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NUCLEAR
German Nuclear Dump Faces Protest
Iraq Inspector Girds for a Test, and Spotlight
Security Council backs U.S. on Iraq
U.S. ready to hit Iraq 'quickly'
U.N. Orders Iraq to Disarm
Resolution 1441
Iraq Puts Brave Face on UN Demands as Clock Ticks
Gaps Cloud Iraq Nuclear Assessments
Japan, U.S., S.Korea Fail to Agree on Oil for N.Korea
Second Storm Hammers Northern California, Nevada
Ex-Lockheed uranium workers subpoenaed
U.S.-German Chill Eases
Homeland Security Legislation Becomes Republican Priority
How Powell Lined Up Votes, Starting With His President's
MILITARY
D.C. likely to get two counterterror labs
Colombia Extends Emergency
Iraq to Respond to U.N. Ultimatum
'Bush's Iraq plans: Reincarnation of failed 1930s British policy'
Nato states 'waste billions'
Bulgaria credits hard work for NATO prospects
Commentary: NATO: American or Atlantic
Pakistan Religious Want U.S. Out
Pentagon Plans a Computer System
Cuba hits expulsion of envoys by U.S.
US says missile strike in Yemen legal, may be emulated in Asia
US tanks ready to roll on Baghdad
Military Faces Planning Dilemma
Coast Guard's multifaceted mission
Army's High - Speed Laser Hits Shell
U.S. Plans 250,000 Troops for Iraq
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS
Case Could Break Legal Ground
Nine groups added to foreign terror list
US Official: Yemen Attack Was Legal
ENERGY AND OTHER
Shaken Power Market May Face More Cuts
Duke Gets Subpoena Over Calif. Market
Rights Group Cites African Leader
ACTIVISTS
Rights Group Questions Attack
War with Iraq About Oil - San Francisco Activists
Iranian Students Stage Largest Protest in 3 Years
Half - A - Million March in Anti - War Rally in Italy
Throng in Florence protests Iraq war
Subject: Faith Community March on White House 12/10
Zones hinder free speech
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- germany
German Nuclear Dump Faces Protest
November 9, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Germany-Nuclear-Waste.html
GORLEBEN, Germany (AP) -- Several thousand anti-nuclear activists joined about 100 farmers on tractors Saturday to protest a forthcoming shipment of nuclear waste to a dump in northern Germany.
The demonstrators, whistling and beating drums, gathered for a rally a few hundred yards from the dump at Gorleben, where the shipment of 12 containers of waste from a reprocessing plant at La Hague in France is expected to arrive in midweek after a trip across France and Germany that starts Monday.
Police estimated that 2,200 people took part, while organizers put the figure at more than 4,000.
Anti-nuclear activists argue that neither the waste containers nor the dump, at a disused salt mine, are safe.
The latest shipment is the first since last November, when demonstrators repeatedly defied police to stage sit-down protests on the rails and the road along the shipment's route through Germany.
As on previous occasions, authorities have banned demonstrations along the final stretch of the route to Gorleben during the shipment itself.
Spent fuel from Germany's 19 nuclear power plants is sent to France and Britain for reprocessing under contracts that oblige Germany to take back the waste.
Germany resumed waste shipments last year after a three-year break imposed by the previous government after radioactive leaks were discovered in some containers.
Also last year, the government and power companies signed an agreement to phase out nuclear power within about 20 years. Anti-nuclear activists hope that protests against the shipments will push up the security bill and force a quicker shutdown.
-------- inspections
Iraq Inspector Girds for a Test, and Spotlight
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, November 9, 2002; Page A18
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A30395-2002Nov8?language=printer
Hans Blix, the low-key, 74-year-old Swedish diplomat, is about to step into an unaccustomed world spotlight, taking on the most controversial mission of his career, one in which the outcome could mean war or peace.
As executive chairman of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, Blix will have a major role in the ultimate decision of whether there will be a U.S.-led invasion of Iraq or a prolonged period of monitoring and inspection of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's factories and military installations to determine whether he has hidden or developed chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.
A Swedish-educated lawyer who did graduate work at Columbia University in New York and earned a Ph.D. from Cambridge in England, Blix holds the philosophic view that arms inspections alone cannot provide the Iraqi government a clean bill of health. As he said in a speech in Moscow last month, "There can always be some little bug or proscribed item hidden somewhere. There will be a residue of uncertainty [about total disarmament], and it should be frankly reported."
The goal, he said, should be a very thorough and professional inspection that provides "a high degree of assurance that there are no significant proscribed items or activities."
Although he worked his way up in the Swedish foreign service, becoming his country's minister for foreign affairs in 1978, and beginning in 1981 served 16 years as director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna, the Iraq job could be the summit of his career.
It also could silence the critics who have said Blix is too soft to handle Hussein. It was while Blix headed the IAEA that Iraq and North Korea violated their nonproliferation agreements and secretly worked on producing nuclear weapons.
Blix has defended his actions by saying IAEA inspectors are permitted to go only to declared sites and that Baghdad and Pyongyang deceived his agency as well as U.S., British and other intelligence services with their clandestine operations.
When the programs were discovered, Blix led the teams that determined the full extent of operations. He also oversaw the monitoring and verification systems put in place in Iraq after the Persian Gulf War in 1991. Having dealt with Hussein before, Blix has repeatedly said he would not put up with the "cat and mouse game" the Iraqi leader played with earlier U.N. inspectors.
Nonetheless, when U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan wanted someone to take over renewed inspections in Iraq he turned first to Rolf Ekeus, a Swedish diplomat who ran the first Iraq U.N. inspection group. That organization ended its work in 1998 when the inspectors withdrew after repeated confrontations with Hussein.
It was only after Iraq's supporters on the Security Council turned down Ekeus that Annan turned to Blix. Ironically, the two Swedes have a long-running competitive relationship going back to their days together in the Swedish foreign service. Today, Ekeus is quick to point out areas in which he thinks Blix may not be tough enough, and Blix, in turn, notes where his approach is going to be more effective than that of Ekeus.
Vice President Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld have publicly stated they believe inspections will not disarm Hussein and their aides have privately questioned Blix's capabilities. Aware of those attitudes, Blix supported some key parts of the U.S. and British U.N. Security Council resolution on renewed inspections and talked tough to Iraqi negotiators. Blix also breezed through meetings with senior administration officials in Washington last week that included listening to President Bush pledge support for the U.N. effort during a 10-minute session in the Oval Office.
Even Cheney, with Secretary of State Colin L. Powell present, talked to Blix about the inspection plans, primarily questioning him on how long it would take to come to conclusions.
But Blix also made clear in Washington that the inspections will be a U.N. -- not American -- operation. He would accept U.S. intelligence on where he should look but would not consider it to be orders of where to go and what to do. As of this week, the 31 Americans on his 220-person staff are the largest country contingent, but they all are U.N. employees.
Blix will have responsibility for chemical and biological weapons, plus missiles and other delivery systems; Mohammed El Baradei, an Egyptian who succeeded Blix at the IAEA, will handle the nuclear side. After the two met Bush and others at the White House, El Baradei went on al-Jazeera, the Arabic-language network that covers the Middle East, and spoke positively about the inspection process.
While savoring a chance to make the U.N. inspections work, no matter how they turn out for Hussein, Blix has admitted to friends that he is unprepared for the media frenzy that inevitably will be generated by the return of inspectors to Iraq.
At least one well-known network personality has had a friend arrange a New York dinner party for Blix. This is far different from the 16 years at the IAEA, when he sent printed copies of his speeches to friends around the world in hopes they would read them.
----
Security Council backs U.S. on Iraq
By Betsy Pisik
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
November 9, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20021109-15474968.htm
NEW YORK - The U.N. Security Council unanimously presented Iraq with an ultimatum yesterday to cooperate with U.N. weapons inspectors and disarm or face certain military action.
The 15-0 vote, a powerful and unprecedented endorsement of the Bush administration's tough line against Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, capped eight weeks of increasingly complex negotiations between Washington and other world capitals.
"The resolution approved today presents the Iraqi regime with a test, a final test," President Bush told reporters at the White House just moments after the council vote.
Indicating Washington's willingness to put military might behind the diplomatic demands, Mr. Bush added, "The United States prefers that Iraq meet its obligations voluntarily, yet we are prepared for the alternative. In either case, the just demands of the world will be met."
British Prime Minister Tony Blair told reporters in London that the message of the U.N. vote to Iraq was: "Disarm or you face force. Be under no doubt whatsoever of that."
The Iraqi government had no immediate comment on the vote, and Baghdad's state-run television did not report the news.
"Iraq will certainly study the resolution and decide whether we can accept it or not," said Iraqi U.N. Ambassador Mohammed al-Douri.
Immediately after the vote, chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix said he would lead an advance team to Baghdad on Nov. 18.
Diplomats said they were pleasantly surprised to find that persistent holdouts Russia and Syria agreed to join the resolution, which was co-sponsored by Britain.
The 15-0 vote both reaffirms the central role of the United Nations in resolving conflicts and potentially shores up the relationship between the organization and the Republican administration in Washington, U.N. and foreign diplomats said. Mr. Bush repeatedly challenged the organization to act or risk losing "relevance" in the face of Iraq's repeated defiance of U.N. mandates.
The unanimous vote also deals a stronger hand to U.N. weapons inspectors, who in the past have been subject to Iraqi harassment, deception and threats.
"We were very pleased that the resolution was adopted by unanimity that strengthens our mandate very much," Mr. Blix said.
The final resolution, six pages of carefully crafted diplomatic language, demands complete and immediate access to all Iraqi facilities, and sets out a strict timetable for weapons inspections to begin. It also holds out the implicit threat of force at nearly any stage.
The Iraqi government has until Friday to formally accept the terms of Resolution 1441.
Baghdad must then file before December 7 a complete declaration of its chemical-, biological- and nuclear-weapons programs. This document will provide the starting point for U.N. inspections and is the first substantive test of Iraq's commitment to cooperate.
"For 11 years, without success, we have tried a variety of ways, including diplomacy, inspections and economic sanctions to obtain Iraqi compliance," said U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte after the vote yesterday.
"By this resolution, we are now united in trying a different course. That course is to send a clear message to Iraq insisting on its disarmament in the area of weapons of mass destruction and delivery systems or face the consequences," he said.
In response to French and Russian demands, the resolution calls for the council to immediately "consider" inspectors' complaints of noncompliance. However, U.S. officials and other diplomats made it clear that they are not obligated to wait for council permission to act militarily if Iraq does not cooperate.
"This resolution does not constrain any member-state from acting to defend itself against the threat posed by Iraq or to enforce relevant U.N. resolutions, and protect world peace and security," Mr. Negroponte said.
But in their public comments during a dramatic morning debate, several Security Council nations remained leery of the prospect of unilateral force, despite American diplomats' efforts to assure them that the resolution contained no "hidden triggers."
France, Russia, China, Ireland and Mexico were among those nations urging restraint yesterday, referring to the language in the resolution that calls on the council to convene immediately to discuss any infractions and decide how to proceed.
"The resolution strengthens the role and authority of the Security Council," said French Ambassador Jean-David Levitte. "We had reflected that objective in our request for a two-stage approach so as to ensure that the Security Council maintains control of the process at each stage."
Those assurances, combined with high-level arm-twisting, apparently were enough for Syria, the only Arab nation on the Security Council.
"My country voted in favor after receiving reassurances that the resolution would not be used as pretext to strike Iraq," said Syria's Deputy U.N. Ambassador Faysal Mekdad, who noted that last-minute phone calls from American, British, French and Russian leaders swayed Damascus' vote.
Syria has repeatedly questioned why the United States would go to war to readmit weapons inspectors but defend Israel over what it called repeated human rights violations. Syria's vote could be an important source of leverage when Washington tries to build regional support for war.
U.S. and British officials worked the phones incessantly for the past week, diplomats said, to soothe concerns and meet objections from France and Russia, both of which could have vetoed the final measure.
Washington worked especially hard to win Moscow's support, including refusing to condemn publicly the army's lethal use of gas to end a recent hostage standoff and agreeing to add some Chechen groups to international terrorist lists.
Yesterday, Russian Ambassador Sergey Lavrov expressed satisfaction with the outcome.
"Implementation of the resolution requires goodwill of all involved," Mr. Lavrov said in an apparent message to Washington and Baghdad. He called on the parties to "concentrate on moving forward and not [yield] to unilateral interpretation of the resolution."
In the two months since Mr. Bush challenged the United Nations to uphold its own resolutions, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell has postponed foreign trips and has labored during international meetings to win support for key U.S. demands.
In the end, council members said, Baghdad was unquestionably obligated to cooperate with inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency and the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission.
----
U.S. ready to hit Iraq 'quickly'
By Rowan Scarborough
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
November 9, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20021109-4499673.htm
The U.S. military would be prepared to strike Iraq within weeks if Saddam Hussein violates the terms of a new U.N. resolution that was approved yesterday, military officials say.
"If the president decides that military action is an appropriate course of action, then the U.S. military will be prepared to move and to move quickly," Victoria Clarke, spokesman for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, said yesterday.
Hans Blix, who heads the weapons-inspection team, plans to enter Iraq on Nov. 18 and start work around Nov. 25. The unanimously approved resolution calls on him to "immediately" report "any interference by Iraq," which the United States could cite as justification for an attack.
If interference by Saddam occurs this winter, then the Pentagon will quickly build up a sizable force near Iraq ready to carry out Army Gen. Tommy Franks' battle plan. Gen. Franks, who heads U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Fla., has presented President Bush with several war options.
"We'd be in place by about the first or second week in December," said retired Army Lt. Col. Robert Maginnis. "That's given the assumption the president is going to activate the Reserve and Guard to provide domestic security.
"Saddam has plenty of agents inside this country, and they are ready to create domestic disturbances to detract attention from what's going on over in Iraq. That won't be activated until Saddam sees hostilities are imminent."
Military sources say war options range from 50,000 to 200,000 troops. All plans would rely on lightning-fast air and ground assaults, some indigenous forces and assurances that some Iraqi generals will turn on Saddam.
By December or January, the United States could have four carrier battle groups in the region, giving Gen. Franks roughly 260 aircraft and hundreds of Tomahawk cruise missiles. The Air Force is positioning B-2 stealth bombers in England and on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia. Military sources said as many as 16 of 21 B-2s would participate in the war's early stages, dropping satellite-guided bombs on key command and communications centers.
A major aim would be speed and stealth to achieve victory as soon as possible, thus keeping civilian casualties at a minimum.
On Thursday, Mr. Bush said of his war plans: "I also want to remind you that should we have to use troops, should it become a necessity in order to disarm him, the United States, with friends, will move swiftly with force to do the job. You don't have to worry about that. We will do what it takes militarily to succeed."
Pentagon civilian policy-makers, the hard-liners who have pushed the administration to confront Saddam, have little confidence in Mr. Blix, a career diplomat. They say he will be fooled by Saddam's long-standing denial and deception techniques. They also say Mr. Blix is not likely to stand up to Iraqi forces or report to the Security Council as required when Baghdad blocks his team's work.
"Blix is not a hard-nose guy. He's a diplomat," said Col. Maginnis, a Washington military analyst. "Saddam is going to put weapons in residential neighborhoods. Vans cart stuff around. They have perfected the art of sanitizing these areas."
An important date in the new U.N. resolution, the 17th on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, is Dec. 8. By then, Saddam is required to account for all his prohibited weapons of mass destruction, materials to make such weapons and delivery systems, such as ballistic missiles and unmanned vehicles.
"That list is not going to be worth the paper it's written on," Col. Maginnis said.
A bogus list could prompt Mr. Bush to act, or the administration may wait for a series of violations, take its case back to the Security Council, then start an attack to disarm Saddam, with or without U.N. approval.
All the while, the buildup will continue. The United States continues to move supplies into the region. There are now enough tanks, armored vehicles and supplies to equip four Army brigades.
Units likely to head to Kuwait are the 101st Airborne Division and 1st Cavalry Division based in the United States, and the 1st Armored and 1st Infantry divisions based in Europe.
"We're not going to put a big footprint over there until we know we're going to do something," Col. Maginnis said.
U.S. planners are eyeing February as the best time to start a war. This would give the military time to oust Saddam, stabilize the country and begin a transition to a new government before Iraq's oppressively hot summer begins.
----
U.N. Orders Iraq to Disarm
'Serious Consequences' Threatened if Baghdad Does Not Comply
By Colum Lynch
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, November 9, 2002; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A30317-2002Nov8?language=printer
UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 8 -- The U.N. Security Council unanimously approved a tough new disarmament mandate for Iraq today, warning President Saddam Hussein he must scrap his weapons programs or face "serious consequences" that almost certainly would be a U.S.-led war against his government.
The 15 to 0 vote represented a significant achievement for the Bush administration. It has spent nearly eight weeks working to satisfy the demands of Russia, France and other nations that the United States pursue its Iraq policy under U.N. auspices, even as it refused to abandon its ultimate goal of confronting Hussein -- through force if necessary.
The resolution was endorsed not only by Russia and France but also by Syria, a council member that until the final minutes had said it would oppose the measure directed against its neighbor and fellow Arab state. Syria's deputy U.N. representative said his government agreed to support the resolution only after receiving "high level" assurances from Washington, London, Paris and Moscow "that this resolution would not be used as a pretext to strike Iraq."
Speaking in the Rose Garden minutes after the vote, President Bush renewed his warning -- set out in his Sept. 12 speech to the U.N. General Assembly -- that Iraq must dismantle chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs or face the prospect of war.
"With the resolution just passed, the United Nations Security Council has met important responsibilities, upheld its principles and given clear and fair notice that Saddam Hussein must fully disclose and destroy his weapons of mass destruction," Bush said. "His cooperation must be prompt and unconditional or he will face the severest consequences."
The adoption of Resolution 1441 set the stage for the return of an advance team of U.N. weapons inspectors to Baghdad on Nov. 18, resuming a disarmament process that ended in late 1998 when inspectors withdrew shortly before the United States and Britain launched airstrikes against Iraq to protest Hussein's intransigence.
Armed with a strong new mandate and backed by a unified council, the inspectors face a challenge of squeezing a complicated and ambitious disarmament effort into a tight schedule. They must report back to the United Nations on Iraq's hidden weapons program within just over three months.
The rare display of unity in the council will increase pressure on Hussein to grant the inspectors unprecedented access to suspected weapons facilities.
"I urge the Iraqi leadership -- for the sake of its own people, and for the sake of world security and world order -- to seize this opportunity, and thereby begin to end the isolation and suffering of the Iraqi people," U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan said after the vote. "If Iraq's defiance continues, however, the Security Council must face its responsibility."
Iraq's U.N. ambassador, Mohammed Douri, said his government would study the resolution and decide "whether we can accept it or not." But he told Reuters that he is "very pessimistic."
"This resolution is crafted in such a way to prevent inspectors to return to Iraq," Douri said.
There was no official reaction in Baghdad. A commentary read on an Iraqi satellite television channel said "the resolution represents the dream" of U.S. policies, "which have pushed the world to the edge of war and violated for 12 years international laws and norms."
Bush's closest foreign ally, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, repeated the president's threat, warning Hussein that he will face military action if he violates the terms of the resolution.
"Defy the U.N.'s will and we will disarm you by force," Blair said outside 10 Downing Street, his official residence, shortly after the vote.
Although the resolution falls short of the automatic endorsement of military force that the United States initially sought, U.S. officials maintained that it preserves the president's authority to strike Iraq if the United Nations fails to disarm it. The final deal on the text was struck only after the administration provided assurances that it would give the council a chance to consider any Iraqi violations before undertaking military action.
"One way or another . . . Iraq will be disarmed," John D. Negroponte, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said after the vote. "This resolution doesn't constrain any member state from acting to defend itself against the threat posed by Iraq."
Senior U.S. officials said the resolution preserved the three main elements sought by Bush. It finds Iraq in "material breach" of its disarmament requirements, defines Iraq's obligations and threatens "serious consequences" if it fails to comply -- a phrase the administration interprets as an endorsement of military action. Other council members differ.
France, Russia and other countries that oppose U.S. military action said the resolution diminishes the likelihood of war and establishes a pivotal role for the Security Council in deciding what kind of response Iraq will face if it flouts the resolution.
"The resolution deflects the direct threat of war," Russia's U.N. ambassador, Sergey Lavrov, told the council. "As a result of intensive negotiations, the resolution that has just been adopted does not contain any provision about automatic use of force."
Jean-David Levitte, France's U.N. ambassador, said the resolution "strengthens the role and authority of the Security Council," in determining whether Iraq will face military action. But he made it clear that even the council's patience is limited.
"War can only be a last resort," Levitte told the council. "The rules of the game set by the Security Council are clear and demanding. If Iraq wishes to avoid confrontation, it must understand that the opportunity it has been given is the last."
The unanimous adoption of the resolution represented a personal victory for Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, who had advised Bush to pursue Iraq's disarmament through the United Nations.
Powell was convinced as early as Oct. 30 that he had secured the nine votes required for adoption of the resolution. But he decided to press ahead in the hope of unifying the council behind Washington's policy -- a course whose outcome was not determined until just before the 15 Security Council members sat down to vote.
France had led efforts to water down the resolution, but embraced the measure after a telephone conversation Thursday between Bush and French President Jacques Chirac. Powell followed with a phone call to French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin and worked out a final compromise that strengthens the role of inspectors in determining Iraqi violations.
Bush was unable, however, to extract a commitment from Russia President Vladimir Putin to follow suit. But Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov phoned Powell at 9 o'clock this morning -- an hour before the scheduled vote -- and "said they would be voting yes," a senior U.S. official said.
That left Syria. "We were still not sure about the Syrian vote," the official added.
On Thursday night, Syria's deputy U.N. representative, Fayssal Mekdad, told the council it might be "impossible" to vote for the resolution. But under intense pressure from the United States, France and Britain, he informed Negroponte minutes before the vote he would back the resolution.
After eight weeks of often difficult negotiations, the vote was over in an instant. Chinese Ambassador Zhang Yishan, the council's current chairman, sat down in the buzzing chamber, called the meeting to order and asked for a show of hands.
Fifteen rose around the table -- those of the permanent five (the United States, Britain, Russia, France and China), as well as Syria, Colombia, Ireland, Mauritius, Norway, Singapore, Bulgaria, Cameroon, Guinea and Mexico.
The resolution reinforces U.N. inspectors' rules of engagement in Iraq. It provides them with the authority to demand "immediate, unimpeded, unconditional, and unrestricted access" to any site, including eight presidential compounds that have been subject to special procedures that rendered surprise inspections impossible.
Iraq is required to confirm within seven days that it intends to comply. It has an additional 23 days to provide a "currently accurate, full and complete declaration" of the status of its civilian and military biological, chemical and nuclear programs.
The inspectors will have up to 45 days to begin their inspections, and 60 additional days to report to the council. However, Hans Blix, the chairman of the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, said he can report a violation to the council at any stage of the inspections.
Blix and Mohammed El Baradei, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, will lead an advance group of U.N. inspectors to Iraq on Nov. 18. A team of about 12 inspectors will arrive a week later to begin the first inspections. U.N. officials said they would build up a team of 80 to 100 inspectors over the following weeks.
The resolution adopted today declares Iraq in "material breach" -- a term previously invoked to justify military action against Baghdad -- of its disarmament obligations. It warns Iraq that it has one "final opportunity" to scrap its deadliest weapons. And it threatens to consider undefined "serious consequences" if Baghdad continues to defy weapons inspectors.
Correspondent Rajiv Chandrasekaran in Cairo contributed to this report.
----
Resolution 1441
Reuters
Saturday, November 9, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A30264-2002Nov8?language=printer
Following are excerpts from U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441 adopted yesterday:
"THE SECURITY COUNCIL, . . .
ACTING UNDER CHAPTER VII OF THE CHARTER OF THE UNITED NATIONS,
1. DECIDES that Iraq has been and remains in material breach of its obligations under relevant resolutions, including resolution 687 (1991), in particular through Iraq's failure to cooperate with United Nations inspectors and the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency], and to complete the actions required under paragraphs 8 to 13 of resolution 687 (1991);
2. DECIDES, while acknowledging paragraph 1 above, to afford Iraq, by this resolution, a final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations under relevant resolutions of the council; and accordingly decides to set up an enhanced inspection regime with the aim of bringing to full and verified completion the disarmament process established by resolution 687 (1991) and subsequent resolutions of the council;
3. DECIDES that, in order to begin to comply with its disarmament obligations, in addition to submitting the required biannual declarations, the government of Iraq shall provide to UNMOVIC [United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission], the IAEA, and the council, not later than 30 days from the date of this resolution, a currently accurate, full, and complete declaration of all aspects of its programs to develop chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, and other delivery systems such as unmanned aerial vehicles and dispersal systems designed for use on aircraft, including any holdings and precise locations of such weapons, components, sub-components, stocks of agents, and related material and equipment, the locations and work of its research, development and production facilities, as well as all other chemical, biological, and nuclear programs, including any which it claims are for purposes not related to weapon production or material;
4. DECIDES that false statements or omissions in the declarations submitted by Iraq pursuant to this resolution and failure by Iraq at any time to comply with, and cooperate fully in the implementation of, this resolution shall constitute a further material breach of Iraq's obligations and will be reported to the council for assessment in accordance with paragraph 11 AND 12 below;
5. DECIDES that Iraq shall provide UNMOVIC and the IAEA immediate, unimpeded, unconditional, and unrestricted access to any and all, including underground, areas, facilities, buildings, equipment, records, and means of transport which they wish to inspect, as well as immediate, unimpeded, unrestricted, and private access to all officials and other persons whom UNMOVIC or the IAEA wish to interview in the mode or location of UNMOVIC's or the IAEA's choice pursuant to any aspect of their mandates; further decides that UNMOVIC and the IAEA may at their discretion conduct interviews inside or outside of Iraq, may facilitate the travel of those interviewed and family members outside of Iraq, and that, at the sole discretion of UNMOVIC and the IAEA, such interviews may occur without the presence of observers from the Iraqi government; and instructs UNMOVIC and requests the IAEA to resume inspections no later than 45 days following adoption of this resolution and to update the council 60 days thereafter;
6. ENDORSES the 8 October 2002 letter from the executive chairman of UNMOVIC and the director-general of the IAEA to General Al-Saadi of the government of Iraq, which is annexed hereto, and decides that the contents of the letter shall be binding upon Iraq;
7. DECIDES FURTHER that, in view of the prolonged interruption by Iraq of the presence of UNMOVIC and the IAEA and in order for them to accomplish the tasks set forth in this resolution and all previous relevant resolutions and notwithstanding prior understandings, the council hereby establishes the following revised or additional authorities, which shall be binding upon Iraq , to facilitate their work in Iraq:
• UNMOVIC and the IAEA shall determine the composition of their inspection teams and ensure that these teams are composed of the most qualified and experienced experts available;
• All UNMOVIC and IAEA personnel shall enjoy the privileges and immunities provided in the Convention on Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations and the Agreement on the Privileges and Immunities of the IAEA;
• UNMOVIC and the IAEA shall have unrestricted rights of entry into and out of Iraq, the right to free, unrestricted, and immediate movement to and from inspection sites, and the right to inspect any sites and buildings, including immediate, unimpeded, unconditional, and unrestricted access to Presidential Sites equal to that at other sites, notwithstanding the provisions of resolution 1154 (1998);
• UNMOVIC and the IAEA shall have the right to be provided by Iraq the names of all personnel currently and formerly associated with Iraq's chemical, biological, nuclear, and ballistic missile programs and the associated research, development, and production facilities;
• Security of UNMOVIC and IAEA facilities shall be ensured by sufficient U.N. security guards;
• UNMOVIC and the IAEA shall have the right to declare, for the purposes of freezing a site to be inspected, exclusion zones, including surrounding areas and transit corridors, in which Iraq will suspend ground and aerial movement so that nothing is changed in or taken out of a site being inspected;
• UNMOVIC and the IAEA shall have the free and unrestricted use and landing of fixed- and rotary-winged aircraft, including manned and unmanned reconnaissance vehicles;
• UNMOVIC and the IAEA shall have the right at their sole discretion verifiably to remove, destroy, or render harmless all prohibited weapons, subsystems, components, records, materials, and other related items, and the right to impound or close any facilities or equipment for the production thereof; and
• UNMOVIC and the IAEA shall have the right to free import and use of equipment or materials for inspections and to seize and export any equipment, materials, or documents taken during inspections, without search of UNMOVIC or IAEA personnel or official or personal baggage;
8. DECIDES FURTHER that Iraq shall not take or threaten hostile acts directed against any representative or personnel of the United Nations or of any member state taking action to uphold any council resolution;
9. REQUESTS the secretary-general immediately to notify Iraq of this resolution, which is binding on Iraq; demands that Iraq confirm within seven days of that notification its intention to comply fully with this resolution; and demands further that Iraq cooperate immediately, unconditionally, and actively with UNMOVIC and the IAEA;
10. REQUESTS all member states to give full support to UNMOVIC and the IAEA in the discharge of their mandates, including by providing any information related to prohibited programs or other aspects of their mandates, including on Iraqi attempts since 1998 to acquire prohibited items, and by recommending sites to be inspected, persons to be interviewed, conditions of such interviews, and data to be collected, the results of which shall be reported to the council by UNMOVIC and the IAEA;
11. DIRECTS the executive chairman of UNMOVIC and the director-general of the IAEA to report immediately to the council any interference by Iraq with inspection activities, as well as any failure by Iraq to comply with its disarmament obligations, including its obligations regarding inspections under this resolution;
12. DECIDES to convene immediately upon receipt of a report in accordance with paragraphs 4 or 11 above, in order to consider the situation and the need for full compliance with all of the relevant council resolutions in order to secure international peace and security;
13. RECALLS, in that context, that the council has repeatedly warned Iraq that it will face serious consequences as a result of its continued violations of its obligations;
14. DECIDES to remain seized of the matter."
----
Iraq Puts Brave Face on UN Demands as Clock Ticks
Reuters
Saturday, November 9, 2002
By Hassan Hafidh and Patricia Wilson
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A31938-2002Nov9?language=printer
BAGHDAD/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Iraq put a brave face on the passing of a U.N. resolution giving it a last chance to disarm, insisting on Saturday that the international community had thereby foiled a U.S. plot to wage war.
But there was no immediate sign Baghdad would automatically bow to a document threatening "serious consequences" unless it opens its territory to tough new weapons inspections. It has one week to comply, and the clock began ticking on Friday.
"Iraq will study the resolution then take the appropriate position on it," Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri said in Cairo, after meeting Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher.
"The United States' use of the Security Council as a cover for aggression against Iraq was foiled by the international community because the international community does not share the appetite of the evil administration in Washington for aggression, murder and destruction."
President Bush, in contrast, claimed the passage of the resolution after eight weeks of tortuous negotiation at the U.N. as vindication of his uncompromising policy on Iraq.
"The world has now come together to say that the outlaw regime in Iraq will not be permitted to build or possess chemical, biological or nuclear weapons," Bush said in a weekly radio address.
"And my administration will see to it that the world's judgement is enforced."
Co-sponsored by the United States and Britain, the resolution was agreed after France, Russia and others persuaded Washington to remove from its wording an explicit authorization to use force and a call to back U.N. inspectors with troops.
The document's ambiguity allows all sides to call it victory. U.S. officials emphasized that nothing in it prevented them from taking military action, but Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said it had "made a real threat of war go away."
More than 250,000 protesters marched through the Italian city of Florence on Saturday, waving a sea of banners denouncing any possible U.S. attack on Iraq. Organizers said the crowds could swell to as many as one million people.
The Iraqi News Agency called the resolution "bad and unjust" but added: "The leadership of Iraq is studying it calmly and will take the necessary decision in the next few days."
Babel newspaper, owned by President Saddam Hussein's son Uday, said Saddam would not give the U.S. an excuse to attack.
"Iraq has nothing to conceal and U.N. weapons inspectors are welcome," Babel said.
The 15-member Security Council voted unanimously on Friday to endorse the resolution, which calls for U.N. inspections of sites anywhere in Iraq suspected of being used to develop biological, chemical or nuclear weapons.
REGIME CHANGE?
Secretary of State Colin Powell called Maher and other Arab officials to ask them to impress on Iraq that the resolution was a "final opportunity." Egyptian media said Maher told Powell he would do so.
In an interview, Powell again hinted that Saddam's government might be allowed to survive -- further evidence of Washington's apparent shift from a position earlier this year which seemed to offer the Iraqi president no future but overthrow through "regime change."
"If the Iraqi regime got rid of its mass destruction weapons and cooperates with inspectors, this will be considered a full change in the regime," Powell told al-Jazeera television.
Chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix said he and an advance team would be in Baghdad on November 18 after a four-year absence. This group will set up logistics for the inspectors, who are expected to arrive about November 25.
The inspectors have up to 45 days to begin work, and must report to the Security Council 60 days later on Iraq's cooperation. They are obliged to report to the council any serious Iraqi violations before then.
U.N. inspectors were first sent to Iraq in 1991 after the Gulf War, when a U.S.-led coalition drove Baghdad's occupying troops from neighboring oil-rich Kuwait. They pulled out in 1998, saying Iraqi officials were thwarting their work.
"This time there is no readiness to accept any cat and mouse play," Blix told the BBC.
He said the inspectors had in their sights up to 700 locations in Iraq known from inspections in the 1990s. "Then there are lots of places mentioned to us by your prime minister (Tony Blair) and intelligence," he added.
"And there are lots of targets I will not tell you about."
SADDAM'S PALACES
Saddam's top-secret palaces were on the list, he said. Inspectors would "go to the presidential sites just as we'll go to many of the sensitive sites."
"The principle is to be a no-notice inspection. We will get out of our headquarters in the morning and then we'll tell them we're going in this direction. Only when we get to the target will they be told this is the target," he said.
"We are unarmed, we are not an army. They (the Iraqis) will accept because they feel it is in their interests to do so."
On the streets of Baghdad, Iraqis condemned the U.N. vote.
"This is a prejudiced and unjust resolution. It is an evil resolution," said Mifleh Hassan, 65. "The United Nations is now a tool in the hands of America. If America tells the United Nations to go right, they go right; if they tell them to go left, they go left. They are America's puppets," he added.
Many said the vote was a "preamble for war" because it set conditions they saw as impossible for Iraq to comply with. Syria said it had worked to amend the resolution and voted for it to "save Iraq from a military strike and to safeguard its interests," a Syrian official told Reuters.
But Iraq's Babel newspaper criticized Damascus. "The resolution was accepted even by those who were previously rejecting it. Even you, Syria, have accepted it!" it said.
Iran said it hoped neighboring Iraq would offer full cooperation to U.N. inspectors and so deprive the U.S. of a pretext to intervene in the region. It said it would provide temporary shelter for Iraqi refugees in the event of war "only if it is established that their lives are in danger."
Turkey said it hoped Baghdad would comply quickly with the resolution. France called it a "last chance for peace." Kuwait and Israel welcomed it, while Palestinian minister Saeb Erekat said he hoped it would not be "a prelude to war."
--------
Gaps Cloud Iraq Nuclear Assessments
November 9, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Nuclear-Fog.html
In tens of thousands of words, many of them ``may,'' ``could'' and ``probably,'' intelligence agencies and private analysts have sketched out a portrait in uncertainty and called it the Iraqi quest for doomsday weapons.
A close review of recent in-depth reports shows that at times U.S. and British intelligence organizations and other specialists contradict or fail to support each other's assertions on Iraq and nuclear weapons, assertions that are often unsubstantiated.
A key passage in the U.S. intelligence report, for example, says Iraq ``may'' have acquired technology to substantially speed production of atomic bomb material. But no concrete evidence is offered, and the British intelligence report suggests the opposite -- that U.N. sanctions have kept such equipment out of Iraqi hands.
The British, for their part, refer vaguely to ``African'' uranium sought by Iraq. But they don't say in which decade this might have happened, and no other report mentions it.
What isn't in the documents can be as significant as what is: In early September, President Bush declared that satellite photographs proved Iraq had revived its nuclear weapons program. In their subsequent reports, however, neither the U.S. nor British government agencies even mention those photos.
The Baghdad government has further obscured the reality with its own detailed rebuttal, in which it doesn't acknowledge its past obstruction of searches by U.N. weapons inspectors or that it has barred inspection teams for four years.
This nuclear fog over Iraq clouds public debate at a critical moment.
The ambiguities led Washington's two newspapers to headline starkly different conclusions from one major assessment, by London's private International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS). ``Iraq Lacks Material for Nuclear Bomb, Study Says,'' reported The Washington Post, while The Washington Times headlined, ``Report: Iraq Close to Nuclear Reality.''
The U.N. inspectors, armed with a tough Security Council resolution adopted Friday, plan to return to Baghdad on Nov. 18 to resume investigating whether Iraq is developing nuclear, chemical or biological weapons in defiance of the council's edicts.
They may take months to reach conclusions, however, and until then -- while the world ponders war against Iraq -- the reports by the U.S. and British agencies and the prestigious IISS; the Iraqi rebuttal; and follow-up analyses by specialists at such organizations as Washington's Carnegie Endowment for International Peace will remain the most thorough public look at the question.
It's a look that, time and again, is conflicting and confusing. Iraq's ``aluminum tubes'' are a case in point.
The Iraqis reportedly sought to buy thousands of high-strength aluminum tubes in the past two years. The 25-page CIA summary of Oct. 4 says the tubes are banned and adds that ``most intelligence specialists'' believe they were intended as core cylinders of centrifuges to enrich uranium for bombs.
But the 50-page intelligence dossier released by British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Sept. 24 said ``there is no definitive intelligence'' that the tubes were intended for a nuclear program. Moreover, buying such tubes is not banned under anti-Iraq sanctions, but is subject to U.N. approval and monitoring because the tubes have dual uses -- both non-nuclear and nuclear.
The Iraqi government scoffs at the tubes issue in its 6,000-word rebuttal, saying such centrifuges don't use aluminum. Primitive designs do, in fact, but Iraq was already using more advanced materials as it tried to master centrifuges before the 1990-91 Gulf War, after which inspectors dismantled what they found of Iraq's nuclear program.
Physicist David Albright, a former U.N. inspector, is not convinced the tubes were meant for centrifuges. ``The Iraqis could do much better,'' he said.
In a detailed analysis, Albright's Washington research group, the Institute for Science and International Security, notes that Iraq has long imported such tubing for non-nuclear uses. He says experts are more worried about centrifuge components that are more sophisticated and harder to get than cylinders.
It was the Iraqis' former centrifuge site -- and photos of new construction there -- that Bush said showed the nuclear bomb program had been resurrected.
``I don't know what more evidence we need,'' the president said Sept. 7 as he sought to muster support for potential U.S. military action against Iraq.
The reconnaissance photos give no clue to the new building's function, however. Dozens of foreign journalists later visited the site, al-Furat, under Iraqi escort and did not report seeing centrifuges, and the photos were notably absent from the U.S. and British intelligence reports.
``These photos provide weak support for any military action,'' said Albright.
The CIA report, after speculating the Iraqis ``may have acquired uranium enrichment capabilities'' to speed bomb production, says that since December 1999 they have engaged in more than 100 deals to buy dual-use items that would be useful for nuclear or other weapons programs.
But the report doesn't go on to explain that such contracts are under close U.N. scrutiny, approved or disapproved by inspectors who often mandate follow-up checks to ensure the items aren't used for nuclear purposes in violation of U.N. sanctions. Those checks are carried out by some of the 158 U.N. observers currently in Iraq.
The British report takes a tack opposite to the Americans', saying London's Joint Intelligence Committee ``assessed that U.N. sanctions on Iraq were hindering the import of crucial goods for the production of (nuclear) material.''
In their key conclusions, the British, U.S. and IISS reports all find that Iraq is unlikely to be able to produce bomb-grade uranium for five or more years. But each also points to what the IISS calls a ``nuclear wild card'' -- that Iraq might fashion a bomb sooner if it somehow obtains enough highly enriched uranium on the black market.
Their time frames vary. The IISS and a Carnegie Endowment report suggest this could be done in mere months; British intelligence forecasts it might take two years.
None, however, ties this wild card to what experts know: Even if the Iraqis managed to get hold of the 50 to 100 pounds of bomb-grade uranium needed, they would take much longer to develop a warhead-and-missile combination that could deliver such a nuclear strike effectively beyond their borders.
The Iraqis are forbidden by U.N. resolutions to possess missiles with greater than a 90-mile range. But the IISS, British and U.S. reports suggest they retain some old, inaccurate Scud missiles, with ranges up to 400 miles -- ``about a dozen,'' ``up to 20'' or ``a few dozen,'' the various reports say.
However, these reports fail to note that U.N. inspectors said in 1997 that all but two of 819 such missiles had been used by Iraq or destroyed -- an accounting previously acknowledged in CIA reports.
Iraq is also developing prohibited longer-range missiles, contend the U.S. and British intelligence dossiers. Among other things, they cite reconnaissance photos showing a new, larger test stand at a site where liquid-propellant engines have been tested.
Iraq's rebuttal counters with what it calls ``strong technical evidence'': that the test stand is horizontal, not vertical, and therefore unsuited for large liquid engines.
The Iraqis are ``technically correct,'' says Tim McCarthy, a researcher at California's Monterey Institute of International Studies and a former U.N. missile inspector in Iraq. McCarthy speculates, however, that Iraq might be able to test larger engines on the stand using solid propellants.
On such fine points hinge the uncertainties about Iraq, pending exhaustive new inspections by hundreds of U.N. specialists.
The IISS report's editor, former White House official Gary Samore, said after issuing his institute's assessment in London on Sept. 9 that the state of Iraq's nuclear program is a ``tremendous unknown.''
Hans Blix agreed. The chief U.N. inspector said early in the recent U.N. debate over Iraq that there are ``many open questions'' about its weapons programs.
``But this,'' Blix said, ``is not the same as saying there are weapons of mass destruction.''
EDITOR'S NOTE -- Charles J. Hanley has reported on nuclear weapons issues for 20 years.
-------- korea
Japan, U.S., S.Korea Fail to Agree on Oil for N.Korea
November 9, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-japan-usa-korea-north.html
TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan, the United States and South Korea repeated their call on Saturday for North Korea to scrap its nuclear development program, but couldn't agree on whether to keep supplying Pyongyang with fuel oil under a 1994 agreement.
After a one-day meeting of senior officials, the three countries issued a joint statement reaffirming a commitment to seek a common position on forcing North Korea to abandon its uranium enrichment program.
``The three delegations once again called upon North Korea to dismantle this program in a prompt and verifiable manner,'' the statement said.
North Korea's shock admission to the United States in October that it was enriching uranium for a nuclear weapons program has thrown the 1994 Agreed Framework pact into doubt.
But at the meeting, the countries did not reach an agreement on how to handle the breach of the 1994 agreement, which required North Korea to freeze its nuclear program in return for deliveries of fuel oil and for two light-water nuclear reactors.
``Each country will discuss the issue among their own government and seek a decision in time for the KEDO meeting,'' a Japanese official told reporters.
The three countries and the European Union will hold a meeting of the executive board of the Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO), which is building the nuclear reactors under the 1994 agreement, in New York around November 14.
AT ODDS
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly, who headed the U.S. delegation in Saturday's talks, said on Tuesday there seemed to be little support in Congress for continuing the fuel shipments next year, even if Washington approved this month's shipment.
In contrast, Tokyo believes stopping the oil flow will only give Pyongyang an excuse to ignore the 1994 agreement and push ahead with its nuclear program.
``We explained our long-held position that the Agreed Framework is vital in preventing a nuclear program,'' said the Japanese official who attended the meeting.
South Korea is widely believed to share Tokyo's view.
But the Japanese official said he was optimistic the three countries will reach common ground on the issue.
``We gained a certain amount of confidence that we can reach a common position,'' he said.
The latest shipment of fuel oil left Singapore for North Korea on Wednesday. It will take 10 to 12 days to reach the Stalinist state, but the KEDO executive board can recall the vessel while it is at sea, diplomats have said.
In addition to Kelly, Saturday's meeting was attended by Hitoshi Tanaka, director general of the Japanese Foreign Ministry's Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau and Lee Tae-sik, South Korea's deputy foreign minister.
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
-------- california
Second Storm Hammers Northern California, Nevada
By Justin Pritchard
Associated Press
Saturday, November 9, 2002; Page A09
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A30323-2002Nov8?language=printer
... Along the coast, 12-foot waves pummeling Southern California were a boon to surfers. But waves reached 30 feet farther north and officials powered down the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant in San Luis Obispo, fearing seaweed tossed up by the surf would clog the intake pipes of the cooling system....
-------- kentucky
Ex-Lockheed uranium workers subpoenaed
Grand jury looking into whether laws broken in Paducah
Associated Press
Saturday, November 9, 2002
http://www.courier-journal.com/localnews/2002/11/09/ke110902s310267.htm
PADUCAH, Ky. -- Lockheed Martin Corp. confirmed that some of its former Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant employees have been subpoenaed to determine whether environmental laws were violated when the company operated the plant.
The employees will appear before a federal grand jury meeting in Paducah.
Tom Jurkowsky, a spokesman for Lockheed, said he didn't know the names of the former workers or the content of their subpoenas.
''We have not been informed if the company is the target of the investigation,'' Jurkowsky said. ''We are cooperating fully.''
Lockheed operated the plant for the U.S. Department of Energy from 1982 until 1992, when the uranium enrichment operation was privatized and taken over by U.S. Enrichment Corp. The workers were then transferred from Lockheed to USEC.
USEC spokeswoman Elizabeth Stuckle said Thursday that she didn't know whether any of those subpoenaed are still working at the plant.
The grand jury began meeting Wednesday, and one of those to testify was Harold Hargan of Pulaski County, Ill., who worked at the plant for almost 40 years. He retired in 1992.
Hargan said he was asked about how workers handled trichlorethylene, a highly toxic chemical that was used to clean radioactive material and other chemicals from processing equipment. He said he testified that workers in the 1980s did not follow long-standing procedures, which resulted in TCE spills on the floor of the C-400 building that were washed into drains.
Investigations have revealed that TCE from the building leaked into a drainage ditch, causing contamination not only from the TCE, but also from radioactive material that had been cleaned from the equipment.
One of the major problems around the plant is groundwater contamination.
Hargan said workers dipped the processing equipment into huge vats filled with TCE. He said that if the equipment was properly rigged, all the TCE would drain back into the vat after the equipment was removed.
''They didn't do it right, and TCE would run onto the floor,'' Hargan said. He estimates that at least 5,000 pounds of the chemical were washed into the building's drains over a 10-year period.
In a Courier-Journal article two years ago, Hargan described how he developed bladder cancer in the 1990s along with lung disease -- the result, he believes, of working at the plant.
The U.S. Department of Justice has been investigating claims made in a whistleblower suit filed in June 1999 that the hundreds of millions of dollars in operating fees that Lockheed received were improperly earned because it was filing false environmental reports.
''Lockheed denies the allegations that it failed to operate the facility properly and will defend the civil action,'' Jurkowsky said.
The suit asks that the operating fees be returned to the federal government. If successful, those who filed the suit -- three current and former workers and an environmental group -- would receive up to 25 percent of the proceeds.
-------- us politics
U.S.-German Chill Eases
Schroeder Calls Bush; Rumsfeld Says Ties 'Unpoisoned'
By Mike Allen and Vernon Loeb
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, November 9, 2002; Page A14
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A30324-2002Nov8?language=printer
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld declared the administration's frosty relations with Germany to be "unpoisoned" last night after Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder moved to make amends with President Bush.
Schroeder telephoned Bush yesterday for the leaders' first talk since Schroeder ran a reelection campaign marked by anti-American rhetoric.
Afterward, a senior administration official issued a statement that was conciliatory but not warm. "The president is interested in getting down to the business of moving forward on issues of common interest with Germany," the official said.
White House officials said Bush is rarely as furious as he was at Schroeder, whose justice minister was quoted just before the election as comparing Bush's pressure on Iraq with tactics used by Adolf Hitler.
The minister resigned the day after Schroeder's narrow reelection, but relations between the countries remained the worst in decades. The rift dismayed policymakers on both sides and came as Bush was trying to build support for confronting Iraq.
By last evening, there were signs that relations had healed considerably. Schroeder's call, which lasted about 10 minutes, coincided with a visit to Washington by Peter Struck, the German defense minister. He appeared last night with Rumsfeld, who joshed with him about the chill. The lectern in the Pentagon briefing room was bracketed by U.S. and German flags.
When a reporter asked about a U.S. official's earlier description of relations between the country as "poisoned," Rumsfeld jovially declared them "unpoisoned," without elaborating.
Struck laughed, too, saying, "That's very good. That's a very good answer."
Six weeks ago, Rumsfeld had refused to meet with Struck during a NATO defense ministers' meeting in Warsaw.
Despite the renewed amicability, Struck reiterated German opposition to the use of military force in Iraq.
Rumsfeld said each country will respond to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein "in their own way, in a way that's consistent with their constitutions, that's consistent with their political circumstance and as far I'm concerned, that's just fine."
A senior administration official said the German government began trying to set up the call a few days ago and said the two leaders discussed the war on terrorism. "Iraq did not come up," the official said.
Bush had pointedly not called to congratulate Schroeder on his reelection, and a senior administration official told reporters on Air Force One that Schroeder "and his government have a lot of work to do to repair the damage that he did by his excesses during the campaign."
National security adviser Condoleezza Rice made the administration's anger plain, telling the Financial Times that some statements in the German campaign were "beyond the pale."
"How can you use the name Hitler and the name of the president of the U.S. in the same sentence?" Rice said. "An atmosphere has been created in Germany that is in that sense poisoned."
Bush and Schroeder plan to attend a NATO summit in Prague in two weeks.
----
Homeland Security Legislation Becomes Republican Priority
Leaders Tell Bush They Will Seek Passage Next Week
By Helen Dewar
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, November 9, 2002; Page A05
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A29900-2002Nov8?language=printer
House and Senate Republican leaders told President Bush yesterday they will try to pass legislation he has demanded to create a Department of Homeland Security when Congress returns for a post-election session next week.
They discussed strategies for breaking the deadlock that stalled the proposal in the Senate last month, including procedural tactics as well as a compromise on job protections for employees of the new department. But they gave no indication they had a solution. The showdown could be an early test of Bush's strength on Capitol Hill following the GOP's Senate takeover and House gains. Many Democrats and Republicans attribute the results largely to Bush's popularity and campaigning.
GOP leaders were clearly ready to do Bush's bidding. He told a news conference Thursday it is "imperative" that Congress pass the bill before it adjourns for the year. He also urged action on stalled appropriations bills and terrorism insurance legislation.
"The president of the United States is the leader of our country, and he feels very strongly about this," said Senate Republican leader Trent Lott (Miss.), who with House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) met with Bush over lunch to discuss the "lame duck" session. "He feels that it is important that the Congress work to see if we could get this done, and I agree."
Only two days earlier Lott expressed doubts that any major legislation, including the homeland security bill, could win passage until the 108th Congress convenes in January. He said he hoped the post-election session could be concluded by the end of next week.
But, unless there is a quick breakthrough on the homeland security issue, the session could take longer than a week, possibly continuing into December. Many lawmakers, including some who are planning foreign trips the week after next, are not happy about the prospect of continuing the session into the holiday season, especially if there is little prospect of success.
Lott will serve as majority leader when the session opens Tuesday if independent Sen. Dean Barkley, who was appointed temporarily to succeed the late Sen. Paul D. Wellstone (D-Minn.), agrees to organize with the Republicans. If not, Sen. Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) will continue in the post, at least for a week. Some Democrats believe Barkley is likely to align with the Republicans, but Barkley said yesterday he has not decided. Republican Norm Coleman, who won Tuesday's Senate election in Minnesota, will fill the seat when the new Congress convenes in January.
While nearly all Democrats oppose the degree of hiring and firing flexibility that Bush wants for the Homeland Security Department, Republicans hope they will be more willing to strike a deal now to keep the issue from hurting Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) in her runoff election Dec. 7. The issue was seen as a factor in Tuesday's defeat of Sen. Max Cleland (D-Ga.) by Rep. C. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.).
Daschle said at a news briefing earlier in the day he wants to finish the homeland security measure this year. He said Republicans, not Democrats, were holding up passage. ""Win or lose, I'll take whatever votes we can get," he said.
----
How Powell Lined Up Votes, Starting With His President's
By STEVEN R. WEISMAN
New York Times,
November 9, 2002
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/09/international/09POWE.html?ei=1&en=3cb3a8cb95d6167c&ex=1037855612&pagewanted=print&position=top
WASHINGTON, Nov. 8 - In late August, from the Situation Room at the White House, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell made one of the most important presentations of his tenure, arguing via video screen to President Bush at his ranch in Texas that the administration needed to go to the United Nations for another round of weapons inspections in Iraq.
Also in the room were Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who had made little secret of their disdain for his line of action. Yet when Secretary Powell completed his argument, both supported him, an administration official said.
It was the first victory in what became an arduous three months that saw the secretary of state make 150 telephone calls to colleagues around the world and at the United Nations to craft the resolution adopted today by an extraordinary 15-to-0 vote in the Security Council.
Last Saturday evening he was on the phone discussing permutations of the words "material breach" with the French foreign minister 20 minutes before walking his daughter down the aisle for her wedding.
Today Mr. Bush pointedly turned to Secretary Powell in the Rose Garden and warmly hailed his "leadership, his good work and his determination."
But the secretary's approach has yet to be vindicated, many officials say, and his seeming triumph now may yet turn sour.
Among conservatives inside and outside the administration, there is heightened concern about the possibility of a muddled, slow and inconclusive inspection effort in coming weeks.
Despite the administration's professed confidence in the inspectors, there is a deep-seated unstated fear that President Saddam Hussein of Iraq will only seem to cooperate and the inspectors will find little or nothing incriminating. That would leave the administration with insufficient evidence to persuade the Security Council, its potential allies - or even Americans - that a war is necessary.
If that happens, they say, the secretary's stock in the administration may plummet.
For the moment, admirers and many critics are praising his negotiating skills. "This is a tremendous victory for Powell," said a Republican senator close to him. "When you look at Rumsfeld's position and Cheney's position on going to the United Nations, there's no doubt that Powell won."
Looking back on the last three months, diplomats involved in the negotiations on Iraq say his efforts were sometimes undercut by words and actions of the Bush administration.
Those diplomats cite the continuous American calls for "regime change" in Iraq - not mentioned, they added, when negotiations got intense - as well as lingering bad feelings in Europe over Mr. Cheney's and Mr. Rumsfeld's criticism of the value of inspections, and confusion over allegations of links between Iraq and Al Qaeda.
Also creating problems for the administration was its decision to release a national security strategy in September calling for pre-emptive strikes against American enemies.
Chancellor Gerhard Schröder of Germany cited the pre-emption strategy when he criticized Mr. Bush in his re-election campaign. French unease over the strategy gave President Jacques Chirac pause before supporting Mr. Bush on Iraq, diplomats said.
"The issue all along with the Europeans was: were we looking for an excuse to start a war, or a resolution to solve the problem?" said an administration official. "We had to convince people that if we wanted to go to war, we didn't need an excuse. We had to make the case that the stronger the resolution was, the more likely a war could be avoided."
Although the United States wanted a strong resolution, Secretary Powell made important concessions to the French and others to get their support.
First, the administration dropped its insistence on calling for "all necessary means" to enforce its terms, code for military force. In addition, the Americans sought to accommodate the French demand for a two-stage process in which the Security Council would have to be convened to discuss what to do if Iraq rebuffed the inspectors or was shown to have illegal weapons.
Washington met the demand by agreeing to such a meeting, as the approved resolution says, to "consider" how to respond to Iraqi intransigence, though Secretary Powell said the United States would not be "handcuffed" by what the Council did or did not do. A French diplomat said this concession was the turning point.
In return for these concessions, the United States got what an official called "a lot of little triggers" for possible future action by the Security Council and future military action by the United States.
The most important was the use of the phrase "material breach" to describe past and possibly future misdeeds by Iraq. The two words were considered crucial because the resolution being "breached" was the declaration of a cease-fire at the end of the last Iraq war in 1991, in which Baghdad promised to disarm. A "breach" would thus automatically imply an end to the cease-fire.
Equally important is a provision in the resolution saying that any "false statements or omissions" by Iraq in its own disclosure of weapons sites would itself constitute "a further material breach of Iraq's obligations."
There were some difficult moments, especially with the French. Overcoming them was not helped by the fact that Mr. Bush and Mr. Chirac have a relationship described as respectful but not warm.
At one point, for example, the French threatened to circulate their own version and seek support for it in the Council. American officials made it clear that such a move would be viewed as provocative, and the French backed off.
The French also surprised the United States by their own aggressive courtship of other nations on the Security Council, especially Ireland, Mauritius, Cameroon and Mexico.
Initially the fear in Washington was that France might veto a Security Council resolution if it did not agree. The Americans were surprised and upset when France actually rounded up enough votes on the Council to block the resolution without having to exercise a veto.
Then last weekend, the Americans surprised the French by wooing several other nations back and declaring that they had a majority on the Council, with or without France.
On the American side, Secretary Powell had to persuade the so-called hawks on Iraq that inspections could work by being aggressive enough to make Mr. Hussein's defiance obvious, thereby serving as a potential pretext for war, and that there had to be deference to United Nations procedures and the twists and turns of diplomacy there.
An important step occurred when the secretary brought Hans Blix, the head of the United Nations inspections team, to Washington last month to meet with Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, and Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy defense secretary and the administration's most ardent advocate of a confrontation with Iraq.
Officials say Mr. Wolfowitz and Ms. Rice asked tough questions of Mr. Blix at that session. Ms. Rice was said to have pressed Mr. Blix hard to agree to take American and other inspectors and security guards with him, and not to rely solely on his own team. Mr. Blix argued that such a move could backfire by undermining the inspectors' perceived neutrality.
Mr. Blix was also said to have argued that his team, recruited from 45 countries and trained over the last years, would be very aggressive. The Americans then dropped their demand for the outsiders to go along, and they now say that Mr. Blix has Mr. Bush's full confidence.
Throughout the discussions, administration officials said, Secretary Powell did a great deal of his business by negotiating with his French counterpart, Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin. Each time Secretary Powell worked something out with Mr. de Villepin, he would check back with Ms. Rice or Mr. Bush, while the French diplomat would check with Mr. Chirac.
"Powell and Villepin were the ones who came up with the most of the fixes," said an administration official. "Their relationship was the glue that kept this together."
Once the secretary completed the final negotiations with Mr. Villepin on Thursday, he called the Russian foreign minister, Igor S. Ivanov, to tell him about a last-minute change in the resolution's language. Mr. Ivanov said he would take it to President Vladimir V. Putin, and called back this morning.
"Khorosho?" asked Mr. Ivanov, using the Russian word for O.K. Then he answered himself, "Da." Shortly afterward, the United Nations Security Council handed Secretary Powell his victory.
-------- MILITARY
-------- biological weapons
D.C. likely to get two counterterror labs
By Tom Ramstack
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
November 9, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/business/20021109-54088960.htm
At least two of the approximately 10 laboratories the federal government plans to build to counter risks of terrorists unleashing deadly diseases will be in the Washington area.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is building the labs under a biological warfare defense budget that is six times greater than a year ago, or $1.8 billion this year.
Some residents near the proposed labs are concerned the world's most deadly microbes could creep into their homes. Officials for the laboratories say the concerns are unfounded.
Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said the risks to the community are "vanishingly little if any. The whole purpose of the containment is to protect the facility as well as the community. There's very little if any risk."
One of the labs is planned for the NIH campus in Bethesda on Rockville Pike, Route 355. Another will share facilities with the U.S. Army's Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick in Frederick, Md.
The Bethesda laboratory will be a BioSafety Level 3 facility, which requires precautions such as containment of air flow and monitoring everything entering the area that could be contaminated.
The Fort Detrick laboratory will be a BioSafety Level 4 facility, which represents the greatest hazard level. Dr. Fauci describes Level 4 as an area "where people essentially walk around in space suits."
Another BioSafety Level 4 laboratory will be built at Rocky Mountain, Mont. About seven more are planned but their locations and biosafety levels have not been determined, Dr. Fauci said.
The laboratories will study methods for defending against deadly microbes rather than how to make them, which is another reason the risk to the community is small, Dr. Fauci said.
"This is study of biodefense, developing vaccines, developing drugs," he said." We're not manufacturing bioweapons, we're doing research to study biodefense. That's a misperception in the community when they think of the danger."
Nevertheless, some Bethesda residents say unforeseen risks create hidden dangers.
"So what happens if somebody blows up a lab or something," said Michelle Radcliffe, a Bethesda resident who lives near NIH. "Before 9/11 something like this would have been such a long shot. But since then, people worry about these things."
Said Ed Stern, an Occupational Safety and Health Administration program analyst and resident of the NIH neighborhood, "Such a laboratory is a target that invites danger to NIH and to the community."
The Bethesda laboratory has been planned since the mid-1990s. However, the federal government has expanded its biodefense efforts in recent months, including plans for the national network of laboratories.
Plans for the Frederick laboratory were announced last month.
The September 11 terrorist attacks prompted NIH to build a 9-foot-high metal fence around its 322-acre campus. It will have an ornamental design but be strong enough to prevent intrusions by people or vehicles.
"It's not a fence intended to stop a big, heavy vehicle," Mr. Stern said.
Allen Myers, president of the Maplewood Citizens Association, a group of residents near NIH, said the environmental impact study for the Bethesda laboratory was completed in the mid-1990s.
"It certainly can't consider what exists today," Mr. Myers said. Terrorists could fire a missile at the laboratory from Rockville Pike, he said.
"If someone has some sort of device that they would want to shoot at it, they certainly could," said Mr. Myers, a Federal Communications Commission employee.
The Maplewood Citizens Association plans to meet with NIH representatives Nov. 20 to discuss their concerns.
NIH officials say they are taking adequate precautions against terrorism. In addition to the protective fence, access points are guarded and surveillance cameras are in strategic locations.
"This building would not be anymore a terrorist target than any other building at NIH," spokesman Don Ralbovsky said.
Local officials say the economic benefits outweigh the terrorism risks.
Federal safety regulations are strong enough to stop any release of deadly microbes, said Scott Sloat, spokesman for the Montgomery County Department of Economic Development.
"We're not concerned about that," he said. "It's just like any other biotech project. From an economic standpoint, we're always looking for new biotech research projects."
Bethesda lies at the south end of the I-270 Technology Corridor, which is lined with biotech companies such as Celera Genomics Group, Human Genome Sciences, EntreMed and Gene Logic.
Frederick Mayor Jennifer Dougherty expressed similar confidence in federal regulators.
"I do believe they have very good scientific restrictions on where the very dangerous microbes can be," Miss Dougherty said.
The greatest risk if terrorists detonated a bomb in or near the biodefense laboratory would be the explosion rather than the health threat, she said. Nevertheless, some residents are worried.
"It is a little controversial here," she said.
-------- colombia
Colombia Extends Emergency
Reuters
Saturday, November 9, 2002; Page A15
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A30330-2002Nov8?language=printer
BOGOTA, Colombia, Nov. 8 -- President Alvaro Uribe today extended for 90 days a state of emergency as he steps up a military campaign against illegal armed groups fighting in the country's 38-year-old civil war.
The decree, which was widely expected, allows state security forces to continue making arrests without warrants and imposing restrictions on movements in "special combat zones."
Uribe declared a state of emergency after leftist guerrillas greeted his inauguration ceremony in August with a deadly mortar attack. He said authorities needed the emergency powers to continue fighting rebels and paramilitary groups that are funded by the booming cocaine trade.
-------- iraq
Iraq to Respond to U.N. Ultimatum
November 9, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-UN-Iraq.html
UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- Iraq now faces its first test after a unanimous ultimatum from the United Nations to disarm or confront almost certain war: whether to accept or reject the tough new blueprint for weapons inspections.
In the first indication of when it would respond, the official Iraqi News Agency on Saturday said Iraq's leaders were studying the ``bad and unjust'' resolution and are expected to respond in the ``next few days.'' The agency quoted an unidentified official source.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan appealed to Arab states meeting in Cairo this weekend to ``encourage and urge Iraq to comply'' with the tough resolution which the United States wrote and pushed through the council on Friday with an unexpected 15-0 vote.
Under its strict timeline, the clock started ticking immediately giving Iraq until Nov. 15 to accept the resolution which would send U.N. inspectors back to Baghdad after nearly four years with broad new powers to go anywhere at any time backed by the threat of force.
President Bush said the resolution ``presents the Iraqi regime with a final test'' and warned that if Saddam Hussein fails to cooperate the United States will not hesitate to take military action to eliminate its suspected nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons programs.
``The opportunity is there and the opportunity is final,'' said Britain's U.N. Ambassador Jeremy Greenstock, whose country cosponsored the resolution.
The resolution has a built-in compliance schedule and U.S. officials believe they will get an early indication of Iraq's intentions.
``We will all ... be watching extremely carefully for full compliance by the government of Iraq in meeting its obligations under this resolution,'' U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte said after the council vote.
A U.S. official said if Iraq attaches any conditions to its acceptance, that would be ``a signal.'' How forthright it is in its declaration of any illicit weapons programs would be another signal, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Iraq must make such a declaration in 30 days.
The council's approval of the resolution was a diplomatic coup for the Bush administration, crowned by the surprise unanimous vote. That was the result of a last-minute reversal by Syria, which had staunchly opposed the plan during eight weeks of intense international lobbying spearheaded by Washington and London.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri disputed the idea that the passage of the resolution was a triumph for Washington.
``America's aggressive goal of using the Security Council as a cover for an aggression on Iraq was thwarted by the international community,'' Sabri said in Cairo, referring to the revisions made to secure Russian, French and Chinese approval of the resolution.
However, Iraq's Babil newspaper, owned by Saddam's son, said: ``The American administration succeeded in making the United Nations its tool to influence policy.''
U.S. diplomats pushed for support until the final moments before the vote, providing Damascus, Moscow and others with critical assurances: The resolution wouldn't be used to launch war on Iraq, and the Bush administration would work through the United Nations to reach a peaceful settlement to 12 years of international conflict with a derelict Iraq.
Syria's deputy U.N. Ambassador Fayssal Mekdad said Damascus voted ``yes'' after assurances from Washington and Paris ``that this resolution would not be used as a pretext to strike Iraq.'' The resolution also reaffirmed ``the central role of the Security Council'' and Iraq's sovereignty, key issues for Syria, he said.
France, Russia and China, later issued a joint interpretation of the resolution, stating that it excludes any automatic use of force and that the council would only discuss Iraqi violations reported by weapons inspectors.
U.S. officials could not immediately comment on the joint statement but Negroponte said earlier that countries also had the right to report violations, and that any violation would ``be considered and discussed within the council.''
And he emphasized that the resolution preserved Washington's right to strike if the council appeared lax in the face of any Iraqi violation. The Pentagon, which already has tens of thousands of troops in the region, prepared Friday for a fresh troop call-up.
``This resolution doesn't constrain any member state from acting to defend itself against the threat posed by Iraq,'' Negroponte said.
But Russia's U.N. Ambassador Sergey Lavrov declared: ``What is most important is that the resolution deflects the direct threat of war'' and opens the road to ``a political diplomatic settlement.''
The resolution places much of the onus on U.N. chief weapons inspector Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, to immediately report Iraqi violations. The council would then assess the violations and decide how to respond.
The resolution leaves it up to inspectors to decide what constitutes a violation. Blix says he wouldn't consider minor delays in access to sites or information to be serious breaches.
Blix said the unanimous vote ``strengthens our mandate very much'' and announced that an advance team of inspectors will arrive in Baghdad on Nov. 18.
The resolution gives inspectors until Dec. 23 to begin work, though Blix has promised to start earlier.
Iraq, which denies it has weapons of mass destruction, announced Sept. 16 that it would finally allow the unconditional return of inspectors barred since December 1998.
The resolution gives the inspectors sweeping new powers to carry out surprise inspections anywhere in Iraq including Saddam's presidential sites, conduct private interviews with any Iraqi citizen, and seal off swaths of Iraqi territory during inspections.
Blix's teams will concentrate on efforts to expose any biological or chemical weapons while the atomic energy agency searches for signs of a renewed nuclear program.
----
'Bush's Iraq plans: Reincarnation of failed 1930s British policy'
Saturday, November 09, 2002
Guest Editorial By Issam Nashashibi and Abdelatif Rayan
YellowTimes.org Guest Columnists (United States)
http://www.yellowtimes.org/article.php?sid=843
(YellowTimes.org) - By all U.S. media accounts, Saddam Hussein's days are numbered. Moreover, Pentagon pundits predict a massive U.S. victory over Saddam's rusty military machine.
Will Bush's Iraq policy bring a real victory to crown America's hegemony in the Middle East and elsewhere? Could history be our guide?
Bush's Iraq policy is reminiscent of the 1930s British "re-occupation" of Iraq. By March 1921, almost four years after they invaded Mesopotamia, the British created Iraq as a new entity managed by "a suitable Arab" who was a member of the Hashemite clan, King Faisal I. In addition, the British supported and promoted narrowly based groups - such as tribal leaders - over the growing, urban-based nationalist movement.
In pursuing this policy, the British were attempting to achieve their military objectives of securing their route to India and controlling strategic oil sources. By the mid-1930s, Iraq exported oil via a pipeline to refineries in Haifa, Palestine.
Palestine, at that time, was in turmoil. Palestinian Arabs were rioting against the Zionist-promoted Jewish immigration to Palestine. Faisal was alarmed about Jewish immigration and expected that "bloodshed would certainly result" from such a demographic change. However, his concern was mostly centered on the negative effect of any bloodshed in Palestine on Iraqi-British relations as confirmed by the August 1936 British Foreign Office's "Report on the Repercussions in Iraq of the Creation of a National Home for the Jews in Palestine."
Although public sentiment supported Arab Palestinians against such foreign encroachment, Iraqi governments were careful not to shatter Iraqi-British relations while repeatedly warning Britain about the destabilizing effect of Iraqi public opinion's pro-Palestinian sentiments. Their official policy on Jewish immigration to Palestine resembled walking a tight rope: it avoided offending British sensibilities without inflaming public opinion.
To mollify public sentiments, Iraqi governments fostered unofficial support for the Arab cause in Palestine. As a result, Iraq became the center of pan-Arab anti-British activities and a mecca for Egyptian, Syrian and Palestinian nationalists.
Despite these strong nationalistic anti-British public sentiments, the British managed to coerce the Iraqi government into entering WWII in support of Britain. The immediate effect of this British political pressure was riots in Baghdad and the killing of several hundred people, mostly Jewish Iraqis.
Perceived as a threat to their interest, the riots were countered by British military intervention and the resignation of the Iraqi Prime Minister, Rashid Ali, in favor of a new "suitable Arab." With British blessing, martial law was established and the new government started to act against the "subversive" nationalist forces that dominated Iraqi public life.
Thus started what the nationalists described as the "second British occupation of Iraq," which also included efforts of "re-structuring" Iraq with complete British and American supervision as reported by the New York Times. The British resumed full control of the education system while the Americans dominated the media. All nationalist and militaristic materials were banned and deleted from textbooks. In addition, the army was purged or neglected.
Clearly, there is nothing new in the current U.S. military scenarios to invade Iraq especially what Administration officials allude to in their post Saddam plans. Such policies confirm the Administration's intention to conquer and occupy Iraq. They also call for disarming Iraq and "downsizing" its armed forces while getting Iraq ready for a "democratic transition" and the removal of senior officials of the governing Ba'ath Party. "Much of the bureaucracy would carry on under new management," a U.S. official added.
These officials were silent about their quest for a "suitable Arab" to implement their post Saddam plans, perhaps another member of the Hashemite clan currently ruling Jordan. They also concealed their intention to pull Iraq from its Arab roots and make it a NATO member by altering nationalist and religious forces in Iraqi society.
Iraqi opposition groups have signed on to the Administration's plans and are fully cooperating with their Washington handlers to create a "federal, non-Arab demilitarized Iraq" as Kanan Makiya, the group's ideologist, envisioned post Saddam Iraq in his speech at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) symposium two weeks ago.
Makiya further detailed the thinking of "some Iraqi circles" that are "working closely with some agencies of the [U.S.] government" in planning for post Saddam rule. He argued for a "federal" Iraqi government, which "cannot be thought of any longer, in any politically meaningful sense of the word, as an Arab entity." He went on to say that a democratic Iraq has to be "a non-Arab Iraq."
That is the Iraq that "can bring Western civilization" and "values" into the Middle East, added Serif Egali, of the Turkish-USA Business Council, another participant of the AEI symposium.
For President Bush, who has not conveyed any convincing argument to justify waging war against Iraq, the success of his Iraqi adventure must be more than eliminating Saddam and his cronies. It is nothing less than crafting a new Iraq that is divorced from any Arab concern, especially the Palestinian cause. For him and his hard-line advisors, removing Saddam presents the U.S. "with a historic opportunity" that is "as large as anything that has happened in the Middle East since the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the entry of British troops into Iraq in 1917," expounded Makiya.
It is an opportunity to create Middle East realities where newly re-constructed "entities" will have neither basis for shared political culture, unity of emotions and aims; nor shared sufferings and hopes.
If history is our guide, the Iraqi people will defy this plan just as they resisted the British 1930s plans that failed to maintain a "suitable Arab regime" because the original British sin, creating the Palestine problem, is still with us.
Issam Nashashibi, an Arab-American political activist, is a US-based Director of Deir Yassin Remembered. . he can be reached at RAYAN22124@YAHOO.COM
[Issam Nashashibi, long-time activist for Palestinian human rights, is a U.S.-based Director of Deir Yassin Remembered (http://www.deiryassin.org), an organization of Jews and non-Jews whose objective is to build a memorial for the victims of the Deir Yassin massacre. Abdelatif Rayan is a Washington-based Middle East consultant and journalist.]
Issam Nashashibi encourages your comments: inashashibi@hotmail.com Abdelatif Rayan encourages your comments: rayan22124@yahoo.com
YellowTimes.org is an international news and opinion publication.
-------- nato
Nato states 'waste billions'
By Michael Smith, Defence Correspondent
09/11/2002
Saturday 9 November 2002
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/11/09/wnato09.xml
Lord Robertson, the Nato secretary-general, launched a scathing attack on its European members yesterday, dismissing the £95 billion they spend each year on defence as "a waste of money" because of their inability to deploy swiftly during a crisis.
Their failure to co-ordinate their military capabilities meant that the bulk of the money was "squandered" on troops and equipment unable to deploy in time, leaving America to pick up the pieces, Lord Robertson said.
The Nato chief was speaking in Brussels before this month's Nato summit in Prague at which America is expected to insist on the alliance setting up a multi-national rapid reaction force and on what Lord Robertson described as a "dramatic overhaul" of the transatlantic relationship.
Continental Europe's conscript armies have been too slow to adapt to a changed world where the main threat is from terrorists and rogue states.
Lord Robertson said: "We need modernised forces able to go wherever they are needed, whenever they are needed and to stay for as long as required."
The problem is so bad that when Britain withdrew its units from Nato's ACE mobile force this year to deal with the war on terrorism, the alliance was forced to disband the force because there were no replacements available.
Lord Robertson said: "There are two million troops in uniform in Europe, half a million more than the Americans, but only a fraction are deployable. That is a waste of money.
"There are 2,800 attack aircraft compared to half in the US armed forces. Each of the US planes can fly day and night but only 10 of the huge European fleet can perform in that way. This is waste of money as well.
"The US has 250 wide-bodied extra-large planes, which can take troops to where a crisis is. In the whole of Europe we have 11 planes that can do the same."
His comments on the lack of transport aircraft appeared to be directed particularly at Germany, which has singularly failed to keep promises on joint defence projects.
----
Bulgaria credits hard work for NATO prospects
By Nicholas Kralev
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
November 9, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20021109-918348.htm
SOFIA, Bulgaria - The Bulgarians, never very good at lobbying the great powers or championing their causes on the world stage, had their own way of convincing NATO that they would be a worthy ally - hard work.
Two weeks before the alliance is set to announce its second round of expansion since the end of the Cold War, NATO officials say there is consensus that Bulgaria, along with six other former communist states, will receive a membership invitation.
Of all the candidates, this Balkan nation of 7.6 million, which used to be the Soviet Union's most trusted satellite in Eastern Europe, has found it most difficult to find a Western mentor like its neighbor, Romania, has with France.
"So what we decided to do was to first become less of an enemy and then, as quickly as we could, a true ally of the West," Bulgarian Defense Minister Nikolai Svinarov told The Washington Times.
Politically, Bulgaria has been acting as a de facto ally since NATO's 1999 war with Serbia over Kosovo, when it offered the use of its airspace, Mr. Svinarov said.
It did the same soon after the U.S.-led campaign in Afghanistan began in October 2001. In addition, U.S. tanker planes that refueled combat aircraft used an air force base at its Black Sea port of Bourgas. Last winter, a Bulgarian platoon joined the multinational force in Afghanistan.
Militarily, the country has fulfilled all basic requirements for accession, NATO officials said in interviews at the alliance's Brussels headquarters. It is downsizing its armed forces from 100,000 to 45,000, with the military expected to become fully professional by 2010.
It has just destroyed nearly 100 Soviet-made SS-23, Scud and Frog missiles and adopted tough arms-trade laws. It is also spending well over 2 percent of its gross domestic product on defense, a key NATO condition, said Deputy Foreign Minister Lubomir Ivanov.
All this, current and former Bulgarian officials said, was a result of the realization that only hard work would achieve what diplomacy and close relations with powerful countries do for others.
"We are working really hard, and we are fully committed to becoming a NATO member," said Prime Minister Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. "We are a country of peace with all its neighbors that has contributed to stability in Southeast Europe."
But it took Bulgaria more than seven years after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 to unambiguously declare its orientation toward the West.
Former President Petar Stoyanov was the first politician to run an election campaign in late 1996 on NATO membership as a top priority. The government of Ivan Kostov, Mr. Saxe-Coburg-Gotha's predecessor, formally applied to join the alliance in 1997.
"Since then, I've been making the case that NATO membership is Bulgaria's civilization choice," Mr. Stoyanov said recently. "For us, the alliance is the best expression of trans-Atlantic cooperation."
The road to Prague, where NATO is expected to issue seven invitations on Nov. 21-22, was painfully hard, he said. The economy was in a shambles and organized crime and corruption were as widespread as unemployment. The country's military readiness was at best questionable.
Today, with help from international financial institutions, as well the European Union and NATO, the economic situation is much more stable, although living standards are nowhere near Western levels. Corruption is still deeply rooted in society, in spite of the official fight against it, said foreign diplomats in Sofia, the capital.
"The population is really frustrated by the continuing economic problems, the crime and corruption," one senior Western diplomat said. "The lack of a functioning, independent judicial system is another major hurdle. People get arrested for drug smuggling, and no one goes to jail."
Vessela Tabakova, a political scientist at the University of Sofia, said she is concerned that many Bulgarians have unrealistic hopes that their lives will almost instantly improve when the country becomes a NATO member.
"The government is doing little to explain to the people that membership carries serious responsibilities," she said.
In a peculiar way, while the drive to join NATO and the EU has had a positive effect on the economy, meeting some of the accession requirements has imposed a heavy social burden.
The high unemployment rate, which official figures put at nearly 20 percent, has been worsened by the tens of thousands of layoffs in the military. In many cases, those discharged are not at all prepared for the civilian job market.
But a growing number of ex-officers have found new employment through special centers established in 1999 to teach job interviewing and research skills, to advise on relocation and even put job-seekers directly in touch with potential employers.
"We also offer help on how to start your own business, because there is really no movement of the labor force in Bulgaria, and in some places setting up your own company is the only option," said Efrem Radev, director of the resettlement program.
He said that four centers with staff of 35 and dozens of regional representatives cover 139 cities. Half of the centers' trainees have found jobs so far.
Despite the serious economic and social problems still plaguing the country, Western officials see a basis of a stable allied state at the strategically important crossroads between Europe and the Middle East.
"The Bulgarians have a clear sense of identity, good social structures and a stable political system," the senior Western diplomat said. "There are no signs of ethnic tensions and no extreme parties. There is vigorous democratic political debate."
The most recent display of political passion came in public protests against dismantling the old Soviet missiles. Though people had no love of for the missiles, they feared environmental hazards, such as pollution and radiation.
The missile-destruction effort was temporarily suspended last month after a blast at a military plant injured four workers, causing worries that the process was unsafe.
But in a statement, the government said: "Overcoming some serious hurdles, Bulgaria destroyed the warheads of the missiles, guaranteeing safety and environmental protection."
The missiles' dismantling was seen by many Bulgarians as a bow to the United States, which insisted on it more than any other NATO member and helped pay for the process.
Bulgaria has also used its seat on the U.N. Security Council to score valuable points with Washington.
In a vote to support extending the mandate of the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Bosnia-Herzegovina in June, only two nations withheld support. The United States voted against the measure to protest the council's refusal to grant immunity to U.S. peacekeepers from the new International Criminal Court (ICC). Bulgaria abstained.
"That vote didn't go unnoticed," a State Department official said. Mr. Saxe-Coburg-Gotha said there was obviously no consensus in the council and his country "didn't want to take sides."
U.S. officials say they are satisfied with public support for NATO membership in Bulgaria, another factor the alliance is considering as it makes its final decision on enlargement.
About half of Bulgarians are in favor of joining NATO, said Mira Yanova, executive director of MBMD, one the country's premier polling organizations. The level of support has dropped about 6 percent since last spring and about 15 percent since the summer of 2001, mainly because of people's economic desperation, as well as the uncertainty of NATO's future, she said.
Mr. Saxe-Coburg-Gotha said an invitation in Prague would be a well-deserved reward for nation that has worked tirelessly and yearns to see its efforts recognized.
When he went to see President Bush at the White House in April, Mr. Saxe-Coburg-Gotha warned that NATO's failure to invite Bulgaria could result in an anti-Western backlash.
"Some may even say that our relationship with the East is more reasonable, as in the old days of communism," he said.
----
Commentary: NATO: American or Atlantic
By Ira Straus
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
November 9, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20021108-063052-7936r.htm
WASHINGTON, Nov. 9 (UPI) -- It was a lovely autumn afternoon in Washington, D.C., Oct. 6. Rep. Bart Stupak, the Michigan Democrat, was leading a floor fight in Congress to get Slovakia into NATO. It was truly a glorious moment for Stupak. The Milwaukee-born Stupak is of Slovak descent. Slovakia, long oppressed, was finally coming into the American orbit. There was no opposition. One by one, people spoke in favor of Slovakian membership in NATO.
Next, a floor fight over winning NATO entry for the three Baltic states of Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia ensued, with similar results. That day on Capitol Hill was like a folk festival, a parade of speeches for one ethnic group after another.
Stupak was clear that he loved Slovakia, but was not entirely clear about what wanted to get Slovakia into. That became evident when he tried to spell out the acronym NATO and came up with the "North American Treaty Organization" instead of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
The error was comic, but not unique. It follows a pattern, one that has a deep meaning for NATO. Americans have only the most superficial conception of what NATO is. One person at a NATO expansion lecture thought that it would make more sense to bring in Mexico, not the Eastern Europeans. It emerged that he thought NATO was the North American Trucking Organization.
The "trucking" part was accidental, but the slippage from "Atlantic" to "American" was not. People no longer appreciate the "Atlantic" term in the name of NATO; to most Americans, it has only a formal geographical significance. They have lost the instinctive appreciation of Atlanticism that was felt in the bones by the founders of NATO: the perception of Atlanticism as a culture and an identity, one of the defining characteristics of the alliance and of the civilization that it unites, and a significant part of the identity of their own country.
For its Founders, NATO was no mere Cold War invention; it was the continuation of the transatlantic alliances of World War I and World War II. Those struggles were the formative experiences of their lives. Americans had fought side by side with Atlantic Coast Europeans for the survival of freedom. In the course of these struggles, "Atlanticism" became a part of their shared identity, renewing in a more modern form the Atlantic element that had entered into their identity centuries earlier in the era of colonization.
"Atlanticism" was therefore developed as a way of thinking about the future of the world, a modern democratic incarnation for the identity of Western civilization. Ideas of Atlantic Union were developed during World War I and in the interwar years. A public movement for Atlantic Union emerged at the end of the 1930s. Among its supporters were some of the people in high places who went on, a decade later, to get the Marshall Plan and NATO underway.
NATO was born in this atmosphere of active Atlanticist striving. It gave institutional expression to the Atlantic idea. Equally important, it provided a permanent peacetime structure for the alliance that had been developing sporadically over the previous half-century.
Thanks to this institutionalization, the growth of the Atlantic alliance became faster, deeper, and cumulative. Once the institution was established, a former life-threatening enemy such as Germany could be brought into the alliance within a matter of just a few years. In the previous round after a World War had ended -- in the years after 1919 -- this had proven impossible, and the price had been paid in a second world war.
Nowadays people have forgotten this history. In Western public discourse, Atlanticism has faded into the mists of time. NATO gets treated as nothing more than a Cold War invention. On this premise, the admission of small Eastern European states follows, but only for sentimental reasons, as a punctuation mark to their independence and to the victory over the Soviet Union in the Cold War. Russia is eternally excluded. Future relevance for the alliance is next to zero anyway: the Cold War is over.
Such an approach to NATO, and the resultant approach to NATO expansion that was actually followed in the 1990s, has nothing to do with facing the new threats to Western security. It has everything to do with why a Cold War atmosphere was resurrected in the '90s.
People seemed more interested in rubbing Russia's nose in the dirt than in building the alliance with Russia that was needed for America's future security. The West lost 10 years when it could have been dealing with the emerging threat of global terrorism. It went out of its way to alienate Russia rather than build cooperation with it in the struggle against the new danger.
Seen in the larger context, NATO is not something whose raison d'etre was ever to punish Russia. Rather, it is a part of the progressive development of an objectively-rooted Atlantic alliance. Far from needing to perpetuate its old enemy relations, it has in each new generation brought in its enemies of the previous generation. It has in this way transcended the previous enmities and dramatically improved the security situation of its core Atlantic coast members.
A genuine expansion of the North Atlantic Alliance today would be one that focuses on bringing in Russia, the only potential new member that can dramatically improve the situation for North Atlantic security. It would also bring in small states, but alongside Russia, not against Russia. And it would refurbish NATO decision-making for the challenge of managing with more members and more complex responsibilities.
To his credit, NATO's British secretary-general, Lord George Robertson has tried to get NATO to shift its priorities partway in these directions. To NATO's loss, the effort began only in 2001, not 1991 when it was first needed. It is still only in its initial stages.
NATO suffered in the last decade. It necessarily took on new members and new tasks, and got involved in faster-moving situations than it had to deal with in the Cold War era, yet it remained stuck with decision-making processes that dated from that old era.
Reforms are beginning in NATO internal processes, but adequate reforms are not yet in sight. NATO's military structures are also only beginning to adapt to the new challenges of the era of mass terrorism, but the prospects are somewhat better in this sphere, where the attention of the media and of national budgetary authorities is attracted more easily.
Meanwhile the Alliance's political structures are plowing ahead with expansion plans that were inherited unchanged from the 1990s: plans according to which, by the end of November, NATO will be inviting in half a dozen new members, despite the absence of commensurate reforms in decision-making procedures, and despite the implicit relegation of Russia to a singularly isolated position.
This is an approach by which NATO is putting at risk both its internal functionality and its main external geopolitical gain from the end of Communism.
Ira Straus is former Fulbright professor of political science at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations. Comments to: irastraus@aol.com.
-------- pakistan
Pakistan Religious Want U.S. Out
November 9, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Pakistan-US-Politics.html
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) -- A leader of Pakistan's religious right, coming off the bloc's best election showing in the country's 55-year history, demanded Saturday that the U.S. military leave the country.
``We were opposed to their war in Afghanistan before and we are opposed now. The vote of the people was clear. They want them out of Pakistan,'' Fazl-ur Rahman told The Associated Press in an interview Saturday.
Last month's general elections, the first since military rule was imposed here in 1999, gave the religious right 59 seats out of 342 in parliament. The pro-military party won 103 seats, far short of the 172 seats needed to form a government.
Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto's party controls 80 seats, and may ally with the religious bloc.
``People want good relations with the United States, but they want their sovereignty,'' he said. ``They will have to respect the will of the people of Pakistan.''
The six-party alliance of religious parties, of which Rahman's party is a dominant partner, campaigned almost exclusively on an anti-American platform. It demanded U.S. soldiers leave Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan, criticizing President Pervez Musharraf's support for the war on terror.
His voice soft, his head swathed in his trademark orange turban, Rahman chose his words carefully.
He said he did not want to answer questions about the Taliban and al-Qaida, or about them finding sanctuary here under a government that included the religious right. ``These are issues we will speak about in detail after the government is formed,'' he said.
But his lieutenant, Mir Hussain Gillani, a squat white-bearded cleric who sat at his side, said his party's policies are clear.
``Absolutely the Americans will be told to go. Leave Pakistan. This is our country,'' said Gillani.
He also said that it was the religious duty of every Muslim Pakistani to protect and offer sanctuary to Taliban and al-Qaida. He said Osama bin Laden was not a terrorist, but ``Osama is one of the biggest followers of Islam. And what has he done? What has the United States and the West proven that he has done?''
Gillani is vice president of Rahman's Jamiat-e-Ulema Islam, or Party of Islamic Clerics. He said that the Taliban were attacked by the U.S.-led coalition because ``America is an enemy of Islam. It is our duty to give protection to the oppressed Muslims and America is the biggest oppressor.''
Last week the religious bloc and a pro-democracy alliance, which includes Bhutto's party, reached a tentative agreement that would give them enough seats to form the new civilian government in Pakistan.
They then said Rahman would be their likely candidate for prime minister, though negotiations continue.
The pro-military party still says it can form a government. Rahman is talking to them but they don't want him as prime minister. He says that's not negotiable. Some of the parties within the pro-democracy alliance, including Bhutto's party, may break away. Some are questioning Rahman as prime minister and threatening to give their support to the pro-military government.
With all this confusion, the president postponed the convening of Parliament while the politicians wrangle for power.
Analysts say the religious bloc, whether in the government or in opposition, will be a powerful force and that their platform will have to be considered and their supporters accommodated.
That could mean an increasing number of religious right followers in key ministries, like the Interior Ministry, which controls security and police and is the supposed watchdog for fleeing Taliban and al-Qaida.
Rahman's religious right compatriots gained control of the two provinces that border Afghanistan, a region that is strategically crucial to the U.S. campaign.
U.S. intelligence suspects that top Taliban and al-Qaida leaders are hiding in both the North West Frontier Province and southwestern Baluchistan.
Rahman said there are no Taliban hiding there. But most of Rahman's supporters sympathize with the Taliban. At Rahman's election rallies, supporters waved posters of bin Laden.
Rahman accused the United States of trying to keep the religious right out of power in the frontier provinces.
``We are getting the impression that America is trying to prevent us from forming the government, putting hurdles in our way. This would be a mistake, a lost opportunity,'' he said.
``We should learn about each other, so that they can understand us and we can understand them,'' Rahman said, sitting in a modest government-operated housing unit. ``We should not waste this chance.''
-------- spies
Pentagon Plans a Computer System That Would Peek at Personal Data of Americans
By JOHN MARKOFF
November 9, 2002
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/09/politics/09COMP.html?ei=1&en=2c953778a582ee6b&ex=1037854354&pagewanted=print&position=top
The Pentagon is constructing a computer system that could create a vast electronic dragnet, searching for personal information as part of the hunt for terrorists around the globe - including the United States.
As the director of the effort, Vice Adm. John M. Poindexter, has described the system in Pentagon documents and in speeches, it will provide intelligence analysts and law enforcement officials with instant access to information from Internet mail and calling records to credit card and banking transactions and travel documents, without a search warrant.
Historically, military and intelligence agencies have not been permitted to spy on Americans without extraordinary legal authorization. But Admiral Poindexter, the former national security adviser in the Reagan administration, has argued that the government needs broad new powers to process, store and mine billions of minute details of electronic life in the United States.
Admiral Poindexter, who has described the plan in public documents and speeches but declined to be interviewed, has said that the government needs to "break down the stovepipes" that separate commercial and government databases, allowing teams of intelligence agency analysts to hunt for hidden patterns of activity with powerful computers.
"We must become much more efficient and more clever in the ways we find new sources of data, mine information from the new and old, generate information, make it available for analysis, convert it to knowledge, and create actionable options," he said in a speech in California earlier this year.
Admiral Poindexter quietly returned to the government in January to take charge of the Office of Information Awareness at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, known as Darpa. The office is responsible for developing new surveillance technologies in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks.
In order to deploy such a system, known as Total Information Awareness, new legislation would be needed, some of which has been proposed by the Bush administration in the Homeland Security Act that is now before Congress. That legislation would amend the Privacy Act of 1974, which was intended to limit what government agencies could do with private information.
The possibility that the system might be deployed domestically to let intelligence officials look into commercial transactions worries civil liberties proponents.
"This could be the perfect storm for civil liberties in America," said Marc Rotenberg, director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington "The vehicle is the Homeland Security Act, the technology is Darpa and the agency is the F.B.I. The outcome is a system of national surveillance of the American public."
Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld has been briefed on the project by Admiral Poindexter and the two had a lunch to discuss it, according to a Pentagon spokesman.
"As part of our development process, we hope to coordinate with a variety of organizations, to include the law enforcement community," a Pentagon spokeswoman said.
An F.B.I. official, who spoke on the condition that he not be identified, said the bureau had had preliminary discussions with the Pentagon about the project but that no final decision had been made about what information the F.B.I. might add to the system.
A spokesman for the White House Office of Homeland Security, Gordon Johndroe, said officials in the office were not familiar with the computer project and he declined to discuss concerns raised by the project's critics without knowing more about it.
He referred all questions to the Defense Department, where officials said they could not address civil liberties concerns because they too were not familiar enough with the project.
Some members of a panel of computer scientists and policy experts who were asked by the Pentagon to review the privacy implications this summer said terrorists might find ways to avoid detection and that the system might be easily abused.
"A lot of my colleagues are uncomfortable about this and worry about the potential uses that this technology might be put, if not by this administration then by a future one," said Barbara Simon, a computer scientist who is past president of the Association of Computing Machinery. "Once you've got it in place you can't control it."
Other technology policy experts dispute that assessment and support Admiral Poindexter's position that linking of databases is necessary to track potential enemies operating inside the United States.
"They're conceptualizing the problem in the way we've suggested it needs to be understood," said Philip Zelikow, a historian who is executive director of the Markle Foundation task force on National Security in the Information Age. "They have a pretty good vision of the need to make the tradeoffs in favor of more sharing and openness."
On Wednesday morning, the panel reported its findings to Dr. Tony Tether, the director of the defense research agency, urging development of technologies to protect privacy as well as surveillance, according to several people who attended the meeting.
If deployed, civil libertarians argue, the computer system would rapidly bring a surveillance state. They assert that potential terrorists would soon learn how to avoid detection in any case.
The new system will rely on a set of computer-based pattern recognition techniques known as "data mining," a set of statistical techniques used by scientists as well as by marketers searching for potential customers.
The system would permit a team of intelligence analysts to gather and view information from databases, pursue links between individuals and groups, respond to automatic alerts, and share information efficiently, all from their individual computers.
The project calls for the development of a prototype based on test data that would be deployed at the Army Intelligence and Security Command at Fort Belvoir, Va. Officials would not say when the system would be put into operation.
The system is one of a number of projects now under way inside the government to lash together both commercial and government data to hunt for patterns of terrorist activities.
"What we are doing is developing technologies and a prototype system to revolutionize the ability of the United States to detect, classify and identify foreign terrorists, and decipher their plans, and thereby enable the U.S. to take timely action to successfully pre-empt and defeat terrorist acts," said Jan Walker, the spokeswoman for the defense research agency.
Before taking the position at the Pentagon, Admiral Poindexter, who was convicted in 1990 for his role in the Iran-contra affair, had worked as a contractor on one of the projects he now controls. Admiral Poindexter's conviction was reversed in 1991 by a federal appeals court because he had been granted immunity for his testimony before Congress about the case.
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Cuba hits expulsion of envoys by U.S.
From combined dispatches
November 9, 2002
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20021109-10567842.htm
HAVANA - Cuba responded yesterday to the expulsion of four of its diplomats from the United States by accusing the U.S. mission in Havana of breaking international norms with spying and meddling in Cuba's internal affairs.
The Foreign Ministry statement set the stage for the potential retaliatory expulsion of American diplomats from Havana.
"Cuba has the right to respond, and will, at the appropriate moment," it said.
"The government of the United States knows that we can present ample evidence of their activities of espionage and constant subversion against Cuba," according to the statement published by the Communist Party daily Granma.
The United States government "doesn't have the least bit of moral authority, nor any justification to propose these assertions against our diplomats," the statement said.
U.S. diplomats have angered President Fidel Castro's government by helping dissidents and handing out shortwave radios for Cubans to listen to American radio broadcasts.
The Cuban statement said the U.S. interference violated the Vienna Convention on diplomatic relations.
Havana said the expulsions, ordered last week by President Bush's administration, were a "grotesque" ploy to win votes in Tuesday's midterm elections among Cuban exiles in Florida, where Mr. Bush's brother, Jeb, was re-elected governor.
The expulsions were aimed at undermining growing support in the United States for lifting the 4-decades-old trade sanctions against Cuba, the Cuban statement said.
Specifically, Havana blamed the action against its diplomats on Cuban-born U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Otto Reich. It said Mr. Reich was obsessed with trying to halt "the unstoppable advance of forces in the United States against the policy of aggressions and attacks against Cuba."
On Nov. 1, the State Department declared first secretaries Gustavo Machin and Oscar Redondo at the Cuban Interests Section in Washington "persona non grata" and gave them 10 days to leave the country.
Two other Cuban diplomats at the United Nations in New York, Francisco Gonzalez and Carlos Suanes, were also asked to leave the United States "for engaging in activities deemed to be harmful to the United States outside their official capacity" - apparently a euphemism for spying.
The expulsions were a response to the activities of Ana Belen Montes, a former U.S. intelligence officer who was sentenced to 25 years in jail in October for spying for Cuba.
Belen Montes, an American citizen of Puerto Rican descent, analyzed intelligence about Cuba for the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency. She admitted she had voluntarily spied for Cuba for 17 years for ideological reasons.
The United States broke off diplomatic relations with Cuba more than 40 years ago after Mr. Castro seized power in a 1959 revolution. The two nations maintain interests sections in each other's capitals.
Tensions between Havana and Washington mounted again in May when Mr. Bush vowed to maintain the trade embargo until Cuba allowed democratic reforms of its one-party state and announced stepped up support for dissidents on the island.
-------- us
US says missile strike in Yemen legal, may be emulated in Asia
Saturday November 9, 2002
AFP
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/021109/1/34jyr.html
A controversial CIA-led missile strike which killed six suspected al-Qaeda members in Yemen was "legal and necessary" and may be emulated in Southeast Asia to crush terror groups, a top US counterterrorism official said.
"We will use whatever is necessary and legal to attack this (terrorist) threat, to interdict it and eliminate it," Francis Taylor, the US State Department coordinator for counterterrorism, told a media briefing in Manila on Saturday.
Asked whether the covert and lethal Yemeni missile strike a week ago was necessary and legal, Taylor said: "Sure, the answer is yes.
"Both legal and the appropriate tool given the circumstances," said Taylor, here to attend a counterterrorism conference after visits to Australia, Indonesia and Singapore.
Six suspected al-Qaeda operatives were killed by a Hellfire missile launched from a remote-controlled CIA Predator aircraft as they rode in a vehicle 160 kilometres (100 miles) east of the Yemeni capital Sanaa, reports have said.
Among the dead men was reportedly a senior al-Qaeda leader suspected of masterminding the October 2000 attack on the US destroyer Cole, which was rammed by an explosives-laden boat that blew a hole in its hull and killed 17 US sailors.
US Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz had implicitly confirmed that the United States was behind the Yemeni missile strike.
While Wolfowitz called it a "very successful tactical operation," some groups have raised questions about the legality, effectiveness and ethics of using a tactic outwardly akin to assassination.
Assassination is banned by a presidential executive order.
To another question, Taylor said the United States would keep its options open in launching a Yemeni-style strike against terror groups in Southeast Asia -- regarded as the second front in the US-led coalition's battle against terrorism after Afghanistan.
----
US tanks ready to roll on Baghdad
Troops are already out on exercise and digging in in small groups under camoflage netting along the road to Baghdad.
Tim Ripley in Kuwait City
Sat 9 Nov 2002
The Scotsman
http://www.news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=1247552002
PRESIDENT Bush continues to tell the world that he has not made up his mind about attacking Iraq. But in the Kuwaiti desert, the US Army is busy preparing for war.
At their huge military base on the outskirts of Kuwait City, hundreds of American army tanks are being prepared to roll northwards towards Baghdad. As US military hardware piles up at Camp Doha, the locals have given it a suitably gung-ho nickname - "Camp F@@@ Iraq".
As the US army's Abrams tanks and Apache gunships venture out into the desert, ostensibly for "training exercises", they look ready to roll northwards at very short notice.
Posted all along the road north, from Kuwait City to the Iraqi border, are small detachments of GIs, hidden under camouflage netting and cautiously watching the desultory traffic passing them by. Kuwaiti construction teams are hard at work improving the road, fitting lighting and laying new tarmac, despite the fact that the border has been closed since the Gulf War 11 years ago. "Either the Kuwaitis are very optimistic about a speedy and peaceful resolution to the crisis, or the US military want to have their main supply route into Iraq in tip-top condition," was the wry comment of one western diplomat.
"They have not come here for fun", was the conclusion of a British engineer, watching the display of military might from an oil field only 20 miles from the Iraqi border. "The Yanks tell us they will be ready to go after Ramadan in early December."
Less than a mile from Camp Doha, however, the residents of the oil-rich Gulf Emirate still know how to party.
At the Entertainment City theme park, Kuwaitis can ride the roller-coasters, take the African jungle cruise, or a car ride round Europe. Alternatively, they can take aim at cartoons of Saddam Hussein on the Wild West shooting gallery.
"Saddam is finished," commented Mustafa, the gallery attendant, as he reloaded for more eager customers. "Then we will have to put up a picture of Ariel Sharon".
Residents of the Emirate, from where it is widely assumed the main US armoured thrust would begin, seem to share none of the doubts of their fellow Arabs about the wisdom of toppling Saddam.
This week, the Kuwait government said that it would allow the US and UK to attack Iraq from its bases - in sharp contrast to a sensitive Saudi Arabia, which has ruled out use of bases on its soil, Kuwait public opinion seems strongly in favour of a US attack.
Unlike in previous Iraqi crises over the past decade, Kuwait has so far remained very calm. There have been no mad rushes to the airport or panic buying of war supplies. Even sales of gas masks have barely picked up.
Yacoub Al-Saleh, executive manager of Kuwait's largest military supply store, told The Scotsman: "The people's fear is still at a minimum level. Mainly educated people are buying - those who have some awareness of the situation. That is a sign of the temperature. I feel it is low at the moment."
Kuwait City remains a bustling metropolis, hardly feeling like a city 50 miles from a potential war zone. There are early morning traffic jams and business is brisk, from the traditional souks to western-style shopping malls.
The decision to close down the Kuwait city bureau of the Arabic al-Jazeera satellite television station highlighted government nervousness over Islamist groups.
For the record, the US Army is saying almost nothing about its preparations for war, beyond parroting comments from President Bush that "no decisions" have been made.
Inside the sprawling Camp Doha, the US Third Army's spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Rick Thomas, was unable to provide details of 10,000 strong US forces in Kuwait or the continuing troop build up.
His only comment was that, "US Central Command is re-positioning forces in the region to support the President's global war on terrorism."
In private US Army officers display no doubts that there is only one outcome to the crisis - war. Their contingency invasion plans are ready and they are just waiting for the "execute" order.
Two scenarios seem ready, a surprise assault that could be launched within days, or a more deliberate campaign with a start date in late January or early February. The latter seems to be their preference, with a major build up of supplies and equipment building up to a peak in December.
Last week a brigade combat team of the 3rd Infantry Division moved out of Camp Doha into the desert for a extensive series of exercises that will culminate in live firing by Abrams tanks later in the month. All of the north west of the Emirate, a quarter of Kuwait's land mass, has been declared a military zone and sealed off to allow the exercises to take place.
Currently two armoured brigades are known to be in the Emirate, and Kuwaiti military sources say that since June the tanks, armoured vehicles, artillery and other heavy equipment for one to two more armoured brigades has arrived. This would allow a further 10,000 GIs to fly in, link up with the heavy equipment and be ready for combat in 72 hours. Plans are underway to move the heavy equipment for another US division, to equip in excess of 18,000 troops, into Kuwait by December.
Three US Military Sealift Command ships have been dispatched to the Gulf carrying armoured vehicles and helicopters. The Pentagon is contracting for commercial vessels to carry 300 containers of ammunition to the Middle East by the middle of December. Apache attack helicopters are already flying patrols over the desert in the west of the Emirate.
In a further sign of the relentless American build-up, the US Army has begun contracting local construction firms to begin building at least one huge tent city out in the western desert - to accommodate a further 3,000-5,000 troops. All the facilities are to be up and running by the end of December.
From the Kuwaiti desert, it appears the countdown to war has already begun.
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Military Faces Planning Dilemma
Arms Hunt Affects War Preparations
By Bradley Graham
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, November 9, 2002; Page A18
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A29804-2002Nov8?language=printer
The return of United Nations inspectors to Iraq confronts U.S. military planners with a dilemma.
On the one hand, they must avoid rushing too many invasion forces to the Persian Gulf region, where troops could end up sitting and waiting while inspections play out, risking losses in efficiency and morale and straining relations with Arab host countries. On the other hand, they must ensure that enough forces are in place to keep the pressure on the Iraqi government and to respond rapidly should inspections fail or should Iraqi President Saddam Hussein provoke a conflict.
Initially anticipating a possible decision by President Bush to attack Iraq as early as January, the Pentagon began weeks ago to bolster troops and equipment in the surrounding region. Several senior defense officials said they now expect that plans to send large numbers of additional ground troops will be delayed, although some vehicles, supplies and other equipment might continue to be shipped to the region and stored.
"We're going to have to modulate the flow," a White House official said. "It doesn't make sense to stack a bunch of troops in the desert." But, the official added, Bush and his top advisers have not yet decided how and when to deploy more U.S. forces and plan to review detailed Pentagon options soon.
"All of this has to be done in a careful and thoughtful manner," the official said. "We want to do this in a way that maintains not only morale and efficiency but also combat edge."
Plans for about 600 staff members of U.S. Central Command, which has responsibility for military operations in the Middle East, to travel from headquarters in Florida to Qatar later this month to set up a command center for running any invasion of Iraq are likely to proceed, the officials said. Similarly, headquarters elements of the Army's V Corps and the Marine Corps' First Expeditionary Force, charged with overseeing any invading ground forces, will continue with orders to establish command posts in Kuwait. But some of these headquarters personnel may return to the United States after erecting their mobile operations centers, officials said.
Additionally, the Pentagon is expected to scratch plans to extend the tours of two aircraft carriers -- the Abraham Lincoln and the George Washington -- that have been within striking distance of Iraq, allowing them to sail back to the United States after the arrival soon of replacement carriers -- the Constellation and the Harry Truman. In Kuwait, a fresh brigade of the Army's 3rd Infantry Division already has started rolling in to relieve a brigade that has been training there for nearly six months. And the Air Force also is counting on rotating some of its warplanes in and out of the region.
Such movements will allow the Pentagon to keep troops fresh while sustaining higher-than-normal force levels in the Iraq area, notably, two aircraft carriers instead of one and more than double the previous number of about 2,000 infantry soldiers in Kuwait. The Pentagon also has deployed an unspecified number of additional Special Operations forces and sent a battalion of Apache attack helicopters from Germany to Kuwait.
"There's already a substantial force in the region, and that gives you a lot of flexibility," a senior Pentagon general said.
While any delay in military action affords Iraq more time to strengthen its own defenses, U.S. forces also can benefit. The Pentagon has been using the prospect of war as motivation for supplying likely frontline units with upgraded equipment, including longer-range communication radios, improved navigation devices and the latest in digital electronic gear.
"We're addressing a lot of things we'd like to fix before going to war," said a senior Army officer in a division earmarked to fight in Iraq. "So the delay might help to get some equipment in place."
At the same time, the resumption of U.N. inspections after a four-year gap creates a new set of uncertainties for military planners. Just what will be considered an Iraqi violation, and what kind of U.S. military response will be expected in each case -- a full-scale invasion or some sort of lesser enforcement action? What should happen if Iraq shoots down a U.S. or British plane patrolling the "no fly" zones over the northern and southern parts of the country? How will U.N. inspectors be withdrawn from Iraq if necessary?
"The range of possibilities is endless," the senior Pentagon general said. "You have to think through what sort of support force you're going to provide for the U.N. inspection teams, what sort of response force you'll need and what sort of finishing force might become necessary."
Among the most significant uncertainties, officials said, is how long the inspections might last.
"The challenge is how to have a credible enough force there without tiring it out," the senior Pentagon general said. "There's much more art to this than science, because you don't know how all the actors will play this, nor do you know what all the allies will allow or tolerate."
If war comes, Pentagon officials have made no secret of their desire to fight in the cooler winter months. But they insist that the heat of the desert summer, when temperatures reach well over 100 degrees, would not prohibit military action later next year.
Meanwhile yesterday, for the third time in six weeks, U.S. planes dropped hundreds of thousands of leaflets over southern Iraq, urging Iraqi forces not to fire on U.S. and British patrol aircraft. The leaflet drops come amid what Pentagon officials say has been a rise in Iraqi attempts to shoot at allied planes.
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Coast Guard's multifaceted mission
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
November 9, 2002
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20021109-80053880.htm#2
Michael F. McCarthy has little understanding of the Coast Guard's roles (note plural) ("Whom is the Coast Guard protecting?" Letters, Thursday).
As one of the five branches of the armed forces, protecting our country is first and foremost among the Coast Guard's many duties. As a law enforcement entity, one of its responsibilities is to interdict those who are breaking the laws of the United States, and to do that as far offshore as practical so as to reduce the chances for success of smugglers of people (illegal migrants) or illicit cargo (cocaine and marijuana).
The "material aid" that Mr. McCarthy cites is simply humanitarian, limited to rescuing those who are in peril on the seas, and providing food and shelter for those rescued until they are evaluated by the Immigration and Naturalization Service and either returned to their country of origin or allowed to be brought into the United States under provisions of existing law or regulation.
Finally, the Customs Service has never shot down any drug smuggling aircraft. Neither it nor the Coast Guard has authorization to do so.
VICE ADM. HOWARD B. THORSEN
Coast Guard (retired) Alexandria
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Army's High - Speed Laser Hits Shell
November 9, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/technology/AP-Laser-Weapons.html
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Weapons that travel far faster than the proverbial speeding bullet are as little as five years from use in combat, say defense officials who used a laser to shoot an artillery shell out of the sky this week.
In a first-of-its-kind feat, the Army used a high-energy laser built by TRW Inc. to heat the shell, fired from a howitzer at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, and cause it to explode in flight. The test was successfully repeated a second time.
The shell, moving at about 1,000 mph, was tracked by radar and heat-sensing infrared sensors, then locked onto and zapped by the laser beam traveling at light speed.
The so-called Mobile Tactical High-Energy Laser is a short-range weapon being co-developed with Israel, which wants it to destroy Katyusha rockets fired at its border villages by Hezbollah guerillas in Lebanon.
The chemically powered weapon, which looks like a searchlight, is one of a handful of laser devices the Pentagon is working on under the umbrella of missile defense.
In earlier tests, the Army used the tactical laser to shoot down 25 Katyushas, both singly and in salvos. Artillery shells, however, generate far less heat than do rockets and are more difficult to track, officials said. Also, since rockets are pressurized, they are easier to detonate than are shells.
``This was, science-wise, a significant accomplishment,'' said William Congo, a spokesman for the Army Space and Missile Defense Command.
Before, the only defense against a lobbed shell was to bulk up on armor, move out of the way or dig in, said Dan Goure, vice president of the Lexington Institute, a nonprofit think tank in Arlington, Va. The ability to intercept a shell changes that.
``Now, in theory, this kind of capability allows you to deny that kind of attack,'' Goure said.
The tactical laser could enter use in 2007. Since development began in 1996, the Army, the Israeli Ministry of Defense and TRW have spent $250 million on the project.
It is designed for use against shells, mortars, short-range ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and air-to-surface munitions. It could also target helicopters and small aircraft, including robotic drones.
Officials hope to shrink the weapon enough to allow it to be mounted on a truck, allowing it to be deployed where needed.
``It's movable, it's not mobile. What we are moving toward is a much smaller, mobile device,'' Congo said. An artists rendering of the actual deployed weapon shows it assembled from two tractor-trailers, the laser protruding on top.
The weapon would also have to be nimble enough to destroy multiple rounds as quickly as they are fired.
``Shooting down a single artillery shell is pretty cool, but artillery shells don't come in ones,'' said Christopher Hellman, a senior analyst at the Center for Defense Information in Washington.
Other related weapons the U.S. military is developing include the Airborne Laser, a $3.7 billion project to mount a laser aboard a Boeing 747. The flying laser is being built to intercept and destroy ballistic missiles shortly after launch.
A July report by the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, found the Air Force has underestimated the complexity -- as well as time and cost -- of developing the Airborne Laser system. Even today, it remains ``very difficult'' to calculate the project's cost and schedule, according to the report.
Also under development are space-based lasers, which would also target ballistic missiles, and ground-based systems that could take out orbiting satellites, crippling enemy communications.
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U.S. Plans 250,000 Troops for Iraq
November 9, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-US-Iraq-Military.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- A Pentagon plan for invading Iraq, should the new U.N. arms inspection effort fail, calls for a land, sea and air force of 200,000 to 250,000 troops, officials said Saturday.
President Bush, who has publicly acknowledged having received a war plan without mentioning details, approved it prior to the U.N. Security Council's vote Friday to force Iraq to disarm, The New York Times reported Saturday on its Web site.
The president has not, however, ordered the Pentagon to carry out the plan. He will wait to see whether Iraq accepts and abides by the terms of the U.N. resolution. If arms inspections go forward without interference, a decision to go to war could be put off for several months, officials have said.
War planning goes on, however, to ensure that the military is ready to act if commanded to do so by Bush.
Several White House officials reached Saturday declined to comment on the Times report that Bush has approved the plan, or on other details.
Pentagon planners had considered an approach that would have used 100,000 or fewer troops, but they settled on a much larger force favored by Gen. Tommy Franks, head of the Central Command that would run any war in Iraq, said defense officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Bush said Friday he prefers a peaceful approach to disarming Iraq but if that proves futile the military is prepared to ``move swiftly with force'' to ensure the regime of Saddam Hussein is stripped of its weapons of mass destruction and its ability to produce more in the future.
The Times report said Pentagon officials are still working on some details of the war plan, but the basic approach is to begin with an air campaign, then quickly seize bases in northern, western and southern Iraq from which U.S. and allied forces could operate. A key early objective would be to cut off the Iraqi leadership in Baghdad in hopes of a rapid collapse of the government.
A major uncertainty, however, is whether Saddam would order the early use of the chemical and biological weapons that American intelligence believes he retains in defiance of previous U.N. disarmament demands.
As previously reported, a major strategic aim of a war in Iraq would be to avoid causing major damage to civilian infrastructure such as water and electricity supplies. The United States hopes that by focusing the war on Saddam's ruling elite it can avoid an anti-U.S. backlash.
The Times reported that Saddam is preparing thousands of civilian volunteers to fill ``martyrs' brigades'' and sacrifice their lives to bombs and advancing troops. Some of these volunteers would hope to slow the American-led offensive by acting as suicide bombers or fighting in neighborhood defense squads, but their true strategic goal would be to generate anti-American feelings in the region.
The Pentagon already is moving forces into position to ensure that it will be capable of launching swift strikes into Iraq, should Bush decide on war. The Navy has two aircraft carriers within striking range of Iraq and two more are scheduled to arrive in the area next month.
The Air Force says it is preparing to deploy B-2 stealth bombers to the central Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia, where they could operate from special hangars now under construction. Other Air Force warplanes are in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain and elsewhere in the Gulf.
In addition to thousands of Air Force and Navy personnel active in the Gulf region, the Army and Marine Corps already have thousands of ground troops in the area and additional equipment and supplies are heading there.
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS
-------- death penalty
Case Could Break Legal Ground
Sniper Suspects Charged Under New Va. Terrorism Law
By Fredrick Kunkle and Michael D. Shear
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, November 9, 2002; Page A08
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A30173-2002Nov8?language=printer
Attorney General John D. Ashcroft said he sent the Washington sniper suspects to Virginia's courts in part because of well-established death penalty law.
But Virginia's prosecutors have charged John Allen Muhammad, 41, and John Lee Malvo, 17, under a new anti-terrorism law that has never been used or interpreted by the courts.
Legal experts yesterday questioned why, if Virginia was chosen because of its long-settled death penalty procedures, prosecutors are relying on an untested law.
"Any new statute is going to raise all kinds of new issues that have to be resolved by the courts," said Richard C. Goemann, deputy director of the Virginia Public Defender Commission.
Muhammad is charged in Prince William County with two counts of capital murder in the Oct. 9 shooting death of Dean Harold Meyers at a Sunoco station. Malvo is facing the same charges in the Oct. 14 death of Linda Franklin outside a Home Depot in the Falls Church area.
One of the counts is filed under a provision of Virginia's death penalty law making it a capital crime to kill more than one person in a three-year period. The other is filed under the anti-terrorism provision, which makes a killing eligible for capital punishment if it is intended to intimidate the public or influence the government.
Prosecutors believe that the anti-terrorism law is written in such a way that they would not have to prove who fired the fatal shot. Under the multiple-killing provision, well-established case law in Virginia would require them to establish the shooter in court. Prince William County Commonwealth's Attorney Paul B. Ebert and his Fairfax counterpart, Robert F. Horan Jr., have not said what evidence, if any, they have to prove who actually pulled the trigger in their cases.
Either way, some experts said yesterday that for a defendant to get the death penalty under the anti-terrorism statute, prosecutors may still have to prove that a person either pulled the trigger in a terrorist act or, like Osama bin Laden, directed or ordered another person to kill in an act of terrorism.
"That's what they had in mind -- getting bin Laden and the guy who flew the plane. Whether it covers the guy who drove to the airport is not clear," said Ronald J. Bacigal, a University of Richmond law professor.
Richard Bonnie, a criminal law professor at the University of Virginia, agreed. "It's not clear, upon a reading of the statute, that the legislation dispenses with the requirement in death cases that the prosecution prove the defendant is the triggerman," Bonnie said.
Bonnie also said the triggerman provision is what has allowed Virginia's capital punishment laws to stand up on appeal. Other states that have sought to impose the death penalty on defendants who were accomplices in fatal robberies, for example, have often had those cases overturned.
"Technically speaking, proof that the defendant was actually the killer is an element of a capital crime. That is Virginia law," Bonnie said.
Virginia Attorney General Jerry W. Kilgore (R), who authored the anti-terrorism law, said he is confident that it will withstand legal challenges if Muhammad and Malvo are convicted.
"We know there will be challenges to the anti-terrorism law," Kilgore said. He said he has faith that Virginia courts will uphold the parts of the law that allow the death penalty to be applied to defendants who are not proven to have pulled the trigger.
"The courts are going to be willing to look at intent," he said. "In this terrorism era, you may be left without a triggerman, but you may be left with someone who did the planning and helped in a very horrible way."
Prince William recently obtained a death penalty conviction for a defendant who did not pull the trigger. Justin Wolfe, 20, was found guilty of hiring a friend to kill his drug supplier. That case is being appealed. Virginia executed David Lee Fisher in 1999 after he was found guilty of hiring someone to kill a fishing buddy in Bedford County.
Another of Ashcroft's decisions this week seems to favor prosecutors. Sending the cases to different courthouses could strengthen the prosecution's hand, particularly against Malvo, a juvenile, experts said. Trying them together could allow a jury to view the juvenile as less culpable than the older suspect, they said.
"As a prosecutor, I'm thinking you have a better chance of getting the death penalty looking at him alone," Bacigal said, referring to Malvo. If the suspects were tried together, a defense lawyer would almost certainly paint Muhammad as the mastermind who manipulated a younger person, Bacigal said.
-------- terrorism
Nine groups added to foreign terror list
By Anwar Iqbal
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
November 9, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20021109-053401-7553r.htm
WASHINGTON, Nov. 9 (UPI) -- The U.S. State Department has added nine groups suspected of terrorist links to a visa blacklist that is intended to keep their members or affiliates out of the country, sources reported.
There additions brought to 45 groups, including businesses and known extremist organizations, that are on the U.S. Terrorist Exclusion List, the department said in a statement issued Friday.
The newly named entities are: the Al Taqwa Trade, Property and Industry Company, Bank Al Taqwa, Nada Management Organization, Youssef M. Nada and Company Gesellschaft MBH, Ummah Tameer E-Nau (UTN), the Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF), the Ulster Defense Association, the Afghan Support Committee and the Revival of Islamic Heritage Society.
Foreign Terrorist Organizations are foreign organizations that are designated by the Secretary of State in accordance with section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act. FTO designations are designed to curtail support for terrorist activities and pressuring groups to get out of the terrorist activities.
FTO designations expire automatically after two years, but the Secretary of State may redesignate an organization for additional two-year period, upon a finding that the statutory criteria continue to be met.
In October 1997, then-Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright approved the designation of the first 30 groups as FTOs.
In October 1999, Secretary Albright redesignated 27 of these groups as FTOs but determined that three organizations
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell designated two additional FTOs (Real IRA and United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia) in 2001.
In October 2001, Secretary Powell redesignated 25 of the 28 FTOs whose designations were due to expire, combining two previously designated groups (Kahane Chai and Kach) into one.
Secretary Powell has designated five additional FTOs (Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, Asbat al-Ansar, Jaish-e-Mohammed, Lashkar-e Tayyiba and Salafist Group for Call and Combat) between October 2001 and July 2002.
An Indonesian Muslim group Jemaah Islamiya organization was designated an FTO last month after the Oct. 12 terrorist attack on a nightclub in Bali that killed 190 tourists.
Al Qaida has been on this list since the 1998 bombing of the U.S. embassies in East Africa.
Pakistani groups Jaish-e-Mohammed, Harakat ul-Mujahidin and Lashkar-e Tayyiba were added to the list after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States. So were several Arab and Filipino Muslim groups.
--------
US Official: Yemen Attack Was Legal
November 9, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Philippines-US-Terrorism.html
MANILA, Philippines (AP) -- A U.S. missile strike that killed six suspected al-Qaida operatives in Yemen last week was legal and appropriate, a top U.S. counterterrorism official said Saturday, suggesting such covert attacks could be used against terrorists in Southeast Asia.
The attack in Yemen, conducted under a directive by President Bush allowing the CIA to pursue al-Qaida operatives worldwide, has raised human rights concerns. An Amnesty International spokesman said Thursday the attack violated international treaties prohibiting summary executions.
Bush administration officials have said it was a legitimate wartime operation against a known enemy.
Asked at a news conference in the Philippine capital if the Yemen attack was legal and necessary, U.S. Ambassador at Large Francis X. Taylor, who is President Bush's coordinator for counterterrorism, replied, ``Sure, the answer is yes. Both a legal and appropriate tool, given the circumstances.''
Taylor also suggested a strike on terrorists in Southeast Asia was an option.
Bush has asked countries joining the U.S.-led global war on terrorism ``to put all kinds of power together to take this threat on and to use what is appropriate given the nature of the threat we face,'' Taylor said.
``We will use whatever is necessary and legal to attack this threat, to interdict it and to eliminate it,'' he said.
A CIA Predator drone aircraft near Marib, Yemen, fired a missile at a car carrying Qaed Salim Sinan al-Harethi, al-Qaida's chief operative in Yemen and a suspect in a number of terrorist strikes.
Al-Harethi and five other suspected al-Qaida operatives, including an American-Yemeni identified as Ahmed Hijazi, were killed, U.S. and Yemeni officials said on condition of anonymity.
Prior to visiting Manila, where Taylor is attending an international conference on terrorism, he held talks with anti-terrorist officials in Australia, Singapore and Indonesia.
Taylor praised Southeast Asian governments for committing to battle terrorism but added there was a lot more work to be done.
``We got a lot of work to do but that does not mean the commitment isn't there to do that work,'' he said.
-------- ENERGY AND OTHER
-------- energy
Shaken Power Market May Face More Cuts
Reuters
Saturday, November 9, 2002
By Eileen Moustakis
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A31618-2002Nov9?language=printer
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Enron's swift collapse a year ago set off an avalanche that swept away an estimated 20,000 jobs in the merchant U.S. energy business, a staggering toll industry analysts warn is likely to continue to grow.
"In order to maintain earnings or improve earnings you need to cut expenses and salaries are a major component of what utilities refer to as operating maintenance expense," David Schanzer, an analyst at Philadelphia-based investment firm Janney Montgomery Scott LLC, told Reuters.
Schanzer said the deregulation of the power market turned electricity into a commodity, taking an industry that was marked by some stability and creating, "a rather volatile industry in all of its components including employment."
Schanzer said with the demand for electricity waning with a sluggish economy, power supply increasing and prices remaining remarkably low, there will continue to be layoffs.
"It's more a function of the commodity cycle than it is the economy. The economy happens to be in the down part of its cycle at the same time that the commodity cycle has reached the lower part of its cycle. With the two coming together, it hasn't helped employment," Schanzer said.
Danielle Seitz, an analyst at Salomon Smith Barney agrees.
"The industry is definitely in a shrinking mode," Seitz said, warning that more job cuts should be expected as the merchant power sector reins in costs to reflect harsh new realities.
HOW MANY JOBS LOST?
In August, industry analysts estimated 10,000-15,000 jobs had been slashed since Enron Corp.'s plunge into bankruptcy amid a raft of accounting and trading scandals that cost 6,000 company employees their jobs.
The credit crisis and steep loss of liquidity that followed forced big energy merchant houses like Mirant Corp. and Aquila Inc. , ranked second in power marketing earlier this year, to shed workers or pull out of speculative trading completely.
Dynegy Inc. , which just a year ago mounted an Enron takeover bid, late last month announced nearly 1,000 layoffs as its fortunes melted away. And Duke Energy Corp. said it would cut 2,000 jobs as its profits tumbled.
HOW MANY MORE CUTS TO COME?
Salomon's Seitz said she did not expect a "massive amount" of new job cuts.
"It's just 'Let's try to tighten our belts for a little while, get over this period of low power prices, high pension costs and all the other things we have to absorb'," she said.
Michael Schaal, analyst at Virginia-based Energy Ventures Analysis, added that many of these jobs may not be coming back.
"Many of the jobs in the financial services area -- energy trading, risk management -- have gone by the wayside at what had been the dominant firms," Schaal said.
"As the industry is retrenching and going back to what's called asset-based trading, there are still those positions available, but not speculative or volatility-based trading."
Meanwhile, jobs at the assets themselves are also in jeopardy as the industry replaces old power plants with more efficient generating units that require far fewer workers to run and maintain them.
Also meter readers, a huge slice of the old utility labor market, are seeing their jobs vanish, replaced by remote meter reading systems.
If there is a turnaround in sight, it is still some ways off, analysts said.
"I think the demand for electricity will start to pick up once we get past next year and that will hasten the rehiring and or recruiting of employees," Schanzer added.
----
Duke Gets Subpoena Over Calif. Market
Reuters
Saturday, November 9, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A29251-2002Nov8?language=printer
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (Reuters) - Duke Energy Corp. on Friday was subpoenaed by the U.S. Attorney's Office in San Francisco for information on its activities in the California energy markets, the utility company said.
A Duke spokesman said the company was in the process of reviewing the subpoena and could not immediately furnish more details about the activities or timeframe under question.
Duke, which received the subpoena as part of an ongoing grand jury investigation, said it will cooperate with U.S. Justice officials as it has with other government organizations inquiring about similar issues. The Charlotte, North Carolina-based company is the subject of numerous investigations into "round-trip" trades, where energy is traded to artificially increase trading volume and revenue. The Securities and Exchange Commission in mid-October "formalized its inquiry" into Duke's trading activities, while the company has responded to subpoenas from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and a federal grand jury in Houston.
Before the announcement, Duke shares closed at $19.96, down 85 cents, or about 4 percent, in Friday trade on the New York Stock Exchange. Duke shares have fallen 49 percent this year amid an industry downturn over questionable trading practices and the demise of former trading giant Enron Corp.
-------- human rights
Rights Group Cites African Leader
November 9, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-City-in-Fear.html
BANGUI, Central African Republic (AP) -- President Ange-Felix Patasse thwarted the latest coup attempt with help from outside the country -- but at a high cost. Mercenary Congolese troops have pillaged the capital, attacking and raping civilians.
Residents of the isolated city pawed through their belongings -- strewn about after homes were looted Friday. Congolese rebels swaggered nearby in crisp uniforms.
``We're living in fear,'' said Virginie Kpabondia, a policewoman, her voice breaking, her eyes wet. ``They're raping 8, 10, 12-year-old children.''
The Central African Human Rights League, based in the capital, Bangui, urged parliament to dismiss Patasse -- citing alleged ``massive and systemic human rights violations'' by forces fighting for the government.
A former French colony rich in diamonds, gold and uranium, Central African Republic has weathered nine coups or coup attempts since independence in 1960 -- six in the past six years. Rebel troops loyal to former army chief Francois Bozize nearly took the capital on Oct. 25 and closed to within two blocks of Patasse's presidential residence.
They were driven back last week by Libyan soldiers sent by Moammar Gadhafi in 2001 to prop up Patasse, and by members of the Congolese Liberation Movement, a rebel group that has been fighting for four years to overthrow the government in neighboring Congo.
Central African Republic's own army is small, ill-equipped and mutiny-prone. In the latest uprising, some news reports had them staying in their barracks while foreign fighters battled to defend the government.
``The government is responsible for protecting the people, but instead the president has put us in the hands of bandits,'' said Nganatouwa Goungaye Wanfiyo, vice president of the rights group.
One Central African Republic newspaper dubbed the Congolese rebels ``Bemba's demons'' after their leader Jean-Pierre Bemba.
The government said it would respond to the group's charges at a news conference Friday, but canceled it at the last minute.
Patasse was elected in 1993 and re-elected in 1999. Increasingly unpopular, he has survived repeated mutinies over unpaid government salaries, labor disputes, and alleged unequal treatment of officers of different ethnic groups within the army.
The human rights group accused the Congolese rebels of widespread looting and the raping of women and children in a four-page statement, which named some of the victims.
A team of about a dozen Gabonese army officers arrived in Bangui Thursday, to prepare for the deployment next week of about 200 Gabonese peacekeepers who are expected to replace the Libyan soldiers.
About 100 yards from the main checkpoint at the city's northern exit, Vincent Benoit Wakoro, a senior finance ministry official and former finance and mining minister in the 1970s, sat amid debris left by Congolese rebels.
``Everything they could move, they stole,'' said Wakoro.
He ticked off the list of losses at his home -- a refrigerator, freezer, wide-screen television and a closet full of suits.
The Congolese rebels broke into his home and those of his neighbors before dawn on Nov. 1. The rebels ransacked the house smashing doors into splinters, pushing over bookshelves and stabbing his 20-year-old son Ivon in the arm with a bayonet, Wakoro said.
They bashed his elder son Arsene, 25, in the shoulder and kidneys with the butts of their rifles.
Wakoro said it was even worse for a neighbor. The man has since fled the area after Congolese rebels raped his two young nieces in front of him.
He said police are powerless to stop the rebels and refuse to recover the stolen items, which the rebels are storing in a school house only about 300 yards from his house.
Wakoro said he heard the Congolese rebels will withdraw only once Patasse pays them and they are demanding the government help transport the stolen loot to the river so it can be taken into the Congo.
Like many in the capital, Wakoro said by inviting the Congolese rebels, Patasse had traded the security of his citizens for his own safety.
``Patasse has made a very grave political mistake,'' Wakoro said. ``He betrayed the people of Central African Republic.''
About 750 Congolese citizens have sought protection in the Congo Embassy in Bangui after being threatened and attacked by Central Africans angry at crimes committed by the Congolese rebels.
A warehouse behind the embassy has become a makeshift refugee camp. Many of the displaced residents there said they did not support the Congolese rebels who are considered outlaws in their home country.
``How can a president ask a rebel group for help?'' asked Jeancy Kobeta, a 19-year-old Congolese student, standing at the back of a food line. ``Now because Patasse invited these criminals here, we are in trouble.''
-------- ACTIVISTS
Rights Group Questions Attack
Amnesty Says U.S. Missile Strike in Yemen May Be Illegal
Reuters
Saturday, November 9, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A30331-2002Nov8?language=printer
LONDON, Nov. 8 -- Amnesty International, the human rights advocacy group, wrote to President Bush today to question Washington's deadly missile attack on al Qaeda suspects in Yemen.
Six men suspected of membership in the militant Islamic network died Sunday when their car was hit by a Hellfire missile fired from an unmanned Predator aircraft operated by the CIA.
"If this was the deliberate killing of suspects in lieu of arrest, in circumstances in which they did not pose an immediate threat, the killings would be extra-judicial executions in violation of international human rights law," the London-based group said in a statement. "The United States should issue a clear and unequivocal statement that it will not sanction extra-judicial executions."
The attack, which Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz termed "a highly successful tactical operation," killed a leading suspect in the bombing of the destroyer USS Cole two years ago. Seventeen U.S. sailors died in the explosion in Aden, a port in southern Yemen.
U.S. officials blame Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda network for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States as well as the Cole attack.
A Yemeni official said Thursday one of the six suspects killed was a U.S. citizen.
Amnesty said in the statement it also has asked Yemen to clarify whether it had any prior knowledge of the attack. The Pentagon has praised the Yemeni government for cooperating with the United States.
----
War with Iraq About Oil - San Francisco Activists
November 9, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-politcs-antiwar.html
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - While the Bush administration contends its stance against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was bolstered by the U.N. Security Council's call for Iraq to disarm, San Francisco activists say they will continue protesting U.S. policy, calling it war planning on behalf of oil interests.
``The Bush administration is not interested in weapons inspections,'' activist Medea Benjamin of the San Francisco-based groups United for Peace and Global Exchange told the San Francisco Chronicle. ``It is interested in going to war against Iraq. This is a war for oil,'' she added.
Benjamin, a former Green Party U.S. Senate nominee, charged that the United States threatened nations that did not support the U.N.'s resolution with loss of access to Iraqi oil after a possible military conflict with Iraq, or with loss of future aid, the Chronicle reported on Saturday.
San Francisco has emerged as a hotbed of activism against the Bush administration's Iraq aims. The city last month hosted its largest peace rally since the Vietnam War, drawing a crowd of 80,000, according to organizers.
The newspaper also reported that Richard Becker, San Francisco representative for the sponsor group of recent large peace demonstrations, said the United States seeks a ``colonial regime'' that would ``turn over Iraq's oil to U.S. oil companies.''
Benjamin, who recently disrupted a presentation to Congress by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, will join an around-the-clock protest in front of the White House starting on Nov. 17, and Becker's International ANSWER Coalition is planning three days of protests on the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend in January in Washington, D.C., according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
More than half a million anti-war protesters from across Europe marched through the Italian Renaissance city of Florence on Saturday in a demonstration denouncing any possible U.S. attack on Iraq.
President Bush warned Iraq on Saturday that any act of delay or defiance would be a breach of its international obligations under a tough new U.N. resolution requiring Baghdad to disarm.
``The world has now come together to say that the outlaw regime in Iraq will not be permitted to build or possess chemical, biological or nuclear weapons,'' Bush said in his weekly radio address. ``And my administration will see to it that the world's judgement is enforced.''
``Iraq must now, without delay or negotiations, give up its weapons of mass destruction, welcome full inspections and fundamentally change the approach it has taken for more than a decade,'' Bush said. ``Iraq can be certain that the old game of cheat and retreat, tolerated at other times, will no longer be tolerated.''
--------
Iranian Students Stage Largest Protest in 3 Years
November 9, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-iran-protest.html
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Hundreds of Iranian students chanting ``Political prisoners should be released!'' protested against Iran's hard-line judiciary on Saturday night in the biggest political demonstration for over three years.
The protest coincided with mounting political tension in the country of 65 million people as pro-reform President Mohammad Khatami seeks to break the stranglehold on power of conservative opponents at the heart of the political system.
About 500 students made fires outside the Tehran University campus gates and chanted in unison: ``Freedom of thought forever!'' and ``Our problem is the judiciary!,'' witnesses said.
Police blocked off roads surrounding the campus and fired at least one tear gas canister. But they made no move toward the students.
Around 1:00 a.m. on Sunday (2130 GMT on Saturday), five hours after it started, the protest had begun to fizzle out, with most students drifting back inside the campus.
The demonstration came just days after a hard-line court sentenced reformist Tehran University academic Hashem Aghajari to death for blasphemy after he questioned the clergy's right to rule the Islamic Republic.
``Execution of Aghajari is execution of thought in Iran!'' the students shouted as dozens of plain clothes police and members of the radical conservative vigilante group Ansar e-Hezbollah watched from behind the police cordon, witnesses said.
Elected in 1997 and re-elected in 2001 with landslide wins, Khatami has found his efforts to promote democracy blocked by conservative rivals who control the judiciary, armed forces and broadcast media.
CALLS FOR KHATAMI TO RESIGN
Dozens of outspoken journalists and intellectuals have been jailed in the past three years as part of a crackdown by conservatives opposed to Khatami's reforms.
Khatami has introduced two bills to parliament aimed at limiting the power of the judiciary and curbing the conservative-controlled Guardian Council's veto power over election candidates.
Radical reformists have called on Khatami to resign if, as expected, the bills are blocked by the Guardian Council.
``Khatami resign!'' the students, who are one of the president's main bastions of support, chanted on Saturday night.
The protest was staged in front of the same university dormitory which was stormed in July 1999 by radical vigilantes believed to belong to Ansar-e Hezbollah.
The bloody raid sparked six days of violent protests that were quashed by security forces, and dozens of students were imprisoned. There had been no major student demonstrations or unrest since then.
Aghajari, a 45-year-old history lecturer who lost a leg in the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war, angered the conservative clergy in a speech earlier this year in which he said Muslims were not ``monkeys'' to blindly follow the teachings of senior clerics.
His death sentence, issued after a closed trial without a jury, has been widely condemned both inside Iran and abroad.
``We will have to see if this verdict is not more harmful for Islam, the Islamic Republic and the clergy than the offence which Aghajari is accused of,'' government spokesman Abdollah Ramazanzade told the official IRNA news agency.
Reformist politicians and even some conservative journalists have called on Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to intervene and spare Aghajari's life. Khamenei has the last word on all state matters in Iran.
---------
Half - A - Million March in Anti - War Rally in Italy
November 9, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-italy-globalisation.html
FLORENCE, Italy (Reuters) - More than half a million anti-war protesters from across Europe marched through this Italian Renaissance city on Saturday in a loud and colorful demonstration denouncing any possible U.S. attack on Iraq.
Brimming with anti-American feelings and riled by a tough new U.N. resolution to disarm Iraq, young and old activists from as far afield as Russia and Portugal joined forces for the carnival-like rally, singing Communist anthems and 1970s peace songs.
``Take your war and go to hell,'' read one banner, in a forest of multi-colored and multi-lingual placards.
``Drop Bush, not Bombs'' read another. Some placards depicted President Bush as Hitler and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi as Mussolini.
Organizers said the rally, planned months ago, gained added relevance by Friday's U.N. Security Council resolution which gave Iraq a last chance to disarm or face almost certain war.
The protest, involving children as well as grandmothers, marked the climax of the first European Social Forum, a four-day meeting of anti-globalisation campaigners from all over Europe. Delegates discussed topics from debt-reduction to support for the Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation.
Florence has been virtually shut down for the November 6-10 period, with the State Department advising its citizens to steer clear of Italy's art capital over concerns that violent, anarchist groups might infiltrate the demonstration.
Authorities estimated that some 450,000 protesters flooded Florence's streets for the march on a chilly autumn afternoon.
But by dusk, the crowed had swelled to over half a million, many of them arriving on specially chartered trains and buses. Organizers estimated the gathering at around one million, making it one of Italy's biggest ever anti-war rallies.
Despite the large crowds, the march was largely peaceful and no incidents were reported.
``The atmosphere here is wonderful. Absolutely perfect. It shows that a new young left is emerging,'' said Stavos Valsamis, a 27-year-old Greek activist from Athens.
Children climbed on their parents' shoulders to get a view of the sea of crowds marching along the seven-kmroute. Many clapped as marchers passed by.
``This is amazing, it's so impressive,'' said 12-year-old Bianca Ronglia as she watched with her family from the side of the road. ``I'm happy and proud that my city is holding this.''
BIGGER THAN GENOA
The march was bigger than a protest at a G8 summit in Genoa last year, when 300,000 demonstrators took to the streets and an orgy of violence left one protester dead and hundreds injured.
Some 7,000 police officers were on call but security forces kept a low profile along the rally's route. No incidents were reported.
The rest of Florence was a ghost town with most shops in the art-rich historical center pulling down the shutters for fear of vandals. However, the city's famed museums remained open and offered free entry to the few tourists around.
Many Florence residents deserted the city for the four days of the forum, prompting criticism from those who stayed behind.
``I'm really disappointed by my fellow Florentines -- it really shows very little faith. This whole event has been very calm, in fact the city has been much calmer and friendlier than usual,'' said housewife Maria Briccoli, 37.
As well as university-age students, older political activists and thousands of trades unionists, Saturday's throng also included Italian World War II partisans and a U.S. Vietnam war veteran who marched in the first row of the crowd.
While Friday's U.N. resolution gives the Security Council a central role in assessing the new arms' inspection program for Iraq, it does not require the United States to seek U.N. authorization for war in case of violations.
``I think it's a scandalous resolution,'' said Sean Murray, 29, a member of Workers' Revolution. ``It proves once more that the U.N. is a puppet of America, Britain and France.''
------
Throng in Florence protests Iraq war
ASSOCIATED PRESS,
Nov. 9, 2002
http://stacks.msnbc.com/news/832812.asp
FLORENCE, Italy - Heavy security was in place Saturday as thousands of demonstrators marched through Florence to protest a possible war in Iraq and globalization. There was none of the violence that marred last year's Group of Eight summit in Genoa.
THE PROTEST in the city famous for its place in art history was the centerpiece of an anti-globalization gathering that started Wednesday and was scheduled to end Sunday.
There was no count from police, but organizers said 400,000 people from across Europe marched.
Protesters said they were motivated by opposition to a war in Iraq and the influence of multinational corporations, which they see as harmful to the environment and the poor.
"We want to demonstrate that a different world is possible," said Noemi Cucchi, 31, from the Italian port city of Ancona.
Led by a banner reading "No War," the marchers walked peacefully through Florence as curious residents peered down from apartment windows.
The atmosphere was relaxed, with demonstrators - some dressed as clowns - ate as they walked or coasted along the route on inline skates, shouting "Hands off the Middle East" and "The real terrorist is the West."
"I really just wanted to be a part of this," said Justine Trillaud, a 16-year-old from Paris.
Marchers planned to walk 4 miles along the Arno river to an area near the soccer stadium for a concert. Italian police frogmen from a diving unit inspect the Ponte Vecchio bridge, which spans the Arno river, during the final day of the European Social Forum in Florence on Saturday.
The center of the city, with its narrow alleys and Renaissance buildings, was closed to the demonstrators, and dozens of police stood guard to enforce the restriction.
As a precaution, many shops in the fashionable streets were shuttered. Authorities removed hundreds of trash bins from the city to prevent demonstrators from using the contents to start fires.
Premier Silvio Berlusconi's government approved the demonstration after weeks of debate and after adopting an intense security plan because of last year's violence.
The demonstration was seen as a major test for Italian police after the 2001 Group of Eight summit in Genoa, where one protester was shot dead by a Carabinieri paramilitary officer and hundreds were wounded during street clashes.
Images of wrecked banks, gas stations and stores in Genoa are still vivid for many Italians.
In Florence this weekend, the atmosphere was more like a carnival with food stands, exhibits and street theater along with the discussions of free trade and war.
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Subject: Faith Community March on White House 12/10
Date: Sat, 09 Nov 2002
From: dawn-dc@yahoogroups.com
We are planning a march on the White House on International Human Rights Day, Tuesday, December 10, 2002. Join us from the Washington area faith community in a planning meeting at Bethesda Friends Meeting, Monday, November 18, 2002 at 8:00 p.m. (located on the Sidwell Friends Lower School campus at Edgemoor Lane and Beverly Road, behind the Bethesda Library on Arlington Road.) For more information, contact Jane Coe at 301-320-5083 or Pat Elder at 202-302- 5548
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Zones hinder free speech
The president's supporters and detractors have an equal right to stand at the same site, at the same time, and tell him what they think.
St. Petersburg Times,
November 9, 2002
http://www.sptimes.com/2002/11/09/news_pf/Opinion/Zones_hinder_free_spe.shtml
The president's supporters and detractors have an equal right to stand at the same site, at the same time, and tell him what they think.
The name itself is a joke: "First Amendment Zones." The term describes those fenced-off areas designated for protesters at political events. It may seem benign enough, but in reality the zones are another way government controls speech. Protesters are kept so far away from their intended target that their presence becomes almost invisible.
Earlier this month, seven people were arrested outside the USF Sun Dome during a political rally where President Bush was appearing on behalf of his brother Gov. Jeb Bush . The group was charged with trespass for refusing to move into a "First Amendment zone" that had been set up hundreds of yards from the entrance to the Dome. Their experience is similar to that of three protesters who were arrested last year at a public rally at Legends Field at which President Bush was promoting his tax cuts.
A bedrock free speech principle is that the government cannot give freer rein to some messages than others. Yet, in and around these Bush rallies, supporters of the president were welcome anywhere. It was only those opposing administration policies who were banished to a spit of land out of earshot and eyeshot of the president.
At the Bush rally on June 4, 2001, Mauricio Rosas, a local gay rights activist, and two fellow demonstrators, both grandmothers, were arrested for holding up small handwritten protest signs -- in a sea of pro-Bush signs. A federal civil rights lawsuit, filed recently by the three with the help of the Tampa chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, asks a judge to acknowledge the wrong that was done and order redress.
The arrests were caught on videotape and should be required viewing for anyone who thinks a lawsuit is an overreaction. Tampa police officers appear to take direction from a Republican Party event organizer, who points out the three anti-Bush demonstrators to be removed. The arrests were considered so faulty, State Attorney Mark Ober summarily dropped the charges. His spokeswoman said at the time, "We concluded that there was no likelihood of success at trial."
The Secret Service claims First Amendment zones are necessary to protect the president's safety. It is a claim with no demonstrable validity. A person with a protest sign is no more or less dangerous to the president than a person without one. If the worry is that protesters will clash with the president's supporters, then the answer is not to exile one group, but to arrest those who would choose to escalate an ideological argument into a physical battle. Democracy and freedom can be messy at times. Occasional scuffles are a byproduct law enforcement agencies have a duty to handle without using their arrest powers to banish unpopular speakers.
Recent court decisions have made it clear that presidents cannot be insulated from dissent. In 1997, when anti-abortion activist Rev. Patrick Mahoney attempted to organize a group of demonstrators along Pennsylvania Avenue for President Clinton's second Inaugural Parade, the National Park Service denied the group a permit. In overruling that judgment, the D.C. U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals could not have been more blunt: "If the free speech clause of the First Amendment does not protect the right of citizens to 'inject' their own convictions and beliefs into a public event on a public forum, then it is difficult to understand why the Framers bothered including it at all."
The government defended its position by noting that Mahoney had been granted a permit for a demonstration in two other areas on Inauguration Day, just not along the parade route. To that the court said: "(The government has) offered us no authority for the proposition that (it) may choose for a First Amendment actor what public forums it will use. Indeed, it cannot rightly be said that all such forums are equal. The very fact that the government here struggles to bar the speech it fears or dislikes from one forum while offering, whether freely or grudgingly, access to another belies the proposition of equality."
The president's supporters and detractors have an equal right to stand at the same site, at the same time, and tell him what they think. "First Amendment zones" are the antithesis of America's free speech tradition.
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