------- Index of Articles

NUCLEAR
Long Neglected, Steel Firms Suddenly Seen as Vital
Indian Point Faces Scrutiny After Some Crews Fail Tests
Radiation Panel Shuns Questions
Group wants ground water cleaned up
Carter slams Bush for curbing rights
Base deal delays closings until 2005
Defense bill's cap holds in Senate
'Reagan': History Retold With a Shiver

MILITARY
U.S. bombing resumes over Tora Bora
Interim Afghan Leader Hunts Taliban
Germ weapons talks snag as U.S. balks
U.S. Scuttles Germ War Conference
Disconnected
No 10 intervenes over bin Laden extradition slip
U.S. experts on Iraq warn of new Vietnam
Israel Fires on Palestinian Posts
Israel Attacks Again in Gaza; Arafat Condemns U.S.
In Spat Over Russia in NATO, Rumsfeld Loses Out to Powell
Pakistan Ended Aid to Taliban Only Hesitantly
Ukraine reporters to bear arms
U.S. Senate Approves $318 Billion Military Bill

POLICE / PRISONERS
Japanese Bailouts Benefited N. Korea, Officials Say
In Letter, 300 Law Professors Oppose Tribunals Plan
Police to Test Scooters
Study: U.S. calm in times of crisis

ENERGY AND OTHER
Millions in Afghanistan Await Aid

ACTIVISTS
Legal groups to advise FBI-interview targets
Mumia - Abu Jamal Supporters Rally

-------

Quote of the Day:

"'Dear God, who cares about the Americans,' Arafat said in Friday in the West Bank city of Ramallah. "The Americans are on your side and they give you everything. Who gives you airplanes? The Americans." Arafat was referring to the $2.7 billion in annual American aid, which Israel uses in part to buy fighter jets."

"Israel Fires on Palestinian Posts" http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A12721-2001Dec8?language=printer


-------- NUCLEAR


-------- depleted uranium

Long Neglected, Steel Firms Suddenly Seen as Vital

By Steven Pearlstein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, December 8, 2001; Page E01

... (T)he U.S. military does not require anywhere near the steel it once did. Airplanes are now made of aluminum and composites, tanks are made with spent uranium, and GI helmets are made with Kevlar.

"At most we would need maybe one or two steel companies to supply military needs," said Jacques Gansler, a former undersecretary of defense for procurement in the Clinton administration. "Certainly we don't need to get to the point of protecting the entire industry for that purpose."

In the case of steel, Gansler said, so many countries are now making it, including most of our closest allies, that it would be highly unlikely that all of them would or could get together to manipulate the price or cut off shipments to the United States.

... Nearly half of the U.S. steel output now comes from minimills, which make new steel from steel scrap. These minimills, by and large, are non-union and have more modern technology, which allows them to produce steel at significantly lower cost than the older, more established integrated steel operations. The future of minimills is not in question.

Steel for autos and appliances, however, can only be produced in sufficient quantity and quality by integrated mills, which produce steel from raw iron ore. Because of increasingly close links between the steelmakers and steel users -- they now share design of new products, for example -- experts say that replacing U.S. steel with imported steel would be difficult, if not impossible....

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

-------- new york

Indian Point Faces Scrutiny After Some Crews Fail Tests

New York Times
December 8, 2001
By MATTHEW L. WALD
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/08/nyregion/08NUKE.html?searchpv=nytToday

WASHINGTON, Dec. 7 - The Nuclear Regulatory

Commission said today that it would immediately increase scrutiny of the Indian Point 2 nuclear reactor because four control room crews had failed to pass their annual requalification tests, signaling "substantial" safety concerns. The crews failed to react properly in four accident drills over the last three months. Two of the drills called for procedures that were also needed in recent accidents at the plant, in Buchanan, N.Y., the N.R.C. said.

The tests were administered by the plant owner, Entergy Nuclear, in a control room simulator. But today, the N.R.C. took the unusual step of sending its testers to examine one of the crews itself.

N.R.C. specialists will conduct random surveillance in the plant's control room, said a spokesman for the agency, Neil A. Sheehan, and the agency may increase its involvement in other ways.

Entergy Nuclear said that two of the crews failed because the company had made the exam tougher.

The tests suggest that nuclear plants are not as safe as utilities think they are, said a nuclear engineer familiar with the results. But he added that the lapses were not serious enough to cause a meltdown.

The engineer, David Lochbaum, works for the Union of Concerned Scientists, a group that often criticizes nuclear plants as unsafe.

"The risk assessments that are done assume that the operators are going to be right 90-something percent of the time, and that they don't make mistakes," Mr. Lochbaum said.

Entergy bought the plant on Sept. 6 from Consolidated Edison. Jim Steets, a spokesman for the plant, said some management changes had been made in response to the training problems.

In a letter to Entergy dated Wednesday, the commission said, "The deficiencies identified during the exams reflected the potential inability of the crew to take appropriate safety-related actions in response to actual abnormal or emergency conditions."

Indian Point 2 has five operating crews, who run the control room in rotating shifts, and two "staff crews," operators who fill in for vacationing or sick employees, Mr. Steets said. In all, 44 operators were tested. The workers who failed the tests, working in teams of five to seven, have since had remedial training, the N.R.C. said. Ten failed as individual operators in addition to their team failures, the agency said.

The tests are given in the simulator, a control room with the same screens, switches and gauges as the real one, but connected to a computer instead of a reactor.

In one simulated emergency, an equipment failure should have triggered an automatic start of the emergency core cooling system, but it did not do so. The crew failed to manually start the system promptly, the N.R.C. said.

In a second simulated emergency, the emergency core cooling system started in response to a major pipe leak. At first, the system draws water from a refueling water storage tank, but before that supply is exhausted, operators are supposed to set up the system to draw from the leaking water collecting in the basement of the reactor building. The crew did not do so, the commission found.

In another scenario, some control room instruments lost power. The crew did not restore power fast enough, the N.R.C. said, referring to the incident as a "competency failure." A similar situation occurred at Indian Point 2 in August 1999, when the power supply to some instruments was lost but a battery picked up the load. The operators failed to correct the problem before the battery ran down, hours later.

The last scenario involved controlling the pressure in a steam generator, which can be a critical task after a leak in the generator. The plant had such a leak in February 2000 and it kept it shut for a year.

In the drill, the crew members being tested took 25 minutes to realize that a valve they thought was open was actually closed.

Mr. Lochbaum described the errors as "more steps down the Three Mile Island pathway." That accident, in March 1979, began with a common mechanical failure but was aggravated by controller error, in part because of inadequate training.

-------- utah

Radiation Panel Shuns Questions

Saturday, December 8, 2001
BY JUDY FAHYS
THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE
http://www.sltrib.com/12082001/utah/156117.htm

Members of the Radiation Control Board declined Friday to submit to public questioning about possible conflicts of interest with a Tooele County radioactive waste landfill.

The board decision disappointed good-government and environmental activists. In October, they requested the conflict-of-interest inquiry as a way to restore public faith in the state's radiation control program and to expose any questionable ties between board members and Envirocare of Utah, the company seeking a permit to accept "hotter" waste at its Tooele County radioactive waste landfill.

"No one is impugning anyone's integrity here," said Claire Geddes of Utah Legislative Watch, a citizen coalition that opposes the permit change.

"What it really comes down to is public trust," she added, alluding to two past ethics flaps involving Envirocare. "The public has lost trust in what goes on here."

Board members said they felt existing disclosure requirements suffice. "The process is in place, and it does work," said Dianne Nielson, director of the Utah Department of Environmental Quality and a member of the radiation board.

Fred Nelson, the board's attorney, pointed out neither the board nor its members are obligated to answer the questions requested by the citizen groups.

The groups, under the umbrella of the Utah Healthy Environment Alliance, asked Nelson to interview board members about such issues as whether "you or any member of your family ever received money, loans, gifts or anything else of monetary value from Envirocare, its owner, its officers or any of their employees, its contractors or anyone that has a financial interest in Envirocare" or if board members or anyone in their families have been employed by the company or its contractors.

The activists noted the existing ethics standards have failed at least twice: in one case leading up to the recently concluded extortion trial of retired Radiation Control Director Larry Anderson, and the other when former board member Preston Truman resigned over a loan guarantee received from Envirocare owner Khosrow Semnani.

After Geddes described the reasons behind the added questions, board member Stephen T. Nelson said he would not answer the questions. Instead, he pledged to judge Envirocare's case fairly and objectively.

"It puts the board on the defensive," he said. "Whether or not that is the intent, that is the reality."

The citizens coalition also has requested that Teryl W. Hunsaker, a Tooele County commissioner and board member, be disqualified from hearing its appeal of the Department of Environmental Quality's ruling last summer that Envirocare's proposed disposal of hotter waste is safe to the public and environment.

The coalition's request, to be heard Jan. 4, concerns the revenue Tooele County stands to gain if Envirocare gets a permit and Hunsaker's support for Envirocare in the past.

-------- washington

Group wants ground water cleaned up

Sat, Dec 8, 2001
By John Stang Herald staff writer
http://www.hanfordnews.com/2001/1208-1.html

PORTLAND -- The Hanford Advisory Board wants to add contaminated ground water to the contract for cleaning up old reactors and other Cold War remnants along the Columbia River.

The board approved Friday sending a letter to the Department of Energy that voices that stance, plus provides other advice on cleaning up the river corridor through Hanford.

DOE is putting together a request for proposals for a long-term contract for final cleanup of the river corridor area, which is suppose to cost about $2.76 billion and take until 2012.

This new agreement will replace Bechtel Hanford's current environmental restoration contract that is due to expire next year.

DOE has unveiled a draft request for proposals to get feedback from potential bidders and the public.

A final request for proposals is expected on Jan. 23, 2002.

Bids are tentatively due back by April 1.

DOE hopes to award the new contract in mid- to late summer, with the new contractor set up by Oct. 1.

The draft request for proposals covers removing contaminated soils; demolishing, cleaning out and sealing up the defunct plutonium production reactors; and cleaning up and demolishing the 300 Area structures.

The draft does not cover dealing with the plumes of contaminants in the aquifer, which are flowing from Hanford's interior to the Columbia River.

"How can you call it a closure contract when ground water is not included in it?" asked HAB member Bob Larson, representing the Benton-Franklin Council of Governments.

In its letter to DOE, the Hanford Advisory Board said:

-- Ground water clean up should be included, or at least the agreement shouldn't be described as a complete cleanup of the river corridor area.

-- The new contract should mesh with Tri-Party Agreement deadlines and standards. DOE already agrees, said Beth Bilson, DOE's assistant manager for the river corridor at Hanford.

-- Talks should be held to determine how the river corridor stacks up against Hanford's other spending priorities, including the tank farms, K Basins, Plutonium Finishing Plant and ground water work.

-- More information on some contamination problems is needed to make accurate cost predictions.

-------- us politics

Carter slams Bush for curbing rights

December 8, 2001

Around the Nation
December 8, 2001
Washington Times
Combined dispatches and staff reports
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20011208-61661668.htm

Former President Jimmy Carter yesterday expressed grave concern over President Bush's move to allow secret military tribunals to try terror suspects.

In a rare criticism of the current president by a predecessor during a time of crisis, Mr. Carter also deplored the secretive detention of more than 600 people in the United States following the terror strikes.

Authorizing the trial of suspected terrorists captured during the anti-terror war by secret military courts defies the basic principles on which the United States is founded, Mr. Carter told at a conference at the University of San Diego.

-----

Base deal delays closings until 2005

December 8, 2001
By Rowan Scarborough
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20011208-10509000.htm

Senior House and Senate negotiators have agreed to give President Bush his requested round of military base closings, but the politically painful process will be delayed by two years to 2005, defense sources said yesterday.

The sources said the chairmen and ranking members of the Senate and House Armed Services committees struck the deal to postpone the closings late Thursday night before lawmakers left town for a long weekend. The administration has agreed to the compromise.

The deal was not announced so House negotiators have time to sell the plan to their members. Many representatives oppose another round of closings, especially now that the United States is in a protracted war against global terrorism.

Conferees had been stalemated for weeks over the base closing issue, holding up passage of a fiscal 2002 defense authorization bill. There may be efforts in the House and Senate to kill the base amendment once the conference bill reaches both floors. But historically, conference bills win approval without changes.

The deal was reached by the so-called "big four": Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, Michigan Democrat; ranking member John W. Warner, Virginia Republican; House Armed Services Chairman Bob Stump, Arizona Republican; and ranking member Ike Skelton, Missouri Democrat.

On the Senate floor, Mr. Levin and Mr. Warner voted for another round of base closings. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld sent his proposal to Capitol Hill after the House committee had finished work on its bill and there was no floor vote. But Mr. Stump vigorously opposed another round of closings, and Mr. Skelton was at best cool toward the idea.

The Bush administration pressed hard for what Mr. Rumsfeld said would save the armed forces billions of dollars by closing excess facilities. Two weeks ago, he told negotiators he would recommend a presidential veto if a base closing amendment was not in the defense bill. This week, Vice President Richard B. Cheney personally lobbied for the legislation.

"Stump still has to sell his subcommittee chairmen and the House leadership," one defense source said.

The source said Mr. Stump was in a tough position, having to defy a Republican president and trying to buck a veto threat. In the end, Mr. Stump won a concession that an independent commission would not decide on a list of which bases to close until 2005, instead of 2003, as requested by Mr. Bush.

One compromise floated earlier called for preventing the commission from adding any base onto a closure list recommended by the defense secretary. That proposal was not part of this week's deal. But there will be some restrictions to "prevent a runaway commission," one defense source said.

A second defense source said yesterday, "The members got close last night. We need to see if the details hang together until next week when they reconvene, but I expect the conference will wrap up and head to the floor [for a vote] next week."

If Congress approves, it will mark the fourth round of base closings since the end of the Cold War. The process is painful for local communities fearing the loss of hundreds of jobs and for lawmakers who wage passionate fights to keep their hometown bases open.

Kentucky, for example, worries about Fort Knox, the training site for all Army recruit tankers. The Army has said it has an excess training capacity. Some fear the school could be moved to Fort Hood, Texas.

In the latest round in 1995, the commission added the Portsmouth, Maine, naval shipyard to its list despite Navy objections. Only furious lobbying by New England lawmakers persuaded the commission to change its mind.

The president will appoint a nine-member independent commission, based on recommendations from congressional leaders. Each panelist must be confirmed by the Senate.

Mr. Rumsfeld argues that the armed forces can save $3.5 billion annually, beginning later this decade, by closing 25 percent of its facilities and bases. The bill seemed destined for a relatively easy approval last August when it was sent to the Hill. But the September 11 attacks have emboldened opponents to complain that now is not the time to shrink the military.

As part of its selling job, the administration named the process the "Efficient Facilities Initiative of 2001," or EFI, and sent out glossy publications telling stories of how well closings had turned out in some communities.

----

Defense bill's cap holds in Senate

December 8, 2001
By Dave Boyer
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20011208-425005.htm

Senate Democrats buckled to President Bush's veto threat yesterday and dropped their demands to add $15 billion for homeland security and New York to a defense bill.

After losing three votes on their extra spending, Democrats were forced instead to craft an amendment that stays within the emergency spending cap set by Mr. Bush but redirects more money for bioterrorism and New York.

"It's a win for the president" said Sen. Phil Gramm, Texas Republican. "We showed that a bill with the $15 billion in it is not going to pass."

Meanwhile, talks on a bill to stimulate the economy hit a snag yesterday over Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle's insistence that any deal be approved by two-thirds of Senate Democrats instead of a simple majority of the Senate.

"This 'my-way-or-the-highway' approach is completely unacceptable to Republicans," said Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, Illinois Republican. "The Senate majority leader is trying to kill this negotiation before it even starts."

The defeat of the Democrats' proposal for the additional $15 billion in homeland security spending cleared the way for a compromise on the $318 billion defense bill. That measure includes a 4.9 percent pay raise for military personnel and Mr. Bush's request for $8.3 billion for missile defense.

The new Democratic plan, approved on a voice vote last night, shifted about $7 billion that Mr. Bush wanted for defense to programs tightening domestic security and helping New York and the Washington area recover from the September 11 destruction of the World Trade Center and damage at the Pentagon.

The Senate approved an amendment to the defense bill that seeks to prevent American military personnel from being tried for war crimes in the proposed International Criminal Court (ICC).

The American Service Members Protection Act, proposed by Sens. Jesse Helms, North Carolina Republican, and Zell Miller, Georgia Democrat, would prohibit U.S. aid to any nation that participates in an ICC war crimes trial of U.S. military personnel. It would also authorize the president to order the rescue of any American improperly held by the ICC, which has been ratified by 47 of the required 60 nations to date.

Mr. Helms said his proposal would protect American military personnel "from a permanent kangaroo court where the United States will have no veto."

Democratic Sens. Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware and Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut argued that the proposal needed study.

The House in May approved a similar measure sponsored by Majority Whip Tom DeLay, Texas Republican.

Also late last night, the Senate voted to give members of Congress a $4,900 pay raise in January as members of both parties banded together to thwart an attempt to block it. The pay raise, usually discussed in the Treasury Department spending bill, came as the Senate debated the defense spending bill.

With a 65-33 roll call, senators used a procedural vote to block an effort by Sens. Russell Feingold, Wisconsin Democrat, and Ben Nighthorse Campbell, Colorado Republican, to keep the pay raise from taking place.

The House has already passed legislation opening the door for the 3.4 percent pay raise that increases annual salaries to $150,000. Under a 1989 law, lawmakers get automatic salary increases every January unless Congress votes to block it.

The votes against the Democrats' homeland security proposals averted a veto showdown that had been brewing for weeks.

Shortly after September 11, Congress approved $40 billion in emergency spending, most of it for the Pentagon and New York City. But Democrats said after the anthrax attacks in October that another $15 billion was needed for postal security, border patrols, smallpox vaccines and other items.

Mr. Bush told lawmakers repeatedly that he would veto any more emergency spending this year. The White House said Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge would present Congress with a request for more money in February after the administration assesses the nation's most urgent needs.

The House last week approved a defense bill that stayed within the president's spending limits.

The setback was a high-profile defeat for Mr. Daschle, who failed in several attempts to force the extra spending on the administration. Last week Mr. Daschle abandoned his insistence that the homeland security money be linked to a stimulus bill. Then he pared back the Democrats' request from $20 billion to $15 billion.

When it became clear that Democrats lacked the votes, Mr. Daschle failed to follow through on his vow to force Republicans to vote against each element of the homeland security package individually.

"It's very disappointing," Mr. Daschle told reporters. "We have to face reality here that it's not likely we're going to persuade our colleagues that it's an investment that we ought to be making."

"The strategy backfired on the Democrats," said Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott, Mississippi Republican. "The American people saw through it."

On the bill to stimulate the economy, Republicans roundly criticized Mr. Daschle's suggestion that two-thirds of Senate Democrats should approve any deal.

House-Senate negotiators had just begun substantive talks this week after the Senate failed to approve a bill.

Democrats yesterday said House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Thomas, California Republican, had "walked away" from the discussions and returned to his home state. His spokesman, Jason Poplete, said he had accepted an invitation to speak at the memorial service for Brian Prosser, an Army Green Beret killed in Afghanistan.

But Republicans said Mr. Thomas was not willing to go along with Mr. Daschle's two-thirds requirement.

Mr. Lott said Mr. Daschle told him privately yesterday that he did not mean two-thirds of Democrats "literally" but was using it as a rough guideline.

"He's going to have to say that publicly," Mr. Lott said.

----

'Reagan': History Retold With a Shiver

By Tom Shales
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, December 8, 2001; Page C01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A11535-2001Dec7?language=printer

There's a shocker around every corner of "The Day Reagan Was Shot," a compelling and alarming docudrama from the Showtime cable network. If even 75 percent of the film is true, then it's a miracle Ronald Reagan survived John Hinckley Jr.'s idiotic attempt on his life and something of a wonder that the country survived it, too.

Twenty years later, we know that Reagan, nothing if not resilient, recovered from emergency surgery, became more popular than ever and went on to win a second term in the White House. In retrospect, and even though it involves the fate of a president, the crisis portrayed is obviously of less magnitude than the vicious, unprovoked attack that America suffered on Sept. 11. That is, as a national ordeal, the Reagan crisis seems almost quaint.

But the film, premiering tomorrow night at 9 on Showtime (with additional airings Dec. 12, 18 and 29), whisks you back to that traumatic day in March 1981 with crisp immediacy. It goes backstage at the crisis to show the machinations, blunders and bickering that went on in Reagan's inner circle while the beloved Gipper was fighting for his life in an operating room at George Washington University Hospital.

The inner circle, it seems, was spinning like a top. The man blamed by the film for most of the dizziness is, not surprisingly, Alexander Haig, Reagan's secretary of state and infamous for going on television early in the crisis to announce, "As of now, I'm in control here at the White House." This comforted absolutely nobody and set off one helluva hullabaloo.

Haig is played with simmering, teeth-gritting intensity by Richard Dreyfuss, a great actor by any measure and here giving a very controlled portrayal of a man who was in over his head and kept digging himself a deeper hole. Already disliked by fellow Cabinet members, he's referred to at one point by deputy chief of staff Mike Deaver (Michael Murphy) as "that lunatic," while Treasury Secretary Donald Regan (Sean McCann) laments, "He's gone mad," and worries that Haig is staging "a coup" as he attempts to run what was absurdly termed "crisis management."

The bitterest rivalry in the situation room, where the top advisers meet and argue, is between Haig and Caspar Weinberger (Colm Feore), secretary of defense. They trade insults and threats throughout the film. It's Weinberger who pops the essential question to Haig: "First of all, who appointed you to be in charge of these proceedings?" When Weinberger says he has put America's defenses "on alert," Haig explodes because this might be seen by "the Russians" (remember them?) as an act of aggression.

Since one of the executive producers of the film is conspiracy gadfly Oliver Stone, viewers may approach this with a certain skepticism. Only those with inside knowledge will know how much is true and how much is conjecture for dramatic effect. To the credit of Stone and the other filmmakers, though, "Shot" contains no swipes at Reagan, who came from Hollywood but whose politics most of Hollywood disliked.

In fact, Reagan is portrayed as the good-natured, decent and unflappable man that is his image. The odd thing is that Richard Crenna, cast in the role, makes almost no attempt to look or sound like Reagan. Obviously he didn't want to do an impersonation that might border on parody -- every comic worth his salt did a Reagan impression in those days -- but a few little Reaganesque mannerisms would have been all right. Crenna doesn't seem sufficiently presidential, or at least not Reaganesque enough.

Holland Taylor plays Nancy Reagan, to whom the media were never very kind, and fortunately this, too, is a sympathetic portrait. We see a woman of near-mythic loyalty and resolve who was not to be trifled with and who justifiably bristled when given the runaround by the Secret Service or the FBI. Taylor plays Nancy as tough but not bitchy, a welcome change from the usual savage and superficial caricature. Nancy Reagan was one of the most unfairly maligned figures of her time.

But then the movie is not really about the Reagans but about the men around them. At times, the pettiness and confusion in the situation room become darkly comic. The aides, most of them new at their jobs, come across like the Keystone Kabinet, with Haig clownishly grasping for the reins of power and barking at anyone he sees as a threat. He's even abusive to a telephone repairman: "You just shut up, and do your job, and then get the hell out."

Nearly everything that could go wrong did, from the malfunctioning phones to a scheduled NORAD defense drill being mistaken for a launch of Soviet missiles. The "football" containing the apparatus needed by the president to launch a nuclear strike was missing for a time, and later the card needed to activate it was also lost. The FBI and the Secret Service took turns blaming each other for snafus and staging territorial tantrums.

While they bickered, an intruder was able to gain access to the hospital room where Reagan was recovering, the kind of ghastly security breach that certainly resonates today.

Familiar moments are dramatized, too -- Reagan walking into the emergency room unaware of the bullet inside him, jovially telling Nancy, "I forgot to duck." William Casey, then director of the CIA, is depicted as being virtually senile. Presidential press secretary James Brady, critically injured in the shooting, is all but ignored by the filmmakers....


-------- MILITARY

-------- afghanistan

U.S. bombing resumes over Tora Bora

December 8, 2001
Washington Times
http://www.washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/08122001-045240-9610r.htm

KABUL, Afghanistan, Dec. 8 (UPI) -- U.S. bombing paused after dawn Saturday over the suspected hideout of Osama bin Laden, the elusive leader of al Qaida, in the Tora Bora region of the eastern Afghan mountains, but the ground campaign by Afghan forces appeared to stall while U.S. special forces were deployed in the area, CNN reported.

B-52 bombers could be seen in the skies but did not resume dropping ordnance as they had done in two stretches earlier Saturday.

CNN and at least one British newspaper correspondent, from the Independent, reported Saturday that a man who appeared to be bin Laden himself was sighted directing troops from horseback in the area.

In southern Afghanistan, a tribal council was sorting out the aftermath of the Taliban's abandonment of Kandahar. Pashtun fighters who entered Kandahar were reported waiting for a leader who negotiated the Taliban surrender, Mullah Naqibullah, to allow other groups to establish themselves in the city. Meanwhile the streets were calm.

On Friday, U.S. commander of operations in Afghanistan, Army Gen. Tommy Franks, told reporters he did not know the whereabouts of Mullah Omar, the leader of the Taliban who gave up Kandahar, many of them fleeing to parts unknown. He said U.S. forces were actively engaging Taliban forces on the run but gave no details.

On the diplomatic front, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell continued his tour of neighboring central Asian states, spending Saturday in Uzbekistan before scheduled travel to Kazakhstan for two days beginning Saturday night, with the subject of humanitarian aid to Afghanistan high on the agenda.

Friday at least eight U.S. bombs exploded inside Pakistani territory near Tari Mangal, some 22 kilometers (13.7 miles) from Parachinar on the Pakistan-Afghan border, injuring some border militia personnel, tribesmen from the Kurram area reported.

The witnesses said the coalition jets had been pounding the Speenashaga area of Afghanistan for about one week. The area, which used to be former Mujahedin commander Gulbadin Hekmatyar's training camp, is connected to a network of tunnels.

"The bombing has been intense and claimed the life of either Osama bin Laden's brother or son," said the tribesmen with strong family links across the border

The U.S. search for bin Laden received help from an unexpected quarter -- the Russian military -- U.S. intelligence officials said Friday.

Russian soldiers fighting with the Northern Alliance conducted raids on Taliban compounds and collected documents and other intelligence that shed light on bin Laden's whereabouts, according to intelligence sources.

"The Russians have given the United States the best intelligence we've had on the Taliban and bin Laden since military operations began on Oct. 7," an administration official said. "They have provided the most comprehensive intelligence picture."

Administration officials said Russian troops and military experts fighting alongside the Northern Alliance were a major factor in the opposition force's defeat of the Tailban.

But the Russians also had their own objectives in the Afghan offensive. The officials said the Russians sought out and raided Chechen terrorists with links to bin Laden. Intelligence sources said bin Laden's mujahedin were an elite strike force in Chechnya, the Russian republic where rebels have waged a separatist war against Russia.

"This is not some rogue military effort," said Michael McFaul, research fellow and Russian expert at the Hoover Institution, who says the Russians "changed the combat competence" of the Northern Alliance overnight. "This is coming straight from Russian boss (Vladimir) Putin."

McFaul believed that the recent unannounced arrival of 12 Il-76 Russian transport planes in Kabul last week deeply surprised the Bush administration. "The Russians stole quite a march. I think it startled people," he said.

According to U.S. officials, the aircraft carried two specific groups: one whose mission was to establish Russian diplomatic representation, and the other was sent to put in place humanitarian aid efforts directed at central Afghanistan. Russian special forces were included to provide security, they said. The Russian Defense Ministry and Ministry of Foreign Affairs have publicly declined to provide details on the number of troops involved.

----

Interim Afghan Leader Hunts Taliban

By KATHY GANNON
Associated Press Writer
DECEMBER 08, 09:20 ET
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/main.html?FRONTID=ASIA&STORYID=APIS7G9233G0

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - Afghanistan's interim leader called on fellow Afghans Saturday to capture terrorism suspect Osama bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar and promised to bring the two men to ``international justice.''

Hamid Karzai's pledge, in a satellite telephone interview with The Associated Press, came as rumors swirled among some U.S. and tribal officials that Omar might still be in the surrendered city of Kandahar. Karzai said the whereabouts of Omar were unknown and that neither he nor bin Laden were in the custody of anti-Taliban forces. Reports that Omar had been captured, he said, were ``all lies.''

Following the Taliban withdrawal, tensions were running high in Kandahar, with rival armed groups - one under Mullah Naqibullah and the other under Gul Agha - claiming control of key parts of the city.

Karzai, who was north of Kandahar, said the situation in the city was quiet a day after the Taliban's chaotic departure from their last bastion Friday, when frightened residents reported looting and violence.

Pakistani border guards refused to allow journalists to cross into southern Afghanistan, saying the situation was too volatile.

There was no word Saturday on what had become of Taliban forces who fled Kandahar, reneging on a surrender agreement by holding onto their weapons. On Friday, Army Gen. Tommy Franks, head of U.S. Central Command, said U.S. Marines attacked fleeing Taliban fighters from the air and ground around the city.

Karzai, who was picked this week to lead an interim government for the war-shattered nation, said he had asked ordinary Afghans, as well as his own troops, to arrest thousands of Arabs and other foreign fighters who had been defending the Taliban.

His promise ``to deliver Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar to international justice'' followed strong objections raised in Washington to suggestions that Karzai might have struck a surrender deal with Omar to allow the fugitive Taliban supreme leader to remain in Afghanistan.

In other developments Saturday:

- In Egypt, the family of Ayman al-Zawahri, the top aide to bin Laden, published a death notice saying his wife and children were killed in Afghanistan. The notice in Friday's edition of the leading Egyptian newspaper, Al-Ahram, confirmed earlier reports that al-Zawahri's wife, Azza Anwar Nuwaira, and her children were killed in a U.S. airstrike.

- A key bridge between Uzbekistan and Afghanistan will reopen soon, officials said, allowing humanitarian aid through for the first time since 1996. The opening of the so-called Friendship Bridge was announced Saturday by Secretary of State Colin Powell and Uzbek President Islam Karimov in Tashkent, the Uzbek capital. U.S. officials have long awaited the bridge's reopening to quicken the delivery of food and medical supplies into northern Afghanistan.

- U.S. Marines buried an Afghan anti-Taliban fighter with military honors after he was killed by an errant American bomb. The Afghan, who was not identified, was one of six anti-Taliban fighters killed on Wednesday when an Air Force B-52 dropped a one-ton satellite-guided bomb that also killed three Army Green Berets soldiers. Twenty Americans and 18 Afghans were wounded.

Karzai rejected reports that Omar was being held under tribal protection in Kandahar.

An ally of one of Kandahar's tribal faction heads told Britain's Channel 4 News that another local faction head, Naqibullah, was holding Omar ``in a friendly environment.'' Khalid Pashtun, who talked to the television station, is an ally of Agha.

Naqibullah and Karzai jointly negotiated the Taliban surrender of the southern city, but Agha felt he had been cut out of the deal. Agha's tribesmen had been fighting around the Kandahar airport and controlled part of the road to Pakistan.

Agha and Naqibullah have had strained relations for years since the mullah refused to side with Agha against the Taliban in the early 1990s.

On Friday, Andrew Card, President Bush's chief of staff, told reporters on Air Force One that U.S. officials are ``pretty sure'' Omar is still in Kandahar.

However, Haji Bashar, a commander in the city who is aligned with Naqibullah, said Omar was not being held in Kandahar.

``Nobody knows where he is,'' Bashar said, adding that sections of the city had been carved up by rival anti-Taliban factions that were trying to reach agreement on how it should be administered. Karzai has promised to set up a tribal commission to run Kandahar.

Karzai said his U.N.- and U.S-backed temporary administration, which is to take office in the capital, Kabul, on Dec. 22, want to end Afghanistan's links with terrorism.

``We will make sure we will get rid of terrorism. We want to finish terrorism in Afghanistan and in the world,'' he said.

A major part of this would be the capture of all foreign al-Qaida troops as well as Saudi-born bin Laden.

``I have asked the people now, not just our forces, to arrest any Arabs they find,'' he said.

``We don't know where Osama is. We are looking for him. I have a map now in front of me and I am asking villagers around Kandahar to look around the clock and stop him or any Arab they may see.''

-------- biological weapons

Germ weapons talks snag as U.S. balks

World Scene
December 8, 2001
Washington Times
Combined dispatches and staff reports
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20011208-11786.htm

GENEVA - U.S. insistence that nations flouting a germ-weapon ban be condemned led to a deadlock yesterday at an international conference aimed at strengthening the ban.

The United States contends that some signatory states, such as Iran and Iraq, are violating the treaty.

Washington last month named six countries that it said either had germ-weapons programs or were interested in developing them. All six deny the assertion.

On the final day of a three-week session of signatories to the Biological and Toxic Weapons Convention, officials said a number of issues remained unresolved but the problem of noncompliance was the most difficult.

---

U.S. Scuttles Germ War Conference
Move to Halt Talks Stuns European Allies

By Mike Allen and Steven Mufson
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, December 8, 2001; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A11115-2001Dec7?language=printer

An international conference on germ warfare disbanded in chaos and anger last night after the United States sought to cut off discussions about enforcing the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention.

The 1972 treaty, ratified by the United States and 143 other nations, bans the development, stockpiling and production of germ warfare agents -- but it has no enforcement mechanism. The purpose of the conference, held in Geneva, was to discuss the progress of a group that has been trying for six years to negotiate legally binding measures to enforce compliance.

Yesterday, the final day of the three-week conference, the United States stunned European allies by proposing to terminate the group's mandate. Convinced that the action would turn the conference into a failure, organizers suspended international discussions until at least November 2002.

The breakup of the meeting renewed complaints from Europe that President Bush was acting unilaterally and not heeding concerns of the nation's allies. That complaint was common early in his administration, but had been muted as Bush assembled an anti-terrorism coalition after the Sept. 11 attacks.

A State Department official said the Bush administration believed the enforcement protocol under discussion would not prevent rogue nations from acquiring or developing biological weapons if they were determined to do so.

"If the conference had continued, there was a danger that continued negotiations would have undermined our concerted efforts to strengthen the convention," the official said.

Administration officials said the United States remains committed to countering the threat of biological weapons and will consult allies on the issue in coming weeks.

Tibor Toth, a Hungarian official who was the conference's president, said delegates decided to suspend their work for a year instead of bringing the meeting to an unsuccessful end.

"The differences between positions seemed to be irreconcilable, at least in the time remaining today," he said. "The draft final declaration was 95 percent ready."

John R. Bolton, the U.S. undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, accused some signatories to the treaty -- including Iraq and Iran -- of having already violated it.

"I wish we could have continued talking, but it was obvious that we would not reach an agreement. There were just too many areas of disagreement," Bolton told Reuters in Geneva. "A cooling-off period will be a good thing."

Elisa D. Harris, the National Security Council's director for nonproliferation throughout the Clinton administration, said that despite fears about the use of anthrax as a weapon, "the Bush administration has blown up an international meeting aimed at making it more difficult for countries to acquire these biological capabilities."

But Larry M. Wortzel, a national security specialist at the conservative Heritage Foundation, said that refusing to be a party to doomed verification efforts is "the sanest thing this administration has done," since the United States has been deceived so often by countries that continued buildups of biological weapons.

In July, the United States became the only country to announce its opposition to the proposed enforcement protocol. The White House said it would present other ways to strengthen the treaty and reduce the chance of germ warfare.

Last month, as the Geneva conference opened, Bolton presented a U.S. plan that would not make the protocol legally binding under international law, but include it in a politically binding final document.

The U.S. package also left out provisions that would have established an international implementing body with the power to investigate suspicious facilities and perform routine visits to declared facilities.

However, the U.S. package retained some of the protocol's measures, such as a requirement for any country that signs the treaty to pass laws criminalizing activities prohibited by the treaty. About half of the signatories do not have such laws currently, experts say.

The U.S. package would also expand the mandate of the secretary general of the United Nations to investigate suspicious disease outbreaks, clarify vague provisions for resolving compliance concerns and make it easier to extradite criminals who use biological weapons.

The State Department official said the administration was "encouraged by the widespread support for U.S. and allied initiatives intended to strengthen the convention through practical national implementation measures." But, he said, "Not everyone welcomed our focus on compliance."

"We believe compliance is essential for any arms control regime to be meaningful," he said, and added that the administration was "disappointed" that agreement couldn't be reached. He said that was better than "trying to paper over substantive disagreements with artful drafting."

Many arms control advocates said the administration had failed to do all it could to resolve those problems because of its own opposition to a clause that would allow foreign inspections of suspected biological weapons sites on the basis of a challenge by another country. The Bush administration has said that could lead to inspections at private companies and endanger trade secrets.

"What John Bolton and the U.S. delegation did was to scuttle realistic practical opportunities to develop an international strategy on germ weapons mainly because the Bush administration fears further negotiations on an international instrument to curb bioweapons that includes possible on-site challenge investigations," said Darryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association.

The Federation of American Scientists, which promotes disarmament, issued a statement calling the U.S. action "sabotage," and said that European diplomats "privately accused the U.S. of deceiving them."

Staff writer Karen DeYoung contributed to this report.

-------- business

Disconnected

ASSOCIATED PRESS
December 8, 2001
http://www.washingtontimes.com/business/20011208-67397380.htm

Lockheed Martin Corp.will pull out of the global telecommunications business, the Bethesda defense contractor said yesterday.

The defense contractor said poor economic conditions in Latin America and an oversupply in the global telecommunications market led it to shut down Lockheed Martin Global Telecommunications.

The company will sell some of components of LMGT and absorb others into its remaining business units, cutting 650 jobs of the division's total work force of 3,500.

"We no longer anticipate that the LMGT business as a whole will be able to generate sufficient returns to justify continued investment," Chief Executive Vance Coffman said.

Roughly one-third of the 650 LMGT employees slated to lose their jobs have accepted or been offered positions elsewhere at Lockheed. The remaining workers will be shifted to Lockheed's other companies.

The world's biggest defense contractor, Lockheed recently won a mammoth deal to build the Joint Strike Fighter, a next-generation jet that could be the largest military contract ever awarded.

But its telecommunications arm, one of Lockheed's six major segments, has suffered losses during the past several years.

LMGT was formed when Lockheed bought Comsat Corp., a commercial satellite company, in August 2000. It offered satellite and fiber-optic communications services, both of which have been hurt by an oversupply, LMGT spokesman Charles Manor said.

"There is too much of it and it is driving prices through the basement," Mr. Manor said.

The economic woes of South American countries such as Argentina and Brazil, which accounted for about a tenth of the division's business, also hurt LMGT, Mr. Manor said.

Lockheed plans to move Comsat into its space systems division, but analysts said the satellite component may end up on the auction block.

"I question if they are really intending to stay in the satellite services area. If they had a buyer tomorrow at a decent price, they would sell Comsat," said Paul H. Nisbet of JSA Research.

Lockheed Martin already had planned to sell Comsat Mobile Communications to Telenor of Norway for $116.5 million. The company is also in discussions over the sale of other components, Mr. Manor said.

The $1.7 billion fourth-quarter charge the company will take will amount to $3.96 per share. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial/First Call expected Lockheed to earn 48 cents per share before charges this quarter.

Lockheed Martin shares fell 46 cents to close at $45.74 on the New York Stock Exchange yesterday.

-------- death penalty

No 10 intervenes over bin Laden extradition slip

By Sarah Womack and Michael Smith
10/12/2001
Telegraph
http://www.portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;$sessionid$WHPJN5QAACOUFQFIQMFSFFOAVCBQ0IV0?xml=/news/2001/12/10/nextra10.xml&sSheet=/news/2001/12/10/ixhome.html

DOWNING Street intervened last night to "clarify" comments by Geoff Hoon, the Defence Secretary, who said Britain would not hand over Osama bin Laden to America if he were to face execution there.

The Prime Minister's official spokesman said it had always been the case that if bin Laden fell into British hands he would be passed to the Americans.

"Mr Hoon was talking hypothetically about him arriving on UK shores," said the spokesman. "But in the unlikely event that bin Laden allows himself to be captured by British forces alone, we have always made it clear that, since America is the wronged country, Britain would hand him over to the US."

Mr Hoon's remarks, in a BBC interview, had risked irritating Washington and forced Downing Street to ring newspapers last night to set the record straight.

He had suggested that if British forces were to capture bin Laden alive the rules of warfare would give way to Britain's obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights. This states that criminal suspects cannot be extradited unless guarantees are given that they will not face the death penalty.

British special forces from the SAS and the Special Boat Service are fighting alongside US forces in the hunt for al-Qa'eda fighters.

"I believe that it would be very important to respect the international legislation relevant to those circumstances," Mr Hoon told BBC1's Breakfast with Frost, when asked what would happen if bin Laden were captured by British troops. "We should hand him over fairly promptly to the country that has the main call on him as far as bringing him to justice is concerned - which clearly is the United States.

"We do extradite people to countries with the death penalty, obviously subject to certain undertakings. I see no reason in principle why that shouldn't happen.

"It would mean, of course, that certain undertakings would have to be given about any penalty he might face."

Asked whether this meant that the US authorities would have to offer assurances that bin Laden would not face execution, Mr Hoon replied: "That is the position."

Dick Cheney, the US vice-president, in an interview on NBC's Meet the Press, made clear he wanted bin Laden handed over to the US. "We want Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar and their senior leadership, and if they're taken alive we expect to take custody of them."

He ruled out an international court trial for either bin Laden or Omar, but Paul Woldowitz, the US deputy defence secretary, suggested Omar could be tried in Afghanistan. Asked if that included the death penalty, he said: "It might mean something quite similar in Afghanistan. The Afghans are not known for kindness to people who have abused them."

Saudi Arabia has offered to place on trial any Saudi members of al-Qa'eda captured by the allies or the new authorities in Kabul - that could include bin Laden himself.

"Thirteen of the 19 terrorists who hijacked the aircraft in the September 11 attacks are thought to have been Saudi citizens and a large number of the al-Qa'eda members are believed to be Saudis.

"These are our sons, we'll take them," Prince Saud bin Faisal, the Saudi foreign minister told the Washington Post. "Those who are criminally involved will be punished, but they are our responsibility."

-------- iraq

U.S. experts on Iraq warn of new Vietnam

By Claude Salhani
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
December 8, 2001
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/08122001-060957-4640r.htm

WASHINGTON, Dec. 8 (UPI) -- Two prominent American experts on Iraq cautioned the Bush administration on Friday not to go after Iraq in what is being termed as the possible "second phase" of America's new war on terrorism.

The warnings came about as 10 key members of Congress sent a letter to President George W. Bush earlier in the week encouraging him to set his sights on Saddam Hussein's regime as the next target in the war.

"As we work to clean up Afghanistan and destroy al Qaida, it is imperative that we plan to eliminate the threat from Iraq," they noted.

Signers of the letter included Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., Jesse Helms, R-N.C., Trent Lott, R-Miss., Richard Shelby, R-Ala., and Henry Hyde, R-Ill., who is chairman of the House International Relations Committee.

The warnings not to attack Iraq came from Scott Ritter, a former arms inspector who led 30 missions in Iraq, 14 of them as chief of the United Nations inspection team, and Edward Peck, a former U.S. ambassador to Baghdad in the Carter administration. Peck was also deputy director of the Reagan administration's task force on terrorism.

Both warned the United States not to attack Iraq once the Afghanistan phase of the anti-terrorism war is completed.

During a talk at the Center for Policy Analysis on Palestine in Washington on Friday, both veteran Middle East hands asked the Bush administration not to heed the hawks in government who are demanding that military action be taken against Iraqi strongman Saddam.

"I hope that Attorney General John Ashcroft does not take exception to what I am about to say and label me a terrorist," said Ritter. "Now we talk about the next phase, and this is where I get a little nervous."

Ritter, who was one of the last arms inspectors in Iraq before the 1990-91 Gulf War, criticized the Bush administration, which, he said, "lacks definition" in its policy on Iraq.

Ritter said the president accused those who fund and train terrorists of being terrorists. "The Saudis funded the madrassas (schools) where terrorists were trained. Does this make them terrorists, too?" asked the former U.S. Marine and arms inspector. "Are we going to war against Pakistan? I think not."

Ritter rejected recent intelligence reports linking Mohammad Atta, one of the Sept. 11 hijackers and ringleaders, to Iraqi intelligence.

"The meeting in Prague between Mohammad Atta and Iraqi intelligence was to discuss blowing up Radio Free Europe, which broadcasts messages aimed against Saddam Hussein. It is a legitimate target."

Ritter whose task in Iraq included identifying, finding and destroying Iraqi biochemical and nuclear facilities, believes there was no link between Iraq and the recent spate of anthrax-spiked letters in the United States.

"The anthrax letters were almost certainly from a (U.S.) Department of Defense source," he said. "Scratch the Iraq link."

Iraq, said Ritter, did not kick out the United Nations inspectors, it was the United States that asked them to leave before the bombing of Baghdad started in 1990, shortly after Iraq invaded Kuwait.

Both Ritter and former ambassador Peck do not believe Iraq presents a threat today, and that even Israel does not see Saddam as an immediate threat any longer. "Iraq was a threat in 1990, not today."

"Should the United States pursue its unilateral decision to take down Saddam Hussein, it will be nothing more than a modern version of Vietnam," declared Ritter.

Peck, who served in Baghdad, said the American media were incapable of telling the American people information they don't want to hear. He rejected the United States' support of the London-based Iraqi opposition known as the Iraqi National Congress, calling them "silk-shirted, three piece-suited losers in London." The INC, said Peck, was not a feasible alternative.

"If we can push the Catholics and Protestants to talk in Northern Ireland, and push (Israeli Prime Minister) Ariel Sharon and (Palestinian Authority leader) Yasser Arafat to talk, why can't we talk to Iraq?" asked Peck.

He blamed the continuing sanctions against Iraq to be partially at fault for the hatred directed against America.

"American people are loved," he said, "but their policy is not. They cannot attack our policy, so they attack us."

Peck said half a million children have died in Iraq as a result of the continuing sanctions. "Compare that to 60,000 people who died in Hiroshima."

Peck admitted the half-million figure may well be inflated, "but," he argued, "would you feel more comfortable with 320,000, or 10,000 deaths instead? Just where do you draw the line?"

Speaking of Saddam, Peck said, "Leave the guy alone, he is not a threat."

-------- israel

Israel Fires on Palestinian Posts

By Ibrahim Barzak
Associated Press Writer
Saturday, December 8, 2001; 9:26 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A12721-2001Dec8?language=printer

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip -- Israeli helicopters fired missiles at Palestinian security buildings inside a refugee camp early Saturday in retaliation for the firing of mortar shells at Jewish settlements, the army said.

No injuries were reported. In the Gaza Strip, Palestinian security buildings were evacuated Friday after an Israeli F-16 jet struck a police compound in Gaza City, injuring 20 people.

In Saturday's 1:30 a.m. strike at the Rafah refugee camp in southern Gaza, three buildings belonging to military intelligence and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's personal guard, Force 17, were badly damaged, Palestinian security officials and witnesses said.

Palestinian security officials who worked at the targeted buildings could be seen after the missile attack sifting through the rubble searching for furniture and belongings. The missiles blew large holes in the roofs of the buildings and toppled some walls, witnesses said.

Dozens of people gathered at the scene chanting support for Arafat.

The five mortar shells that were fired at Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip late Friday injured no one, the army said. It claimed the Palestinian security offices that were targeted in the helicopter attack should have prevented the shelling.

"These groups are directly and indirectly responsible for the mortar shellings," the army said in a statement.

Israel had renewed its airstrikes on security stations in Palestinian areas on Friday after a two-day lull. The attacks earlier in the week were retaliation for suicide bombings in Israel last weekend that killed 25.

Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said the United States' refusal to condemn the Israeli action would only encourage Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to strike again. America has urged Israel to exercise restraint when it has hit the Palestinian territories previously, but has been supportive of retaliation since the latest suicide bombings.

"We urge President Bush, for the sake of peace, to say to Sharon 'You don't have the green light, there is no military solution for this,'" Erekat said Saturday.

Israel says Arafat must do more to stop terrorism. Palestinian officials say they've arrested 180 Islamic militants in a crackdown that began last weekend. Israel dismisses the sweep as a sham, saying it has focused on low-level operators and left the planners of attacks at large.

"We are not yet sure that there is a strategic change in the policy of Arafat," Sharon aide Avi Pazner said Saturday.

In further violence Friday, Israeli troops shot two Palestinians dead near the northern West Bank village of al-Dik.

Israel said the two were planning to attack Israelis on a nearby road. Palestinian security officials said the men, activists in Arafat's Fatah party, had gone missing and were presumed killed by Israeli soldiers.

Despite the violence, U.S. envoy Anthony Zinni pressed ahead with efforts to quell a crisis sparked by the suicide bombings. Zinni hosted a meeting in Tel Aviv between top Israeli and Palestinian security officials on Friday, but no side reported any progress.

A Palestinian official speaking on condition of anonymity said things were so bad that the talks would have ended in a fist fight if the Americans had not intervened. Another Palestinian official said his side had explained that its forces could not capture terrorists if Israel did not lift restrictions on movement and stop the airstrikes.

An Israeli security official, who also declined to be identified, called the talks "pretty rough," and said Arafat must rein in terrorists before Israel ceases its strikes.

The U.S. Embassy said in a statement that "the discussion was constructive and focused on security, specifically practical steps to combat terror and violence."

Security officials planned to meet again Sunday.

Angered that the United States has not criticized the Israeli attacks, Arafat accused the Americans of pro-Israel bias in an interview Friday with Israeli television.

He was visibly irritated when asked by the interviewer for Channel One television about the American pressure on him to clamp down on Islamic militants.

"Dear God, who cares about the Americans," Arafat said in the interview Friday in the West Bank city of Ramallah. "The Americans are on your side and they give you everything. Who gives you airplanes? The Americans."

Arafat was referring to the $2.7 billion in annual American aid, which Israel uses in part to buy fighter jets.

Arafat told Israeli television that Palestinian police near the West Bank town of Jenin had arrested 17 of the 33 people on a wanted listed given to him by Zinni.

--------

THE MIDEAST
Israel Attacks Again in Gaza; Arafat Condemns U.S.

New York Times
December 8, 2001
By JAMES BENNET
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/08/international/middleeast/08MIDE.html

GAZA, Dec. 7 - Israeli and Palestinian security officials met today for talks, but as the negotiating standoff continued, Israeli warplanes flattened two police buildings in Gaza City to press Yasir Arafat to act more firmly against Palestinian militants, and militants rallied here to warn him to do no such thing.

In an interview with Israeli television tonight, Mr. Arafat lashed out at the Bush administration as tilting heavily toward Israel. President Bush has refused to meet with Mr. Arafat, and the United States has sternly backed Israel's demands that he crack down on extremists.

Palestinian officials have said Mr. Arafat is not politically strong enough to make such moves unless Israel provides some benefit to Palestinians, like relaxing the blockades in the West Bank and Gaza.

"Dear God, who cares about the Americans?" Mr. Arafat said, when asked about American pressure. "The Americans are on your side, and they give you everything," he said, addressing Israelis. "Who gave you the airplanes? The Americans. Who gave you the tanks? The Americans."

Mr. Arafat said his forces had arrested 17 of 33 militants wanted by Israel. A list of the wanted men was given to him on Wednesday by Anthony C. Zinni, the Bush administration's new envoy here. Israel had given such lists to him in the past with little result.

[Despite the arrests, Israel renewed its military campaign early Saturday, when helicopter gunships attacked Palestinian security buildings in Rafah, Gaza, Agence France- Presse reported. There were no casualties.]

In Ankara today, the Turkish prime minister, Bulent Ecevit, said the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, had told him in a telephone conversation that he wanted to be "rid of" Mr. Arafat. But the Israeli government continued to insist that it did not want to kill Mr. Arafat or destroy his Palestinian Authority.

Israeli officials say that if Mr. Arafat does not crack down on extremists, they will put so much pressure on his administration that he will be replaced without their attacking him directly. Today the deputy foreign minister, Michael Melchior, told reporters in Berlin that Mr. Arafat had become "irrelevant" because he had not used his power to stop violence. Mr. Melchior is regarded as a dove.

After a 48-hour pause in attacks, Israel sent warplanes screaming over Gaza at about 3 a.m. today. They fired three missiles into the Arafat Police City, destroying one building that the police said was used for administration and another that they said was for training women officers. The Bush administration has refrained from criticizing such Israeli action.

Palestinians said 18 people had been wounded in the raid, which left six cement floors pancaked atop one another in a jumble of cinder blocks.

The raid damaged the office of Ghazi al-Jabali, the police chief in Gaza and one of the main Palestinian officials charged with the effort against extremists, including members of the Islamist group Hamas.

After three Hamas suicide bombings last weekend killed 25 people, Israel redoubled its demands for Mr. Arafat to arrest militants, backing up those demands with military strikes. Hamas said it had retaliated for Israel's killing of a Hamas military leader on Nov. 23.

Because police buildings have long been favorite Israeli targets, Mr. Jabali rented an apartment elsewhere 10 months ago to use as his headquarters, police officers said. Indeed, the Palestinian police are seldom found in their official headquarters. "For 10 months we have been in the streets," Capt. Muhammad Harara of the Palestinian police said.

But the streets were not safe for them today either. Palestinian policemen mostly kept out of sight as more than 1,000 Palestinians marched in a funeral procession for a Hamas activist killed in clashes with the police on Wednesday night.

Teenagers and young boys hurled stones at one truck carrying police officers and at police buildings they passed on the route, applying to fellow Palestinians the tactics they usually reserve for Israeli soldiers. Even their justifications, generally learned from their seniors, sounded the same. "They are arresting our men," Muhammad al-Arir, 13, said of the Palestinian Authority. "They are killing us."

But other Hamas supporters repeatedly shooed the stone-throwers away rather than risk a serious confrontation before television cameras.

Police officials had been concerned before the march that it could turn violent, and a deal apparently was made. The police stayed out of sight and, for a funeral, there was very little shooting into the air.

The dead man, Muhammad Selmi, 21, was shot and killed Wednesday night when fighting broke out with Palestinian officers who were placing the founder and spiritual leader of Hamas, Sheik Ahmed Yassin, under house arrest. The police said Mr. Selmi was a bodyguard for the sheik, but his father, Akram Selmi, said he was studying to be a mechanic.

Today, the young man's body was wrapped in a bright green Hamas flag and borne through the muddy streets by a crowd chanting its loyalty to Hamas. Mr. Selmi was declared a "martyr," like those who die in violence with the Israelis.

Akram Selmi expressed great bitterness toward the Palestinian Authority. "We are supposed to live under the Authority rules," he said. "But now we live under the darkness of the Authority."

Asked whether Hamas, which rejects any negotiated settlement with Israel, could replace the Authority, he replied, "The time is still not come, but it will come."

Turnout for the funeral clearly disappointed some organizers. One young man, his face hidden by a head scarf, the trademark disguise of the Hamas military wing, said, "There are many wanted to come but didn't because they are scared that the police will arrest them."

At the grave , a dwindled crowd of a few hundred listened to a brief speech criticizing Israel and the Palestinian Authority and then chanted: "You, Arafat, are not among us! Take your dogs and go away!"

-------- nato

INTERNATIONAL
In Spat Over Russia in NATO, Rumsfeld Loses Out to Powell

New York Times
December 8, 2001
By PATRICK E. TYLER
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/08/international/europe/08NATO.html

BRUSSELS, Dec. 7 - A proposal by President Bush and President Vladimir V. Putin

of Russia to fundamentally alter the structure of the Western alliance by expanding Russia's role in NATO decision-making ran afoul this week of a clash of views between Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Western diplomats here say.

The diplomats said Mr. Rumsfeld made an 11th-hour attempt on Wednesday to have "NATO at 20" references removed from the draft communiqué that Secretary Powell and the foreign ministers from NATO's 19 member nations were preparing to issue in Brussels. "NATO at 20" means the 19 members plus Russia.

At one point on Wednesday, R. Nicholas Burns, the United States ambassador to NATO, told colleagues that he had conflicting guidance on how to proceed because Mr. Rumsfeld's signed instructions were at odds with Secretary Powell's. Twelve hours passed before the deadlock was broken.

The dispute was resolved in favor of Secretary Powell, diplomats said, and a prominent reference to a new "NATO at 20" structure was reinserted into the draft communiqué.

But the struggle over redefining the alliance is far from over. Member states have to work out a host of practical issues over the next six months about Russia's role before NATO ministers meet again in May in Iceland.

It was not clear what role President Bush played in resolving the dispute, but Secretary Powell asserted today that the "NATO at 20" formulation was laid down by Mr. Bush and, therefore, Mr. Bush's view had prevailed "because that was what I thought was reflective of what the president and Putin had agreed to and what the allies expected and what the Russians were expecting too."

Secretary Rumsfeld's intervention effectively froze deliberations on Wednesday, diplomats said, as a number of member states said they could not accept his attempt to undermine their goal of making the most sweeping statement possible.

Russia's integration holds the potential for being the most profound realignment of powers in the last half century, a number of diplomats here say.

The debate over how to do it pits conservatives in the Pentagon - and among some allies - against the more pragmatic style of Secretary Powell. The conservatives advocate an unconstrained role for the United States, while Mr. Powell favors a collective approach of working with allies. He sees great virtue in Russia's inclusion in the alliance to help to combat extremism, terrorism and the threat of weapons of mass destruction.

Secretary Rumsfeld's reported concerns reflected a view that any effusive descriptions of "NATO at 20" create an image that Russia is gaining the privileges of full NATO membership, perhaps even veto authority over alliance decisions.

The newest members - the former Soviet bloc nations Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic - also appealed to the majority to proceed more cautiously in bringing Russia into decision-making lest Moscow seek to use its influence to block NATO enlargement. Nine nations, including the former Soviet republics in the Baltics, are applying to join the alliance. "Some of these countries were saying that they just got into NATO a few years ago to get security from Russia, and now look who is seated at the table," said one Western diplomat.

Secretary Powell said today that he would not discuss Secretary Rumsfeld's role in the episode, but he was emphatic that in his mind the Pentagon never removed the "NATO at 20" formulation from the communiqué issued on Thursday. "As the secretary who tables these things at the end of the day, `at 20' was never out," he said, adding for emphasis, "I own the communiqué."

"There may have been drafts around, but `at 20' had to be in there," he said today as he flew from Brussels to Tashkent, Uzbekistan. He said the "NATO at 20" concept "is where we took the president in Shanghai and where the president took us in Crawford and Washington."

At the Pentagon, a spokeswoman, Victoria Clarke, said she had no comment on Mr. Rumsfeld's role in the deliberations.

The sensitive issue of veto authority was raised two weeks ago in Moscow, when NATO's secretary general, Lord Robertson, met with Mr. Putin and declared that Russia and NATO were on the brink of a historic accord under which Russia might have veto authority over alliance decisions in certain situations.

For Secretary Powell, who reiterated this week that both the United States and Russia understand that Russia will never gain veto authority, the "NATO at 20" formulation signaled a new strategic framework in which the security interests of the 19 member states and Russian security interests could merge in an era of cooperation against terrorism and of significant reductions in nuclear arsenals.

The Russian foreign minister, Igor S. Ivanov, said he was pleased with NATO's offer because, he said, Moscow was looking "to establish a stable, predictable system of security in the Euro-Atlantic area."

Mr. Putin, visiting Athens today, also expressed satisfaction, but added, "Russia is not desperately knocking on the door of NATO."

Mr. Powell said his actions mirrored what Mr. Bush and Mr. Putin asked for during talks in Shanghai and in Crawford, Tex., at Mr. Bush's ranch.

In their statement on Nov. 13, the two presidents said that "NATO and Russia are increasingly allied against terrorism, regional instability and other contemporary threats" and that thus the relationship should "evolve accordingly."

They asked NATO to begin formulating a new structure "to improve, strengthen and enhance the relationship between Russia and NATO, with a view toward developing effective mechanism for consultation, cooperation, joint decision and coordinated/ joint action."

Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain followed with a call for restructuring that would give Russia a seat at the table for decision making on the broadest range of activities.

On Thursday, the alliance's foreign ministers declared, "Today we commit ourselves to forge a new relationship with Russia" with the goal of creating "a new NATO-Russia Council, to identify and pursue opportunities for joint action at 20."

Still, the final document was a more modest blueprint than some members wanted and they put off most of the detailed work until May.

-------- pakistan

Pakistan Ended Aid to Taliban Only Hesitantly

New York Times
December 8, 2001
By DOUGLAS FRANTZ
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/08/international/asia/08STAN.html?pagewanted=all

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Dec. 7 - One month after the Pakistan government agreed to end its support of the Taliban, its intelligence agency was still providing safe passage for weapons and ammunition to arm them, according to Western and Pakistani officials.

On Oct. 8 and again on Oct. 12, Pakistani border guards at a dusty checkpoint in the Khyber Pass waved on convoys headed into Afghanistan. Western intelligence officials said that under the trucks' tarpaulins were rifles, ammunition and rocket-propelled grenade launchers for Taliban fighters.

Pakistan's premier spying agency, Inter-Services Intelligence, had long provided safe passage to armadas of truckers and smugglers who supplied a mountain of weapons to the Taliban war machine. But the policy was supposed to have changed in September after a Washington ultimatum to Pakistan.

A senior Pakistani intelligence official acknowledged that the Oct. 8 shipment did contain arms for the Taliban, but he said that it was the last officially sanctioned delivery and that the Pakistanis have since been living up to their commitment to the Americans.

Even around that time, there were signs of a change. Pakistani military advisers were withdrawn from Afghanistan over the following weeks, a move that Western intelligence officials say may have been a crucial factor in the surprisingly swift collapse of Taliban forces when confronted by the Northern Alliance.

"We did not fully understand the significance of Pakistan's role in propping up the Taliban until their guys withdrew and things went to hell fast for the Talibs," said a Western diplomat who has monitored the region for many years.

Nonetheless, Inter-Services Intelligence, or I.S.I., remains what many describe as a state within a state, with independent, and worrying, political tendencies.

"Power remains in the hands of a powerful group of `jihadi' generals who are outside the government apparatus, but have tentacles in government," the former prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, said in an interview.

Ms. Bhutto is hardly an impartial observer. Now living in self-imposed exile in Dubai to avoid corruption charges at home, she blames I.S.I. for conspiring to topple her second government in 1996, in part because she refused to fully back the Taliban.

But her view is shared by many in Pakistan's intelligence and diplomatic ranks, where the strong sense is that Gen. Pervez Musharraf, the president, must begin a broader purge if he hopes to loosen the grip of elements in I.S.I. who, even now, are loyal to the Taliban.

One of the agency's staunchly Islamist intelligence directors was Lt. Gen. Hamid Gul, who headed the agency in the late 1980's and remains an influential figure within it.

"It will not be so easy for officers to set aside their beliefs and change sides," General Gul, who is retired, said in a recent interview.

General Gul remains a supporter of the Taliban and he denounced the Americans for condemning them and Osama bin Laden without providing any proof of guilt.

"Osama bin Laden is a sensitive man and he had nothing to do with the attacks on America," he said. "You Americans will have to support the Taliban one day. They are not going to go away. They are integral, organic, historic."

The agency and General Musharraf had specifically agreed to end support for the Taliban in a series of meetings and phone conversations right after Sept. 11.

But Pakistani intelligence officers and military advisers contined helping the Taliban at least into October, providing tactical advice and helping to strengthen fortifications around Kandahar, the southern stronghold of the Taliban, diplomats and intelligence officials said.

To reverse this, on Oct. 7 - the day the Americans started bombing Afghanistan - General Musharraf took the strong - and risky - step of removing the director of I.S.I., Lt. Gen. Mahmood Ahmed, who is regarded as pro-Taliban. He replaced him with a moderate, Lt. Gen. Ehsan ul-Haq.

Speaking of General Musharraf, a senior American official said: "He knows he has got cells of Taliban people in intelligence and he's got a rule that he is going to kick anyone out who has been there four or five years because you don't know where the cells are."

To help the purge, American officials are questioning former Pakistani officials to compile a list of intelligence officers and other government officials whose pro-Islamic sentiments make them suspect, according to people who said they were interviewed as part of the search.

For many within the intelligence service, helping the Taliban was as much a religious duty as a military one. Some of the officers had trained Afghan fighters against the Soviets when I.S.I. funneled $3 billion in American funds into Afghanistan.

For seven years, Pakistan's Islamic government had been the Taliban's main sponsor, alongside Mr. bin Laden. It provided military equipment, recruiting assistance, training and tactical advice that enabled the band of village mullahs and their adherents to take control of Afghanistan and turn it into a haven for terrorists.

The impact was considerable because, after fattening its coffers with American money, I.S.I. was able to tilt the battle in Afghanistan.

Nasirullah Khan Babar, a retired army general who was Pakistan's interior minister in 1994, packed his country's diplomatic posts in Afghanistan with intelligence agents to ensure that the Taliban got the help they needed.

"They were I.S.I. people who had been in the jihad and the Afghans had a lot of respect for them," General Babar said in a recent interview at his home in Peshawar.

One of those agents was Amir Sultan Tarar, who was designated consul general in Herat, in the west. He used the code name Colonel Imam, which adopts a religious title and was a common nom de guerre among I.S.I. officers.

He befriended the Taliban's spiritual leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, and provided tactical advice to his forces while also serving as a conduit for arms and money, according to former Pakistani intelligence officials. Like many of the Pakistanis, he donned a turban and grew a beard to blend in with his clients.

As the Taliban captured more territory and enforced their harsh brand of Islam on larger swaths of the population, concern began to grow in Pakistan and Washington.

Even before the Taliban were formed, the United States was warning Pakistan about I.S.I.'s conduct in Afghanistan, saying that it risked being listed as a sponsor of terrorism and losing access to international financial assistance. That warning, which also referred to I.S.I. activity in Kashmir, a territory claimed by India and Pakistan, came in a letter from President George Bush in 1992, according to a former Pakistani official who saw it.

By early 1996, when Ms. Bhutto was serving her second term as prime minister, she became concerned about Pakistan's closeness to the Taliban and about I.S.I.'s control over Afghan policy, she said in the interview.

A meeting of senior government officials was called to discuss pulling back from the Taliban. Gen. Jehangir Karamat, chief of the armed forces, argued that the agency should stop its activities inside Afghanistan and civilian members of the government argued that if Pakistan withdrew its support, the Taliban would melt away, according to a review of minutes from the meeting provided by a participant.

But Lt. Gen. Aziz Khan, deputy director general of I.S.I. at the time, offered an impassioned defense of the Taliban: "These people will make Pakistan strong. There is nothing we need to fear from them. All they will do if they take over Afghanistan is spread pure Islam."

The intelligence service carried the day and Pakistan did not pull back. In the following months, the Taliban won impressive battlefield victories, taking Herat, Jalalabad and the capital of Kabul by the fall of 1996.

Military observers noticed a distinct change in tactics. The previously disorganized Taliban soldiers used 4-by-4 pickup trucks to outflank enemy forces and launch surprise counterattacks, employing artillery in more sophisticated ways.

American intelligence officers were certain that the Pakistanis were providing training and tactical advice to the Taliban along with money and weapons and this speculation was later supported by other evidence.

Ms. Bhutto continued to object until she was ousted from office in November 1996. She blamed I.S.I. for toppling her, saying she had angered them by her refusal to recognize the Taliban as the official government of Afghanistan. There were other plausible reasons, including allegations of corruption against her and her husband.

Her military-backed replacement, Nawaz Sharif, extended the first diplomatic recognition to the Taliban in May 1997 and traveled to other Muslim countries in an attempt to persuade them to recognize the student militia. Only Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates agreed.

With a freer hand under Mr. Sharif, the intelligence agency dispatched military advisers to a former Soviet base in Rishikor, southwest of Kabul, to set up a training camp for volunteers sent by Pakistani religious parties to fight in Afghanistan and Kashmir.

Some of the bloodiest battles of the civil war occurred in and around Mazar-i-Sharif in northern Afghanistan. After losing the city once and being rebuffed another time, the Taliban made a successful push in the fall of 1998 and drove out the Northern Alliance.

Western intelligence officials credit the victory to Pakistani military advisers who fought alongside the Taliban. An intercepted telephone conversation described by two Western diplomats seemed to back that assertion.

In the call, Colonel Imam, the I.S.I. officer from Herat, was heard to boast, "My boys and I are riding into Mazar-i-Sharif." By 1998, Mr. bin Laden was well established in Afghanistan after fleeing Sudan two years earlier. He and his network had set up terrorist training camps throughout the country, many of them alongside camps operated by the Taliban and I.S.I.

While the Taliban and Mr. bin Laden clearly had a close relationship, Western diplomats and foreign intelligence officers said that the links between I.S.I. and the bin Laden network were more circumspect.

Conversations intercepted by American intelligence officials contained no references to direct links between Pakistani intelligence and the network of Arabs and other foreigners who came to learn their trade in Afghanistan, said a senior government official who reviewed many of the transcripts.

After the bombings of two American embassies in East Africa in the summer of 1998 killed more than 250 people, the United States tried to find a way to pry Mr. bin Laden, who the Americans blamed for the attacks, out of Afghanistan.

In September 1999, government officials said, the director general of I.S.I., Lt. Gen. Ziauddin and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's brother, Shehbaz Sharif, were summoned to Washington. American officials told them Pakistan should force the Taliban to moderate their positions and turn over Mr. bin Laden.

When the envoys returned, Pakistani officials said, the prime minister sent General Ziauddin to Kandahar to deliver the American message to Mullah Omar, who refused.

The next month, on Oct. 12, 1999, Mr. Sharif was overthrown in a military coup. At the time, Pakistan's top military commander, General Musharraf, was on his way back from Sri Lanka. His second in command was Lt. Gen. Aziz Khan, who had defended the Taliban while working for I.S.I. He made certain that power was handed over to General Musharraf when his plane landed in Islamabad.

Again, there were many reasons for the coup, but analysts said the agency and its loyalists felt Mr. Sharif had to go partly out of fear that he might buckle to American pressure and reverse Pakistan's policy toward the Taliban.

One of the new military ruler's first acts was to cancel a top-secret mission being planned with the United States to send commandos using I.S.I. intelligence information into Afghanistan to capture Mr. bin Laden.

Despite continuing pressure from the United States and sanctions against Afghanistan by the United Nations, General Musharraf held fast to his country's support of the Taliban until Sept. 11 changed the way much of the world viewed the Afghan militia and its guest, Mr. bin Laden.

Even then, however, the entrenched elements within the intelligence agency who had backed the Afghans refused to switch sides without a fight, according to senior Pakistani officials aligned against the Taliban loyalists. That fight, they say, is still ongoing.

-------- ukraine

Ukraine reporters to bear arms

World Scene
December 8, 2001
Washington Times
Combined dispatches and staff reports
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20011208-11786.htm

KIEV, Ukraine - Ukraine's beleaguered journalists won the right yesterday to carry guns with rubber bullets in recognition of the dangers faced by media workers in the former Soviet republic, the Interior Ministry said.

"This ruling by the Interior Ministry comes into force from today," said ministry spokesman Viktor Sidorenko, who added that gun licenses would only be issued to journalists who had received threats.

Journalists are frequently targeted in Ukraine. Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma was even implicated in the murder last year of opposition publisher Georgy Gongadze.

-------- us

U.S. Senate Approves $318 Billion Military Bill

December 8, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-congress-military.html?searchpv=reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate approved a $318 billion defense bill early on Saturday that boosts pay for U.S. troops and provides the Bush administration the full funding it sought for a national missile defense program.

On a voice vote, the Senate approved a fiscal 2002 defense spending measure that was delayed for weeks by wrangling over efforts to add emergency spending for homeland defense and New York's recovery from the Sept. 11 hijacked plane attacks.

The measure dramatically increases spending for the military as it wages the war on terrorism, providing $27 billion more than the fiscal 2001 measure but still $1.9 billion below President Bush's budget request.

With lawmakers rallying around Bush and the Pentagon during the U.S. military campaign in Afghanistan, the bill sparked few political battles. Most notably, Republicans and Democrats set aside their differences over a planned national missile defense program.

Accepting a compromise worked out by the Senate Armed Services committee after the Sept. 11 attacks, the measure grants $7 billion for development of the missile defense plan and gives Bush the option of using an additional $1.3 billion for missile defense or switching it to homeland security.

It also includes an across-the-board 5 percent pay raise, the centerpiece of a broad effort to increase the quality of life in the armed forces.

Health care and retirement benefits also get a boost, and selected pay grades and positions receive pay raises higher than 5 percent. The measure also reduces out-of-pocket housing costs for military personnel as part of a program to eliminate such expenses completely by 2005.

``We believe these increases will significantly aid our ability to recruit, and perhaps more importantly retain much needed military personnel,'' said Democratic Sen. Daniel Inouye, chairman of the Senate Appropriation Committee's defense panel.

PACKAGE OF EMERGENCY SPENDING

Added to the measure was a separate $20 billion package of emergency spending in response to the attacks in New York and Washington, but Democrats dropped an effort to add another $15 billion earlier on Friday.

The defense bill provides $61 billion for new weapons procurement, including eight additional Army UH-60 helicopters, nine MV-22 aircraft, 48 F-18 fighters, 13 F-22 fighters and 15 C-17 airlift planes.

Included is a provision allowing the Air Force to lease up to 100 Boeing 767s to replace an aging fleet of KC-135 air tankers that has been used heavily in the air campaign in Afghanistan.

The provision was pushed hard by Boeing, which has announced up to 30,000 job cuts since the attacks in New York and Washington and recently lost a lucrative Pentagon contract for the Joint Strike Fighter to competitor Lockheed.

Arizona Sen. John McCain blasted the proposal as ``corporate welfare'' for Boeing but did not directly challenge it on the floor.

``This is a bailout for Boeing aircraft -- nothing more, nothing less,'' said McCain, who said the Air Force had not included the program on its spending wish list this year and purchasing the planes would be cheaper than leasing them.

In a now annual floor speech, McCain also decried what he identified as $3.7 billion in unnecessary ``pork barrel'' spending in the defense measure.

``Even in the middle of a war, a war of monumental consequences and with no end in sight, the Appropriations Committee still is intent on using the Department of Defense as an agency for dispensing corporate welfare,'' he said.

Supporters of the tanker deal rushed to its defense, disputing McCain's figures and saying the Air Force had pushed for the program after seeing its tanker fleet exhausted by the heavy use in Afghanistan.

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, a North Dakota Democrat, said McCain's claim that the lease arrangement was more expensive was ``absolute, sheer nonsense.''

The House passed its version of the fiscal 2002 measure last month without the Boeing lease provision. The House bill includes $150 million to buy one 767 and test it as a replacement for the KC-135s.

The Senate added a measure sponsored by Republican Sen. Jesse Helms of North Carolina that would block U.S. cooperation with a proposed International Criminal Court in the Netherlands that Helms has described as a ``permanent kangaroo court.''

The House, which has endorsed a similar measure, does not have the court provision in its defense bill. Differences in the House and Senate defense bills must be worked out in a conference.


-------- POLICE / PRISONERS

Japanese Bailouts Benefited N. Korea, Officials Say
Taxpayers Footed Bill For Billions Allegedly Stolen by Credit Unions

By Doug Struck
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, December 8, 2001; Page A21
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A11420-2001Dec7?language=printer

TOKYO, Dec. 7 -- Japanese taxpayers have unwittingly underwritten the secret transfer to North Korea of billions of dollars through ghost accounts and fraudulent loans from Japanese credit unions, according to lawmakers here and information disclosed after a string of recent arrests.

Credit unions serving ethnic Koreans in Japan set up the accounts and loans to hide money funneled to Pyongyang, officials said. When the credit unions eventually collapsed, Japanese taxpayers were left to repay the credit union depositors.

So far, Japanese taxpayers have spent nearly $4.2 billion on the defunct credit unions, and estimates of the expected total bill run to nearly $10 billion.

"We pay them money and we get Taepodong missiles as a receipt," said Japanese lawmaker Yuriko Koike, referring to the 1998 launch of a North Korean missile over Japan that heightened hostility between the two countries.

The allegations have grown out of a series of arrests of credit union officers during the past four weeks, including the former financial chief of a Korean group that serves as Pyongyang's unofficial embassy here. A police raid last week on that group's Tokyo offices prompted demonstrations and an outcry by ethnic Koreans who say Japan is unfairly targeting them.

"The Japanese authorities haven't arrested any Japanese bankers," complained So Chung On, a spokesman for the Korean group, Chongryon. "This is ethnic discrimination and reflects the hostile policy toward us."

North Korea has joined that chorus with a propaganda blast decrying the "highhanded criminal act and despicable political crackdown" on Korean residents in Japan who are sympathetic to the Stalinist government in Pyongyang.

There are an estimated 630,000 Koreans in Japan -- the country's largest ethnic minority. Many are families of those who were forcibly brought or voluntarily came here when Japan occupied Korea from 1910 to 1945. Many retain Korean citizenship; Chongryon claims nearly one-third of them came from what is now North Korea. Many still have families there, and are supporters of Pyongyang.

Japan has long looked the other way as money flowed from these residents to North Korea. Much of it was thought to have been skimmed off proceeds of pachinko gambling parlors or smuggled by Koreans when they visited their families.

But allegations that the credit unions have systematically siphoned large sums of money back to the government, which were then replenished by Japanese taxpayers, have raised sensitive new issues.

"I suspect a significant portion of the money we have already given [to the credit unions] has gone to North Korea," said Kiyoshi Ueda, a member of parliament who has pursued the issue in its Finance Committee.

Any source of foreign currency would be of immense value to North Korea. The country's economy is in shambles, with few exports to generate income, other than the production of missiles. The country cannot buy enough food to feed its 22 million people. It depends on foreign food aid, much of it from the United States, a humiliation to the government that takes pride in self-sufficiency.

North Korea's secretive missile sales are being squeezed under pressure from the United States. And an annual payment to Pyongyang of about $1 billion from the Hyundai Corp. to operate a tourism project, considered vital to North Korea's currency income, recently ended because of the South Korean conglomerate's financial troubles.

The Japanese media have carried anonymous complaints from Korean residents in Japan that they were pressured to cooperate with the scheme, and to siphon off money from loans and other transactions to transfer funds through Chongryon officials to North Korea. Some said they feared endangering family members still in North Korea if they did not cooperate.

On Wednesday, police in western Japan arrested the chairman of the Korean Credit Unions' Association in Japan and his predecessor, bringing to 14 the number of arrests since Nov. 8, according to Chongryon, or the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan.

Koreans here have long complained of discrimination, and the credit unions were founded because Koreans had a hard time getting loans from Japanese banks. But Ueda, a Democrat, and Koike, a Conservative, contended that local authorities charged with regulating small credit unions failed to oversee the institutions for fear of being accused of singling out the Korean banks.

"They were hesitant to investigate," Koike said. "The Korean institutions were untouchable."

There were once 38 credit unions serving the Korean community, but as they faced insolvency during the past decade, smaller credit unions were absorbed into larger ones, which in turn became insolvent.

Police last week charged Kang Young Kwan, the former financial officer of Chongryon, of embezzlement. Police said he had instructed top officials of one of the failed institutions, the Chogin Tokyo credit union, to lend about $6.7 million to a fictitious account between 1984 and 1998. Japanese reporters found Kang living modestly in public housing, and have asked where the funds went.

Ueda said investigators have uncovered fictitious accounts in the credit unions, and unsupported loans on the books. The loans were inflated by grossly overvaluing collateral. For example, a property worth $1.1 million was valued at $24 million to justify a loan, he said.

"It's clear that on investments to buy land, 20 to 30 percent was added to the original value, and that was sent to North Korea," Koike said. "These Korean credit unions were a wallet for North Korea."

"The credit unions haven't sent any money to North Korea. This is inflammatory," protested So, the Chongryon spokesman. "It's not true that our organization has strong influence" on the credit unions.

He said the Korean credit unions failed for the same reason as Japanese institutions: economic recession and the collapse of inflated land values in the 1980s. The bailouts given to the Korean credit unions are dwarfed by the $72 billion paid so far to protect debtors of failed Japanese banks.

Charges that the Korean institutions are being unfairly targeted prompted the typically secretive Tokyo Metropolitan Police last Friday to take the unusual step of publicly defending its raid on the Chongryon headquarters as "proper."

----

THE MILITARY TRIBUNALS
In Letter, 300 Law Professors Oppose Tribunals Plan

New York Times
December 8, 2001
By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/08/national/08TRIB.html

WASHINGTON, Dec. 7 - More than 300 law professors from around the country are protesting President Bush's order to establish military tribunals for foreign terrorist suspects.

In a letter that originated at Yale Law School, the lawyers assert that such tribunals are "legally deficient, unnecessary and unwise."

The lawyers, who represent varying institutions and political philosophies, say the tribunals as outlined so far would violate the separation of powers, would not comport with constitutional standards of due process and would allow the president to violate binding treaties.

The tribunals, they say, assume that procedures used in civil courts or military courts-martial would be inadequate to handle such cases. And they say that using them would undercut the ability of the United States to protest when such tribunals are used against American citizens in other countries.

The letter was sent to Senator Patrick J. Leahy, the Vermont Democrat who is chairman of the Judiciary Committee and who questioned Attorney General John Ashcroft at length on Thursday about the tribunals.

Mr. Ashcroft defended them, saying they would be used only for war crimes. Referring to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Mr. Ashcroft said, "When we come to those responsible for this, say who are in Afghanistan, are we supposed to read them the Miranda rights, hire a flamboyant defense lawyer, bring them back to the United States to create a new cable network of Osama TV?"

For his part, Senator Leahy said that some of his concerns about President Bush's initial military order had been allayed by information that had emerged as a result of hearings on Capitol Hill.

Nonetheless, Judith Resnik, who teaches procedure and federal courts at Yale and was instrumental in drafting the letter, said there should be an open discussion of why traditional courts were not appropriate for trying terrorist suspects.

"What I would hope is that an open collaborative process between the executive and the Congress would develop an appropriate response and would explore the pros and cons of using the current available avenues," she said.

At the same time, John W. Dean III, the former Watergate figure in the Nixon White House and an early proponent of the tribunals, said he believed that much of the criticism could be dispelled if the White House would seek Congressional authority for the tribunals.

As a matter of law, he said, it has never been resolved whether the president needs Congressional authority for such tribunals, but both Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt had it when they used these tribunals.

"The president would be on a stronger footing if they explained what they are doing, and it would eliminate 300 law professors, who are assuming the worst case, from getting together," Mr. Dean said. He added that statements by Alberto R. Gonzales, the White House counsel, made the tribunals seem less worrisome than Mr. Bush's military order, but he faulted the White House for not better explaining the details.

"What mystifies me is how poorly the administration has presented this concept," he said. "For as media-conscious presidency as we have, they have done a lousy job of telling us what they're doing."

Asked if Congressional authority would allay her concerns, Ms. Resnik said, "My concerns are not resolved by an after-the-fact Congressional imprimatur."

--------

Police to Test Scooters

December 8, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Police-Scooter.html

BOSTON (AP) -- Police in Boston and Manchester, N.H., say they will become the first departments in the country to test drive the Segway Human Transporter, the two-wheeled, battery-powered scooter unveiled amid much fanfare this week.

Boston police expect to use five scooters during New Year's Eve celebrations, Deputy Superintendent William Casey said Saturday. Details are still being worked out with union representatives.

The city won't pay for the machines -- valued at about $8,000 each -- during a trial phase that may last until next summer. Instead a company established by inventor Dean Kamen, will follow the pilot project closely.

The Segway HT, unveiled Monday, can carry a single rider up to 250 pounds and a cargo of up to 75 pounds. It has a top speed of about 12 miles per hour and can go about 15 miles on a single battery charge.

In Manchester, N.H., where the machines are manufactured, police will also use about a half-dozen of the transporters starting next month for a three-week trial, said R. Gary Bridge, senior vice president for marketing of Segway LLC.

Kamen, who heads Manchester, N.H.-based DEKA Research and Development, is also letting the U.S. Postal Service try 20 of the machines on mail routes in Florida and New Hampshire.

The Postal Service will consider further tests by a larger number of its almost 100,000 walking carriers if the initial trial goes well, USPS spokeswoman Sue Brennan has said.

-------- terrorism

Study: U.S. calm in times of crisis

December 8, 2001
By Guy Taylor
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washingtontimes.com/metro/20011208-72622292.htm

Never underestimate the American public's ability to deal with a crisis. That's the conclusion of a new Johns Hopkins study on bioterrorism released this week.

"Bioterrorism and the People: How to Vaccinate a City against Panic" is critical of the federal government's tendency to assume that Americans will panic in an emergency situation.

While shaping plans for responding to major disasters, the U.S. government has an ugly habit of excluding the general public, according to Thomas A. Glass, one of the authors of the study. "Often panic is caused by [the actions] of government officials, not the disaster itself."

Mr. Glass and Monica Schoch-Spana, a fellow researcher at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, argue that government officials traditionally exaggerate the likelihood of anarchy.

The study points out numerous disasters during the 20th century in which general public response was calm.

"Historical records have shown that instances of panic in the general public are very isolated," Mr. Glass said. "Life is different from disaster movies, where people scramble over each other without helping one another."

"In disaster after disaster, Hurricane Andrew to the first World Trade Center bombing to the San Francisco and Los Angeles earthquakes, we've interviewed so many people who said it was funny how calm everyone was," Mr. Glass said.

Before the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, specialists believed smoky stairwells were a recipe for panic. "What we found instead," Mr. Glass said, "was a pattern of very orderly self-evacuation. People were helping each other."

Mr. Glass and Mrs. Schoch-Spana point to the 1979 nuclear meltdown at Three Mile Island power plant in Pennsylvania as an example of the government's mistrust of the general public.

"In the aftermath of that nuclear accident, officials discovered their evacuation plan was out of date. By the time they discovered a new plan, people had already left the community on their own," Mr. Glass said. "The public moved more quickly and efficiently than it took for officials to put a plan in place and tell people what to do."

More recently, in October when two D.C. postal workers died from exposure to anthrax-tainted mail, D.C. health officials passed out plastic bags of antibiotics to thousands of workers.

Many of the workers were visibly frustrated at the prospect of being treated without being tested for exposure to anthrax. One angry worker said: "This is like taking chemotherapy and you haven't even been diagnosed with cancer yet."

Bioterrorism specialists argue that by doing this, health officials lost the trust of people they were trying to help. Mr. Glass and Mrs. Schoch-Spana say this is where future government responses to disasters could improve by recognizing that "information is as important as medicine."

"It's pretty clear that there was a breach of trust," Mr. Glass said. "It's a good example of how people tend to underestimate the public's need for timely information."

The study by Mr. Glass and Mrs. Schoch-Spana will appear in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases on Jan. 15.


-------- OTHER

-------- human rights

Millions in Afghanistan Await Aid

December 8, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Uzbekistan-Afghan-Aid.html

TASHKENT, Uzbekistan (AP) -- With millions of people facing winter cold, disease and hunger in northern Afghanistan, humanitarian relief has been moving painfully slowly by river barge from neighboring Uzbekistan.

Plans announced Saturday for opening the Friendship Bridge road route over the Amu Darya River border will likely speed things up.

Aid stockpiled in Uzbekistan will be taken by truck convoys to an estimated 3.4 million people in northern Afghanistan dependent on outside relief, including about 1.1 million in refugee camps across seven northern provinces.

``It definitely will save a lot of hassles,'' Ruppa Joshi, a spokesperson for the U.N. Children's Fund, said of the bridge's opening. She said there were reports of babies already perishing from exposure to the increasingly frigid weather.

Joshi said UNICEF's priorities included items to protect against winter conditions, milk, biscuits and medicines. Nearly 200,000 blankets are being flown from India in coming days.

``We are sitting here hungry, on the brink of starvation and nobody is interested in our plight,'' said one old woman, huddled in a threadbare tent at the Zayeni Ghaleh refugee camp on the outskirts of Mazar-e-Sharif in northern Afghanistan. The woman, whose name was not available, spoke to AP Television News Friday.

The woman, who had lost contact with her husband, said she had been at the makeshift camp for about four months and had earlier worked as a laborer in cotton fields. More than 300 families from various regions of the north were seeking shelter at Zayeni Ghaleh.

UNICEF predicted that some 100,000 babies could die this winter if adequate supplies did not reach them in time.

The French military is also reportedly working to reopen the airport at Mazar-e-Sharif, which could serve as another conduit for humanitarian supplies. Airlifts would prove a safer option than land convoys, amid reports of Taliban hold-outs and conflicts among local warlords.

So far, aid has been moving by barge from Termez, an Uzbek port on the Amu Darya, to the Afghan side of the Amu-Darya River.

An Uzbek Foreign Ministry official said it might take a week before traffic started rolling across the Friendship Bridge to Mazar-e-Sharif and elsewhere in the north.

The Friendship bridge has been closed since 1996. Secretary of State Colin Powell announced its reopening at a press conference Saturday with Uzbek President Islam Karimov.

Civil war in Afghanistan and problems with Uzbekistan's own Islamic fundamentalists in the frontier region has isolated and impoverished Termez -- once a thriving trade centers. It has become a key base for aid agencies.


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Legal groups to advise FBI-interview targets

Around the Nation
December 8, 2001
Washington Times
Combined dispatches and staff reports
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20011208-61661668.htm

CHICAGO - The American Civil Liberties Union and other organizations are offering free legal help to those targeted for questioning by the U.S. Justice Department as part of the terror investigation.

"Unless they are apprised of their rights, it is an uneven playing field between law enforcement and those being questioned," ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero said Friday.

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Mumia - Abu Jamal Supporters Rally

December 8, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Mumia-Abu-Jamal-Rallies.html

PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- Several hundred supporters of death-row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal rallied Saturday for his release, marking the 20-year anniversary of the shooting of a police officer.

Seven protesters were arrested and accused of rioting and assaulting police as they marched through the streets. Two officers and two demonstrators were taken to a hospital for treatment of minor injuries, police said.

Carrying signs and chanting ``Brick by brick, wall by wall, we are going to free, Mumia Abu-Jamal,'' the 250 demonstrators proclaimed Abu-Jamal's innocence and demanded his release.

Following their rally at City Hall, demonstrators marched to the site of Faulkner's shooting. A confrontation later broke out with police, authorities said.

In a separate rally Sunday, exactly 20 years after the shooting death of Daniel Faulkner, supporters of the slain police officer planned to dedicate a plaque in Faulkner's honor at the site of the shooting.

Members of Justice for Police Officer Daniel Faulkner say Abu-Jamal is an unrepentant, convicted cop-killer who deserves to die.

Jamal has maintained his innocence, saying he was shot by police as he ran to the scene and then beaten.

In the pre-dawn hours of Dec. 9, 1981, Faulkner had pulled over Abu-Jamal's brother and a scuffle ensued. Prosecutors say Abu-Jamal ran to the scene, shooting Faulkner in the back as he ran.

Faulkner then shot Abu-Jamal in the abdomen and fell. Prosecutors say Abu-Jamal shot Faulkner in the face and was found wounded with his revolver nearby.

The following year, a jury convicted Abu-Jamal, an award-winning radio journalist and former Black Panther, and sentenced him to death.

Abu-Jamal has argued that his former lawyers did a poor job and that he has new evidence that could clear him. His federal appeal is pending.

Celebrities, death penalty opponents and foreign politicians have rallied to Abu-Jamal's cause, calling him a political prisoner and saying he was railroaded by a racist justice system.

Student Marina Rajewsky acted as a translator for several other French activists who met with Abu-Jamal in his jail cell on Friday.

``He was very aware of the support he has outside, and is encouraged by it,'' she said.


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