NUCLEAR
The Nuclear Nightmare Just Got More Real
THE WEST AT WAR: MEETING THE ENEMY
British Energy plans 10 nuclear plants
British Secretly Used Babies' Bones in Tests
Terror Probe Ponders Student's Nuclear Plant Visit
US considering to give Pakistan blast-proof doors
U.S. and Pakistan Discuss Nuclear Security
Iran to discuss arms, nuclear with Russia
Sunken sub salvage under way
Midwest nuclear plants restrict public access
MILITARY
Taliban offers to barter bin Laden
Mullah calls Americans cowards, says U.S. won't attack
Afghan Ex-King, Anti-Taliban Group Reach Accord
THE WEST AT WAR: DRUGS WIPEOUT
Iran will 'confront' U.S. planes in its airspace
Many in Middle East Say More Fighting Is Their Only Option
Pakistani press prints anti-U.S. sentiments
Pakistan Says Afghans Face U.S. Attack and End of Taliban
Administration insists on blocking Vieques vote
Russians Moving Military Equipment
Military Looks at Surveillance Stockpile and Finds a Dearth
New Military Systems May Be Tested in Field
US rejects massive bombardment of Afghanistan: report
ENERGY AND OTHER
Molecule May Kill Cancer Tumors
POLICE / PRISONERS
New Allies Seek Payback
More Terrorism Likely
The CIA Must Play Offense An insider's guide to reform
Defense Secretary Warns of Unconventional Attacks
'Collateral damage' is a terroristic tool
Talking about Terrorism: Define or Be Defined
ACTIVISTS
Students United for a Responsible Global Environment
Campus hawks and doves find speech is not so free
Berkeley breaks from anti-war past
War Protesters Take to Neighborhoods
A Growing Opposition
Not Everyone Wants War
-------- NUCLEAR
The Nuclear Nightmare Just Got More Real
By Catherine Arnst in New York, with William C. Symonds in Boston
BusinessWeek Online,
October 1, 2001
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/01_40/b3751732.htm
Most people now know that a jetliner can be a weapon. What they might not realize is that it can also serve as a nuke. Think what would have transpired if the terrorists who targeted New York's World Trade Center had chosen to ram one, or all, of the hijacked jets into a nuclear power plant. "There wouldn't be the explosion of a nuclear bomb, but you would still have the release of radioactive contamination that would produce major fallout," says Edwin S. Lyman, scientific director of the Nuclear Control Institute in Washington. In other words, another Chernobyl.
National security experts have been warning for years that the U.S. is vulnerable to a terrorist attack using "weapons of mass destruction" such as biological agents or nuclear bombs. The federal government tended to downplay those warnings. But not anymore. After the Sept. 11 attacks, the U.S. put on standby alert its Nuclear Emergency Search Team, which is trained to respond to terrorists armed with nuclear weapons. V. Alan Mode, a former division leader of the counterterrorism effort at Lawrence Livermore National Labs, says other modes of aggression, including bioterrorism, are a far likelier threat, but "the effects of a nuclear attack are so massive that you must give it a tremendous amount of respect and thought."
Other experts are on the same page. Testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last March, former Senate Majority Leader Howard H. Baker Jr., co-chair of an Energy Dept. task force on nuclear security, declared that "the most urgent unmet national security threat to the United States today is the danger that weapons of mass destruction or weapons-usable material in Russia could be stolen and sold to terrorists or hostile nation states."
MISSILES UNLIKELY. Certainly, it would be a challenge for terrorists to come up with a nuclear capability, including the missiles needed to deliver a conventional nuke. Only in Hollywood does the idea of stealing nuclear warheads find any currency. And security experts who fret about future airborne suicide attacks acknowledge that blowing up one of America's heavily reinforced nuclear power plants would be far from easy. (They are designed to withstand plane crashes--but so was the World Trade Center.)
The more urgent and immediate threat is that terrorists might get their hands on small amounts of weapons-grade uranium or plutonium and build a crude but still devastating bomb. Some 603 tons of these materials are stashed across the former Soviet Union, under security conditions that have raised alarms around the world. Seven years ago, the U.S. committed $2.2 billion to helping Russia protect those materials. But the U.S. General Accounting Office reported last February that only 14% of the supplies have been fully secured--and the Bush Administration recently cut the budget for the program.
The production of homemade nukes is more than a hypothetical problem. The International Atomic Energy Agency reports that illicit trafficking in nuclear materials has doubled since 1996, and it counts 370 confirmed cases of smuggling in the past eight years. A State Dept. study notes that as many as 130 terrorist groups worldwide have expressed interest in obtaining nuclear capabilities--among them Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaida. "Many of the Russian nuclear sites remain vulnerable to insiders determined to steal enough existing material to make several nuclear weapons," states a report issued by Baker's researchers. "The Task Force was advised that buyers from Iraq, Iran, and other countries have actively sought nuclear weapons-usable material from Russian sites."
"REASONABLE CHANCE." They wouldn't have to buy all that much, either. "If you had a softball-size lump of enriched uranium, some materials [mostly] available at Radio Shack, and an engineering grad of an American university, you would have a reasonable chance of making" a crude nuclear weapon, says Graham T. Allison, director of the Belfer Center for Science & International Affairs at Harvard University and an expert on nuclear terrorism. The resulting bomb could level the tip of lower Manhattan, he warns.
Perhaps most frightening is that terrorists are not constrained by the same considerations that keep nations with nuclear power from pushing the button. If such weapons were used to pursue political or nationalist goals, the deployers would reasonably fear losing public support for their agenda. Members of extremist cults suffer no such constraints, argue terrorism experts. One only need look at Ground Zero of the World Trade Center bombing and consider how much worse it could have been if the same fanatics had brought radioactive material on board.
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THE WEST AT WAR: MEETING THE ENEMY:
WE HAVE LOTS OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS AND WILL USE THEM IF WE HAVE TO, MR BLAIR
CHILLING THREAT BY THE GRINNING TALIBAN CHIEFTAIN
Sunday Mirror (UK)
Monday 1st Oct 2001
http://www.sundaymirror.co.uk/shtml/NEWS/P8S2.shtml
IT takes a fortnight and 15 fraught phone calls before the short, almost illegible, note is delivered.
I have finally been granted a meeting with Hafiz Hussain Ahmed, one of the senior figures in Afghanistan's feared Taliban regime.
An ancient taxi takes me to a run-down flat in a dusty neighbourhood of Islamabad, Pakistan.
Armed guards usher me into a small and grimy room in Flat 308. It contains a small desk with a battered copy of the Koran, a threadbare prayer mat, and a table.
At the table sits Ahmed, vice-president of the Jamiat-E-Ulama Islam, the League of Islamic Scholars. With his long beard, white robes and pleasant face he has the demeanour of an indulgent uncle. It's hard to imagine that this is a man who has fought alongside terror warlord Osama bin Laden in savage battles to drive the Russians from Afghanistan.
This is his first-ever interview with a Western journalist and he is unfailingly polite, highlighting the Muslim tradition of hospitality.
But his words betray him. As a retinue of servants pour strong Afghan quhava tea, without a trace of emotion he utters threats which will send a chill through the Western world.
For the first time a senior Taliban official claims that the regime has nuclear weapons - and is prepared to use them.
"If the US and Britain attack Afghanistan with nuclear weapons, we will respond with the same type of warfare. We will not give in. We will have no hesitation in striking back immediately. It is vital the world knows this," he says.
"We bought our nuclear weapons from the USSR when it broke up. We have a huge stockpile but I am forbidden from saying anything more. It is top secret.
"There are also Muslim-minded people in the West who have sworn they can provide us with the latest military technology. If the war starts we can call upon unlimited resources from our network of supporters across the world.
"This will be the Third World War."
As we speak, me the Western journalist in jeans and trainers, him the sworn enemy of the West in his religious robes, his voice is far removed from the hysterical tub-thumping associated with Muslim fundamentalists.
But his message is just as disturbing as he clasps his hands together, displaying a £1,000 Longines gold watch on his wrist.
"All the Muslim nations in the world will fight against the US and their allies if they attack," he says.
"In the Baluchistan province of Pakistan alone we have recruited 36,000 men. In all of Pakistan more than three million men are ready to die in the name of Allah." Ahmed, 55, who lives in a secret bunker in the Afghan capital of Kabul for six months each year, hails from the remote and mountainous province of Baluchistan, whose capital city Quetta is a hotbed of fanatical Taliban support.
His threats to the West even include a personal message for Tony Blair.
"This is a dispute between the US and Afghanistan," he says. "Tony Blair is the puppet of George W. Bush. He is meddling in a dispute which has nothing to do with him.
"I can tell you that any country which carries out attacks on Afghanistan will be subjected to revenge attacks. Yes, that includes London and other cities of the allies, no matter where they are. Mr Blair, you should listen very carefully, and think before you rush into any decision."
At this point one of Ahmed's three mobile phones - a Nokia - rings. We later learn from our translator that the call is from another high-ranking Taliban official urging him not to talk to "the Western journalist".
But he ignores the demand and returns to the cracked veneer table. I ask him if he has a message for Mr Bush and Mr Blair.
"Mr Bush, please be calm." he replies. "We are a people of peace, not of war. Afghanistan has already defeated the USSR. You are welcome to try and attack Afghanistan. By the grace of God your country will be smashed into 52 pieces.
"Mr Blair, we have no dispute with you and your government. However, if you act with the USA we will teach your nation and your soldiers a lesson you will never forget."
Asked what message he has for those who lost loved ones in the terrorist attacks in America, Ahmed, replies: "I condemn this horrific action. My heart goes out to every man, woman and child who has lost a loved one.
"I feel deep grief for their loss, but the Americans and all the rest of the world should recognise the reasons for this attack. It is because they continue to support the Jews in every conflict.
"Has not Israel been involved in terrorist atrocities in Palestine? If the US continues its policy of supporting Jews across the world, then I'll predict there will be more attacks like that in New York."
Ahmed is careful to say that "Osama", as he affectionately refers to his former partner in battle, is NOT responsible for the atrocities in New York and Washington and is no longer with the Taliban.
"We are in regular contact with Osama. I am afraid I cannot tell you when we last spoke to him, but it was in the last few days. Osama is not a terrorist. He is a kind, polite and very religious man. His only wish is for the USA forces to pull out of his beloved Saudi Arabia. I believe he has now left Afghanistan and is living in some other country."
Ahmed's boast that the Taliban has a nuclear stockpile, as the first such claim by a senior figure in the regime, will send shockwaves through the Allied forces.
Immediately after the September 11 attacks Prime Minister Tony Blair and Jack Straw told Parliament that terrorist forces might be prepared to use chemical, biological or nuclear weapons. And US Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz told Nato counterparts in Brussels there was an "alarming connection" between states sheltering terrorists and those trying to develop nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.
The CIA have known for 10 years that the Russian Mafia have been selling such weapons and components stolen from the former Soviet Union's arsenal.
The US government believes Osama bin Laden is already running a secret nuclear weapons laboratory inside Afghanistan, supported by Iraq's Saddam Hussein. It is designed to build a "Dirty Bomb" - which kills by spreading radioactive fallout over a wide area rather than causing an atomic explosion.
-------- britain
British Energy plans 10 nuclear plants
UK: October 1, 2001
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/12596/story.htm
LONDON - Britain's mainly nuclear electricity generator British Energy Plc is in talks over the construction of 10 new UK nuclear power plants, The Sunday Telegraph reported.
It said talks over the plants - which would be built from 2011 at a cost of around 10 billion pounds ($14.68 billion) - were in progress with Atomic Energy of Canada Limited and Westinghouse of the United States.
--------
British Secretly Used Babies' Bones in Tests
New York Times
October 1, 2001
By ALAN COWELL
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/01/international/europe/01CHIL.html
LONDON, Sept. 30 - In a remarkable evocation of the secretive ways and hidden priorities of the cold war, Britain's Atomic Energy Agency acknowledged today that thousands of bones were taken from dead babies without parental consent to help ascertain the impact of atmospheric nuclear testing.
The disclosure was the more shocking in light of separate revelations earlier this year that dead children's organs had been removed without their parents' knowledge or consent by a Dutch pathologist working in the north-western port city of Liverpool.
The newest admission will almost certainly add to a chorus of calls by advocacy groups for far stricter laws to ensure disclosure by physicians of their use of body parts, particularly since Britain's medical profession is often depicted by patients as high-handed and unresponsive to inquiries.
But it also seemed redolent of a period when the threat of nuclear war permeated Britain and other societies with uncertainty and angst while superpower rivalry bred a culture of intense secrecy.
At that time in the 1950's and 1960's, hundreds of atmospheric nuclear tests were conducted as the United States and the Soviet Union, along with lesser nuclear powers like Britain and France, scrambled to refine weapons of mass destruction in anticipation of World War III.
A spokeswoman for the Atomic Energy Authority said the secret testing of children's bones might in fact have produced a positive result by contributing to Britain's ban on atmospheric testing, in 1963. That was part of the first East-West arms accord, the 1963 Limited Test Ban Treaty, which ended nuclear explosions in the atmosphere and permitted them only beneath the earth.
The British research established that the level of the radioactive isotope strontium 90 in infant bones had increased during the period when atmospheric nuclear testing was prevalent.
"The program was done for the best of reasons," said Beth Taylor of the atomic energy agency. "It was the period when we were doing atmospheric tests of hydrogen bombs, and there was quite a bit of concern about the dangers of nuclear fallout."
After the 1963 ban, nuclear testing continued underground. The agency said the thigh bones from some 3,400 dead infants were removed and incinerated between 1954 and 1970 before being tested for levels of strontium 90. The isotope is able to penetrate human systems because it shares some properties with calcium, which is absorbed by bones and plants.
The tests were carried out in Glasgow and southeast London. Word of the tests first emerged at Yorkhill Children's Hospital in Glasgow last June.
"We have no evidence that parents were asked if the bone samples could be used and I think we have to assume that they were not," the Atomic Energy Agency spokeswoman said.
"I do not know the dates of the rules and regulations, but I am pretty sure in the 1950's doctors would have just said the research was all for the best and the samples could just be taken."
The remarks suggested a profound cultural change that has overtaken Britain since the 1950's and 1960's when the medical profession was rarely challenged to explain itself in public.
The agency said the bone samples were supplied after post mortem examinations and the tests reflected concerns about the spread of radioactivity from nuclear tests that had already contaminated milk.
Levels of radioactivity rose rapidly between the start of the testing program and about 1964, one year after the ban on nuclear testing.
Disclosure of the program elicited unease among campaigners seeking greater openness about medical testing.
"There are so many projects like this and we have no idea how many," said a spokeswoman for an advocacy group called Scottish Parents for a Public Inquiry Into Organ Retention. "Parents up until now have had no say in anything that has been done to their children after death. They felt that their children's bodies did not belong to them."
While hospitals in London and Glasgow have been linked to the research, there are also suggestions that hospitals in other parts of the country were involved. Additionally, last June, Australia's Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency said bones from dead children were sent for testing to Britain and the United States.
The testing for radioactivity was not related to more recent cases of organ retention.
Earlier this year the British government castigated a Dutch pathologist, Dick van Velzen, for "unethical and illegal" behavior in retaining human organs without consent. "The pain caused to the parents by this dreadful sequence of events is unforgivable," the report said.
The disclosures coincided with another official study ackowledging that hospitals and other institutions around Britain had retained more than 100,000 hearts, brains, lungs and other organs, often without the knowledge of the relatives of the dead.
-------- germany
Terror Probe Ponders Student's Nuclear Plant Visit
October 1, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-attack-investigation-germany.html?searchpv=reuters
HAMBURG, Germany (Reuters) - Police are investigating a visit by a friend of a suspected lead hijacker in the World Trade Center attacks to a nuclear power plant near Hamburg this year, officials said on Monday.
The Hamburg electronics student, who was named as Mounir El Motassadeq, visited the area's Stade nuclear plant on a university trip in May, said Petra Uhlmann, spokeswoman for utility EON AG which operates the nuclear plant.
``We have turned over our list of visitors to the police,'' said Uhlmann.
A spokesman for Hamburg's Technical University said the man knew Mohammed Atta, an Egyptian believed to be one of the lead hijackers in the September 11 attacks. He may also have known others in the plot, the spokesman said.
No charges have been made against El Motassadeq. Reached by telephone in Hamburg on Monday evening, he said he had talked with police and had known Atta, but declined to give details.
The German prosecutor's office declined to comment on the incident, but said authorities were closely investigating all Hamburg links to the attackers.
Authorities suspect three of the pilots of the four hijacked planes studied in Hamburg. Two other local students -- one of Atta's roommates, Ramzi Mohamed Abdullah Binalshibh, and Said Bahaji -- are wanted in connection with the case.
``We have arrest warrants out for Mr. Bahaji and Binalshibh and are investigating other members of the terrorist group,'' a spokeswoman for the prosecutor's office said.
El Motassadeq studied electronics as did Bahaji, a Moroccan-German whose present whereabouts are unknown.
Uhlmann said such a plant visit should not pose a danger.
``The university professor has visited the plant for many years with his students,'' she said. ``You can't see anything that you would not find in a specialist book or on the Internet.''
Germany has stepped up a national investigation after evidence suggested the hijackers planned the attacks in Hamburg, the prosperous northern German port city with a sizeable Middle Eastern population, and are following 7,000 leads nationwide.
Two Arabs and a Turk were arrested on Saturday in the western town of Wiesbaden on suspicion of planning future attacks on Germany. Officials accused one of the men of spreading terror propaganda on the Internet and said his web sites had links leading to Bahaji.
Security remains tight at Western consulates in Hamburg with an armored vehicle parked in front of the U.S. mission. Up to six Arabs have been under investigation after hints of a possible attack on the British consulate last week.
-------- pakistan
US considering to give Pakistan blast-proof doors for nuclear facilities
By Amir Mateen,
The News International (Pakisstan)
October 01, 2001
From: Harsh Kapoor <aiindex@mnet.fr>
WASHINGTON: The United States is considering to provide Pakistan with blast-proof doors for its nuclear facilities to guard it in times of trouble. A report in USA Today quotes Congressional officials who were recently briefed by the Bush administration.
The Bush administration has special forces teams or emergency nuclear search outfits ready to be dispatched to the region should Pakistan lose control of any nuclear weapons, the report quotes Center for Defense Information President Bruce Blair. The report says the administration also is considering ways to safeguard Pakistan's nuclear arsenal within the bounds of global treaties. US strategists are having sleepless nights thinking about potential scenarios about the fate of Pakistan's nuclear programme, should the political and military crisis deepens there.
Even US Secretary of State Colin Powell expressed his fears on CBS TV, saying, "We are very sensitive to that, and I know President Musharraf is very sensitive to that." Writer Bill Nichols says Bush has little choice but to take a risk on Pakistan. "We are making the right decision, and it's the only decision. Unfortunately, it's a very difficult one," Lee Feinstein, a former aide to Madeleine Albright was quoted as saying. "We clearly need to enlist Pakistan in this campaign. That raises questions about the stability of Pakistan, but we have no choice."
US estimates say Pakistan has enough fissionable material for 30 to 50 nuclear bombs or warheads and 10 or more nuclear facilities -- reactors, weapons plants and uranium enrichment centres. Pakistan has only short-range missiles -- with a range of several hundred miles -- capable of launching a nuclear warhead. But it has other means for delivering weapons longer distances. Islamabad has tested air-drops of nuclear bombs and has several types of aircraft that could do the job, including 32 F-16 fighter jets purchased from the United States.
US officials say they fear Islamic radicals within the Army the most. Experts say Pakistan's bombs, stored unassembled in component parts, do not have many of the safety features that US devices have. For example, small explosions, such as from a grenade, might be able to ignite a Pakistani bomb, even in a disassembled state, says USA Today.
"I would hope that our government has asked the Pakistani government to disable their nuclear arsenal" in advance of any US military action against Afghanistan, says Blair of the Center for Defense Information. Experts say they can envision several troubling scenarios in which the security of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal might be compromised:
* Terrorist cells loyal to bin Laden might attempt to take over a Pakistani nuclear facility.
* A military coup could overthrow Musharraf's regime. That's how Musharraf took power in 1999. As chief of the Pakistani army, he overthrew the government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. There have been four coups since Pakistan became independent in 1947, as well as four unsuccessful attempts.
* A popular uprising against Pakistani cooperation with the United States could compromise internal security.
"Do they keep these things in different caves or are they in the same place?" asks David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security. "Can you trust the people who guard these things? There are all sorts of ways unsavoury types could end up with nuclear weapons."
"If the Musharraf regime were to be toppled or there was serious unrest within the Pakistani military . . . there is the very serious risk that the government might lose control of some of its nuclear weapons and nuclear facilities," says Daryl Kimball, director of the Arms Control Association. "I actually have been having nightmares about this situation."
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U.S. and Pakistan Discuss Nuclear Security
New York Times
October 1, 2001
NUCLEAR CONCERNS
By DOUGLAS FRANTZ
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/01/international/asia/01NUKE.html
QUETTA, Pakistan, Sept. 30 - American military and intelligence officials have talked with the Pakistani government about concerns over the security of its nuclear weapons stockpile and the country's two nuclear plants, two Pakistani officials say.
The American delegation in the capital, Islamabad, had preliminary talks with Pakistani officials last week about improving security and installing new safeguards on its nuclear weapons and at its nuclear power plants, said the Pakistani officials, who were briefed on the talks.
But there are some formal limitations on how much assistance the United States can provide because Pakistan has refused to sign the treaty to limit the spread of nuclear weapons. Also, American law imposes restrictions on sharing information about nuclear weapons with other countries.
Experts predict that the United States will now find ways around these hurdles, and would eventually assist the Pakistanis in improving surveillance at sensitive sites, sharing technology for devices to disable weapons and advising Pakistan on methods for evaluating the reliability of crucial personnel and security in the event that weapons must be transported.
The Americans could offer classified information, like data on creating disabling devices in case a weapon is stolen, though there are tight restrictions on that data too, said nuclear experts outside both governments.
The focus of the discussions last week was on how to protect weapons and create a new layer of restrictions on personnel handling them. The fear is that if there is a sustained Western attack on Afghanistan, unrest could boil over in Pakistan. Those strains would be reflected in the Pakistan Army, experts say, and there is a threat that Afghan-sympathizers in the military might seize control of nuclear weapons in Pakistan.
Gen. Pervez Musharraf, the president of Pakistan, said today that he was confident the country's nuclear weapons were secure and that there was no risk of them falling into the wrong hands.
"The army is certainly the most disciplined army in the world, and there is no chance of any extremism coming into the army," General Pervez said in an interview with CNN. "I don't see this doomsday scenario ever appearing."
Brig. Gen. Kevin Chilton of the Air Force led the delegation, which included representatives from the Central Intelligence Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation. They held three days of talks before leaving on Thursday for the United States. A spokesman for the American Embassy in Islamabad refused to comment on any aspect of the delegation's visit.
Within days of the attacks on America, Pakistani officials in Washington discussed nuclear safeguards with Richard Armitage, the deputy secretary of state, according to the Pakistani officials.
Last week's talks in Islamabad were dominated by concerns about the conflict within Pakistan's military government over its decision to cooperate in the war on terrorism. Elements of the army's officer corps and rank and file are sympathetic to the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan, though there have been no suggestions of a mutiny.
"I see no divisions which should be a cause of any serious alarm," Gen. Talat Masood, retired, said in an interview. "The one possibility is that if the war becomes protracted and if there are a lot of civilian casualties in Afghanistan, it could arouse passions among the civilians and give rise to differences within the military."
Pakistan also has worries about potential attacks on its two nuclear power plants. Security was increased at its nuclear centers within hours of the attacks in the United States. But possible divisions within the army appear to pose the gravest danger.
"The greatest risk is a fissure within Pakistan's military caused by officers sympathetic to the Taliban," Gary Milhollin, director of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control in Washington, said in a telephone interview.
Michael Krepon, a nuclear weapons specialist at the Henry L. Stimson Center in Washington, agreed that the potential for unrest creates pressing concerns. "Such officers getting out of control would be the ultimate nightmare," he said.
"In peacetime, we would have high confidence in the capacity of the military to protect the weapons," he said in a telephone interview. "The question becomes what happens when you are not in a peace time situation and the great strains placed on the country are reflected in the military."
Talks with Pakistan about the military aspects of its nuclear program reflect a reversal by the American government. The Clinton administration imposed tough sanctions on Pakistan after it conducted five nuclear tests in May 1998 in response to nuclear tests by India, raising tensions in the region.
The Bush administration is easing those sanctions and other restrictions in response to Pakistan's pledge of assistance and the sharing of intelligence on neighboring Afghanistan.
Pakistan's nuclear power plants include a small Canadian-built one in Karachi and a newer one built by the Chinese in Chashma, southwest of Islamabad. Both plants were built to Western standards with the advice of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Officials with the agency said they have conducted talks with Pakistan about security at its power plants since Sept. 11. But the agency is prohibited from discussing the weapons matters because Pakistan has not signed the treaty to limit the spread of nuclear weapons.
Pakistan operates research reactors in its capital, Islamabad, and Khushab, which is southeast of the city. American officials have said the reactor at Khushab mostly produces plutonium for weapons and can generate enough plutonium for one atomic bomb a year.
In addition, the Center for Defense Information in Washington estimates that Pakistan already has enough highly enriched uranium for 23 to 29 nuclear weapons.
Mr. Krepon, the nuclear weapons specialist, said the administration will likely determine how far it wants to go in helping Pakistan and then find ways to provide that assistance within the boundaries of the treaty limiting the spread of those weapons, which the United States supports.
He said that the trickiest topic would probably be how to make devices that disable a bomb if it is stolen. The United States has sophisticated disabling devices, but Mr. Krepon said legal restrictions made it hard to share the information.
-------- russia
Iran to discuss arms, nuclear with Russia
Washingon Times
October 1, 2001
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/nobyline-2001101104339.htm
TEHRAN, Ill., Iran, Oct. 1 (UPI) -- An Iranian delegation led by Tehran's defense minister was scheduled to arrive in Moscow Monday for a four-day visit to discuss arms and nuclear power sales between the two nations.
Iran's Defense Ministry spokesman Keivan Khosravi said talks between Iranian and Russian officials would focus on forging defensive, military and technical cooperation based on "each country's national laws as well as international conventions."
"The defense minister (Ali Shamkhani) is to hold talks with Russian officials on ways of expanding ties within the framework delineated by the presidents of the two countries," said Khosravi -- a reference to Iranian President Mohammad Khatami's March visit to Moscow. The trip was originally scheduled for early September, but was postponed because Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was in Moscow at the time.
Some analysts say the trip is part of an ongoing effort by Iran to bolster its ties with Russia in a bid to undermine the grip of U.S. sanctions on its economy.
The United States, which considers Iran a "rogue state" for its suspected ties to terrorism and efforts to acquire advanced weaponry from Moscow, renewed its sanctions on Iran for another five years in August, a move criticized by Russia.
Its foreign reserves depleted, Russian is eager to cash in on the potentially lucrative Iranian arms market, and has pledged to negotiate future arms sales with Iran and help Tehran complete a nuclear power station in that country. Russia's Interfax news agency earlier quoted Russian experts as saying such cooperation could earn Russia up to $300 million a year.
Tehran and Moscow insist their nuclear cooperation is of a strictly civilian nature. On the arms front, both nation's insist Russia will sale Iran defensive weaponry and is not a violation of Russia's treaty obligations.
--------
Sunken sub salvage under way
USA TODAY
10/01/2001
The Associated Press
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2001/09/28/kursk.htm
MOSCOW (AP) - After waiting out an Arctic storm, a Dutch consortium resumed preparations Monday for lifting part of the sunken Kursk nuclear submarine.
Divers plan to descend to the Barents Sea floor to attach lifting cables lowered from a colossal barge to the submarine, said Russian Navy spokesman Capt. Vladimir Navrotsky.
It will take divers several days to attach all 26 cables. Once that's done, raising the submarine will require about 12 hours and calm seas.
The Giant 4 barge positioned itself over the Kursk on Thursday. A day later, the consortium, comprising Dutch companies Mammoet and Smit International, was forced to suspend the lifting preparations because of a storm.
With the seas calming down Monday, the Russian navy and the consortium decided to resume preparatory work. Navrotsky said predictions were that the weather would remain good for the next few days, clearing the way for the lifting.
"We expect the weather to improve and remain favorable," Navrotsky said in remarks carried on Russian television.
The lifting was originally set for Sept. 15, but it has been delayed repeatedly because of storms and technical difficulties.
The Kursk exploded and sank during naval maneuvers in the Barents Sea in August 2000, killing the entire 118-man crew. Russian officials want to raise the submarine to eliminate any potential threat from its twin nuclear reactors to the area's fishing grounds and to try to determine the cause of its sinking.
Once lifted, the Kursk will be towed to a dry dock near the port of Murmansk, where the navy will remove remains of the crew and 22 Granit cruise missiles. It will later dismantle the submarine and its nuclear reactors.
Russia's Northern Fleet has decommissioned 109 submarines in recent years, but dismantled only 44 of them due to a shortage of funds, Alexander Lebedev, Russia's deputy atomic energy minister, said at a news conference Monday, according to the Interfax news agency. Russia has asked for Western help to build facilities for storing spent nuclear fuel from dismantled submarines.
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
Midwest nuclear plants restrict public access
By the OGJ Online Staff (Oil and Gas Journal),
October 1, 2001
http://ogj.pennnet.com/articles/web_article_display.cfm?Section=OnlineArticles&ARTICLE_CATEGORY=Elect&ARTICLE_ID=120751
HOUSTON, Oct. 1 -- Nuclear Management Co., which manages six nuclear plants in the Midwest, Monday said heightened security measures have ended public tours at the facilities "for the foreseeable future." Nuclear plants continue to operate at the highest level of security following the terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington, DC, Sept. 11.
NMC-operated plants include Duane Arnold Energy Center near Cedar Rapids, Iowa, owned by Alliant Ener gy - IES Utilities, Central Iowa Power Cooperative, and Corn Belt Power Cooperative; Monticello plant near Monticello, Minn., and the two-unit Prairie Island plant near Red Wing, Minn., owned by Xcel Energy Inc.; Point Beach nuclear plant near Two Rivers, Wis., owned by Wisconsin Electric; Kewaunee Nuclear Power Plant near Kewaunee, Wis., owned by Wisconsin Public Service Corp., Alliant Energy-Wisconsin Power & Light, and Madison Gas & Electric Co.; and the Palisades nuclear plant in Covert, Mich., owned by Consumers Energy Co.
The Point Beach energy center and fishing pier are closed to the public, and hunting is prohibited on all plant-owned property, NMC said. At Kewaunee, the fishing pier and nearby Carlton Trails Park are both closed to the public. At the Monticello nuclear generating plant, NMC said bow hunting is prohibited or restricted to a limited number of permits.
Immediately after the attacks, the US Nuclear Regulatory Agency advised nuclear power plants to go to the highest level of security, and has since advised licensees to maintain heightened security. Measures generally included such things as increased patrols, augmented security forces and capabilities, additional security posts, heightened coordination with law enforcement and military authorities, and limited access of personnel and vehicles to the sites.
The agency said it continues to monitor the situation, and is prepared to make any adjustments to security measures deemed appropriate. If the NRC determines existing security procedures warrant revision, it said such changes would occur through a public rulemaking. NRC is coordinating with the FBI, other intelligence and law enforcement agencies, NRC licensees, and military, state, and local authorities, the NRC said. The NRC said it has also established communications with nuclear regulators in Canada and Mexico.
-------- MILITARY
-------- afghanistan
Taliban offers to barter bin Laden
October 1, 2001
By Joseph Curl
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20011001-825901.htm
Afghanistan's ruling Taliban faction yesterday claimed it had hidden terrorist Osama bin Laden for his own protection and offered to negotiate with the United States, a proposal the Bush administration immediately rejected.
"Osama is in Afghanistan, but he is at an unknown place for his safety and security," Taliban Ambassador Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef told a group of reporters at his residence in the Pakistan capital, Islamabad.
"Only security people know about his whereabouts. Osama bin Laden is under our control," he said.
The ambassador said negotiations to avert a looming military strike might be possible if the United States offered evidence linking bin Laden to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. "We are thinking of negotiation," Mr. Zaeef said, adding that evidence against bin Laden "might change things."
He also criticized President Bush, who he said "has stepped away from negotiations and directly gone to a war situation. They have provided no evidence, but they want the man."
The Bush administration, however, said there would be no deal under any circumstances.
"The announcement does not change anything," said White House spokesman Ken Lisaius. He said the president laid out U.S. demands in his Sept. 20 speech to a joint session of Congress, calling for the Taliban to turn over bin Laden and all of his associates, shut down terrorist training camps and open Afghanistan to U.S. inspectors.
"The president was extremely clear in his address to the American people and the Congress that the demands that he outlined were not open to negotiation nor were they open to debate," the Bush spokesman said.
White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card said the Taliban government has been told exactly what to do.
"They've got to turn not only Osama bin Laden over, but all the operatives of the al Qaeda organization. They've got to stop being a haven where terrorists can train," he said on "Fox News Sunday."
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, along with other U.S. officials, cast doubt on the Taliban ambassador's claim.
"Of course, it was just a few days ago that they said they didn't know where he was, so I have no reason to believe anything a Taliban representative has said," Mr. Rumsfeld said.
The Taliban said last week that bin Laden had disappeared from his Afghan hideouts following the terrorist attacks that left nearly 6,000 people dead or missing in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania - a statement Mr. Rumsfeld said at the time was "laughable."
Before yesterday's claim by the Taliban ambassador, bin Laden had supposedly been asked by a council of religious leaders to leave Afghanistan, a request to which the terrorist has never responded.
Asked whether the Taliban would suffer if it did not meet U.S. demands to hand over bin Laden, Mr. Rumsfeld said, "I would think that ought to be self-evident at this point."
Mr. Card said yesterday that bin Laden must be "purged from Afghanistan, and the Taliban knows that. The United States is very patient, but we want to see justice done, and we want to see it done quickly."
"We do not want any government to harbor terrorists. And the Taliban government has been harboring terrorists. They've aided, abetted and comforted these terrorists and allowed them to roam not only in their country but to spread out across the world.
"We don't think that they are worthy of the leadership that America and the rest of the world demand," he said.
Mr. Rumsfeld said the United States is increasingly willing to aid a group in Afghanistan known as the Northern Alliance, which opposes the nonelected Taliban faction.
"There's no question but that there are any number of people in Afghanistan - tribes in the South, the Northern Alliance in the North - that oppose the Taliban. And clearly, we need to recognize the value they bring to this anti-terrorist, anti-Taliban effort and, where appropriate, find ways to assist them," Mr. Rumsfeld said.
"Undoubtedly most of the people [in Afghanistan] do not support the Taliban," he added.
The Taliban's claim that it has hidden bin Laden in Afghanistan came amid reports that U.S. and British commandos were already in the country searching for the man Mr. Bush has termed the "prime suspect" for the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
While the president has said he wants bin Laden "dead or alive," Mr. Card said yesterday the United States does not want to replace the Taliban regime.
"We're not talking about nation-building here. We're ridding the world of terrorists and making sure that no nation is a place where terrorists feel they can get comfort and aid," he said.
Mr. Rumsfeld defended the U.S. approach, saying a prolonged campaign is necessary to find and punish terrorists.
"The reality is that a measured approach, which the president has adopted, is the right one. We need to do it right," Mr. Rumsfeld said.
"We have no choice but to take this battle to the terrorists and to find them and to dry up their sources of money and to deal with the people who are harboring them. And that is what we intend to do," he said.
The administration's position of not wanting to overthrow the Taliban regime was, however, disputed by a leading Senate Democrat. Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, was asked about the Taliban's claim that it is hiding bin Laden during an interview on CNN's "Late Edition."
"That just shows, without any doubt, that the Taliban are now a target of ours, because we've made it very clear that it's not just Osama bin Laden and his network which is a target, but any country which harbors him or any group which harbors him," said Mr. Levin.
Mr. Rumsfeld yesterday also said the United States was taking steps to defend against a possible biological, chemical or nuclear attack.
"We know of certain knowledge that the nations on our terrorism list have chemical or biological weapons, and we know that a number of them are seeking nuclear weapons. And we know that they have close linkages with terrorist networks and that, in many cases, they have sponsored terrorists," he said.
Also yesterday, Gen. Henry Shelton, the outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said more than 100 nations have thrown their support behind the United States in its effort to wipe out terrorism.
"We've got over 100 nations now that are in support, an international coalition in support of going after these terrorist organizations. So it'll be not only America, and America's political, diplomatic, economic and military power that'll be applied, but it'll be an international effort that will also bring in the great capabilities of our partners, our allies and our friends around the world," the general said on ABC's "This Week."
• Joyce Howard Price contributed to this report.
----------
Mullah calls Americans cowards, says U.S. won't attack
Washington Times
October 1, 2001
From combined dispatches
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20011001-533238.htm
KABUL, Afghanistan - The leader of Afghanistan's militant Taliban government told his people yesterday not to worry about U.S. attacks on their country because Americans are cowards.
"Americans don't have the courage to come here," Mullah Mohammed Omar said in an interview broadcast by Taliban-controlled Kabul Radio. He urged Afghans to remain calm and go about their business without trying to flee cities that might be targets of U.S. air strikes.
Mullah Omar's vitriol came amid reports that hundreds of his own fighters were deserting to the opposition Northern Alliance, which has stepped up its attacks on the Taliban since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.
Fighting is raging on several fronts, and "20 percent of the Afghan territory is now controlled by the Northern Alliance," opposition spokesman Abdullah Abdullah told reporters in the Tajikistan capital, Dushanbe.
The rebel alliance claimed it had captured the Taliban-controlled Qadis district in the northeast.
Alliance spokesman Mohammed Habil, reached by telephone by the Associated Press, said 30 Taliban soldiers and their commander were captured, and another 120 Taliban troops had defected to the rebels.
Another alliance spokesman, Sayed Najibullah Hashimi, told Reuters news agency that 350 Taliban fighters had switched sides in the westerly province of Badghis yesterday, while 240 had deserted a day earlier in Laghman.
The claims could not be independently confirmed.
The alliance had been in a defensive mode before the death earlier this month of its commander, Ahmed Shah Massood, who was killed by a suicide bomber, but it has since begun attacking Taliban positions.
The opposition also claimed that a Taliban commander in eastern Laghman province, Mohammed Suleman, had joined the opposition alliance together with 70 of his fighters.
A Taliban spokesman, reached by telephone, did not deny Mr. Suleman's defection but said he had been wanted by Taliban military courts for unspecified offenses, and that he had gone over to the rebel side to escape prosecution.
Mullah Omar made no mention of fighting with the Northern Alliance during the radio interview.
Instead, he repeatedly warned the United States to "think and think again" about attacking his country, which drove out Soviet invaders with U.S. assistance in the 1979-1989 war.
"If you attack us, there will be no difference between you and the Russians," the Taliban leader said. "We are peace-loving, and we hate terrorism. The murder of one person is the same as the murder of all humanity."
The United States has threatened military action against Afghanistan unless the Taliban hands over its "guest," Osama bin Laden, whom the Americans consider the mastermind of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
In other developments yesterday:
* Taliban officials, acknowledging that dissent was spreading in areas under their control, said they had arrested six persons for distributing "pro-American" pamphlets that called for the return of exiled King Mohammed Zahir Shah.
* British Prime Minister Tony Blair said in an interview with BBC that he has seen "incontrovertible" evidence linking bin Laden to the terror attacks on the United States. He did not give further details.
* Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf told CNN that hopes were dim that the Taliban would hand over bin Laden.
"I would say, yes, we haven't been able to succeed in moderating their views on surrendering Osama bin Laden," said Gen. Musharraf, who has sent two abortive missions to Mull Omar to try to persuade him to surrender bin Laden.
* In the eastern city of Jalalabad, the Taliban's order to the population not to flee was largely ignored.
Video pictures obtained by Reuters showed the once-bustling market city as a virtual ghost town with shops closed, streets nearly empty and houses locked and barred.
In Kabul, meanwhile, the Taliban put on a business-as-usual air by resuming the trial of eight foreign aid workers who have been held since early August on charges of spreading Christianity.
Taliban Chief Justice Noor Mohammed Saqib told the four Germans, two Australians and two Americans:
"I now want to say to you again that the current developments in the face of America's possible attack will not affect the proceedings of the trial. There will be no discrimination or injustice against you."
The eight members of the German-based Christian charity Shelter Now International, who have denied trying to convert Afghans, were represented for the first time by Atif Ali Khan, a Pakistani lawyer who arrived in Kabul at the weekend.
The trial was immediately adjourned for up to 15 days to give Mr. Khan time to plan his defense.
--------
Afghan Ex-King, Anti-Taliban Group Reach Accord
Mon, Oct 01
By Crispian Balmer
Reuters
http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/r/011001/12/international-attack-afghan-king-government-dc
ROME (Reuters) - The former king of Afghanistan struck a deal Monday with the country's main opposition force, the Northern Alliance, designed to oust the ruling Taliban and establish a moderate government in Kabul.
Under the terms of the ground-breaking accord, drawn up in a bid to end more than two decades of war, the two parties said they had established a "Supreme Council for National Unity."
This would shortly convene a traditional grand assembly of Afghan leaders -- the so-called Loya Jirga.
"I am convinced that the agreement we have reached today will be the start of a new era for Afghanistan," said Younus Qanooni, the head of the Northern Alliance delegation.
The Loya Jirga, which groups elders, tribal chiefs and spiritual leaders, would elect a new head of state and establish a transitional government ahead of free elections.
Supporters of 86-year old former king Mohammad Zahir Shah, who has lived in Italy in exile since 1973, said the Taliban would not be barred from the assembly but made it clear they expected the hard-line Afghan regime would soon be ousted.
Pakistani military ruler General Pervez Musharraf said as much earlier Monday, telling the BBC that the Taliban's days appeared numbered because it would not hand over Osama bin Laden, prime suspect in last month's devastating attacks on the United States.
The United States has threatened to punish the radical Islamic movement if it fails to surrender bin Laden.
Under Monday's deal, the Supreme Council will gather before the end of the month and will act as de-facto government of Afghanistan ahead of a Loya Jirga, the parties said.
"Within one or two weeks of its inception, the Council will be the only legitimate body to take decisions relative to Afghanistan," the ex-king's representative, Abdul Sattar Sirat, told a news conference.
"We must be ready if there are drastic changes in Afghanistan's political scene to resolve our problems and fill the power vacuum," he said.
EX-KING'S ROLE
Western diplomats believe the former king, who reigned for 40 years and brought relative peace and prosperity to Afghanistan, is the only figure with enough authority to assemble a broad and moderate front to replace the Taliban.
The Northern Alliance is the main force still fighting the Taliban. It is still recognized by the United Nations and most of the world as the legitimate Afghan government even though it controls less than 10 percent of Afghan territory.
The Alliance delegation and the king's supporters issued a plea to Afghanistan's neighbors, especially Pakistan, not to interfere in their dealings, saying that after 23 years of conflict, the Afghan people had to decide their own fate.
Pakistan is the only country still to recognize the Taliban and, according to the Northern Alliance, it has kept it alive with regular supplies of arms and fuel.
"As far as we understand it, one of Afghanistan's miseries lies in Pakistan's position," Qanooni said. "We say that the council we have created does not threaten any country. It is in everyone's interest that there is peace in our region."
Both sides also appealed to the United States not to attack Afghanistan, saying it should only go after those responsible for the September 11 suicide strikes.
"We have reached an agreement with the United States to attack terrorist centers together, but so far we have not received any material aid," said Qanooni.
"We support cleaning up terrorist elements but will never accept an attack on our innocent people," he added.
An adviser to the ex-king said all or part of the Supreme Council would probably meet in Rome before the end of October. It would have around 120 members representing Afghanistan's many ethnic, tribal and religious groups.
"Even if (the Taliban) do not take part, we believe that it will include representatives of all social segments to give it weight and legitimacy," said the monarchist Sirat.
-------- drug war
THE WEST AT WAR: DRUGS WIPEOUT
WE'LL BOMB POPPY FIELDS
Blair targets terror profits
Sunday Mirror (UK)
Monday 1st Oct 2001
http://www.geocities.com/freedomofpress/mirror1.htm
POPPY fields which supply the Taliban's multi-billion-pound drugs trade are to be a key target of military strikes in Afghanistan.
The decision has been taken by Tony Blair and President George Bush to stop Osama bin Laden using drugs profits to wage war against the West.
A senior Downing Street aide said: "We have reliable information that the Taliban are planning to use money from drugs to finance military action, and that bin Laden has ordered farmers to step up production."
Specially-adapted US planes will be used to spray and destroy the poppies, from which opium is produced and processed into heroin.
The US is currently funding the development of a fungus that attacks the roots of opium plants.
There is an estimated 3,000 tonnes of opium stockpiled inside Afghanistan, the equivalent to 300 tonnes of pure heroin.
The drugs, thought to be worth £20billion, will be bombed when military operations against the Taliban have begun.
The Afghan regime collects a 10 per cent tax on the £20-a-kilo that local poppy farmers earn from the crops that provide 80 per cent of Europe's heroin. This year they produced a record harvest with a Western street value of £4billion.
Some of the enormous revenues generated from the drugs trade are funnelled into secret accounts for arming and supporting Islamic terror groups around the world. It is believed that at least £350,000 of this drug money was used to fund the suicide hijackers attacks on New York and Washington.
The decision to attack the poppy fields comes as the United Nations orders the freezing of the finances of terrorist suspects and any person or group linked "directly or indirectly" with them. It is part of a global build-up of military and diplomatic pressure on bin Laden.
President Bush said yesterday that the campaign against those responsible for the attacks on America will be waged "wherever terrorists hide or run or plan".
He used his weekly radio address to the nation to warn that "this will be a different kind of war".
Meanwhile, in New York it was announced that rebuilding on the site of the World Trade Centre will cost up to £40billion. It was also revealed that a Manhattan grand jury is investigating possible Mafia involvement in the theft of hundreds of tons of scrap metal from the Ground Zero site. As the start of military action grows nearer, the first lorry loads of 200 tonnes of aid for refugees living in opposition-controlled areas of Afghanistan left Peshawar in Pakistan yesterday. In the Middle East yesterday, three Palestinians were killed and dozens wounded by Israeli troops firing at stone-throwers and gunmen in Gaza.
- SINN Fein president Gerry Adams told his party's annual conference yesterday that the attacks on America were inexcusable. The man known by the security services to have once led the IRA's Belfast brigade told delgates: "Terrorism is ethically indefensible."
c.mclaughlin@sundaymirror.co.uk
-------- iran
Iran will 'confront' U.S. planes in its airspace
USA TODAY
10/01/2001
The Associated Press
http://usatoday.com/news/attack/2001/10/01/iran.htm
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iran's Defense Minister warned the United States not to use Iranian airspace for an attack on neighboring Afghanistan, saying Monday that Tehran will react "strongly" if its skies are violated. "We will strongly defend our airspace and will confront (U.S.) planes if they use our airspace," Defense Minister Ali Shamkhani said at a news conference.
The comment underlined Iran's opposition to a U.S.-led war on terrorism and its refusal to cooperate in an American attack on Afghanistan, whose Taliban rulers shelter Osama bin Laden, the prime suspect in the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said last week that Iran does not consider the United States "competent and sincere (enough) to lead any global campaign against terrorism."
Iran, which is a little bigger than Alaska, lies between Afghanistan and most of the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia, where the United States has military forces.
However, the United States could launch an attack on Afghanistan without violating Iranian airspace, sending forces from Pakistan, from warships in the Arabian Sea or from Central Asia.
Shamkhani also acknowledged for the first time that Iran, which strongly opposes the Taliban, has been supplying the Afghan opposition Northern Alliance with weapons.
"The Northern Alliance has been and is our ally. We have provided weapons to the Northern Alliance and will continue to do so. There will be no change in our support of them," he told reporters.
The United States also has reached out to the Northern Alliance in its campaign against the Taliban, and Russia has vowed to step up arms supplies to the opposition.
-------- israel
Many in Middle East Say More Fighting Is Their Only Option
Year of Violence, Loss Hardens Both Sides
By Lee Hockstader
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, October 1, 2001; Page A16
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50235-2001Sep30.html
JERUSALEM, Sept. 30 -- Like every Palestinian town and city in the West Bank, Nablus has been crippled by the year-old Palestinian armed uprising. Its businesses are sapped, its job base decimated, its entrances and exits sealed tight by Israeli soldiers.
But ask students at Nablus's al-Najah University, the largest in the West Bank, if it is time to desist in the worst bloodshed here in a generation, and there are no answers in the affirmative. They are convinced that Israel understands nothing but force and are effusive in their praise for Palestinian suicide bombers -- at least three of whom were students at the university.
Israelis, for their part, profess despair, hopelessness and anger at the continuing fighting. But after 12 months of firefights, ambushes, roadside bombs and suicide attacks, they see few options but to stay the course.
In interviews, Israelis reject fresh territorial concessions, which they contend would only reward and encourage Palestinian violence. And although many favor a devastating military attack on Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority, they know that such a course of action might add fuel to the violence while eliciting condemnation from the West.
One year after the beginning of the worst Palestinian-Israeli violence in decades, nearly everyone on both sides seems convinced that there is no choice but to keep fighting. Despite a flurry of U.S. diplomacy following the Sept. 11 terror attacks in the United States and bold declarations from both sides asserting their commitment to peace, expressed last week in an unevenly observed truce agreement, little has changed on the ground. The fighting and dying continue.
"The suicide bombers started after the Israelis began killing children on our side," said a 23-year-old Palestinian engineering student at al-Najah who gave his name as Raed. He heaped praise on a recent on-campus exhibit -- later ordered shut down by Arafat -- that celebrated a suicide bombing that killed 15 Israelis. "We had to show them we could kill their civilians, too."
"Look how they behave -- they dance in the street when people are blown apart," said Menashe Moshe, 69, a retired Israeli construction worker. "How can you make peace with animals like this? The violence will continue because the Palestinians just don't want peace. The only language they understand is force."
The depth and passion of those convictions have stymied Washington's urgent attempts in the past three weeks to bring the Middle East fighting under control.
The fighting now poses a greater challenge to U.S. interests than it has in the past. On the streets of Egypt, Jordan and other moderate states in the Middle East, Israel, with its vast military superiority and chokehold on the West Bank and Gaza Strip, is seen as the oppressor of the Palestinians. And the United States, as Israel's main ally and military supplier, is widely regarded as complicit in the Palestinians' suffering.
Mindful that the fighting could impair U.S. efforts to attract Arab and Islamic states into a U.S.-led coalition to combat terrorism, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell has worked the phones relentlessly since Sept. 11, pleading with Israeli and Palestinian leaders to douse the flames of conflict.
After a much-postponed meeting Wednesday between Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and Arafat, the Palestinian leader, each side said it was committed to shutting down the violence. However, the declared cease-fire has not ended the violence, providing only a mild letup. This weekend, about a dozen Palestinians were killed and scores were injured in some of the worst rioting in weeks. Numerous Israelis were injured in Palestinian shooting and stone-throwing attacks. Over the past year, more than three-quarters of the dead, and perhaps 90 percent of the injured, have been Palestinian.
There are few people on either side who think this truce, the sixth in a year, will make any more difference than previous ones. Israelis maintain the Palestinians imposed the conflict on them, electing to engage in violence and rejecting a compromise proposed by Ehud Barak, the former Israeli prime minister.
At this point, say most Israelis, the only option is to hit back hard after Palestinian attacks, assassinating suspected Palestinian militants and terrorists; shooting at Palestinian gunmen, rioters and stone-throwers; and destroying Palestinian security buildings.
Israelis insist they cannot withdraw from the vast chunks of the West Bank and Gaza Strip they control because that would send a message of weakness. Nor can they launch an all-out military attack on the Palestinians, for fear of killing thousands of civilians and infuriating the West. This thinking also holds that reviving Barak's generous territorial concessions would simply reward and encourage Palestinian violence.
Adina Shapiro, 26, director of a nonprofit group of Israelis and Palestinians concerned with education, said she felt trapped by the violence. "We are prisoners of the conflict," she said. "No one is thinking anymore if it is worthwhile, or if there are other more positive options. We are no longer looking forward, we are only looking backward or around us."
In that, at least, some Palestinians agree. There has been no attempt by the Palestinian leadership to lay out a strategy behind the uprising, if there is one, or to explain how it might advance Palestinian interests.
Still, in public at least, a large majority of Palestinians say they support the insurrection -- about 85 percent in a recent poll conducted by the Jerusalem Media and Communications Center, a Palestinian think tank.
Many blame Ariel Sharon, Israel's current prime minister, for triggering the violence last year. In a Sept. 28 visit to Jerusalem's Noble Sanctuary -- a site that is sacred to both Muslims and Jews, who call it the Temple Mount -- Sharon, accompanied by hundreds of Israeli policemen, ignited a bout of stone-throwing by Palestinians in the sanctuary. The next day, thousands more Palestinians rioted there after Friday prayers. Under a barrage of hurled stones, Israeli police opened fire on the rioters with live ammunition, killing four on the spot; at least two died later.
Palestinians say the incident was the tripwire that set off the violence. But the fuel that kept it going, they say, had built up for years. To most Palestinians, the peace talks that began in Oslo in 1993 were a smoke screen behind which Israel continued to expand Jewish settlements at a rate of thousands of new units each year.
Built on occupied land, the settlements are regarded as illegal by most Western countries. Few blame Arafat for refusing Israeli compromises that would have left most of the settlers on the land.
The expansion of settlements, coupled with continued tight Israeli military control on the ground, convinced many Palestinians that negotiations were futile. A year of violence has only enhanced the prestige of the most radical Palestinian groups, whose combined popularity now exceeds that of Arafat's own forces.
-------- pakistan
Pakistani press prints anti-U.S. sentiments
October 1, 2001
By Arnaud de Borchgrave
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20011001-74117872.htm
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf's assertion in an interview yesterday that he has the full support of his population is contradicted daily by a steady drum beat of anti-U.S. and anti-Israel editorials and op-ed articles in the Pakistani press.
"Those against the government's position are a small minority," Gen. Musharraf told CNN's Christiane Amanpour. "Generally, if not all, they are religious extremists. There is no mass opposition."
In fact, the silent majority in Pakistan supports Gen. Musharraf's backing of the U.S.-led campaign with the caveat that what they see as the root causes of terrorism will at long last be addressed - the occupation of Jerusalem, Palestine and Kashmir; the still widening gap between rich and poor nations; unfair terms of trade; and Third World debt.
"Dubya," wrote columnist Humayun Gauhar yesterday in Pakistan's daily newspaper The Nation, "expects to construct a coalition comprising Muslim states to wage a war that he calls a 'crusade' on another Muslim state and he expects Muslims not to get all worked up.
"Sept. 11 was not mindless terrorism for the sake of creating terrorism. It was reaction and revenge, even retribution, for the systemic injustice against Muslims, often descending to genocide."
Gen. Musharraf's lack of maneuvering room was dramatized by a cartoon in Dawn, Pakistan's most influential newspaper, yesterday.
The paper, which has always opposed Pakistani support for the Taliban, shows an anxious Gen. Musharraf, arms and hands outstretched to the limit, touching with one finger the tip of Uncle Sam's index, and with the other a finger of a mullah.
Another cartoon in the Nation newspaper showed Uncle Sam peering through a telescope at the Muslim world while dwarfed by a gigantic genie of "World Terrorism" wafting out of a bottle labeled with the Star of David.
Not to be outdone, the Pakistan Observer depicted Uncle Sam as a skeleton in combat fatigues, a bottle of wine sticking out of his backpack and a triple-barreled automatic weapon pointed at the world community, as he carries a sign reading, "I condemn terrorism." Uncle Sam shouts, "You friend or foe?"
Even Interior Minister Gen. Moinuddin Haider was proud to say at a news conference that "no investigation relating to [the United States] is being carried out in Pakistan and neither [has] any person in connection with the attacks been arrested on U.S. say-so." The suggestion was that Pakistan does not have a terrorist problem.
For his part, Gen. Musharraf played down the influence and the numbers of the religious schools, or madrassas. There are now 15,000 such Quranic schools, nearly double the number he mentioned, with about a million students. They provide free education and board in a country that can't afford it because over half the budget is earmarked for defense and nuclear weapons.
Madrassas are heavily subsidized by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, two countries that recently severed their diplomatic ties with the Taliban regime in Kabul. Children are taught to read and write and study the Quran by rote, interspersed with a regular stream of anti-American and anti-Israeli messages.
By the time madrassa-educated children have completed a few years of Quranic studies, for many of them the anti-U.S. propaganda has turned to hatred and a thirst for revenge. Osama bin Laden is their hero. The most gung-ho were selected for training as mujahideen.
The training takes place in Afghanistan in bin Laden's vast Taliban-supported network of training camps. There, the most promising elements are talent spotted by al Qaeda recruiters and indoctrinated into the hall of would-be martyrs.
• Distributed by United Press International, for whom Arnaud de Borchgrave is an editor-at-large.
--------
Pakistan Says Afghans Face U.S. Attack and End of Taliban
New York Times
October 1, 2001
By JOHN F. BURNS with TERENCE NEILAN
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/01/international/01CND-STAN.html
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Oct. 1 - The president of Pakistan said today that he believed that the United States would take military action against Afghanistan and that the Taliban government's days in Afghanistan were numbered.
"It appears that the United States will take action in Afghanistan, and we have conveyed this to the Taliban," the president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, said in an interview with the BBC.
Further signs that the talking seems to be over and that Afghanistan is being prepared for war came from the Taliban's supreme leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, in a rare address on the Taliban-run Radio Shariat late Sunday.
"The government may collapse," he said, but the result would be the same as the jihad, or holy war, against the Soviet Union.
"New fronts will be established, just like against the Communists.
"You may capture the airports and the capital and the cities," he added, "but people will go to the mountains. God willing, I believe that neither the United States nor their allies will be able to do anything.
"They will only find the same destiny as the Communists." Afghanistan drove out an invading Soviet force, which suffered thousands of casualties, in a war that lasted from 1979 to 1989.
Mullah Omar denied any role by Afghanistan in the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and said American policies, which he did not specify, were to blame.
He repeatedly warned the United States to "think and think again" about attacking Afghanistan, adding, "Americans don't have the courage to come here."
In General Musharraf's interview today, he said Pakistan had tried its best to head off a confrontation over Osama bin Laden and his associates in the Al Qaeda terrorist network.
Asked if the Taliban's days are numbered, he replied, "It appears so."
Another warning that armed conflict seemed inevitable came from the foreign minister for the Northern Alliance, the group opposed to the Taliban.
The minister, Abdullah Abdullah, said on Sunday that his group was in "regular daily contact" with the United States.
He predicted that an attack on Afghanistan would come in "matter of days."
The alliance struck a deal today with the former king of Afghanistan, Mohammed Zahir Shah, 86, designed to oust the Taliban and set up a moderate government in Kabul, the capital.
The two parties said they had established a so-called Supreme Council for National Unity, a group of elders, tribal leaders and spiritual leaders who would elect a new head of state and establish a transitional government ahead of free elections.
Supporters of the former king, who had lived in exile in Italy since 1973, said the Taliban would not be barred from the assembly but made it clear that the hard-line government would soon be ousted.
The Taliban authorities said six men had been arrested in Afghanistan for distributing pamphlets in support of the the United States and the former king, a crime that could be punishable by death.
In an apparent bid to counter the king's influence, the Taliban announced a power-sharing arrangement today with tribes in three southern provinces. Analysts believe that the government, which largely represents the country's Pashtun minority, would probably collapse without the the support of the minority tribes.
Today's ominous developments came after the Taliban ambassador to Pakistan said Mr. bin Laden was still in Afghanistan "under the control" of the Taliban government at a hideout known only to "the people responsible for his safety."
But the envoy, Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, also said that Mr. bin Laden "will not be handed over to anyone" for the United States says is his role in the Sept. 11 attacks.
"Wherever he is, he's under control of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, and because of his safety you know it's only the security people who are responsible for his safety who know his whereabouts, and no one else," he said. "But he is wherever he is under control of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan."
He added, "He's in a place which cannot be located by anyone."
In recent days, there has been a flurry of reports that American and British units - perhaps composed of intelligence agents, perhaps of commandos, perhaps of both - have been operating inside Afghanistan since a few days after the Sept. 11 attacks. In Washington and London, officials have denied that there are any current troop operations inside Afghanistan, or any current troop deployments in Pakistan. This has left open the possibility that there have been special forces operations that have not involved regular forces.
On Sunday General Musharraf offered what appeared to be an artful answer when asked about possible American and British reconnaissance operations inside Afghanistan.
"Well I see these in the news, yes," he said, referring to the reports of British and American undercover operations. "But there's no such information. I don't know at all those who are based in Afghanistan, but I'm certainly very clear that nobody's based in Pakistan as yet."
-------- puerto rico
Administration insists on blocking Vieques vote
USA TODAY
10/01/2001
The Associated Press
http://usatoday.com/news/washdc/oct01/2001-10-01-vieques.htm
WASHINGTON (AP) - As the nation gears up for war, military training on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques remains a concern for the Bush administration, which dislikes what both the House and Senate are trying to do about it.
The administration is insisting on canceling a planned November referendum of Vieques citizens on whether the military can continue to train there past 2003, and it wants the freedom to set the standards for alternative training sites.
The military has trained there for six decades, using live fire to provide what service leaders have long considered essential, realistic training. But since an errant bomb killed a civilian worker in April 1999, only inert bombs have been used on the Navy training range.
Protests prompted by that death continue, but they have lost momentum since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Noisy demonstrations by hundreds have become quiet prayer sessions by 20.
President Bush on June 14 ordered the Navy to pull out by May 1, 2003. Even so, the White House wants to block the November vote on whether the Navy should stop training that year, or stay and pay $50 million for public works projects.
"Conducting a local referendum on issues critical to the Department of Defense sets a bad precedent and strikes at the heart of military readiness," the Office of Management and Budget said in a statement to Congress last week regarding defense spending bills for fiscal 2002, which began Monday.
Such a precedent could have a "potential domino effect on our other military training ranges," the statement said. Congress authorized the referendum last year.
In a nonbinding referendum in July, 68% of Vieques voters supported an end to the bombing and the Navy's immediate withdrawal.
The Senate's not-yet-completed defense authorization bill makes no mention of Vieques.
The House bill, meanwhile, would cancel the referendum, as the administration wishes, but it would set some conditions the administration opposes.
It would require the Navy to continue training on Vieques until an equal or better site becomes available, and mandate that the new site allow for simultaneous, large-scale tactical air strikes, naval surface fire support and artillery and amphibious landing operations.
"The administration believes that the Navy's training needs may be met through a combination of geographic locations and alternative training methods, as opposed to a single training site," the OMB statement said.
The House bill, approved 398-17 on Sept. 25, also would prevent the Navy from closing the Vieques range until top Defense officials certify that the alternative meets the conditions and is immediately available. The administration considers the certification requirements too rigid.
Some lawmakers have objected to the referendum.
"It would set a dangerous precedent if we're going to let 3,000 Americans tell the other 2 million Americans in uniform that we're not going to allow you to train here anymore," said Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss.
"It's important when the JFK (aircraft carrier) goes out, that it has live-fire training, that they don't go out unprepared," said Rep. James Hansen, R-Utah.
But Rep. Loretta Sanchez, D-Calif., said the vote could give a voice to Puerto Ricans, who lack full representation in Congress.
-------- russia
Russians Moving Military Equipment
October 1, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Russia-Northern-Alliance.html
DUSHANBE, Tajikistan (AP) -- Russian military equipment, some of which apparently is headed for the Afghan opposition, has been arriving in the Tajik capital Dushanbe on a regular basis since President Vladimir Putin announced last week that his country would increase support for the anti-Taliban alliance.
Russia has been supplying the Afghan opposition for the past several years and also has 25,000 troops of its own stationed in Tajikistan to help guard the border with Afghanistan. However, the latest deliveries at Dushanbe's airport appeared greater than usual.
On Monday, packed cargo was unloaded from a Russian Ilyushin-76 cargo plane onto Russian military trucks. It was not clear what was in the boxes.
Over the past several days, Russian Su-25 jets have flown in and out of Dushanbe, as have other cargo planes.
Russia has expressed support for the U.S.-led coalition against terrorism that Washington has been assembling since the Sept. 11 attacks in Washington and New York that have been blamed on Osama bin Laden, a Saudi who is being sheltered by the Taliban in Afghanistan.
-------- u.s.
DEFENSE
Military Looks at Surveillance Stockpile and Finds a Dearth
New York Times
October 1, 2001
By JAMES DAO and STEVEN LEE MYERS
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/01/international/01WEAP.html
WASHINGTON, Sept. 30 - The military is concerned about a shortage of surveillance equipment as the pursuit of Osama bin Laden is heating up, senior Pentagon officials and congressional aides said in interviews in the last few days.
To address the sudden increased demand after the Sept. 11 attacks, the Pentagon is sharply increasing spending on intelligence gathering, accelerating purchases of reconnaissance planes and transferring surveillance drones from places like the Balkans to the Afghanistan area, the officials said.
More than $1.3 billion of the first $4.2 billion in emergency spending authority given to the Pentagon following the attacks will be devoted to improving intelligence gathering, senior Pentagon officials said.
A large portion of that money will be used to accelerate production of the RC-135V/W Rivet Joint reconnaissance aircraft and the Global Hawk, the Air Force's new long-range unmanned reconnaissance aircraft.
The Global Hawk is still in testing but might be put to work over Afghanistan, the officials said.
"What we're simply doing is getting everything into the best possible position to use," said Under Secretary of Defense Dov S. Zakheim, the Pentagon's comptroller.
Pentagon planners are also looking for ways to speed up purchases of the RQ-1 Predator, an unmanned aircraft that can loiter over a target for 24 hours.
With a range of 500 miles, Predators could reach Mr. bin Laden's strongholds in eastern Afghanistan from bases in Uzbekistan or Pakistan. And with an array of sophisticated sensors, the drones can produce still photographs and live videos of activities on the ground from more than 10,000 feet in the air.
For those reasons, many experts say the Predator will be a vital tool for military commanders as they make last-minute decisions on the targets and timing of strikes.
"Predators provide the most detailed, continuous and up-to-date information," said John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.com, a Web-based military and intelligence policy group.
However, with the loss of two Predators over Iraq in the last month, the Air Force now has just seven immediately available for military operations, according to Air Force and Congressional officials. A third unpiloted spy plane, possibly a Predator, was lost over Afghanistan a week ago. But it is not clear whether the plane belonged to the military or to the C.I.A.
The shortage of surveillance drones - including the Predator - prompted Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz to warn NATO defense ministers on Wednesday that the United States was likely to transfer some of its unpiloted reconnaissance planes from Macedonia and elsewhere in the Balkans to southwest Asia if the campaign against Mr. bin Laden and the Taliban intensifies.
On Wednesday, Mr. Wolfowitz said he told the NATO allies that surveillance drones in the Balkans "are going to be in even higher demand now." And he noted that intelligence gathering had become more critical as the United States pursues Mr. bin Laden and his organization, Al Qaeda.
Once Mr. bin Laden and his associates' locations are known, Mr. Wolfowitz later added, "going after them is relatively the easiest piece of it."
Pentagon officials now say that much of the $18 billion they hope to get from a $40 billion emergency budget supplement authorized by Congress will be spent on intelligence and surveillance. The first two installments of that money will, among other things, help accelerate production of reconnaissance aircraft like the Global Hawk and Predator and buy computers that handle the raw intelligence data collected by satellites and aircraft.
The Air Force owns about three dozen Predators, but most of those are being used for training, spare parts or testing and are not immediately available for military operations, Pentagon officials said. The Air Force had planned to buy six more of the $3 million drones in the fiscal year beginning on Monday, but now wants to increase that order.
The C.I.A. also has an undisclosed number of reconnaissance drones similar to the Predator. Pentagon officials suggested that the Global Hawk could skip its final testing program and join the current operation.
Like the Predator, the Global Hawk carries video cameras that work in the dark and still cameras that can photograph through cloud cover. But the $47 million Global Hawk cruises faster than the Predator, 350 miles an hour, flies higher, 65,000 feet, and has more than twice the range, 1,200 miles.
The Air Force owns four Global Hawks and plans to buy six more by 2006. But Northrop Grumman, the manufacturer, has proposed doubling its output and moving up the delivery date for the next two aircraft to the end of next year.
Unmanned surveillance aircraft enjoy considerable support among Congressional committees who control military spending because they are relatively inexpensive and do not pose the risk of human casualties.
"They need to think about buying more Predators," said an aide to a senior Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee. "They are falling out of the sky. And there weren't that many to begin with."
At the insistence of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, the Pentagon has also been looking at other ways to acquire surveillance aircraft quickly. One idea calls for accelerating a program for installing sophisticated sensors inside Navy C-9 cargo planes. Another proposes putting advanced listening equipment in Gulfstream G-5 executive jets.
It could take weeks, if not months, to accelerate production of additional aircraft and other equipment. But Mr. Zakheim, the undersecretary of defense, said it was important to get started immediately.
The Pentagon also plans to spend $644 million of its latest $1.7 billion installment of emergency funds, which President Bush released on Friday, for sustaining military deployments and operations related to the campaign against terrorism. Another $215 million would go toward stockpiling weapons, including cruise missiles and satellite-guided bombs, that are expected to be consumed in any strikes.
"The last thing we want is to run out," Dr. Zakheim said.
--------
THE WEAPONS
New Military Systems May Be Tested in Field in 'War Against Terrorism'
New York Times
October 1, 2001
By BARNABY J. FEDER
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/01/business/01ARMS.html?pagewanted=all
The military action being contemplated by the Bush administration could quickly become a proving ground for weapons and support systems developed since the Persian Gulf war a decade ago. How they fare could affect billions of dollars in military spending in the coming years.
The new equipment, including smarter bombs, more sensitive surveillance systems and more sophisticated communications networks, is not in plentiful supply. It is still unclear what role it may play in the long run in the open-ended "war against terrorism" declared by President Bush.
But many of the newest technological capabilities of the armed forces could be tested in the early stages, military experts said.
"Ninety percent of the stuff the military has is old and you can't change it that fast," said Jacques S. Gansler, who was undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics from 1997 until early this year. But Mr. Gansler and others think that, initially at least, the military's plans will focus on rapid moves by units small enough to be equipped and trained with technology that in some cases is so new that it has not been approved for full- scale production.
Thus, small groups of foot soldiers might be sent into Afghanistan on commando missions equipped with prototypes of the many forms of weaponry and electronic support systems that are not scheduled for full introduction until 2004 under the Land Warrior program.
Prototype soldier helmets, for instance, have a built-in video camera, an infrared camera for night vision, a microphone for voice communications and a display unit linked to global positioning satellites to show the soldier's location, that of fellow soldiers and of suspected enemy positions.
The modified M-4 rifle comes with lasers for calculating distance and a thermal imaging system for seeing a heat-producing target through smoke or foliage.
Similarly, regular production models of Northrop Grumman's Global Hawk, an unmanned reconnaissance plane that can fly up to 350 miles per hour at altitudes of 65,000 feet, are not slated to be delivered until 2003 under the current, $80 million contract. But six prototypes have already been delivered and could be used over Afghanistan.
The value of prototype aircraft was demonstrated during the gulf war when two modified Boeing (news/quote) 707's, the first versions of the joint surveillance target attack radar system, or Joint STAR, contributed crucial information on Iraqi troop movements and defenses.
New equipment could be especially valuable in a war on terrorism, the experts say, because most of it was designed for greater speed, precision and networking of information, which will probably be more important than sheer firepower in such an unconventional conflict.
"This is a totally different type of war," said Frank C. Lanza, chief executive of L-3 Communications Holdings, based in New York, a supplier of military navigation and communications gear. "It's an information battle, which is why we need intelligence from all the other countries in the alliance."
It is also a battle in which the technologies most needed are among those the military and its suppliers are least likely to discuss publicly, such as covert communications systems, easily concealed sensors or cameras that could be planted in remote regions and monitored from space. "All I'd say is that there have been big improvements," Mr. Lanza said. "We'll depend highly on special forces. We're a lot more prepared than most people realize."
Many experts are less optimistic about the nation's preparedness for the struggle with terrorism. Developers of image processing gear, surveillance equipment and data analysis software say that the most sophisticated technology is more widely used in the private sector or at agencies like the Drug Enforcement Administration or the United States Border Patrol.
The Defense Department says it is many years away from reaching its goals for "real-time" responsiveness - using technology throughout the military to knit available information together rapidly enough for fighting forces to adjust as conditions change, and to make sure such responses are shared up and down the command chain.
"The technology is there but not always the sustainability and level of coordination you need," said Anthony H. Cordesman, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank.
Whatever the shortcomings, today's military technology often makes the gulf war seem old-fashioned. New air transports like the Boeing C-17, which can fly nonstop from the United States to Central Asia and take off and land on small, undeveloped airfields, and more extensive use of computers to manage supplies have cut the time needed to deploy forces to remote regions to days from months.
Tomahawk missiles and other gulf war weapons have been rebuilt with internal guidance systems and links to global positioning satellites. Similar modifications to bombs from the Vietnam era were introduced during the Kosovo campaign in 1998.
A team of nine contractors, led by Boeing, began upgrading more than 11,000 bombs this year under a $235 million contract. Raytheon (news/quote) is the lead contractor on a $414 million contract to upgrade more than 600 Tomahawk missiles.
The added intelligence permits the weapons to be guided to their targets electronically and from a distance instead of by a laser signal from a fighter plane, tank or soldier at the scene. In addition, such "shoot and scoot" systems can home in on targets where fog, smoke or other forms of interference block laser signals.
The accuracy of the new bombs was demonstrated in 1999, though in an embarrassing fashion, when bombs dropped by a B-2 bomber - another addition to the military's weapons portfolio - successfully zeroed in on a building the Central Intelligence Agency had mistakenly identified as the Serbian Directorate of Supply and Procurement. It was the Chinese Embassy.
Making smarter weapons has been a much more straightforward challenge than developing the communications networks and management systems needed to use them effectively as battles unfold, especially against mobile targets.
As Serbian troops demonstrated by setting up fake tanks to draw fire from the American-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the sophisticated surveillance systems can often be easily duped. And, with the terrorists' ability to recruit highly educated followers like the men who carried out the Sept. 11 hijackings, protecting the security of the highly networked troops from hackers remains a major concern.
The military's preferred approach to building its new capabilities has been to adapt readily available commercial technology to keep costs down. The battlefield computers given to Land Warrior soldiers, for instance, are based on the same Intel (news/quote) Pentium processors used in personal computers, standard wireless data networking chips and the Microsoft (news/quote) Windows operating system.
How far that approach has taken the military was demonstrated in war games in April, when mechanized troops from the Army's 4th Infantry Division, an experimental force based at Fort Hood, Tex., routed an armored regiment posing as a foreign army at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, Calif.
Visiting units almost never win such mock battles because the "foreign" forces are based at Fort Irwin and know every inch of the terrain in addition to the American army's standard tactics. But the 4th Infantry came loaded with electronic technology it has been working with since 1997. Joint STAR, U-2 spy planes, unmanned air vehicles and satellites fed data on the opponent's movements to the 4th Infantry's command post, which in turn was linked to the brigade's tanks, troop carriers and the laptop computers of unit commanders via e-mail and a private Internet site.
The superior battlefield intelligence, shared data and tighter command structure provided by the network proved overwhelming. "They never gave the enemy a break," said Charles Pizzutelli, the civilian chief of the office that is overseeing integration of the new technology. "They attacked day and night."
Such exercises have also, of course, turned up many gaps between the ideal and actual performance. Computers crash, data is misinterpreted or the "enemy" figures out ways to confuse the surveillance systems trying to track them.
"A lot of this stuff requires heavy training and it's not fully mature," Mr. Pizzutelli said. Highly simplified versions of the technology were used in the Balkan conflicts but, as things stand now, it appears the Army would need to send civilian contractors into battle with troops to keep such systems running. Moreover, the 4th Infantry's equipment is too large and heavy for operations in areas with little or no vehicle support.
But the larger problem given the military's latest assignment is that making such systems truly battle- worthy may be of little help if the enemy remains a shadowy group of terrorists intent on avoiding even the slightest skirmish.
"We have the weapons but, obviously, we don't have the targets we had in Desert Storm," Mr. Lanza said.
-------
US rejects massive bombardment of Afghanistan: report
Agence France-Presse
Monday October 1, 5:20 AM
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/010930/1/1jdl1.html
Washington has shelved plans for bombing raids on Afghanistan because of a shortage of viable targets, opting instead to deploy special forces, Newsweek said in its issue appearing Monday.
The weekly news magazine said President George W. Bush's administration concluded that Afghanistan, where prime terror suspect Osama bin Laden is thought to be hiding out, has fewer good targets than Kosovo.
"The terrorist camps have emptied; the only good military targets, apart from a few TV and radar stations, militia headquarters and fuel dumps, are the Taliban's 'cavalry' of pickup trucks mounted with machine guns and rocket launchers," it said.
Going after such targets would be "more difficult than hitting the Pony Express," the magazine said, alluding to the 19th century US horse-borne mail service.
Officials, who had earlier leaned towards long-range bombing runs, have now decided to "aggressively" deploy special forces, possibly naval SEALs or green beret crack troops, to seek out bin Laden and his followers, Newsweek quoted sources as saying.
Special forces operatives have already received orders for Afghanistan, it said, but could also be deployed in such places as Sudan or Lebanon to seek out terrorists as part of Bush's war against terror.
The weekly also said the administration had last week secretly told Congress, as required under the 1973 War Powers Act, that both British and US special forces reconnaissance teams had already been in and out of Afghanistan.
US reports have already claimed that special forces units had entered Afghanistan to collect intelligence on Osama bin Laden, his al-Qaeda movement and on the Taliban regime who are sheltering him.
But, the magazine said, even as Washington stuck to a measured response to its September 11 terror strikes that have left more than 6,000 people dead or missing, Bush was considering air strikes on Afghanistan's opium warehouses.
The report came as Britain warned Sunday that stockpiles of raw opium from Afghanistan were being moved out of the region ahead of military strikes, but played down reports that the trade was one of its war targets.
Taliban-ruled Afghanistan is the world's biggest sources of heroin, and the reports of stockpiling of opium have raised fears of a glut of heroin on the market.
Newsweek added that the United States may drop shipments of food into Afghanistan before it drops any bombs, in a bid to undermine popular support in the starving country for the fundamentalist Taliban which Washington has indicated it wants out of power.
-------- OTHER
-------- health
Molecule May Kill Cancer Tumors
October 1, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Targeting-Tumors.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Scientists have developed a molecule that appears to make cancer its own worst enemy.
In laboratory tests on mice, the molecule -- called icon -- killed tumors by destroying the blood vessels that feed them. It also caused the cancers to produce copies of icon, which spread through the body and attacked other cancers.
The process eliminated human melanoma and prostate cancers in the tested mice. The first trials in people are planned for next year.
Drugs that inhibit the growth of the blood vessels that feed cancer have received wide attention in recent years, though early results reported last spring showed less promise than had been hoped for.
The new therapy, developed by researchers Alan Garen and Zhiwei Hu at Yale University, takes a different approach, attacking the cells lining the blood vessels in tumors rather than trying to prevent the growth of new blood vessels.
Their findings are reported in Tuesday's issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
``We're excited about it,'' Garen said. But he cautioned, ``From mice to men, that is a big jump. Until the trial is done with patients you can't be sure.''
Dr. Albert Deisseroth of the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center in San Diego is arranging clinical trials, which he hopes to launch next spring once approval is obtained from the Food and Drug Administration.
He also cautioned against jumping to conclusions about possible new cancer therapy. ``There are differences between animals and human beings.''
But, Deisseroth added, ``when studies in animals are so reproducible and encouraging ... then you feel justified to invite individuals who are not responding to other forms of therapy to participate'' in trials.
The first trial will focus on people with melanoma -- a type of skin cancer -- that has spread throughout the body, he said.
While the animal tests have worked on prostate cancer and melanoma, in theory the therapy should work on any solid cancer, Deisseroth said.
Garen said that cells lining the blood vessels in tumors have a receptor on their surface called TF (tissue factor), which is not present on the cells lining blood vessels in other parts of the body.
His team found that a molecule circulating in the blood called fVII bonds strongly to TF.
The researchers created their new molecule by attaching an fVII molecule to a portion of a human antibody called Fc. Fc causes the breakdown of cells it binds to and activates the body's immune system to attack those cells.
The new icon molecule was inserted in a harmless virus that was injected directly into a tumor. Once infected, the tumor cells produce more icon and secrete it into the blood, where it circulates. When it encounters a tumor, it binds to the TF in its blood vessels, destroying them.
In mice with human melanoma or prostate cancer that received the molecule, both the injected tumor and others that were not directly injected disappeared.
``The mice appeared to be free of the disease and in good health at the end of the experiments, which lasted up to 194 days,'' the researchers reported.
Control mice with similar cancers that did not receive the molecule died within 63 days.
Derrick Grant, a blood-vessel expert at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, called the findings ``very exciting.''
The paper ``puts a new and important spin on Judah Folkmans hypotheses that destroying the tumor vasculature can stop tumor growth,'' he said. Folkman, of Boston Children's Hospital, is a pioneer in efforts to battle cancer by attacking its blood supply.
Transferring the molecule into a tumor in a virus that forces the tumor to make more of the anti-cancer molecule ``is brilliant and deserves praise,'' Grant said.
-------- human rights
New Allies Seek Payback
Central Asians Expect U.S. to Ignore Abuses In Return for Help in Anti-Terror Campaign
By Susan B. Glasser
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, October 1, 2001; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50216-2001Sep30.html
TASHKENT, Uzbekistan, Sept. 30 -- In President Islam Karimov's Uzbekistan, more than 7,000 political prisoners are in jail, many of them religious Muslims accused of no more than sporting a beard or circulating religious leaflets. The political opposition has been thoroughly crushed. There is no independent mass media. And the few who do speak out are routinely beaten, harassed, arrested or driven into exile.
Economic conditions are just as bad. The average wage is officially $20 a month, and unofficially much lower than that. Most of the few Western businesses that operated here have left. Even the International Monetary Fund pulled out a few months ago, expressing dismay over reforms that never happened.
But instead of criticizing Karimov's record, the United States is courting Uzbekistan's president, along with other authoritarian leaders throughout the former Soviet republics of Central Asia. As they sign up for America's coalition to fight terrorists based in neighboring Afghanistan, they are banking on less scrutiny of their abuses at home and more concrete aid from a distant superpower that never needed their help before.
Many critics at home and abroad fear that, in the search for new allies, the United States will abandon its former concerns, changing its stance on everything from Russia's brutal war against Islamic rebels in Chechnya to Pakistan's nuclear weapons program. And nowhere could such flip-flops be more significant than in newly relevant Central Asia, where all five former Soviet republics are economically struggling and politically repressive, governed by Communist Party bosses renamed presidents.
"They have promised us that America will not sell out human rights to get Karimov's friendship," said Mikhail Ardzinov, who runs one of Uzbekistan's few independent human rights groups. "But we know that the tone will change now."
Sitting in the apartment where he was beaten by Uzbek police two years ago, Ardzinov interrupted an interview to retrieve the blood-stained shirt he was wearing that day. He showed photographs of the wounds on his face. He said his phone is bugged and that he is followed by the secret service the Uzbeks still call the KGB.
But, he said today, not at all bitterly, "Terrorism is now the greater evil."
And in that fight, Uzbekistan is offering the United States an unprecedented military foothold on former Soviet territory: use of several strategically important air bases without which strikes over the border into Afghanistan would be much harder to launch. Karimov talked by telephone last week with President Bush and publicly spoke of his readiness to allow his airspace "to be used in the fight against terrorism for humanitarian and security aims."
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell met his counterpart from Kazakhstan on Saturday, and said the State Department was in touch with all the Central Asian countries. "We've been very pleased with how forthcoming they have been, with respect to condemning the acts of the 11th of September, of offering support in various kinds of ways," he told reporters.
Uzbek officials and independent analysts said much broader cooperation has been agreed on. Several U.S. transport planes have reportedly landed at military facilities here, including one today just outside Tashkent, and several sources said the Uzbek military has received orders to prepare their bases to receive U.S. warplanes.
In exchange, Uzbek leaders have begun to speak of the new attitude they want from the United States, "guarantees" of a different, less critical relationship with their strategically located country of 25 million people.
"We want to show in reality, not just words, our readiness to cooperate in a real way with the Americans. Maybe after that, in America there will be more appreciation of our problems," said a top-ranking Uzbek official who spoke on condition of anonymity. "We don't want America to limit itself to criticism, but to help constructively."
They also want promises that the United States will not unleash a war on Uzbekistan's borders that could destabilize its government. Karimov's government fears both a flood of refugees from Afghanistan and renewed incursions by the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, an extremist group that aims to overthrow Karimov and install an Islamic fundamentalist government. Karimov blames the movement for explosions in Tashkent that killed 16 people two years ago; the group came over the border from Afghanistan in 1999 and 2000 to stage armed confrontations in Uzbekistan and neighboring Kyrgyzstan.
"We should receive a guarantee of security for our territory and our borders," Karimov said last week. A senior Uzbek official was even blunter. "We want a guarantee that America will not begin a conflict and then just leave us to deal with the consequences," he said.
Reflecting the new pragmatism he said he hopes the United States will embrace, this official said Uzbekistan would be able to allow democratic reforms only after the threat of Islamic terrorism from Afghanistan has been eliminated. "It is in our interests to help deal with this problem. Then we can spend money that we would have spent on defense on reforms," he said.
The United States has already muted its criticism in recent years. Despite campaigning by human rights groups, Uzbekistan was not on the State Department's 2000 watch list of countries where religious freedom is not respected; a government commission recently produced its list for 2001 and Uzbekistan was not on it.
"Obviously, there are geopolitical concerns of the U.S. at play in this decision," said human rights activist Ardzinov. "We believe Uzbekistan is an authoritarian regime under the personal power of the president, and it should be on the list of those countries where the worst repressions of human rights occur. This regime must be on this blacklist." Instead, Bush made a huge bow to Karimov's government by mentioning in his speech to Congress last month the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan as a terrorist threat. He argued that the rebels being fought by Karimov's government are tied to Osama bin Laden, the chief suspect in the Sept. 11 attacks against the United States.
"This was a major victory for Karimov," said Anvar Nazirov, a researcher at the French Institute for the Study of Central Asia here. "Bush's speech made a great impression on Uzbekistan."
Nazirov and even some human rights activists argued, however, that there may be a positive side to unprecedented cooperation with the United States by a country still struggling to deal with the legacy of Soviet totalitarianism.
"There is a hope that rapprochement between Uzbekistan and the United States will push Uzbekistan to serious economic reforms and that through economic reforms we may eventually come to democracy," he said.
But Nazirov said it is not hope but fear that has caused Uzbekistan to ally itself with a former Cold War foe. "Fear unites the entire Uzbek society," he said, "fear of terrorism and fear that we could become like Afghanistan," devastated by war, run by religious extremists and cut off from the rest of the world.
Such fears are easily encountered at the bus station in Tashkent's old city on a sultry Sunday. Teacher Gulchekhra Mirsadikova ticked off a list of the wars that have plagued the former Soviet republics in the last decade: Armenia versus Azerbaijan, civil wars in Georgia and Tajikistan, not one but two Chechen wars inside Russia. "God willing," she said, "we don't want it here."
Sitting on a nearby bench, Tijabayev Abdumova was more focused on the retaliation that Uzbekistan's new partnership with the United States might provoke from Afghanistan's Taliban regime. "We don't need a war," said Abdumova, a trader at the market. "Things are hard enough here."
-------- police / prisoners
More Terrorism Likely, U.S. Warns Bush Wants National Airport Reopened
By Dana Milbank
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, October 1, 2001; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50147-2001Sep30.html
Bush administration officials said yesterday there will likely be more terrorist strikes in the United States, possibly including chemical and biological warfare, and they urged Congress to expand police powers by Friday to counter the threat.
Despite their warnings about further attacks, top administration officials said President Bush wants to reopen Reagan National Airport and expressed confidence that new security measures would allow the reopening.
As the administration cautioned that collaborators in the Sept. 11 attacks probably were still at large, lawmakers said they had resolved most of the civil liberty objections to anti-terrorism legislation. Under a possible compromise, the government would be able to hold certain foreigners without charges for a week rather than the indefinite detention the administration sought.
Although differences narrowed over domestic anti-terrorism measures, the administration quickly rebuffed a negotiation bid from the ruling Taliban militia in Afghanistan, which said it was sheltering the man accused of masterminding the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Osama bin Laden.
Dropping claims that the regime could not locate bin Laden, the Taliban's ambassador to Pakistan, Abdul Salam Zaeef, said bin Laden was in Afghanistan and "under our control" but "in a place which cannot be located by anyone" except top Taliban officials. Zaeef also suggested that the Taliban still might consider turning over bin Laden if the United States presented firm evidence of his guilt.
"We are thinking of negotiation," he said.
Administration officials said the Taliban had no credibility. "It was just a few days ago that they said they didn't know where he was, so I have no reason to believe anything a Taliban representative would say," Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said on NBC's "Meet the Press."
Another top administration official, White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr., condemned the Taliban, who, he said, had "duped and used" the Afghan people. "We'd like to see a more stable government."
A White House spokesman last night declined to confirm news reports that Bush has approved increasing aid to foes of the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Bush flew to the White House early yesterday afternoon after spending the weekend at Camp David. Though he did not speak publicly yesterday, his advisers, making the rounds of the five Sunday news shows, used the platform to deliver Bush's messages -- among them endorsements from Rumsfeld and Card for the reopening of National Airport with enhanced security.
"I'm confident that we can address the challenge and that Ronald Reagan Airport will be open. The question is how quickly and under what circumstances," Card said on "Fox News Sunday."
Two task forces studying aviation security are due to report today to Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta. Among their recommendations, according to industry officials, are that the new federal agency on aviation security that Bush announced Thursday be housed at the Transportation Department, and that the administration have flexibility to decide whether airport baggage screeners should be federal workers or contract employees.
New York officials yesterday lowered the number of missing people by more than 400 because of double-counting of foreigners, leaving 5,756 listed as dead or missing. But Bush's aides repeated earlier warnings that Americans should expect more terrorist attacks.
Speaking on CBS's "Face the Nation," Attorney General John D. Ashcroft said there is a "likelihood of additional terrorist activity."
"We think that there is a very serious threat of additional problems now," Ashcroft said. "And, frankly, as the United States responds, that threat may escalate."
Expanding on that warning, Ashcroft said on CNN's "Late Edition" that "there are all kinds of threats," including explosives. "I think there is a clear, present danger to Americans, not one that should keep us from living our lives, but one that should make us alert. . . . It's very unlikely that all of those associated with the attacks of Sept. 11 are now detained or have been detected."
Card raised the specter of biological or chemical terrorism. "I'm not trying to be an alarmist, but we know that these terrorist organizations, like al Qaeda, run by Osama bin Laden and others, have probably found the means to use biological or chemical warfare, and that is very, very bad for the world," he said.
Card promised that the administration would increase inventories of key vaccines and medicines. Asked whether he agreed with an assertion by Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) on Saturday that the United States could use nuclear weapons to respond to a biological or chemical attack, Card said, "We're going to do everything we can to defend the United States."
Rumsfeld, asserting the "probability" that terrorists eventually would be equipped with chemical, biological or nuclear weapons by nations sponsoring terrorism, said he would make "some adjustments" in the military's command structure to make room for domestic defense.
The defense secretary spoke of a campaign that would target bin Laden's al Qaeda network in 50 or 60 countries until it is "liquidated." Describing the aims of the administration's war on terrorism, he added: "We ultimately, over time, will be able to track down and make life so difficult, so uncomfortable, that people won't want to be in that business."
The American military campaign against bin Laden and his followers appeared to suffer a setback when the Saudi Arabian defense minister, Prince Sultan, told an Arabic newspaper that no troops could use his country's bases for military strikes on Arabs and Muslims. "We will not accept in our country even a single soldier who will attack Muslims or Arabs," Sultan said in an interview published yesterday in the government-controlled Okaz newspaper.
The prince, however, did not explicitly rule out American use of a state-of-the-art command center southeast of Riyadh for directing military action in the region. The Pentagon has intended to coordinate much of its upcoming operations from the U.S.-built center. When asked on ABC's "This Week" about the defense minister's remarks, Saudi Ambassador to Washington Prince Bandar bin Sultan said: "Our discussion with our American friends is steady, and it is in total agreement between us and them. . . . We have not been asked for the using of the bases in Saudi Arabia."
Lawmakers, meanwhile, indicated there would be rapid action on the anti-terrorism legislation, perhaps by the Oct. 5 target the administration has set. There is wide agreement on various new provisions, including allowing investigators to see what Internet sites a suspect visited and to wiretap multiple telephones used by a suspect without obtaining a separate warrant for each phone. There will also likely be tougher penalties without statutes of limitations for terrorist offenses.
The largest remaining issue is whether foreigners who have violated immigration laws can be detained indefinitely. Senate Judiciary Chairman Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) told NBC, "We should have something in effect, like a speedy trial kind of provision, that required them to be held only a certain amount of time and then released and-or the deportation matter taken care of." Rep. Henry J. Hyde (R-Ill.), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said, "They're negotiating over seven days." The politicians also suggested that Congress might go beyond the airport security measures Bush has proposed, embracing a federal takeover of airport security.
But Ashcroft continued to argue for the power to detain suspects as long as immigration charges against them were being adjudicated. "I don't want to be releasing suspected terrorists onto the streets of the United States of America who are being adjudicated as violators of the immigration laws already," he said. More than 500 people have been arrested or detained, many of them on immigration violations.
Staff writers Ellen Nakashima and Alan Sipress contributed to this report.
-------- spying
[I include this not as an endorsement, but to educate. et]
FIGHTING WITH INTELLIGENCE
The CIA Must Play Offense An insider's guide to reform.
BY HERBERT E. MEYER
Monday, October 1, 2001
Wall Street Journal
http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=95001246
It's obvious that the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the U.S. reflect, among other things, a failure of our country's intelligence services. Less obvious is how to reform and reorganize our intelligence agencies to help win the war against terrorism.
Many members of Congress are critical of the Central Intelligence Agency for not having recruited more spies. Others blame Congress itself for starving the CIA of adequate funding. While more spies and more money will be helpful, neither will be sufficient. The core of the CIA's failure lies in its very structure and design, and until that is altered, the agency will never be able to pull its weight in the coming fight.
Simply put, the CIA must be changed from a defensive agency into an offensive one.
To understand the difference, consider the CIA's World War II predecessor, the Office of Strategic Services. Built by a brilliant and tough-minded New York corporate attorney, William J. Donovan, the OSS was a free-wheeling collection of our country's best minds. Donovan took them from Wall Street, the corporate world, academia--wherever they happened to be. They were lawyers, administrators, financiers, economists, writers and scientists. They shared a special kind of brilliance that too often is overlooked in the intelligence business: the ability to spot a pattern with the fewest possible facts. They didn't wait until two and two were sitting on their desks to realize they had four, and they had the ability to articulate their conclusions swiftly and clearly enough to get everyone else moving before it was too late.
Donovan's orders to his OSS teams were simple: Figure out precisely how our enemy works, and wreak havoc. To do this they used not only their brains but their contacts. Not for nothing did people joke that the OSS stood for "Oh-So-Social." Its officers personally knew bankers, business executives and scientists at the highest levels throughout the world--people no regular government employees would ever have met, let alone socialized and done deals with--to whom they could turn for insight, and sometimes a quiet helping hand when they wanted something awkward to happen to someone. It was a hard-driving, hard-charging--and in some cases hard-drinking--crowd.
Hearing OSS veterans describe the office atmosphere, it must have been more like a hospital emergency room than an insurance company. Donovan himself was known as "Wild Bill," and it was not always meant as a compliment.
When the war ended, Congress moved hastily to disband the OSS. Lawmakers considered it too hard to control to tolerate in peacetime. Only when the nation realized it was in a Cold War with the Soviet Union did we create the CIA. But unlike its predecessor, the CIA was designed as a defensive intelligence agency. After all, our national objective was to "not lose" the Cold War--to somehow contain the Soviet Union and keep it from winning. Thus the CIA's mission was to monitor, analyze, report and sometimes launch an operation whose purpose was to stop the Soviets from doing something.
President Reagan changed the U.S. objective from "not losing" the Cold War to winning it. And to help do that he named as director of Central Intelligence William J. Donovan's OSS protégé, yet another New York corporate attorney also named William J.--in this case, Casey. Bill Casey understood that you cannot play offense with an agency built for defense. His solution was not so much to change the CIA, but to build within the CIA an "OSS."
Like his idol Donovan, Casey raided the corporate world, Wall Street, academia and so forth for the kind of people he needed--people who thought fast, could spot a pattern with the fewest possible facts, get their point across to everyone else and hit the enemy hard. They were people with global Rolodexes no CIA official could match. Bill even brought a few of his aging OSS buddies on board, and the contrast between them and everyone else at the agency was a sight to behold. Of course they were visibly older, but they were almost a different species. They knew their way around boardrooms throughout the world, and with help from the powerful people they talked to they made things happen that agency officials had insisted were impossible. They belonged to private clubs no CIA official could afford to join, and all too often had never even heard of. If they had an idea that needed immediate action and the agency was unable to fund it that afternoon, they simply wrote a check from their personal accounts.
It all drove Congress nuts. They called Bill a cowboy--or worse--and they bleated that under his direction the CIA was out of control. They hated the way he testified at their hearings, and insisted he was in contempt of Congress. Technically, this accusation was false; Bill was too smart a lawyer ever actually to be in contempt. But he's been gone for years, so I can safely reveal that in our country's history there have been few people who had more contempt for Congress than Bill Casey. Sitting privately with Bill at a dinner table and listening to him say what he really thought of some members is among the funniest, most memorable, experiences I've ever had.
While Congress bleated, the "OSS" within the CIA swung into action. Working on its own--and often with the invaluable assistance of those first-class career CIA officers who had been waiting years for this kind of aggressive leadership--Casey's team sharpened the analysis, forced the rest of the national-security apparatus to see things before they otherwise would have been visible, and wreaked havoc among our enemies. We smuggled weapons to freedom fighters throughout the world, we smuggled Bibles into the Soviet Union itself, and we mined harbors in Nicaragua. We figured out how the Soviets were getting their hands on U.S. technology, and we crushed their network. We grasped the connection between the two Soviet natural gas pipelines into Western Europe and Moscow's looming economic crisis, then provided the insight and information to the State Department and the White House, which moved to block the pipeline project and thus deal Moscow a crippling financial blow. And so on.
By the time Casey collapsed at his desk--literally--in 1986, the Soviet Union was on its knees. Five years later the Soviet state ceased to exist. Of course the CIA didn't win the Cold War any more than the OSS won World War II. But it was an effective part of the struggle for victory because it had become an offensive, rather than a defensive, agency.
During the 1990s the CIA struggled to reinvent itself in the post-Cold War era. It shifted its focus from the Soviet Union to drugs and terrorism. But at the core it slipped back into its default posture, which was playing defense. And rightly so, because the national leadership articulated no objective that required an offense.
President Bush has made clear that in the war against terrorism, the U.S. will be playing offense. That means the CIA itself must change its posture. More precisely, it will need to revisit the Casey approach and build within the CIA an "OSS." Two specific tasks spring immediately to mind:
First, it's obvious that the terrorist networks and the states that support them rely on very sophisticated financial operations to keep going. Well, our financial geniuses are smarter than their financial geniuses. We need a team of the smartest, most well-connected money wizards in our country to figure out how the terrorists' finances work--and then wreak havoc. If we put our very best people to work on this, it won't be long before Osama bin Laden will have trouble paying for his lunch, let alone for complex attacks.
Second, the terrorist networks and the states that support them rely heavily on computers for communication. Again, our computer geniuses--men and women who are not government employees and never would be except in wartime--are better than theirs. We need to put the best possible team together and set it to wrecking the terrorists' ability to communicate, or to communicate undetected.
Setting up another "OSS" within the CIA, or, if you prefer, reorganizing the CIA to play offense, should be easier to do now than it was during the Reagan administration. The poisonous relations between the executive branch and Congress that existed then, and perhaps before Sept. 11, no longer prevail. Yet the administration must be more willing than any of its predecessors to share intelligence with Congress. Members will demand that as the price for allowing the CIA to be transformed into an offensive agency, and it's a price worth paying. At the same time, Congress must realize that overseeing an offensive CIA will be an uncomfortable, sometimes agonizing chore. Members will need to be less prissy and fastidious, less prone to faint every time things get rough or go wrong.
Turning the CIA into an offensive agency won't, by itself, win the war against terrorism. But it will help, and the sooner we get cracking the better.
Mr. Meyer served during the Reagan administration as special assistant to the director of central intelligence and vice chairman of the CIA's National Intelligence Council.
-------- terrorism
THE THREATS
Defense Secretary Warns of Unconventional Attacks
New York Times
October 1, 2001
By JAMES DAO
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/01/national/01CAPI.html?searchpv=nytToday
WASHINGTON, Sept. 30 - Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld warned today that he expected the enemies of the United States would eventually help terrorist groups obtain chemical, biological and possibly even nuclear weapons technology.
His remarks echoed other administration officials who have stepped up warnings on the spread of chemical and biological weapons, the threat of attacks against Americans overseas and the need for stronger antiterrorism measures at home.
Appearing on television, Attorney General John Ashcroft said the United States remained under threat of new attacks within its borders. Andrew H. Card Jr., the White House chief of staff, said the administration believed that Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda network may already have the means to use chemical and biological agents as terror weapons. On Friday, the State Department issued its latest warning of potential terrorist attacks against Americans traveling abroad.
The remarks by the three senior officials on separate programs were not based on any new intelligence, their subordinates at the Justice Department, the Pentagon and the White House said later.
President Bush and members of his cabinet have been urging Americans to resume flying, but the State Department has warned Americans traveling abroad.
"The U.S. government remains deeply concerned about the security of Americans overseas," the warning said. It said the fears were "based on threatening rhetoric from extremist groups and the potential for further terrorist actions against American citizens and interests."
Mr. Ashcroft and Mr. Rumsfeld appeared to be highlighting the risks from terrorism that have prompted their departments to propose new strategies for combating terrorism. Mr. Ashcroft is pushing Congress to enact quickly a package of bills that would give the government significantly more authority to detain suspected terrorists, conduct electronic surveillance and seize assets of suspected terrorist organizations.
"We believe there are substantial risks of terrorism still in the United States of America," he said on the CNN program "Late Edition." "As we as a nation respond to what has happened to us, those risks may in fact go up."
Mr. Rumsfeld said the Pentagon believed that several nations that support international terrorists have either developed or are trying to acquire chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, and that the dissemination of those weapons seemed a realistic concern.
"It doesn't take a leap of imagination to expect that at some point those nations will work with those terrorist networks and assist them in achieving and obtaining those kinds of capabilities," Mr. Rumsfeld said.
Mr. Rumsfeld, speaking on the NBC program "Meet the Press," did not name those terrorist-supporting nations. But a Department of Defense report released in January said that Iraq, Iran, Syria, Sudan and Libya all have active chemical or biological weapons programs. In addition, Iraq and Iran are trying to acquire materials for nuclear devices, the report said. Those nations all are on the State Department's list of governments thought to sponsor international terrorism.
Mr. Rumsfeld is preparing to release the Pentagon's Quadrennial Defense Review, an assessment of the nation's defense needs mandated by Congress. The document, which will be sent to Congress on Monday, focuses heavily on the need to protect the United States against terrorism and ballistic missile attacks, and on the proliferation of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.
Mr. Rumsfeld said today that the military was in the process of adjusting its command structure to deal with terrorism. "There's always been terrorism," he said, "but there's never really been worldwide terrorism at a time when the weapons have been as powerful as they are today, with chemical and biological and nuclear weapons spreading to countries that harbor terrorists."
The defense secretary's concerns were repeated by Mr. Card. "I'm not trying to be an alarmist," Mr. Card said on "Fox News Sunday," "but we know that these terrorist organizations, like Al Qaeda, run by Osama bin Laden and others, have probably found the means to use biological or chemical warfare."
But for all the concerns that terrorists armed with chemical or biological weapons would have for the general public, Pentagon officials say they are most immediately worried about the safety of American military forces.
Asked today whether the United States was worried that military conflict in South Asia might destabilize Pakistan, which has nuclear weapons, Mr. Rumsfeld said yes. And asked if the United States would soon turn its attention to nations other than Afghanistan that support terrorism, like Iraq, Mr. Rumsfeld replied, "I think we're already turning our attention to other states."
He added, "If Al Qaeda is in 50 or 60 countries, which we know, then clearly this is not a one-country problem."
The administration's warnings about chemical and biological weapons were also picked up by Representative Henry J. Hyde, the chairman of the House International Relations Committee. On "Meet the Press," Mr. Hyde, Republican of Illinois, said biological weapons "scare" him more than nuclear weapons because they can be brought into the country "rather easily."
But on the same program, Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., the Delaware Democrat who is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said it was unlikely that terrorists had the technology to develop extremely deadly biological weapons. Terrorists might have access to weapons that use anthrax or smallpox strains, he said.
"There are those serious things," he said, "but we can deal with them."
--------
'Collateral damage' is a terroristic tool
By CHARLEY REESE
Monday, October 01 2001
Showmenews.com
http://archive.showmenews.com/2001/oct/20011001comm002.asp
Americans have shown enormous sympathy for the victims of the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. I hope we can also develop empathy.
Sympathy is simultaneously feeling emotions similar to someone else's. Empathy, often an actor's tool, is mentally identifying with someone else or even with an object. Actors use it in order to understand the characters they must portray.
Now that we have been bombed - and that's what the attacks were - we need to employ empathy to understand that the people our forces bomb feel the same way we do. We have seen the grief, the fear and the rage that a bombing produces. We need to understand that people in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Sudan, Afghanistan and anywhere else experience those exact same emotions when we bomb them. We now know that it's no fun to be the target of bombs. We must recognize that it is true of everyone else.
The most obscene statement I've heard is some character - and I'm sorry I can't remember who it was - who said the American people will have to be "strong and accept that there is going to be collateral damage." That is precisely the mind-set of a terrorist. "Collateral damage" is the putrid euphemism used to describe the murder of innocent people. It is time to tell our government that collateral damage is not acceptable anymore.
We cannot say, as decent human beings, that 5,000 of our civilians killed are victims of terrorism but the 5,000 of someone else's civilians we kill are just "collateral damage." Murder is murder. Innocence is innocence. If we deliberately kill people who had nothing to do with the attack on us, then we are terrorists. And, by the way, many people view us as just that.
You might think I'm tilting at windmills, but let's look at the bloodiest war in American history. When North and South fought, 600,000 Americans died. But you know what? Virtually every one of those 600,000 dead was a soldier. It's true that Gen. William Sherman burned the cities of Atlanta and Columbia, S.C., but Sherman did not burn the people in those cities. In the 20th century, we burned the people in cities.
The ratio of civilian to military dead, which in the 19th century was virtually nonexistent, was still small in World War I but escalated enormously in World War II. The military deaths in World War II amounted to a small fraction of 55 million people killed.
The answer is simple: strategic bombing. Regardless of what its advocates say, strategic bombing is aimed at civilians. This vicious concept reached its apex with nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons are designed solely to kill civilians. You don't need a 10-megaton warhead to blow up a military base or airfield. Its only purpose is to murder civilians. Thank God no one has used that type of weapon since we burned the people in Nagasaki. And, by the way, the reason there were so few Americans killed at Pearl Harbor was because the Japanese pilots took extraordinary care not to attack civilians.
It's time for us to tell our political and military leaders: enough of this collateral-damage heifer dust. If you're going to fight terrorists, we expect you to kill terrorists and not innocent people who have nothing to do with terrorism and no control over it. If you're going to fight another country, we expect you to attack its military, not its civilian population or its civilian infrastructure.
In the past, we viewed bombing other people almost as a sport. "Yeah, go get 'em. Blow 'em all to hell. Let God sort 'em out." Well, now that we know what it's like to get blown all to hell, I hope we will develop empathy and make it clear to our government that fighting terrorism need not involve becoming a terrorist nation ourselves.
Charley Reese is a columnist for The Orlando Sentinel.
-------
PERSUASION POWER POINT #111
Talking about Terrorism: Define or Be Defined
by Michael Cloud
October 1, 2001.
On September 11, 2001, terrorists hijacked 4 airplanes. They flew 2 of them into the World Trade Center. They flew 1 into the Pentagon. In the 4th plane, several passengers fought the hijackers. That plane crashed in Pennsylvania.
The World Trade Center was destroyed. The Pentagon was damaged. Over 6,000 innocent men, women and children were killed. Hundred of police officers, firefighters and rescue workers were killed or injured trying to rescue the victims.
How could this happen in America? Who was responsible?
Politicians and the media filled hours and hours of TV time reporting facts as they slowly came in. And speculating. Who? Why? What's next?
Democrat and Republican politicians began calling this "an act of war," "a new kind of war," often comparing the terrorist attack to the Japanese military attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.
As Thomas Szasz taught us: "In the jungle, it's kill or be killed. In politics, it's define or be defined."
Whoever controls the metaphor, controls how people think about a subject. Whoever controls the metaphor, controls which options people consider and what options they do not.
If we think of this terrorist attack as an act of war, we naturally think of our response in terms of war.
If we think of these terrorists as a military problem, we look for military solutions.
Army, Navy, Air Force. The Pentagon. Cruise Missiles. Aircraft Carriers. Ground Troops. Bombs and Machine Guns. Military men and women. Invasions. Battles. Body Bags.
If America's at war, "everyone will have to make sacrifices."
If America's at war, we won't be "asked" to sacrifice. We'll be told. Ordered. Compelled. Forced.
If America's at war, we will have to give government more sweeping powers to keep an eye on us. A project Carnivore to keep an eye on our private email. Wiretapping to keep an ear on our cell phone conversations.
Because terrorists and spies sometimes use email and cell phones. You don't have anything to hide, do you? You're a good American, aren't you?
If America's at war, the government may need to impose greater "security" measures. Random searches. Checkpoints. A National ID system. Martial Law.
Interrogations of suspicious foreigners. And citizens.
As Randolph Bourne wrote over 80 years ago, "War is the health of the state."
But wasn't the terrorism "state-sponsored?" Please remember that the United States government did not see this attack coming. But now they claim to know where it came from.
If our government can convince us that these terrorist attacks were engineered and instigated by another government... then they can go to war with that other government. Or, more accurately, they can send our sons and daughters into combat with that other government.
The United States government must show us compelling evidence that the Taliban planned, funded, and carried out this act of terrorism.
If they can, then they are right and the American people will demand war.
The Federal government refuses to show us the proof.
What's their excuse? "For reasons of national security." (Which means: a. they don't have it or b. they don't trust us.) "For reasons of state." (Which means: None of your business!)
If the government's evidence is trustworthy, they would trust us. They would tell us. And then we would trust them.
"In war, truth is the first casualty." The government and the news media tell us that we are at war. How many casualties have they inflicted on the truth?
To talk in terms of war, to think in terms of war, to act in terms of war directly contributes to more government authority, more government power...more Big Government.
Is that what we want?
War-think plunges us into intellectual darkness.
Wars are against groups. Wars are against classes of people.
A War against "the Arabs." A War against "the Muslims." A War against "the Afghans."
"War" treats people collectively. The innocent and guilty are the same. The virtuous and the wicked are the same. "We" are "at war" with "every member of the collective." This is a tribal, mob mindset.
It is un-individualistic. It is un-libertarian.
When you hear about "the War on Terrorism", think "the War on Drugs." Think "the War on Poverty." Think "the War to end all Wars." And remember the consequences. To our Constitution. To our lives. To our liberties.
We need to re-think the meaning of "terrorism."
Webster's Ninth Collegiate Dictionary says the act of terrorism is "violence (as bomb-throwing) committed by groups in order to intimidate a population or government into granting their demands."
Random House 1968 College Dictionary notes that "terror implies an intense fear that is somewhat prolonged and may refer to imagined or future dangers."
The purpose of terrorism is to terrorize. To make individuals so afraid that they freeze or flee. To make us run or hide. To make us tremble and worry. To make us hate and fear those who look different, talk different, and live different.
The terrorists who attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon are criminals.
Barbaric criminals. Monstrous criminals. Unspeakably evil criminals.
Bringing them to Justice is a state, national, and international law enforcement issue.
Just as law enforcement officials investigated the Oklahoma City bombing, they must interview witnesses, find informants, pursue leads, uncover evidence, and track down the bloodthirsty murderers responsible for this terrorist act.
We must extradite them. We must put them on trial. We must prove their guilt. And we must make their punishments fit their crimes.
Law enforcement officials must be on the lookout for other terrorists. They must obtain good intelligence. They need to do it before a terrorist act takes place. And they must strictly adhere to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
The terrorists who did this are criminals, not soldiers. They are murderers, not warriors.
We must think in terms of crime and punishment, not war and retaliation.
We must think in terms of individual responsibility, not collective blame.
We must think in terms of individual accountability, not group guilt.
We must think in terms of individual punishment, not collective retribution.
We must think in terms of a harsh justice for these criminals. They must get what they deserve.
We must apply our principles of individual liberty and individual responsibility to these terrorist monsters.
And we must apply our principles of individual liberty and individual responsibility to the innocent people these terrorists hide among.
Because we are libertarians.
Michael Cloud attended the U.S. Air Force Academy. His uncle died in World War II fighting the Nazis. His father was a U-2 spy pilot who flew over Cuba during the Missile Crisis.
Michael Cloud is the Persuasion columnist for the Liberator Online and The Libertarian Communicator. In July 2000, at the Libertarian Party national convention, Cloud was voted the Most Persuasive Libertarian Communicator in America and honored with the Thomas Paine Award.
-------- activists
Students United for a Responsible Global Environment - www.unc.edu/surge
Date: Mon, 01 Oct 2001
From: Louise Auerhahn <auerhahn@stanford.edu>
Get ready folks. It may be beginning.
If the U.S. initiates a military action/strike, a rapid response anti-war demonstration is set for 5pm the next day at the Federal Building in Times Square in NYC. If on a weekend, the demonstration will be at 12 noon Saturday/Sunday. There will also be a National Student Walk-Out. <http://www.iacenter.org/ >
For those in the Bay Area, a rapid response demo is set for 5 pm the day the bombing occurs, at Powell and Market in San Francisco. There is also one at 6 p.m. in Palo Alto in front of City Hall.
For other areas, http://pax.protest.net/ is trying to get a list together, but it's not up yet. Check there or ask your local organizers.
Of course I don't have any way to verify what this article says, but the U.K. Guardian is a major mainstream newspaper, and probably more reliable in these circumstances that any mainstream U.S. media. (And yes, it is really a Guardian article -- check the URL.)
----
Campus hawks and doves find speech is not so free
By Andrea Billups
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
October 1, 2001
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20011001-6307880.htm
Disputes over free speech are occurring at college and university campuses nationwide as professors and students speak out about issues related to the terrorist attacks.
Officials at one prominent campus liberty group say they have received numerous complaints from professors - both from hawks who support war and doves who oppose it - who have come under attack by campus administrators and others for their analysis of the current crisis.
From a New Mexico history professor who has been accused of "treason" for making snide, off-the-cuff remarks about the Pentagon bombing, to a California community college professor who has been placed on indefinite leave after four Muslim students complained about his provocative lecture, schools are reacting with increasing passion to squelch opinion as patriotic fervor swells.
"If ever there was a time to notice the inconceivable double standard when it comes to protection of free speech and association, it is now," said Thor L. Halvorssen, executive director of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE).
"We are under the tyranny of the touchy-feely," he said. "These administrators are terrified of being insensitive to certain views or certain minorities. Ironically, we are all a minority of one at the end of the day."
Exactly who gets stifled depends on a school's internal political configuration, said Mr. Halvorssen. He decries administrators who selectively determine what views are politically correct and whose opinions need to be squelched - depending on which way the wind of public opinion is blowing.
Administrators, he says, have become "obsessed with group identity," with many sending out statements demanding the softening of speech that may come across as inflammatory.
Many are the same administrators, Mr. Halvorssen adds, that fail to speak out when Christian and conservative groups say their views have been silenced.
Winfield Myers of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute in Wilmington, Del., says he understands the importance of protections on speech, but because of the prevailing national climate, today's academics must use sounder judgment.
"While the First Amendment rights of professors must be protected, professors themselves are discovering that words have consequences," Mr. Myers said.
Many academic disputes are often so insignificant that they gain little attention either on or off campus. Some academics, he said, "treat life as a parlor game."
"Our current crisis is not just another dry debate. It involves life and death, national security and war," Mr. Myers said. "Uttering irresponsible phrases may not raise an eyebrow in the perpetually adolescent land inhabited by too many academics, but in the world where most people live, such language is unwise at best, traitorous at worst."
At the University of New Mexico, tenured history professor Richard Berthold has been disciplined for making a remark that he admits now was "insensitive." Mr. Berthold told his class: "Anyone who can blow up the Pentagon has my vote."
Now three Republican state representatives and one UNM official have demanded his resignation, with one, William Fuller of Albuquerque, calling the remark a form of treason. Albuquerque resident John Trainor also filed a lawsuit in state District Court, demanding that Mr. Berthold be dismissed.
"Treason is giving aid and comfort to the enemy," Mr. Fuller told the Albuquerque Tribune. "Any terrorist who heard Berthold's comment was comforted."
He has found support from faculty Senate colleagues who said they disagreed with his statement, but cite his rights to academic freedom.
Mr. Berthold, who has no plans to step down, recognized his folly and apologized in a letter printed in the school newspaper, the Daily Lobo.
"It is the inclination of my personality to deal with shocking events by making light of them," the professor wrote. "I was simply being at the moment an incredibly insensitive and unthinking jerk." He is among several professors who are now being represented by FIRE.
Others include:
• An ethics professor at Duke University who was instructed by administrators to write a disclaimer on his Web site stating that his opinions on the issues have nothing to do with the university. He supported the fight against terrorism, and said his colleagues with opposing views were not asked to similarly disclaim their opinions.
• A criminal justice professor at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington who is under investigation for harassment. The professor told FIRE he had been contacted by university police and the provost over remarks he made behind closed doors to a female graduate student in support of U.S. intervention in Afghanistan. She had argued, Mr. Halvorssen said, that the United States was to blame for the attacks. She complained that his position made her "uncomfortable."
• A conservative Christian professor of political science at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa, Calif., who has been put on indefinite leave after four Muslim students complained about remarks made in a Sept. 18 lecture. The 20-year teaching veteran led a heated discussion which, according to Mr. Halvorssen, started with a provocative question: "Why do Muslims condemn the terrorist attacks in New York, but never denounce the terrorist attacks in Israel?" The students complained that the professor singled them out as Muslims and blamed them for the attacks. The professor, who has apologized to students, denies those claims.
Mr. Halvorssen said his foundation also has received complaints from students who have been silenced in their support of America, including a group from Lehigh University who were instructed not to display the American flag on campus because Middle Eastern students there complained it made them uncomfortable.
"This just shows the unconscionable hypocrisy of a university who would never ask anyone to take down a flag, be it a gay pride flag, a United Nations flag, or a flag of any sort," Mr. Halvorssen said.
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Berkeley breaks from anti-war past
October 1, 2001
By Thomas D. Elias
SPECIAL TO THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20011001-8495290.htm
BERKELEY, Calif. - A different kind of war is brewing, and it's drawing a completely different kind of response on the University of California's Berkeley campus than the war in Vietnam or any subsequent U.S. military involvement.
For one thing, so far not a single American flag has been burned at Berkeley, the nation's foremost symbol of student protest. There have even been pro-U.S. rallies.
That's partly because Berkeley now has a different kind of student.
Yes, there have been protests against massive retaliation for the Sept. 11 terror attacks on America, but they have been largely drowned out by much larger gatherings supporting both the terror victims and President Bush's early steps toward a response.
Only about 100 protesters staged a sit-in outside the student newspaper, the Daily Californian, after it carried a cartoon depicting a huge hand about to deposit two turbaned Arabs into the fires of hell as they unknowingly are telling each other, "We made it to Paradise! Now we will meet Allah, and be fed grapes and be serviced by 70 virgin women ..."
"If the Daily Cal had printed any cartoon showing Ho Chi Minh entering hell back in the Vietnam era, they might have been burned down, and there surely would have been a huge demonstration against it on Sproul Plaza," said Gloria Effort, a 1969 Berkeley graduate. "There's a huge change."
In fact, by far the largest campus gathering since the attacks was a Sept. 17 memorial service for the victims that drew 12,000 students. The night of the attacks, about 500 students staged a spontaneous candlelight vigil in Sproul Plaza. Meanwhile, the largest anti-retaliation demonstration drew 2,500 students out of the campus total of more than 32,000. It was followed the next day by an almost equally large "Rally for America."
On Sept. 24, pro-U.S. demonstrators rallied again, shouting "U.S.A., U.S.A.," perhaps the first time that chant has been heard in the heart of American dissidence. The city of Berkeley drew national outrage when fire chiefs ordered large American flags removed from fire engines last week for fear they might be ripped off the trucks by demonstrating students.
"The university has no fire department and had nothing to do with that decision," said campus spokeswoman Janet Gilmore. In fact, there have been no incidents in Berkeley since the attacks involving either ripping down or defacing flags.
Even the largest campus anti-war rally of the last two weeks, addressed by Michael Nagler, chairman of the school's Peace and Conflict Studies program, called not for no response, but for diplomatic action to bring responsible parties to justice.
"We're mostly heartsick and extremely frightened because we know the retaliation will be counterproductive," said Mr. Nagler, a graduate student at Berkeley during the free-speech movement days of the 1960s. "Retaliation will only recycle the violence."
Some longtime professors who remember the fervor of the Vietnam-era anti-war demonstrations are not surprised today's students lack similarly strong feelings.
They note that Berkeley is no longer the mostly white college it was 35 years ago, but today has a majority of minorities, with Asian students the second largest student-body component behind whites. The school has far more engineering students today and far fewer humanities students than in the 1960s and early '70s.
"One reason you got so much anti-war fervor then is that Vietnam never attacked America," said Thomas Barnes, 71, a professor of military history. "We now see that we have an enemy. Some of us weren't sure of that during Vietnam. Also, these students aren't in revolt against anything, not their parents, or sex or drugs. It's a very different time."
Yes, this is still Berkeley, and there will be teach-ins and demonstrations. But students who carry large American flags on campus are not hassled. When Gleb Brichko, a 22-year-old Russian immigrant who recently became an American citizen, carried a flag to his classes last week, he reported that "two people came up to me and said, 'Don't you know we burn the flag in Berkeley?' But my feeling is that if you don't support the country, you should get out."
So far this time, not a single flag has been burned at Berkeley, the symbol of college protest in America.
"This is 2001, not 1968," said Randy Barnes (no relation to the professor), lead organizer of Monday's pro-U.S. rally. "This is not about Vietnam, but an act of aggression acted upon us as a nation."
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War Protesters Take to Neighborhoods
D.C. Demonstrators Get Mixed Reception
By Manny Fernandez
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, October 1, 2001; Page B03
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50524-2001Sep30.html
Scores of anti-war activists marched more than two miles through District neighborhoods yesterday, hoping to sway the hearts and minds of residents that a military response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks will not heal the nation's wounds.
College-age peace advocates carried signs reading, "Our grief is not a cry for war." Mothers pushed baby strollers while chanting, "No war in our name; Islam is not to blame." And a Gulf War veteran waved one of the march's many American flags to challenge the stereotyping of protesters as un-American.
"Preventing your government from committing unethical injustices is a highly patriotic act," said Kevin McCarron, 40, a D.C. Statehood Green Party activist who works as an economist for the federal government.
The march was the last of several weekend demonstrations that turned much of the capital into the epicenter of a new anti-war movement. Thousands of activists from the Washington region and across the country took part in three marches that were largely peaceful affairs marked with a few scuffles with police.
Yesterday's permitted march was a loud but civil display of anti-war sentiment that took place without incident. A large police presence kept close watch on the march and blocked off traffic along the route, which began at Meridian Hill Park at 16th and Euclid streets NW and meandered through parts of the Columbia Heights, Dupont Circle and Adams Morgan neighborhoods. Police officials estimated the crowd at 3,000 at its peak.
The march was organized by the Washington Peace Center, a resource center for peace activists, and the District office of the American Friends Service Committee, the social service branch of the Quakers. Many of those marching had planned to protest during the annual meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, originally scheduled for Saturday and yesterday. The meetings were canceled after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, as were many of the protests.
At Meridian Hill Park yesterday, protesters gathered before a stage at 11 a.m. to listen to speakers and munch on pasta. Near the front of the stage, one counter-demonstrator held a sign reading, "Osama thanks fellow cowards for your support." A protester stood next to the man with a sign that said, "Confused guy."
While Saturday's marches focused on Washington's traditional corridors of power downtown, yesterday's event brought anti-war messages to the sidewalks and streets of the city's neighborhoods. Protesters received a mixed response from bystanders, many of whom sat on the stoops of row houses to watch the sea of banners and puppets. In some cases, onlookers flashed peace signs or looks of dismay.
"They're very peaceful," said Joseph Pettus, 44, a Columbia Heights resident who stopped on his Sunday walk to take in the scene along 14th Street NW. "They're just making a statement."
Others rejected the demonstrators' messages. "I can understand their sentiment, but I can't say I support them," said one Dupont Circle resident who spoke on condition of anonymity while watching marchers on R Street NW. "I feel like we should go in and root out the terrorists. What do we do? Do we just stop and let this go?"
Protesters did not focus on the alternatives to war, though many said that accused terrorists should be tried by an international tribunal. Organizers said their goal was simply to promote justice without bombings or invasions that kill civilians.
Much of the talk yesterday centered on the events of the day before. Police confronted protesters during a Saturday morning march that ended in a tense standoff in front of the IMF and World Bank headquarters. Lines of riot-ready police prevented several hundred protesters from leaving the area. Executive Assistant Police Chief Terrance W. Gainer said the tactic settled an often-hostile crowd. "It allowed everyone to calm down," he said. Attorneys for protesters are seeking a court order to stop District police from using that crowd-control tactic again.
Gainer said he was hit on the head with what appeared to be a pipe Saturday morning near the Washington Convention Center when black-masked protesters surrounded police vehicles escorting the marchers. A police officer was knocked to the ground, and Gainer was accidentally hit with police pepper spray during the brief melee. Activists working as medics said more than 20 protesters were pepper sprayed, and about six suffered physical blows from police.
Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey credited the protesters with conducting two days of marches that, except for the few tense moments on Saturday, were largely civil.
"They've been vocal but peaceful," Ramsey said. "Obviously, they want to get their voices heard, but they've done a good job of policing themselves."
Police arrested 11 on Saturday -- three at the morning march and eight in a related protest at the former D.C. General Hospital. Protesters challenging the privatization of the now-closed hospital sought to "reopen" it by taking over a building but failed, activists said. They were affiliated with the Anti-Capitalist Convergence, the sponsors of the Saturday morning anti-war march.
The mood at yesterday's gathering was less confrontational and far more festive, as conversation drifted among marchers about the momentum building for an American peace movement.
"I believe we will be able to stop a war with demonstrations," said Stan Scarano, 57, of Arlington. "Basically, there's been a silence in this land. People have been apathetic. . . . What you see is a social consciousness and awareness that is beginning to spread."
Staff writer Yolanda Woodlee contributed to this report.
----
A Growing Opposition
by JOHN NICHOLS,
The Nation,
October 1, 2001
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=special&s=nichols20011021
After President Bush's "win this war" speech to Congress Thursday night, Senate majority leader Tom Daschle and Senate minority leader Trent Lott strode to a podium where Lott declared, "Tonight, there is no opposition party."
On the streets of America, however, there is an opposition. In growing numbers, and in every region of the United States, a new peace movement is delivering a message summed up by Harvard Initiative for Peace and Justice organizer David Jenkins. "It's OK to be scared; it's even OK to be angry," Jenkins said at a September 20 rally that drew more than 500 war foes to Harvard Yard. "But it's not OK to lash out violently as a result of those emotions; it's not OK to target groups of people; it's not OK to accept 'collateral damage' of the lives of innocent people for a retaliation against terrorism."
The September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were followed almost immediately by George W. Bush's announcement that "we're at war." Congress authorized the use of force by Bush against unnamed enemies with only one dissenting vote--that of Representative Barbara Lee, the California Democrat who is frequently a lone voice for peace on Capitol Hill.
Lee may have stood alone on the floor of the House to say, "Let us step back for a moment. Let us just pause for a minute and think through the implications of our actions today so that this does not spiral out of control." But beyond the Washington Beltway, her voice is being joined by tens of thousands of activists who say--as posters in the San Francisco Bay Area declare--"Barbara Lee Voted for Me."
The size of the demonstrations has varied, of course. In traditional hotbeds of antiwar activism, such as Madison, Wisconsin; Ann Arbor, Michigan; and the Bay Area, thousands of demonstrators are already filling the squares that protests against the Vietnam and Persian Gulf wars once occupied. In Portland, Oregon, Thursday's peace rally and march drew a crowd estimated by organizers at 3,000, marching with banners and posters that read, "The cycle of violence stops with us" and "The people of Afghanistan are not our enemies."
This antiwar movement is not limited to a few campus towns and hotbeds of progressive politics. The Student Peace Action Network (SPAN) reported that its members and allies organized antiwar demonstrations, rallies and teach-ins on 105 campuses Thursday. Peace vigils in New York, New Jersey, Missouri, Maine, Oregon and California have drawn thousands, as have teach-ins on the Middle East, Islam, terrorism, peace and related topics on campuses from the University of North Carolina to Indiana's Goshen College.
Much of the antiwar activism is linked to campaigning in defense of civil liberties and to prevent violence against Muslims, Arab-Americans and South Asian immigrants. With the support of musician Michael Franti, Global Exchange (www.globalexchange.org) has launched a national "Hate-Free Zone" to combat racism and assaults on civil liberties. New Hampshire activists have set up an emergency response network to guard against anti-Arab attacks.
At the heart of the new antiwar movement is a message that respects the enormity of the September 11 tragedy and that sympathizes deeply with the victims of the terrorist hijackings and crashes. New York City's Friday night Gathering for Global Peace and Justice took as its theme "Mourn the Victims; Stand for Peace." A sign in Portland read, "Let Us Never Inflict Such Grief on Others."
"People want justice, not vengeance," says Kevin Martin, executive director of the 85,000-member group Peace Action. "The perpetrators of these heinous crimes should be punished in the courts. Military strikes will take thousands of more innocent lives. A great nation does not punish the innocent to assuage its anguish."
Peace Action and SPAN have been at the heart of the initial organizing around the country of peace rallies and teach-ins. But they have not been alone. The Friends Committee on National Legislation, the national lobby of the Quakers, has developed a "War Is Not the Answer" website (www.fcnl.org) that features Barbara Lee's statements, declarations from religious groups, background information and a "Take Action" section with sample letters to Bush, members of Congress and the media.
An interfaith statement titled "Deny Them Their Victory: A Religious Response to Terrorism" and signed by more than 1,500 Christian, Jewish, Muslim and Buddhist religious leaders from around the country was delivered to Congress Thursday and Friday. Posted on the websites of the National Council of Churches (www.ncccusa.org) and Sojourners (www.sojo.net), the statement reads in part: "We offer a word of sober restraint as our nation discerns what its response will be. We share the deep anger toward those who so callously and massively destroy innocent lives, no matter what the grievances or injustices invoked. In the name of God, we too demand that those responsible for these utterly evil acts be found and brought to justice. Those culpable must not escape accountability. But we must not, out of anger and vengeance, indiscriminately retaliate in ways that bring on even more loss of innocent life."
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Not Everyone Wants War
Trying to voice dissent without seeming unpatriotic
By Arian Campo-Flores
NEWSWEEK,
Oct. 1 issue
These seem to be lonely days for the Birkenstock-and-beads set. As Old Glory proliferates across the country and rhetoric grows more bellicose by the day, America appears to be marching inexorably toward war.
But despite the displays of unity, dissent is spreading. Last Thursday at the University of California, Berkeley, roughly 2,500 students and supporters rallied against war and racism in Sproul Plaza. In Boston and Cambridge, students carried candles as they walked for peace. At New York University that night, 250 students packed an auditorium and whooped in support as Sherry Wolf of the International Socialist Organization shouted, "We have every right, as they beat the drums in a war hysteria, to ask questions of this government."
THESE ARE the early scenes of a nascent antiwar movement. Activists have quickly mobilized behind several causes: averting war against the already afflicted people of Afghanistan, fighting the erosion of civil liberties and protecting U.S. Arabs and Muslims against hate crimes. Protesters are organizing teach-ins, vigils and demonstrations. Last Thursday's rally at Berkeley was part of a nationwide effort involving 146 campuses in 36 states. At Union Square in New York City, a spontaneous memorial blossomed into a monument to peace before it was taken down by the Parks Department. Getting the message out has been tricky. In these times of patriotic fervor, when even Todd Gitlin, former '60s radical and now an NYU professor, has a flag unfurled on his balcony, many people find the dissenters distasteful at best and traitorous at worst.
Activists have been grappling with a knotty question: how do you voice dissent without seeming to minimize the horror of the attacks and the obvious need for greater security? "We avoided any political analysis in the first few days out of respect," says Scott McLarty, 43, of the D.C. Statehood Green Party. "What we're saying now is that the objective has to be justice and not vengeful retaliation."
The anti-globalization crowd has had to shift gears. Some have adopted the battle cry of the antiwar demonstrators. Others have simply canceled their plans for protests later this month in Washington aimed at the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank; somehow, that cause seems less pressing.
It remains to be seen whether more traditional peace groups will find new strength. At Peace Action in Washington, D.C., a descendant of antinuke groups, members are getting fired up, mobilizing local chapters, raising money, recruiting new members.
"We're a little older and stodgier, at least that's how the young bucks of the anticapitalist movement see us," says communications director Scott Lynch.
Yet the neopeaceniks are likely to find plenty of young converts among the globalization protesters, and draw on their organizational infrastructure. Are we about to witness the resurgence of flower power?
"It's not going to be '60s peace and love," says Lynch. "I think the younger generation is going to be coming at it from a more pragmatic point of view."
At this time of inflamed passions, they hope, appeals to the mind will prevail.
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