and Larry Craig (R) of Idaho, threaten to filibuster the bill. "This coalition on the conservative side and the progressive side in support of civil liberties is one of the best things that has happened since 9/11 in protecting our rights," says Senator Feingold. "The problem has been members of Congress who were not willing to stand up to the administration's proposal." A vote on reauthorizing the Patriot Act is currently slated for Friday, and Feingold says as many as 41 senators may be willing to block it. "We had well over 50 votes to stop this bill before Thanksgiving, because they tried to rush it through," he says. "Whether that holds together as we get closer to Christmas is not clear." Seven states and nearly 400 counties and communities have approved resolutions critical of the Patriot Act. In defense of the bill, President Bush has noted that the US has brought charges against more than 400 suspects in terrorism probes, half of whom were convicted. Letting 16 provisions of the Patriot Act expire "would leave law enforcement in the dark," he said during a Patriot Act event on June 9, the eve of congressional hearings. "All 16 provisions are practical, important, and they are constitutional." The White House sought to make permanent all the act's expiring provisions, but it helped broker a compromise that will do so for all but two: one involving searches of business, library, and medical records, and the other concerning roving wiretaps. Expanded federal powers to seek library and medical records, Section 215, have attracted the most public concern. Those powers would now become subject to judicial review. But many other features of the reauthorization bill also deserve more congressional attention, critics say. "The fact that Congress wasn't aware that the FBI has used some 30,000 national security letters over the past few years is an indication that not enough oversight has been done," says Tim Lynch, director of the CATO Institute's project on criminal justice. "The money-laundering sections of the Patriot Act require scores of businesses to track the transactions of their customers and report to the government. It's an aspect of the Patriot Act that doesn't get much attention, but it should. This has huge implications for people's privacy." Senate and House negotiators say they have come up with a better bill, not a perfect one. "These were long, detailed, extensive negotiations," Sen. Arlen Specter (R), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Monday on the Seante floor. The fact that sunsets will be four years, not 10 as the House bill specified, "is a major, major, major improvement for civil- liberties interests," he added. How the law would change Congress is weighing the following changes to the USA patriot act, Parts of which are up for reauthorization. • Makes permanent 14 of the 16 expiring provisions. • Permanently allows intelligence gathered under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to be used as evidence in a criminal prosecution. • Establishes a judicial review before investigators can seize a company's business records (Section 215). The review is to determine whether the records are relevant to a terrorist probe. • Limits the use of roving wiretaps (Section 206) to cases in which officials show that a target may thwart surveillance. • Establishes a judicial review of "national security letters" - FBI letters ordering public and private entities to turn over records and other data about any American. Requires reports to Congress on how often the letters are used. • Extends the duration of FISA surveillance of non-US persons. • Requires that people subjected to a "sneak and peek" warrant - in which their property has been searched without their knowledge - be notified within 30 days of the search, unless the case justifies a longer wait. Current law imposes no time limits for notification. • Places a four-year sunset on Sections 206 and 215. Sources: Senate Judiciary Committee, House Judiciary Committee -------- List of potential terror targets is late 12/14/2005 By Mimi Hall, USA TODAY http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-12-14-terror-list_x.htm WASHINGTON — The Homeland Security Department is more than a year behind in creating a list of chemical plants, bridges, skyscrapers and other vulnerable sites that could become terrorist targets if plans aren't made to protect them. President Bush ordered the plan to be completed by December 2004. A year after that deadline and nearly three years after the department was created to protect the nation against terrorism, officials still don't have a workable database of possible targets. The former commission that investigated the 9/11 attacks released a report card this month that rated the government's anti-terrorism security, and vulnerabilities assessment got a near-failing grade. Rep. Dan Lungren, a California Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee, says he's frustrated by the lack of progress. Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., the top Democrat on the committee, calls it "appalling" that the plan isn't done yet. Homeland Security Infrastructure Protection chief Robert Stephan, the man in charge of the plan, blames his predecessors for bungling the job and says he will have it done early next year. A draft of a plan to protect the nation's most vulnerable sites was recently completed. Stephan, who took over in April, told Congress recently that when he looked at the work done on the project before he was put in charge, "a sinking feeling rapidly came over me." Stephan did not discuss details of the classified database of possible targets, which is kept secret so terrorists can't find out more about sites considered vulnerable to attack. Members of Congress say early versions included mini-golf courses and water parks but didn't include some key sites, including parts of the New Orleans levee system. "It's pathetic," says Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., also a member of the Homeland Security committee. "This was supposed to be the critical infrastructure list, and it's the kitchen sink." Stephan says there are 80,000 sites in the database and he's going through them to determine what should be left on and what should be taken off. "That thing really got under my skin," he says. But he says it's not useless, even in its present form. When it's done, the list will be used to help federal officials set priorities for permanent security protections that should be put in place. It will guide private industry and state and local governments about how to beef up security at their businesses and in their towns. (Related story: Police want guides on quarantine rules) It also can be used, as it was in 2004 when officials reported a threat against financial institutions in New York, New Jersey and Washington, D.C., to identify sites and people who need to be contacted. Stephan says the list was used more recently when New Orleans flooded to identify chemical plants, refineries, bridges and other important sites that had been wiped out or damaged. He says the "mini-golf courses and bowling alleys" have all been taken off the list. In October, during a hearing on the plan and database, Lungren told Stephan, "We have heard, you know, this plan's going to be coming out, it's going to be coming out, it's going to be coming out. We tend to look with a little skepticism." Now, Lungren says he's pleased some progress is being made. Thompson is skeptical of the project's value. "The National Infrastructure Protection Plan strikes me as another governmental document doomed to be more of an intellectual exercise than a practical provider of security," he says. "I'm afraid it will likely sit on a bureaucrat's shelf next to the dozen or so other national strategies gathering dust and doing little to secure America." -------- POLITICS -------- investigations Bush can settle CIA leak riddle, Novak says Rob Christensen, Barbara Barrett, Jane Stancill and Dan Kane, Staff Writers Dec 14, 2005 Raleigh NC News Observer http://www.newsobserver.com/722/story/377675.html Newspaper columnist Robert Novak is still not naming his source in the Valerie Plame affair, but he says he is pretty sure the name is no mystery to President Bush. "I'm confident the president knows who the source is," Novak told a luncheon audience at the John Locke Foundation in Raleigh on Tuesday. "I'd be amazed if he doesn't." "So I say, 'Don't bug me. Don't bug Bob Woodward. Bug the president as to whether he should reveal who the source is.' " It was Novak who first revealed that Plame, the wife of former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, worked for the CIA. Wilson had angered the Bush administration when he accused it of twisting intelligence to exaggerate the Iraqi threat before the war. Newspaper columnist Robert Novak spoke Tuesday at the John Locke Foundation in Raleigh. He was asked to comment on the "the Valerie Plame fiasco." Here is a transcript of his response: "Well, as you know, I was the one who wrote the first story about Joe Wilson’s wife working for the CIA - one throwaway line in a long column, in the sixth paragraph of the story." "The way it has snowballed out of all proportion is a result of a campaign by the left and the bad, extremely bad, management of the issue by - in my opinion - by the White House." "Once you give an issue to a special prosecutor, you lose control of it. You do not know what is going to happen." "Bob Woodward speculates that his source is the same as my source. He says that’s the case. He is not going to reveal this name, and certainly I am not either until such time as this person comes forward and says he wants his name to be revealed." "I am confident the president knows who the source is. I would be amazed if he doesn't. So I think, don't bug me. Don't bug Bob Woodword. Bug the President as to whether he should reveal who the source is." Disclosing the identity of a CIA agent is illegal; the disclosure set off a furor in Washington, resulting in an ongoing investigation by a special prosecutor and the indictment and resignation of Lewis Libby, the chief aide to Vice President Dick Cheney. Woodward, a Washington Post editor, recently disclosed that he, too, had been told by an administration figure about Plame's secret identity -- probably, he said, by the same source who told Novak. Novak said his role in the Plame affair "snowballed out of proportion" as a result of a "campaign by the left." But he also blamed "extremely bad management of the issue by the White House. Once you give an issue to a special prosecutor, you lose control of it." Burr meets with Alito U.S. Sen. Richard Burr met with Supreme Court nominee Judge Samuel A. Alito for about half an hour Tuesday, according to a release from Burr's office. The pair discussed Alito's experience and his views on judicial activism. Burr, a Republican, said in a statement that Alito "has the qualifications and experience necessary" to serve on the nation's highest court. Burr said he hopes Alito receives a fair hearing and an up-or-down vote on his nomination. Alito was nominated by President Bush to fill the seat being vacated by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. His Senate Judiciary Committee hearing is scheduled to begin Jan. 9. Foreign journalists coming U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Tuesday announced a journalism exchange program sponsored by the State Department's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, the Aspen Institute and six journalism schools, including UNC-Chapel Hill's School of Journalism and Mass Communication. The Edward R. Murrow Journalism Program will bring 100 foreign media professionals to the United States to study journalism starting in April. UNC-CH's interim journalism dean, Tom Bowers, attended Tuesday's announcement in Washington. During the event, Rice took time to express sorrow over the killing of Lebanese journalist Gebran Tueni in Beirut. And despite the Bush administration's recent controversies involving the media, she pointed out the importance of a free press. "We all know that the bedrock pillar of a free society is a free press and that it is crucial for the foundation of any democracy," Rice said. Protesters' eye on Black House Democrats might not receive a warm welcome at a party fund-raiser Thursday night at the Biltmore Estate in Asheville. Protesters are planning to congregate near the entrance to call for House Speaker Jim Black's resignation. Don Yelton, a political activist who has twice tried to win election to the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners, is organizing the protest. He said Black, a Mecklenburg County Democrat, is a big part of the lack of accountability in the legislature, citing among other things the federal investigation into his ties to the creation of the state lottery and the work of his former political director, Meredith Norris. "It's time that we the people take the state back from the corrupt politicians," said Yelton, a former Democrat turned Republican. He hosts a local public affairs TV show in Asheville. -------- propaganda wars US military mounts international "psyops" campaign Dec 14, 2005 WASHINGTON (AFP) http://www.spacewar.com/2005/051214173621.8qp3hzcs.html The US military is mounting a 300 million dollar psychological operations campaign to sway international opinion of the US war on terrorism through messages placed in foreign media, officials said Wednesday. Lawrence DiRita, the chief Pentagon spokesman, said the aim was to "provide factual, truthful information with some degree of transparency, whatever is appropriate." He would not say specifically whether the psychological warfare experts charged with running the program have been authorized to place messages in foreign media without disclosing the US government as their source. However, USA Today quoted the deputy director of the Joint Psychological Operations Support Element as saying the source of the material would not always be identified. "While the product may not carry the label, Made in the USA,' we will respond truthfully if asked" by journalists, Mark Furlong was quoted as saying. The campaign will target television, radio, newspapers, Internet websites with articles, advertisements and public service announcements, he said. The latest disclosure comes amid an ongoing investigation of a military "information operations" campaign in Iraq that reportedly planted hundreds of favorable paid-for stories in Iraqi news media without disclosing their source. The Lincoln Group, a defense contractor that was used to place the stories, is one of three contractors hired by the US Special Operations Command for the broader international campaign. The Lincoln Group, Science Applications International Corp. and SyColeman Inc. were each awarded 100 million dollar contracts in June for the campaign. The five-year contract was "for media approach planning, prototype product development, commercial quality product development, product distribution and dissemination, and media effects analysis for the Joint Psychological Operations Support element and other government agencies," an announcement at the time said. DiRita said the US Special Operations Command has been granted authority to wage the campaign but was still planning how to carry it out, he said. "We're in an environment where public information is being thrown out there in countries all around the world that say untruthful, inaccurate, harmful things about the United States, about the global war on terror," DiRita said. "It is important we counter that, and we have to counter it truthfully, to some significant degree to counter it with transparency, and we are looking at all kinds of ways to do that," he said. ---- The Great War for Civilization by Dan Raphael December 14, 2005 http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Dec05/Raphael1214.htm The Great War for Civilization: The Conquest of the Middle East, by Robert Fisk (Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2005) This is a book that will hopefully be widely read. The distillation of 30 years’ reportage not only about but from many of the most hellish hotspots in the Middle East, Robert Fisk’s latest work demonstrates the kind of journalism needed but rarely found in this world. Embedded with no one and frequently an eyewitness at great personal risk, he gives voice to those deliberately excised from the unofficial bulletins of armies and rulers. In 24 chapters, he unfolds with very little repetition the issues that continue to form people’s lives throughout the Middle East and beyond: his several face-to-face meetings with Osama bin Laden; his observations from Baghdad as American cruise missiles and jets begin to fill medical wards; his attempt to anonymously travel via bus close to the Russian border, during the invasion of Afghanistan; under fire during the Iraqi invasion of Iran; the Algerian civil war and its equally vicious aftermath; the U.S. government betrayal of the Shia and the Kurds; the plague of death caused by depleted uranium; interviews with the few Armenian survivors of the original holocaust; attending an international armaments trade show; the theft of land, murder of innocents, routine and widespread practice of torture...not culled from government press releases and the statements of rulers, but transmitting from the site of events to a world audience, the words of soldiers, civilians, and those otherwise forgotten and abandoned. His focus has always been mostly on the realities of those on the anvil of events -- what it is to be the means to someone else’s end, a foot soldier’s life as a footnote to war. He forthrightly presents the reality of war: charred and bloated remains, and people locked in mortal battles fought on hospital beds. He does not write for shock value, but he avoids nothing, providing details as necessary as they are absent from the commercial mainstream. When journalists wished to film the war, they chafed at the restrictions placed upon them; but when the war was officially over and the restrictions lifted and they could film anything they wanted, they did not, after all, want to show what conflict was like. I noticed how the Iraqis who had comparatively clean deaths -- those who were obliging enough to die in one piece and collapse picturesquely, lying like fallen warriors by the roadside -- would turn up on television screens, briefly of course, to symbolize the “human cost” of war. But the world was not allowed to see what we saw, the burned, eviscerated souls, the chopped-off, monstrous heads, the scavenging animals. Thus did we help to make war acceptable. We connived at war, supported it, became part of it. In addition to first-hand descriptions that include crucial details, he dissects how potentates and pretenders rely upon witting scribes who employ two different sets of stylistic books in their reportage: I have sought in vain to discover the origin of our journalistic use of the word “settlements.” By its nature, the expression is almost comforting. It has a permanence about it, a notion of legality. Every human wants to “settle,” to have a home. The far more disturbing -- and far more accurate -- word for Israel’s land grabbing in the West Bank and Gaza since 1967 is colonizing. Settlers are colonists. Almost all the Israelis in the West Bank are living on someone else’s land. They may say that God gave them the land, but those Palestinians who legally owned that land -- who had property deeds to prove it, since the British Mandate, since the Ottoman empire -- are not allowed to appeal to God. Successive Israeli governments have supported this theft of property, and by 2003, 400,000 Israeli Jews were living in the occupied territories in explicit violation of Article 49 of the Geneva Convention -- which states that “the Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.” Similarly, the double standard is employed by the corporate/governmental journalists reporting on the cycle of violence between Palestinians and Israelis: When Palestinians massacre Israelis, we regard them as evil men. When Israelis slaughter Palestinians, American and other Western nations find it expedient to regard these crimes as tragedies, misunderstandings, or the work of individual madmen. Palestinians -- in the generic, all-embracing sense of the word -- are held to account for these terrible deeds. Israel is not. Mr. Fisk asks questions that were raised across the world before the Peter Pan president began “standing tall” on a pile of corpses. Before the missiles and bombs began their promiscuous rounds of death and dismemberment across Iraq, Robert Fisk wondered whether the American invaders had any idea at all as to what they would do, once there. The lying, transparent arguments, the juvenile waving of phony evidence at the UN, and the attempted browbeating of wiser heads in Europe, all receive the author’s brisk attention: The slur of “anti-Semitism” also lay behind Rumsfeld’s insulting remarks about “old Europe.” He was talking about the “old” Germany of Nazism and the “old” France of collaboration. But the France and Germany that opposed this war were the “new” Europe, the continent that refused, ever again, to slaughter the innocent. It was Rumsfeld and Bush who represented the “old” America; not the “new” America of freedom, the America of F. D. Roosevelt. Rumsfeld and Bush symbolized the old America that killed its native inhabitants and embarked on imperial adventures. It was “old” America we were being asked to fight for -- linked to a new form of colonialism -- an America that first threatened the United Nations with irrelevancy and then did the same to NATO. This was not the last chance for the UN, nor for NATO. But it might well have been the last chance for America to be taken seriously by her friends as well as her enemies. Throughout this book, useful slices of history help explain and provide proportion to contemporary events. More than one of these historical background segments include the thought that invaders should learn from the trail left before them by other, now-departed armies. How did this British man come to be such a tribune for the common people? A partial answer can be found in a thread that can be glimpsed across the broad scope of this book. His father was a bully to his mother and shared the common racism of his time. It was through his father that the young Fisk learned about the Somme, and the other places of battle and butchery in the War to End All Wars. Yet, Robert Fisk’s dad was also a soldier who, when ordered to oversee a firing squad, refused to participate. The victim -- later executed by others -- was not a man personally known to the senior Fisk, so the refusal was something other than a matter of trying to protect a friend. More important was the influence of his mother. She pressed upon him the first book he would ever read -- Anne Frank’s Diary. It was her who remarked that “The accused often tell the truth -- and I don’t always trust policemen.” It is easy to see how this kind of urging could have sparked an awareness not often stirred by a parent. This is all the more remarkable, considering that this was no communal education -- the Fisks are not Jews -- but his mother’s concern that young Robert understand the nature of injustice. Thus began his preparation to face the reality of our world, and the lesson presented to him, whatever the dynamics of mother-son relationship, seem to have sunk in: Israelis have a country -- built on someone else’s land, which is their tragedy as well as that of the Arabs -- but its right-wing governments, happily encouraged by that most right-wing of American governments, are destroying all hope of the peace Israel’s people deserve. When President Bush tells Israel that it can keep its major colonies on Palestinian land, he is helping to kill Israelis as well as Palestinians, because that colonial war will continue. No person is simply the product of parental influence, for good or ill. There is, ultimately, no explanation for human goodness other than the choice each person makes. Just as the Bushes and Blairs of this world choose the kind of people they are, so it is that a person like Robert Fisk chooses to be someone quite different. History is nothing other than the sum of the clashing choices people make, and the challenge, as Fisk states in the final page of his monumental book, is how to correct history. His personal commitment to remedy injustice and to correct the falsifying of events shines through the burning oil and tanks, the harsh stories of malice and betrayal. We could hardly do better than to choose and to live as he has. Dan Raphael has been an activist since the Vietnam War was heating up and is active with the Green Party of the United States. -------- OTHER -------- imf / world bank / wto (economics) Failure better than compromise: NGO message at WTO Dec 14, 2005 HONG KONG (AFP) http://www.terradaily.com/2005/051214024241.7x1qdpvr.html Poor countries should let World Trade Organisation talks fail rather than sign a deal that jeopardises their future, major non governmental organisations (NGOs) at the Hong Kong conference say. Often deeply divided about the best way to reform global trade, NGOs contacted by AFP unanimously urged developing countries to resist pressure from rich trading superpowers to open up their economies in return for concessions in the crucial area of agriculture. "No deal at all is better than a bad deal," the head of Greenpeace's delegation at the Hong Kong talks, Daniel Mittler, told AFP. "There's a real danger that developing countries will get peanuts if they agree to a deal now, then have to pay later in other areas, which would be a complete outrage." ActionAid International director for the Americas Adriano Campolino Soares echoed that sentiment, saying that existing trade offers from the United States and the European Union were inadequate and should be rejected. "If developing countries accept this then they will see increasing poverty and inequality," the Brazil-based Soares said. NGOs, a diverse spectrum of advocacy groups ranging from aid organisations to single-issue farm lobbyists, are concerned about how the WTO will resolve the latest round of global trade negotiations. Named the Doha Round after they were launched in the Qatari capital four year ago, the negotiations aim to tear down barriers to trade and use commerce to help boost the economies of developing countries. But critics say the goal of making Doha a "development round", which mainly helps poor countries, is being undermined because the US and EU refuse to reduce agricultural protection while they demand more access to developing countries' markets for their industrial goods and services. "They are not giving very much at all and they are demanding a great deal," said Jeremy Hobbs, the head of Oxfam International. Under the Doha agenda, developing countries are supposed to benefit from "special and differential treatment" on trade barriers, which would allow them to nurture manufacturing and service industries while still protecting vital agricultural products. The NGOs accuse the US and EU of ignoring the agreement by seeking to dump surplus agricultural products on poor countries, while also hampering fledgling manufacturing industries by flooding them with cheap subsidied exports. "This was meant to be a development round, this was meant to be something that would re-balance trade in favour of poor countries and very little has been given on agriculture," Hobbs told AFP. Soares and Mittler said developing nations need to maintain the resolve shown at the 2003 WTO ministerial meeting in the Mexican city of Cancun, when they rattled the major powers by walking out of the talks, which then stalled. "They dared to say no," Mittler said. "There's a message there for developing countries not to be hoodwinked and to remember the lessons of Cancun and stand up." Some NGOs have differing views on the ideal outcome for the Doha round, with Oxfam and World Growth advocating trade liberalisation while ActionAid says some trade barriers are necessary to protect developing countries. But Soares said they were united in their desire for poor countries stand up for themselves "We know the EU and the US use bully tactics," he said. "They threaten, they twist arms, they give a millimetre and they want a kilometre. "Developing countries must realise though that they are in a strong position because right now the US and the EU desperately want to be seen to be doing something to help them. "They must examine any offers with a magnifying glass and not be rushed into a deal." -------- ACTIVISTS We're Looking For A Few Good Refuseniks Support the troops who won't fight for Bush BY TED RALL DECEMBER 14, 2005 Boise Weekly http://www.boiseweekly.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A156501 NEW YORK--"Support the Troops, Oppose Their Actions," reads the oxymoronic headline of an April 2005 essay at antiwar.com. In a column titled, "Support Our Troops, Not Our President," liberal columnist Richard Reeves worries about Iraq war vets: "They will come home to be called 'torturers,' as Vietnam vets were called 'baby killers.'" To avoid repeating the supposed excesses of the '60s peace movement, today's antiwar groups praise the soldiers fighting the wars they abhor. "What if they gave a war," a poster of the Vietnam era asked, "and nobody came?" If we are, as Jean-Paul Sartre posited, defined by our actions, most of the blame for the murder of more than 100,000 Iraqis belongs to our top government officials. But Bush's armchair warriors couldn't have invaded Iraq without a compliant and complicit United States military--one that, it should be noted, is all volunteer. These individuals, who enjoy free will, fire the guns and drop the bombs. If personal responsibility is to have any meaning, the men and women of our armed forces have to be held individually accountable for the carnage. "Supporting our troops while opposing their actions may seem contradictory," argues Joshua Frank in the antiwar.com article. "The duties of U.S. soldiers in Iraq are wrong and many may be committing horrible crimes against humanity. True. But soldiers are mostly not bad people (though, of course, some are)." How is a person who voluntarily commits "horrible crimes against humanity" not a "bad person"? Even if U.S. forces were not violating the rules of war in Iraq--torturing, maiming and murdering POWs, robbing and subjecting civilians to collective punishment, dropping white phosphorus and depleted uranium bombs on civilian targets--the war itself, based on false pretenses and opposed by the United Nations, would remain a gross violation of American and international law. Soldiers, they say, must obey orders. However, "just following orders" wasn't an acceptable excuse at the Nuremberg trials, where the charges included waging a war of aggression. Do our government's poorly paid contract killers deserve our "support" for blindly following orders? Not according to the military itself. The U.S. Army's "Law of Land Warfare," taught in basic training, says that U.S. troops must always refuse an unlawful order--one that violates the Constitution or other U.S. laws, is not reasonably linked to military necessity or is issued by someone without the proper authority. Even passivity in the face of wr