NUCLEAR
Green groups challenge go-ahead for Mox plant
Nuclear plant security breach called `appalling'
MILITARY
Blair Urges Inclusive Afghan Regime
Taliban Rivals Show Off Forces as They Prepare Strike on Kabul
Almost all routes lead back to Afghanistan War on terrorism
US and Britain accused of creating heroin trail
Israeli Forces Invade Hebron 5 Killed
Missile-Laden Truck Flips Over in Md.
Bush Says 'Time Is Running Out,' as U.S. Forces Move Into Place
Uzbekistan offers airfield
OTHER
House boosts funding for better intelligence
Foreign Spy Agencies Helping U.S.
Bush Names Spy Panel
Crews Struggle To Contain Leak In Alaska Pipeline
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- britain
Green groups challenge go-ahead for Mox plant
By Alan Jones
06 October 2001
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/environment/story.jsp?story=97999
Environmental groups are taking the Government to court over its decision to approve a nuclear reprocessing plant.
Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace have filed papers in the High Court to stop the mixed oxide (Mox) plant from opening at Sellafield in Cumbria. The Irish government has said it too will challenge the decision.
The Government announced this week that making Mox fuel - made from reprocessed oxides of plutonium and uranium - was justified. The two environmental groups have applied for a judicial review, arguing that thedecision was unlawful because the economic benefits of the scheme have been "distorted" and there was insufficient evidence that the plant will attract customers.
Charles Secrett, director of Friends of the Earth, said the Mox plant was "dangerous, uneconomic and perverse".
-------- canada
Nuclear plant security breach called `appalling'
Two men, dog slip under locked gate seeking help
Roberta Avery
SPECIAL TO THE STAR
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1002319288628&call_page=TS_Ontario&call_pageid=968256289824&call_pagepath=News/Ontario&col=968342212737
TIVERTON - The failure of security at the Bruce Power nuclear station to detect two men and a dog - they crawled under a locked gate and entered an office building after their boat capsized - doesn't seem to have shaken the confidence of area residents.
"Not too many people here are worried," Eric Howald, editor of the Kincardine Independent newspaper, said yes- terday.
Security at all of Canada's nuclear facilities including the Bruce generating plant on the Lake Huron shore, was ordered tightened in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States.
Twelve days later, just after midnight on Sept. 23, two men from the London, Ont., area and their dog made it to the rocky shore of the nuclear power plant after clinging to their overturned boat for five hours.
They got inside one of the office buildings and phoned for help, said Bruce Power spokesperson Susan Brissette.
"The security of the nuclear stations was not compromised. The men were nowhere near the generating stations," said Brissette.
That's not how the Sierra Club of Canada's nuclear policy adviser, David Martin, sees it.
"Coming as it did on the heels of terrorist attacks when security was supposed to be heightened, it's shocking that no one knew they were there until they called for help," said Martin.
He added: "This confirms our belief that security at Canadian nuclear facilities is appalling."
Bruce Power emergency response crews came to the aid of the men, who were taken to the Kincardine hospital suffering from hypothermia.
The two men have since been released from hospital, said Brissette.
Bruce Power advised South Bruce Ontario Provincial Police about the incident, but no charges were laid, said Sergeant Dave Rektor.
Ken McClement, a member of the Lake Huron Fishing Club, said the area around the Bruce plant is a popular spot for duck hunting and fishing.
Boaters know that the outflow channel from the Bruce B plant is an official safe harbour for boats in distress on Lake Huron, said McClement.
"So it's not surprising someone in trouble would head to the Bruce plant for help," he said.
Brissette said the men came ashore near the decommissioned Douglas Point nuclear station, about 2 kilometres from Bruce B's active nuclear reactors and 5 kilometres from the mothballed reactors at Bruce A.
Both Bruce A and B are protected by additional security fences, said Brissette.
Bruce Power, recognizing the potential for similar incidents, is installing telephones along the shore.
"Then, if anyone is in trouble, they can call and be hooked up to our security people," said Brissette.
-------- MILITARY
-------- afghanistan
Blair Urges Inclusive Afghan Regime
British Leader Seeks Support in Pakistan
By Molly Moore
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, October 6, 2001; Page A20
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13990-2001Oct5.html
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Oct. 5 -- British Prime Minister Tony Blair, visiting Pakistan to buttress support for U.S.-led military action against terrorism, said today that Afghanistan's ruling Taliban Islamic militia should be replaced with a "broad-based" government.
Blair, who has become one of the most vocal proponents of U.S.-led efforts against accused terrorist Osama bin Laden and his operations in Afghanistan, said any military action the United States takes there will be "proportionate" and "targeted."
"We have agreed that if the current Taliban regime fails to yield up bin Laden and it falls, then its successor must be broad-based, with every key ethnic group being represented," Blair said in a news conference with Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, at the end of a four-hour visit.
Blair also tried to assuage growing concerns here that Pakistan, which was instrumental in creating and nurturing the Taliban, has been largely isolated from international efforts to craft a replacement government for Afghanistan.
Pakistan has grudgingly endorsed international efforts to enlist Afghanistan's exiled former king, Mohammed Zahir Shah, to help organize an interim Afghan government. Blair said the discussions recognize that Pakistan has a "vital interest" in who runs the country on its northern border.
In Saudi Arabia, a former diplomat was quoted as saying that the real power in Afghanistan is not the Taliban but bin Laden, and "that's why the movement cannot hand him to the United States."
In a published interview quoted by the Associated Press, Abdullah bin Saad Otaibi, the former Saudi charge d'affaires in Afghanistan, also said there were deep, "well-constructed and well-equipped" tunnel hideouts for bin Laden's movement -- built to withstand bombs and missiles, equipped with air conditioning and water tanks, and supplied with oxygen and food.
"Nobody knows about these except his close associates," Otaibi was quoted as saying, adding that bin Laden "only trusts himself" and a few others.
Blair's hectic visit to the Pakistani capital offered a potent symbol of Western efforts to reward Musharraf and legitimize his military government in return for his willingness to support the campaign against bin Laden, the leading suspect in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. Britain severed high-level official contact with the Pakistani government two years ago, after Musharraf seized power in a military coup.
Blair also tried to use his appearance here to bridge the divide between the West and Islamic nations, at one point pausing to quote from the Koran, the Muslim holy book.
Blair said that any attacks against bin Laden or the Taliban should be aimed at giving the Afghan people "a stable future without the repression of the past."
"This was not a crime against the West," Blair said, with Musharraf standing next to him in a business suit rather than his customary military uniform. "It was a crime against humanity."
The Taliban's ambassador to Pakistan, Abdul Salam Zaeef, accused Blair of coming to Pakistan "to encourage war."
"The issue is not Osama," said Zaeef, whose group has harbored bin Laden for five years. "The issue is Islam. Osama is a Muslim, he is a citizen of a Muslim country. We cannot hand him over to the United States. We are ready to try him before an Islamic court or under Islamic law. If we send him to the United States, there will be no justice."
Musharraf, in his first public comments on the evidence the United States has given foreign governments to support its allegations against bin Laden, said, "I personally and my government feel there is evidence leading to an association between this terrorist act and Osama bin Laden."
But in an acknowledgment that members of many powerful, extremist Muslim groups across Pakistan revere bin Laden, Musharraf added, "We are not here standing in judgment of the details of this evidence."
The anger that Musharraf's support of U.S.-led action against bin Laden has stirred in this Muslim country was clear today. In mosques across the country, mullahs called "all good Muslims" to holy war against the West if Afghanistan is attacked, and a militant Muslim leader, Qazi Hussain, predicted: "The day foreign troops land on Pakistan's soil will be Gen. Pervez Musharraf's last day in power."
Thousands of protesters denounced the United States in the streets of nearby Rawalpindi. The demonstrations have become a staple of Friday prayer days in Pakistan since the Sept. 11 attacks.
--------
STRATEGY
Taliban Rivals Show Off Forces as They Prepare Strike on Kabul
New York Times
October 6, 2001
By DAVID ROHDE
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/06/international/06AFGH.html
JABUL-SERAJ, Afghanistan, Oct. 5 - As forces of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance showed off 40 Russian-built battle tanks in a military parade in northern Afghanistan, its leaders suggested that an offensive against the Taliban could come in the form of a powerful strike toward Kabul coordinated with American air strikes.
The military parade on a parched plain close to the border with Tajikistan included 3,000 uniformed reservists, armored personnel carriers and 10 rocket launchers. It was by far the largest display of matériel by the Northern Alliance since it became a chief focus of American-led efforts to dislodge Afghanistan's militant Islamic Taliban government.
How much of the equipment was newly provided was unclear. But it looked new and battle-ready, in contrast to the rusted, broken-down weapons evident in other areas controlled by the alliance. Russia said last week that it would provide "weapons and military equipment" to forces aligned against the Taliban, and it appeared possible that some of that promised military hardware had already moved across the Tajik border.
The alliance also says it is coordinating its efforts and planning with the United States. Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, the designated foreign minister of the alliance that is the main Afghan opposition movement, said he met last week with American diplomats and was in regular telephone contact with American officials.
"We are discussing every issue related to fighting against a common enemy," Dr. Abdullah said. The Bush administration has said it will provide funds to the alliance, but has declined to give details on the precise nature of its contacts.
With the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and onset of harsh, cold weather only six weeks away, the time available for any significant advance southward toward Kabul or westward toward the main Taliban- controlled northern town, Mazar-i- Sharif, appears limited.
At the parade, witnessed by a photographer working for The New York Times, the new commander of the Northern Alliance, Gen. Muhammad Fahim, surveyed soldiers wearing what appeared to be new fatigues and holding Kalashnikov rifles and rocket launchers.
"Today you soldiers have shown that you are ready to fight for the freedom of the people of Afghanistan and to defeat the Taliban and terrorism," the general said.
The 3,000 reservists form part of a Northern Alliance army with an estimated strength of 15,000 men. The forces control about 10 percent of the country and face a Taliban force estimated at 40,000 men.
The former leader of the Northern Alliance, Ahmed Shah Massoud, died last month, the victim of a bombing carried out two days before the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States. It is widely believed that Osama bin Laden, the prime terrorist suspect harbored by the Taliban, was behind that operation. Military officials say the Northern Alliance continues to pursue contacts with commanders in Taliban-controlled territory who might be willing to switch sides in the six-year-old civil war.
The apparent hope of the alliance is that the combination of air strikes, a ground offensive and defections by Taliban commanders could allow them to enter Kabul rapidly. Alliance forces here on the front line are 35 miles from the Afghan capital, where they have been stalled for years.
But such a plan could be optimistic. The alliance is short of men and has struggled to hold on to any new territory it gains. It is by no means clear that it is capable of mounting the sort of single, coordinated offensive it appears to be envisioning. Nor is there any independent way of confirming that a reported fraying of the Taliban's ranks is real. The Taliban is a proven guerrilla force with a record of absorbing setbacks, regrouping, and exploiting the rugged terrain of Afghanistan to inflict losses.
Pressure is growing on the alliance to make a move. The Muslim holy month of Ramadan begins on Nov. 17 this year. Fighting between the two sides traditionally slows each year during Ramadan.
More importantly, the United States is likely to refrain from carrying out air strikes on Muslims during Ramadan out of fear it could provoke a backlash in Muslim countries.
The onset of severely cold weather, which impedes fighting here, is expected around the same time. The major offensive would have to be carried out before then, military officials say.
If the alliance plan is carried out as described today, it would turn the Shamani Plain - a flat stretch of territory between alliance lines and Kabul - into a pivotal battleground. But as military campaigns are rarely disclosed in advance, it was far from clear that the "plan" aired today was real, rather than a feint.
Taliban commanders have been reinforcing their lines in the area of the Shamani Plain with Pakistani and Arab volunteers, according to rebel commanders. But the concentration of Taliban forces, rebel officials contend, makes them particularly susceptible to American bombing attacks.
Members of the alliance have also raised the possibility of attacking the city of Mazar-i-Sharif in northern Afghanistan. At the military parade today in the town of Khwaja Bahaouddin, General Fahim mentioned that Mazar-i-Sharif was a possible target.
Ten thousand alliance troops commanded by Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, who recently rejoined the alliance, control an island of mountainous territory south of that city. But General Dostum's forces can be only supplied by helicopter.
If alliance forces were to advance toward Mazar-i-Sharif from the area of today's parade, they would have to cross more than 100 miles of mostly flat Taliban-controlled territory.
Getting new equipment to this front line is very difficult. Trucks must travel more than 150 miles and spend much of the journey winding their way down a narrow dirt track that runs along the Panjshir Valley. In a passenger car, the journey takes four to five days.
The distances and terrain involved on both fronts point to the logistical difficulties the alliance faces here. Its biggest challenge is resupplying its troops, which are in three different isolated parts of northern Afghanistan. The alliance is believed to have only 6 to 12 Soviet-built transport helicopters, but new equipment may be coming in from Russia or the alliance's other chief supplier of military hardware, Iran.
Today's parade was the first sign that additional aid may be flowing to the rebels. Last weekend, President Bush signed an executive order approving covert financing of the alliance. At a news conference here today, Dr. Abdullah, the alliance's foreign minister, said Taliban commanders had abandoned their headquarters in their southern stronghold of Kandahar.
"Everything has been moved to an unknown location," he said.
Dr. Abdullah also repeated his assertion that the alliance was in contact with dozens of Taliban officers who may switch sides, and he raised the possibility of popular uprisings against the Taliban in Kabul if bombing begins.
But it was impossible to confirm any of his claims. Gen. Baba Jan, the commander of alliance forces north of Kabul, said this week that he was skeptical about the potential defections. But he said he was confident that his long-deadlocked forces could make headway here with American air support.
"If we pressure them north of Kabul," he said, referring to air and land attacks, "it will be very dangerous for them."
-------- drug war
Almost all routes lead back to Afghanistan War on terrorism: Supply
Independent (uk)
By Ian Burrell Home Affairs Correspondent
06 October 2001
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia_china/story.jsp?story=98020
The resumption of opium cultivation in Afghanistan will generate huge profits for the Turkish organised crime gangs that control the supply of heroin into Britain.
But police intelligence sources said yesterday that the apparent lifting of the Taliban's ban on growing poppies would not lead to Britain being flooded with cheap heroin.
The National Criminal Intelligence Service pointed out that the street price of heroin in Britain has remained stable for several years at about £70 a gram. This is in spite of a glut of heroin resulting from a bumper Taliban-sanctioned crop in Afghanistan in 1999.
But the drug's increased availability has seen its wholesale price fall from £26,000 in 1993 to £10,000 per kilogram.
Turkish organised crime retains a tight control over the estimated 30 tons a year that feed into the UK. On average, the authorities seize only two tons per year.
Some white British and Afro-Caribbean gangs are involved in street-level distribution. But the lack of inner-city turf wars is a testimony to the degree to which the market is controlled.
An NCIS spokesman said: "These profits are made not by Afghan traffickers or the Taliban but by trafficking organisations in Turkey [and] UK-based, Turkish-organised crime groups."
But as Tony Blair claimed this week, opium production has been lucrative for the Taliban. Ahmed Rashid, of the Far Eastern Economic Review , told a London drugs conference last June that: "Of the estimated Taliban budget of $100m (£67m), drugs income contributed 25 to 35 per cent of the Taliban war chest."
After the Taliban seized power over most of the country in 1996, they stepped up production of opium, particularly in Helmand, near Kandahar, and Nangarhar, near Kabul.
But Roger Howard, of the British drugs charity Drugscope, said the Afghan opposition Northern Alliance "also produce poppy", and warned against the West "getting into bed" with "some disreputable people".
Almost all heroin used in Britain originates from the North-West Frontier region. The traditional heroin route to Britain, via Iran and Turkey and then overland to the Channel ports, has been hampered by the heavily patrolled Iranian border. New supply routes have been opened across the Uzbekistan and Tajikstan borders.
--------
US and Britain accused of creating heroin trail
War on terrorism: Drugs Trade
Independent (uk)
By Raymond Whitaker in Islamabad
06 October 2001
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia_china/story.jsp?story=98021
Pakistan's hapless army of three million drug addicts has found that the price of oblivion has halved since the world was thrown into crisis on 11 September. Some of the purest heroin in the world, produced just over the border in Afghanistan, can be had in the streets of Peshawar, Quetta and other cities for as little as 20p a gram.
The sudden torrent of heroin, opium and hashish is being described as the Afghan regime's ultimate weapon. Afghanistan is already responsible for three-quarters of the world's heroin exports, and the Taliban have threatened that if they are attacked, they will lift a ban on opium poppy production in the areas they control.
But as Tony Blair may have discovered during his visit here yesterday, few issues in this region are simple, least of all the drugs trade. When they banned poppy growing, the Taliban were accused of cynically attempting to manipulate the drugs market by squeezing supplies. Now, it is claimed, the Afghan regime is flooding the market. The price of a kilogram of opium in Pakistan soared from $44 (£30) to $400 after the ban and before 11 September. Immediately afterwards, it surged further to $746 before slumping dramatically.
Asked to explain the sudden fall in the street price of heroin, a narcotics official said it could indicate sales by terrorists needing to finance their operations because their bank accounts had been frozen across the world. But at the same time, he added, it was the probable result of a market decision by thousands of smaller players seeking to sell stocks while they could.
"Drugs are a currency in Afghanistan and border areas of Pakistan," he said. "Farmers, traders and ordinary people keep drugs in their homes rather than money in the bank. Today we are in a war situation, so what do people do? They go to the market and sell their assets to realise cash, just as people in the West sell shares."
Britain has just released a detailed indictment of Osama bin Laden, his al-Qa'ida network and their Taliban protectors, which accuses them of jointly exploiting the drugs trade. American officials agree, and have leaked a sensational though thinly substantiated claim that Mr bin Laden's group tried to develop a "super-powerful" brand of heroin that would enslave Western addicts yet further. They admit, however, that proof that either the Taliban or al-Qa'ida actually control the trade is hard to find.
When the Taliban swept to power in Afghanistan in 1996, the drugs industry was already well established. The movement imposed taxes on poppy cultivation, just like the ones that existed for other crops, and charged fees for narcotics production, which brought in $15m to $27m annually, according to a United Nations report. Just over a year ago it finally fulfilled its promises to stamp out poppy growing, reducing production from 3,100 tons in 2000 to virtually nothing in the first half of this year, again according to the United Nations.
But the criminal gangs in charge of refining and distribution remain powerful, and the Taliban did nothing to stop the production and export of heroin from existing stockpiles. The threat to allow poppies to grow again could be a sign of the movement's weakness rather than its strength, observers say. It may be seeking to regain lost support from farmers angered by the ban. One source said confiscated weapons had been returned to farmers in an effort to enlist them in a struggle against any US-led attack.
Before the present intelligence offensive, attempts to link Mr bin Laden directly to drugs had been vague. Congressional staff in Washington who had seen the files said he did not actually traffic in drugs, but made money from the trade by hiring out his fighters to guard refineries and escort convoys on their way out through Iran. The Taliban rake off money from drugs in similar ways. A report to the House of Commons accuses them of protecting stockpiles - but the narcotics official scoffed at the idea of "mullahs selling heroin".
There is also the uncomfortable fact that almost half the heroin flowing out of Afghanistan is thought to come from areas controlled by the Northern Alliance, the West's putative partner in the campaign to oust the Taliban. Any expansion of the alliance's territory could see an increase in the drugs supply.
In his meeting last night with Mr Blair, Pakistan's military President, General Pervez Musharraf, would have been entitled to point out to his visitor that the drugs trade had its origins in the war against the Soviet occupiers of Afghanistan in the 1980s. The Afghan mujahedin, with the full knowledge of the intelligence agencies of America, Britain and other allies, refined and exported heroin - previously unknown in this part of the world - to finance their struggle. Evidence even exists that the CIA encouraged the spread of hard drugs to demoralise Russian troops.
-------- israel
Israeli Forces Invade Hebron 5 Killed;
Tanks, Troops Occupy Palestinian Neighborhoods
By Lee Hockstader
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, October 6, 2001; Page A26
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13818-2001Oct5.html
HEBRON, West Bank, Oct. 5 -- Israeli forces took over Palestinian-controlled parts of the West Bank city of Hebron in a swift invasion before dawn today, killing five people, wounding more than a dozen and occupying densely populated neighborhoods.
The invasion, which met with only scattered resistance from Palestinian fighters, was the largest Israeli military operation in the West Bank since the current Palestinian uprising erupted a year ago, measured by the number of tanks and troops involved as well as the amount of territory seized, according to Israeli commanders.
The mayor of Hebron, Mustafa Natshe, said the deployment left Israeli tanks, paratroopers and infantry in control of some 40,000 Palestinian residents in the city of about 120,000, which was turned over to Palestinian control in 1997 under terms of the Oslo peace accords signed four years earlier. These are in addition to several thousand Palestinians in the town center already living under tight Israeli supervision under an agreement designed to provide military protection for several hundred Jewish settlers who live in a fortified downtown enclave.
"It's obvious they're going to stay for a while," Natshe said.
Israeli officials and army officers said the invasion was provoked by about 60 incidents of Palestinians shooting at Israelis in the West Bank since the latest cease-fire -- which never really took effect -- was declared last month. They included two incidents this week in which Palestinian snipers fired on crowds of Jewish worshipers gathered around Hebron's Tomb of the Patriarchs for the Jewish holiday of Sukkot. In one of those episodes, two Israeli women were hurt, one seriously.
The Palestinian gunmen "came every night and they shot at the Jewish community," Brig. Gen. Yitzhak Gershon, the Israeli commander in the West Bank, told journalists. "And we can't accept this situation."
Asked how long the Israeli forces would remain, Gershon replied, "Who knows?"
The incursion followed days of Palestinian attacks and tough Israeli responses in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
Led by tanks and supported by helicopter gunships firing missiles and heavy machine guns, Israeli troops took positions in Palestinian houses on a hill near the center of town from which Palestinian gunmen have shot repeatedly on the tiny Jewish enclave below.
The Israeli troops imposed a round-the-clock curfew on the seized neighborhoods, leaving residents confined to their homes. Even in sections of town that remained under exclusive Palestinian control, the streets were deserted because Palestinian officials declared a period of mourning.
Hebron's Jewish settlers, who have urged tough action against the Palestinians for months, cheered the invasion and expressed hope the soldiers would stay in their new positions permanently.
Among the Palestinians killed was a Kassem Abu Afifi, 48, a nurse who hospital officials said was shot dead as he emerged from a mosque wearing a night robe. Of the other four men killed, at least two were Palestinian fighters, Palestinians said. A sixth Palestinian was killed later in the day. Israel said all the dead Palestinians were fighters.
In a separate incident this morning, Palestinian gunmen killed a Jewish settler, Hanania Ben Avraham, 46, when they opened fire on the car he was driving in the northern West Bank. He was married and the father of six children.
At Hebron's Al-Ahli Hospital, a crowd of hundreds of men gathered to glimpse the corpses of the men killed by the Israelis. One man who was hit in the legs by Israeli helicopter fire, Abdul Rahman Amru, a bearded 36-year-old farmer, was wheeled in his hospital gurney into the makeshift morgue where two of the bodies were lying, awaiting burial. He kissed one of the dead men, then was wheeled back to his ward.
-------- u.s.
Missile-Laden Truck Flips Over in Md.
Munitions Lacked Warheads but Had Fuel; Some Frederick Residents Evacuated
By Phuong Ly and David Snyder
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, October 6, 2001; Page B02
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13974-2001Oct5.html
A tractor-trailer carrying eight Navy missiles struck a bridge wall, flipped over and rolled down an embankment off Interstate 70 in western Frederick County, tying up traffic through the morning and evening rush hours as defense personnel donned hazardous-material suits to retrieve the load.
No one was injured, and authorities said the unarmed missiles were secure and that no hazardous materials were leaking from the truck. But the accident concerned Gov. Parris N. Glendening, who said the military did not inform state police officials that hazardous materials were being transported across the state, as they have in the past.
"As soon as the material is moved, I'm going to ask in the strongest terms why we weren't notified," Glendening (D) told reporters at the scene.
The accident occurred less than 12 hours after a similar crash blocked Interstate 64 in West Virginia. The same trucking company, Tri-State Motor Transit Co., was involved in both. John Randt, spokesman for the Military Traffic Management Command, which oversees the transportation of munitions for the Department of Defense, said the accidents were not related and that neither involved any external cause, such as an attack on the driver.
"It's a coincidence that it's the same company, and it's a heavy coincidence that they happened so soon together," Randt said.
The truck involved in the West Virginia accident was carrying propellant for artillery shells. Some of the cargo spilled after the truck hit a median and flipped over about 7:45 p.m. Thursday. I-64 near Charleston remained closed yesterday afternoon, Randt said.
The exact cause of the crash in Maryland remained unclear yesterday. The truck was going through a construction zone near Myersville about 8:45 a.m. when the driver apparently had problems squeezing through his narrow lane and hit a bridge wall, said Sgt. T.O. Rouse, of the state police.
The 49-year-old driver, Danny Lee Harkey, of Joplin, Mo., was issued a citation for negligent driving, Rouse said.
The westbound lanes of I-70 reopened late last night, and police expected to reopen the eastbound lanes early this morning, Rouse said.
The missiles were covered with a tarp and strapped to the truck. They were Navy Standoff Land Attack Missile-Extended Range missiles, which are launched from planes and have a range of more than 150 nautical miles, said Lt. Col. George Rhynedance, a Pentagon spokesman.
Each unarmed missile was loaded with rocket fuel and stored in an individual container, said Alan Williams, a member of a Maryland Department of the Environment hazardous response team. Missiles and warheads are generally transported separately.
Tri-State spokesman Ralph Nelson said Harkey has driven for the company for three years and had a previous accident, in 1999. Nelson said he did not immediately know the details of the earlier accident. A man riding as a co-driver was identified as Daniel Clay King, 39, of Flower Mound, Tex.
Authorities said the load was picked up in St. Charles, Mo., and was headed to the Earle Naval Weapons Station near Earle, N.J.
Randt said the Department of Defense contracts with 17 commercial haulers across the country that are qualified to carry munitions.
Mike Morrill, Glendening's spokesman, said the governor, who had been in Frederick for a meeting, plans to talk to military officials about whether additional procedures are needed.
"I don't believe that it's required that we be notified," Morrill said. "The military has the ability to do things that we don't know about. . . . But it's a procedure that local state police are being notified when hazardous materials are being moved through the area."
After the accident, about 40 nearby residents were evacuated as a precaution, and traffic was clogged for the 10 miles between Myersville and Frederick. Yesterday afternoon, even curvy, rural roads were clogged with drivers trying to avoid the interstate.
At a gas station off Old National Pike in Middletown, drivers asked for directions and advice on how to avoid the traffic. But the clerks couldn't help them, and a few motorists ended up buying county maps instead.
Staff writer Andrew DeMillo, researchers Bobbye Pratt and Meg Smith and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
--------
Bush Says 'Time Is Running Out,' as U.S. Forces Move Into Place
New York Times
October 7, 2001
By ELAINE SCIOLINO and STEVEN LEE MYERS
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/07/international/07COAL.html
WASHINGTON, Oct. 6 - Assured of logistical and political support from several partners in the region, President Bush warned the Taliban government of Afghanistan today that "full warning has been given, and time is running out."
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld returned to Washington early this morning from military consultations with five of the region's friendly nations in as many days, and immediately went to confer with the president and senior advisers. Mr. Bush repeated his call for all nations to "stand with the terrorists, or stand with the civilized world."
The mobilization of American forces continued as elements of the 10th Mountain Division moved into Uzbekistan under a new agreement that allows them to protect American operations there, but not to cross the border to attack Afghanistan. By air and sea, other forces advanced on the region.
Nor did any other country Mr. Rumsfeld visited grant permission to carry out strikes directly from its soil, at least not publicly. Still, the administration sounded confident that it has obtained enough of the essentials - overflight rights, limited basing rights and open political support - to wage what it concedes will be a difficult war against Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda network and its hosts in Afghanistan.
As antiaircraft fire was reported over the Afghan capital, Kabul, possibly aimed at an unmanned reconnaissance drone, the Taliban offered to free eight foreign aid workers, including two Americans, it has jailed - but only if the United States backed down from its threats of a military strike. [Page B5.]
The Bush administration rejected the offer and restated its insistence that its demand that Mr. bin Laden be handed over was not negotiable.
In the leadup to a possible military strike, senior administration and allied officials said Mr. Rumsfeld's approach this week had underscored that the United States intends to make this as much as possible an all- American campaign, with only logistical aid and political support from most other nations.
One reason, they said, is that the Pentagon is intent on avoiding the kind of limitations on its targets and methods that were imposed by NATO allies during the 1999 war in Kosovo, or the kind of hesitance to topple a leader that some members of the gulf war coalition felt.
"Coalition is a bad word, because it makes people think of alliances," said Robert Oakley, former head of the State Department's Office of Counterterrorism and former ambassador to Pakistan.
A senior administration official put it more bluntly: "The fewer people you have to rely on, the fewer permissions you have to get."
After meeting Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president, Mr. Rumsfeld even denied in Cairo on Thursday "that there is a singular coalition, which of course is not the case. Well no, there are many coalitions. We recognize that each country has a distinctive situation and a different perspective and we want to cooperate with countries in ways that they want to cooperate with us."
But he expressed not a word of disappointment, instead adopting an approach that could almost be summed up in the phrase: Don't ask, don't tell. At least publicly, he did not ask the leaders of Oman, Saudi Arabia, Egypt or Uzbekistan for anything but what he knew they would offer, and he studiously avoided telling much of anything about their pledges of military support.
Even in Turkey, a NATO partner where United States planes have routinely launched strikes against Iraq, he was careful not to speak for his host. "We do not make demands," he said in Ankara on Friday after meeting with Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit and members of the cabinet. "We do not have any view other than that each country should decide for itself how it can best help. Some help in one way; others help in another way."
"Some will do it publicly; some will do it privately; each will do it in his own way, and all of it will be helpful," he said.
While Mr. Bush's remarks today were hardly an ultimatum, the urgency of the diplomacy and the pace of mobilization seemed driven by the calendar and the weather. Winter is about to set in, the holy month of Ramadan begins in mid-November, and the skies over Afghanistan are expected to be clear under a bright moon for the next few days.
One by one, in public statements and private meetings, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Oman and Uzbekistan signaled that their airfields are basically open for supporting military operations rather than offensive American strikes.
Oman, though, which has long ties with Britain, agreed to allow refueling by American tankers and reconnaissance aircraft, while Uzbekistan will allow things like search and rescue missions from their territory. The former Soviet republic of Georgia also offered its facilities and airspace.
"The support they will provide is all of the backup and logistics so they can say that nothing is being launched from their territory that hits Afghanistan," said one senior administration official involved in the administration's delicate negotiations in the region. "It's just as far as they're willing to go for now."
All together, it will help meet the practical needs of the American military in carrying out its mission, which the administration has said will be long and unpredictable. The patchwork of supportive pledges should be sufficient for a sustained campaign, as long as the Pentagon continues to avoid conventional ground operations.
One sign of Washington's insistence that its hands not be tied was its rejection of United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan's entreaties that any American military action be subject to Security Council approval, administration officials said.
At first, the Pentagon was even reluctant for NATO to invoke the alliance's mutual defense clause requiring members to defend each other against an armed attack, senior administration and European officials said. "The allies were desperately trying to give us political cover and the Pentagon was resisting it," said one senior administration official. "It was insane. Eventually Rumsfeld understood it was a plus, not a minus, and was able to accept it."
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Uzbekistan offers airfield
October 6, 2001
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20011006-5292224.htm
TASHKENT, Uzbekistan - Uzbekistan's president announced yesterday that his nation will permit U.S. military forces to deploy aircraft and helicopters at a base near Afghanistan, as the first 1,000 U.S. Army troops were set to arrive in this Central Asian nation last night.
"We have offered one airfield in Uzbekistan with all its land facilities in order to deploy a limited number [of] transport cargo airplanes and helicopters," Uzbek President Islam Karimov told reporters after meeting with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.
However, Mr. Karimov said U.S. forces would not be permitted to conduct "land operations against Afghanistan" or missile or aircraft strikes from Uzbek territory.
The president spoke as the first group of U.S. Army troops belonging to the 10th Mountain Division based at Fort Drum, N.Y., deployed to Uzbekistan as part of the cooperative agreement announced by Mr. Karimov. The destination of the force was not disclosed.
However, a U.S. Army team has been in Uzbekistan for the past two weeks surveying airfields for the deployment, including a military airfield near the southern Uzbekistan town of Karshi, according to military sources. Two other airfields also were inspected, including one at Kagaydy, near Termez.
Elsewhere in the region, British Prime Minister Tony Blair was in Islamabad yesterday to shore up support for the global war on terrorism. He discussed the possibility of a post-Taliban government in Afghanistan with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.
"We have agreed that if the current Taliban regime fails to yield up [Osama] bin Laden and it falls, then its successor must be broad-based with every key ethnic group being represented," Mr. Blair said.
The U.S. troops in Uzbekistan are part of a major deployment of U.S. military forces in the region, including warplanes based in Saudi Arabia and Oman, and four aircraft-carrier battle groups sent to areas within striking range of Afghanistan.
The Army troops are part of a "force-protection package" for the airfield to be used by U.S. forces, a defense official said.
The use of Uzbekistan for U.S. forces, despite limits on combat operations, is a major step forward in the United States' global campaign to seek out the terrorists in Afghanistan who have been linked to the Sept. 11 attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center.
Mr. Rumsfeld also has received public statements of support from officials in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Oman, three earlier stops on his overseas trip. He went to Ankara, Turkey, for meetings with senior defense officials there after leaving Tashkent.
In addition to winning basing rights in Uzbekistan, the United States already has hundreds of military aircraft parked at fields throughout the Persian Gulf. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman all play host to U.S. planes. The Pentagon may also use the Incirlik, Turkey, air base to launch strikes.
Uzbekistan is one of several republics that once made up the Central Asian region of the Soviet Union. It became independent in 1991. With 24 million people, it has the largest population in Central Asia, and its political system has retained many of the authoritarian features of the Soviet era.
Until yesterday, the Pentagon had refused to discuss where U.S. troops would be deployed in order to protect the security of the troops and their future operations.
Mr. Rumsfeld, who joined Mr. Karimov in talking to reporters, said he expressed President Bush's appreciation for "the generous way and the spontaneous way" Uzbekistan cooperated in the anti-terrorism campaign during his meeting.
"There is no question but that the threat that terrorists pose to the world is a real one, it's an immediate one, and it's one that can be dealt with only by taking the effort to the terrorists and to the countries that harbor them," Mr. Rumsfeld said.
Mr. Rumsfeld said the campaign is "an effort to find the terrorists and see that they stop imposing the kind of damage that was imposed on the United States of America on September 11 and which has been imposed on a number of countries over a good many years."
A formal agreement outlining the use of the base, overflight permission and U.S.-Uzbek intelligence-sharing are still being worked out and will be contained in a document that will be made public. The document will outline "mutual commitments and obligations and guarantees," Mr. Karimov said.
The Uzbek president said there were "no secret deals" with the United States on the basing and cooperation accord.
It is not clear how Russia will view the U.S.-Uzbek troop accord because Uzbekistan has been seen by Moscow as part of its sphere of influence. China, too, may oppose the presence of U.S. troops in Central Asia. Chinese government officials have stated in official press accounts that the United States is using the pretext of counterterrorism to encircle and "contain" China.
Asked why U.S. special-operations commandos would be barred from using Uzbek bases, Mr. Karimov said, "We are not quite ready for this" - a sign that secret operations could be conducted from the country in the future.
Mr. Karimov said that although special-operations troops will not be stationed in the country, "We are not very much interested in what sort of air personnel will be deployed." The types of troops sent to the base is up "to the discretion of the U.S. side."
Speaking through an interpreter, Mr. Karimov said Uzbekistan has been a victim of terrorism and has agreed to "upgrade and step up" intelligence cooperation and information sharing.
"In the course of three years, Uzbekistan has been witnessing the inhumane face of terror," Mr. Karimov said, referring to attacks by the Islamic Army of Uzbekistan, a terrorist group associated with bin Laden's al Qaeda network.
"Therefore, we cannot afford [to stand] aside, and we are taking part in the anti-terrorism operations that the international community called for," he said.
Mr. Karimov said granting access to the base will be outlined clearly in the agreement. The decision was based on Uzbekistan's "proximity to the territory which harbors the camps and the bases of terrorists."
Both Mr. Blair and Gen. Musharraf said the evidence of bin Laden's links to the Sept. 11 attacks were clear.
But the Taliban's ambassador to Pakistan said Mr. Blair came to Islamabad "to encourage war" and that the Taliban leadership had nothing to say to him.
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz also said yesterday that there is "broad agreement" among Mr. Bush's aides to focus first on the Taliban and bin Laden's network in the war on terrorism.
However, Mr. Wolfowitz hinted to an audience of students and defense analysts at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies that Iraq also could be a future target.
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House boosts funding for better intelligence
October 6, 2001
By Dave Boyer
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20011006-15180.htm
The prospect of another terrorist attack on U.S. soil will not curtail the military's plans to destroy Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network, said lawmakers who yesterday approved increased intelligence spending.
"I don't think [another terrorist attack] is dependent on whether or not we retaliate," said Rep. Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat and ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee. "We will retaliate."
Rep. Curt Weldon, Pennsylvania Republican and a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee, said the "very real likelihood" of another attack by terrorists "should not in any way impact our support for the president."
"We've got to take this network out now, or the next attack [against the United States] is going to make the last one look like a Sunday school picnic," Mr. Weldon said.
The Bush administration is confident it has proof that bin Laden's terrorist organization carried out the Sept. 11 attacks.
House members unanimously approved the intelligence-authorization act for fiscal 2002, a bill so secret that its total cost is classified. Spending was increased 9 percent, 2 percent more than President Bush requested for the bill that, based on recent intelligence reports, is about $30 billion.
It increases resources for more intelligence agents and for language training for agents and analysts. It also directs the CIA to devise more flexible guidelines for recruiting foreign operatives, even those with questionable backgrounds, known as "dirty assets."
"It provides more resources and more people for human intelligence, for our eyes and ears around the world. They are the essential part of the equation," said Sherwood Boehlert, New York Republican. "There is no substitute for people."
Lawmakers who have had intelligence briefings did not describe another terrorist attack against the United States as imminent. But they said they do expect agents of bin Laden to act again.
"I'm not aware of any specific imminent threat right now," said Rep. Porter J. Goss, Florida Republican and chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.
Shown a newspaper report describing another terrorist attack as imminent, Mr. Goss replied, "That's a little hysterical. That is unnecessarily alarmist. I'm not sure that's responsible."
Nevertheless, authorities at the Capitol are coating all windows with a special transparent film to prevent them from shattering into deadly shards in case of an explosion. The work began Wednesday.
Intelligence assessments estimate that 70 percent of injuries from a car bomb at the Capitol would be caused by flying glass, said Rep. John P. Murtha, Pennsylvania Democrat and ranking member of the defense appropriations subcommittee.
"A car bomb is still our biggest threat," Mr. Murtha said. "I think we can count on it happening. It's going to happen. Just hope you're not in the Capitol."
House Majority Whip Tom DeLay, Texas Republican, said that "no one can say" when or if another attack will occur. "What you can say is, with what the president has put in place around the country the threat is less than it was three weeks ago," Mr. DeLay said.
Under a Goss amendment to the bill, a panel of people with experience in the field - with no subpoena power - would focus on evaluating the nation's security readiness. The Intelligence Committee's original bill proposed using an outside commission armed with subpoena power.
•This article is based in part on wire service reports.
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Foreign Spy Agencies Helping U.S.
October 6, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Attacks-Sharing-Secrets.html?searchpv=aponline
WASHINGTON (AP) -- It's the kind of communication between nations that takes place beneath the public pronouncements of diplomats and politicians, but in many ways it's far more important. Especially now.
Since Sept. 11, the back channels between the United States and both its allies and adversaries have been lighting up, filled with a crush of intelligence from some 100 countries related to the investigation into the attacks and the worldwide effort to prevent more.
The challenge -- as is true with the reams of data acquired from U.S. satellites, spies and communications taps -- is sifting through the secrets, looking for a scrap of hard truth amid piles of rumor.
That information is called ``actionable intelligence,'' something Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has said the armed forces want and need to track down terrorism suspect No. 1 Osama bin Laden and his associates in Afghanistan. That's information so current, and so solid, that the United States can take action: launch a missile, raid a camp or send in troops.
So far, information is pouring in from 100 nations, including some that previously had little interest in sharing their intelligence, U.S. officials said. The cooperation is unprecedented, one official said.
When foreign intelligence comes in, U.S. analysts and field officers must try to confirm it -- and consider the source.
British intelligence is top notch, former intelligence officers say. Saudi Arabian and Jordanian intelligence is excellent in the Middle East region -- when those nations share.
But intelligence experts warn that data coming in from some foreign sources may be subjective or otherwise suspect -- perhaps designed as much to meet their own political ends as to hunt terrorists. Israel and Pakistan's intelligence services have provided such selective information in the past, one former senior officer said.
``You have to look at it very critically and see if it is corroborated by other evidence you've got,'' said Vince Cannistraro, a former CIA counterterrorism chief, adding much of it is useless.
Nonetheless, the Pakistani government, the only one that still maintains diplomatic ties with Afghanistan's Taliban regime, has already provided useful information. Its intelligence sources said bin Laden moved immediately after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Russia also has intelligence and combat experience in the region, dating back to the Soviet Union's war in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Russia has offered to share information with the United States.
NATO allies are part of the equation, as well. German intelligence provided a crucial link in the investigation by intercepting phone conversations of bin Laden supporters who were celebrating the attacks.
But even some countries on the U.S. list of states that harbor terrorists have been providing support, including Libya and Sudan.
``We're beginning to share intelligence amongst our nations,'' President Bush said at a recent speech at the Federal Emergency Management Agency. ``We're finding out members of the al-Qaida organization (run by bin Laden), who they are, where they think they can hide, and we're slowly but surely bringing them to justice.''
Cooperation between the CIA and its foreign counterparts is a long tradition, transcending even public difficulties between nations.
Such intelligence ``liaisons'' sometimes are carried out under the table with the knowledge and support of top government officials. But the cooperation in the hunt for bin Laden exceeds the normal back-channel flow by large measure.
The intelligence sharing has been working both ways: The United States is providing foreign leaders with what it considers evidence of bin Laden's direct involvement in the Sept. 11 attacks.
And traditional allies are getting more details than others -- in particular Britain, whose Prime Minister Tony Blair publicly released a dossier laying out evidence against bin Laden, including direct ties to several of the 19 hijackers in the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks.
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Bush Names Spy Panel
October 6, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Lerner-Bush.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush has named Cleveland Browns owner Al Lerner to a select intelligence advisory board.
Lerner was among 14 individuals appointed Friday to the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board and will serve two years. Other members include former California Gov. Pete Wilson and former Netscape chief Jim Barksdale.
The board, led by former national security adviser Brent Scowcroft, gives independent advice to the president on the quality of the nation's intelligence system. It was formed in 1956.
Lerner also is chairman of MBNA Corp., the country's second-largest credit card company.
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Crews Struggle To Contain Leak In Alaska Pipeline
Associated Press
Saturday, October 6, 2001; Page A02
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14382-2001Oct5.html
ANCHORAGE, Oct. 5 -- Oil spewed like a geyser from the trans-Alaska oil pipeline more than 24 hours after a man shot a hole in the line.
Crews struggled to stop the leak and clean up an estimated 280,000 gallons of oil which under high pressure sprayed through a small hole onto about two acres of trees, brush and tundra.
The workers were considering using a crane to install a hydraulic clamp over the line to cover the hole, but flammable vapors in the area made the operation dangerous.
The man suspected of shooting the pipeline with a .338-caliber rifle, Daniel Carson Lewis, 37, was arraigned on charges of criminal mischief, driving while intoxicated, weapons misconduct and felony assault.
State Police had no motive for the shooting but said Lewis had been drinking. "It does not appear to be an act of terrorism," trooper spokesman Tim DeSpain said.
Lewis, who was being held on $1.5 million bail, was arrested Thursday, four hours after the leak was discovered.
Gov. Tony Knowles said state officials will take another look at security along the 800-mile pipeline.
"Clearly the fact that one person with a rifle can do this much damage is a point of concern in terms of vulnerability," Knowles said.
A surveillance helicopter had spotted the spill about 75 miles north of Fairbanks.
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