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NUCLEAR
Nuclear Sub, Merchant Ship Collide
UK nuclear workers exposed to radiation
China Says Its Arms Controls Are Same as U.S.
Al Qaeda Suspect Says He Targeted Belgian Nuke Base
German nuclear load, delayed by protests, nears waste dump
Nuclear Waste Arrives at German Dump
India hits West on terror tactics
Iraq Agrees To Receive Inspectors
Iraq Tells the U.N. Arms Inspections Will Be Permitted
Inspectors' List of Sites Ready
UN Inspector May Clash with Bush on Iraq Standard
U.N. Inspectors Will Face Many Problems in Iraq
Former weapons inspector says war with Iraq inevitable
Crisis Could Push N. Korea to Expel Nuclear Inspectors
U.S. Ties Oil Deal to N. Korea Nuclear Bid
U.S. will halt fuel oil shipments
Japan Says to Press N.Korea on Biochemical Arms
N. Korea Changes on Return of USS Pueblo
Al Qaeda Suspect Says He Targeted Belgian Nuke Base
Takeover of Indian Point by Westchester Is Proposed
House Passes Homeland Security Bill
Pro-Industry Senator to Chair Environment Committee
Daschle Questions Whether U.S. Is Winning War on Terror
Tell the truth about U.S. assassination policy
MILITARY
Senate passes $3.3 billion aid, peacekeeping package for Afghanistan
Lithuania to Buy Weapons From U.S.
The Guns of Opa-Locka: How US Dealers Arm the World
Japan Says to Press N.Korea on Biochemical Arms
Germ - Warfare Negotiators to Meet
U.S. Strategy in Colombia Connects Drugs and Terror
War in Iraq could kill up to four million - report
Israeli Tanks Raid Outskirts of Gaza City
Sneak preview of Armageddon:
Israelis Return Stolen Equipment
NATO Means More Than War Games for Balkan Candidates
Pakistanis Split on U.S. Execution
Bin Laden Hunt Frustrates Pentagon
Annan Presses Bush to Avoid a Rush to War
Defense Bill Includes Exemption for Military
Two soldiers killed in Louisiana exercise
The Chicken Hawks' War
Media Curbs Advance in Russia
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS
Mayor backs surveillance cameras
D.C. cops get video funds
False explosives threat stops traffic
Blair advocates judicial overhaul
Police Efforts Lead to Arrests of Homeless
French Police Evict Asylum-Seekers From Church
New Suspects Named in Bali Bombings
World's Most Wanted Proving Elusive for U.S.
ENERGY AND OTHER
US "energy lite" bill omits wind, renewable fuels
Ontario to give incentives for clean, green energy
US States Try to Fight Global Warming on Their Own
Microbes Help Clean Contaminated Harbor Mud
ACTIVISTS
Nuclear Waste Arrives at German Dump
Weekend anti-war protests / Toronto Star
Iranian Refuses to Challenge His Death Sentence for Apostasy
War on Iraq Not Yet Justified, Bishops Say
EPA Sued Over Washington DC Air Quality
Forest Activists Shut Down Citibank
Biotech Contamination Riles Activists
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- accidents and safety
Nuclear Sub, Merchant Ship Collide
Reuters
Thursday, November 14, 2002; Page A18
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A50911-2002Nov13?language=printer
The nuclear-powered attack submarine USS Oklahoma City collided with a merchant ship in the western Mediterranean early yesterday, damaging the sub's sail and periscope but apparently causing no injuries, the Navy said.
The accident occurred around midday as the Oklahoma City was rising to periscope depth east of the Strait of Gibraltar. It apparently did not cause serious damage to the other vessel, which was not identified in a release from the headquarters of the U.S. Sixth Fleet in Gaeta, Italy.
"The submarine surfaced and located a merchant vessel in close proximity," the release said. "USS Oklahoma City attempted to make radio contact with the other vessel. However, the other vessel did not respond, did not appear to need assistance and departed the area."
The Sixth Fleet said there were no injuries on the submarine and that damage appeared to be limited to the periscope and the "sail" command and control area atop the Oklahoma City.
The submarine will return to port for further inspection of damage and repairs, the Sixth Fleet said. The Oklahoma City is 362 feet long, weighs 419 tons and carries a crew of up to 100 officers and enlisted men.
-------- britain
UK nuclear workers exposed to radiation
REUTERS UK:
November 14, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/18583/story.htm
LONDON - Twenty workers at a nuclear reprocessing plant in Scotland were exposed to radioactive particles this week but risks to them appeared low or non existent, Britain's nuclear decommissioning body said.
Two of the 20 workers at the Dounreay plant in Caithness, northern Scotland, had radioactive dust on their skin and had it scrubbed off, a spokesman for the Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) said.
The other 18 had the particles on their shoes and faced "no immediate health risk", the UKAEA spokesman said.
He said Dounreay deals with around 10 incidents a year when radioactive particles are found on workers' skin and have to be scrubbed off, the spokesman said.
"It's not an unusual situation in an industry where you're handling radioactive materials all the time," the spokesman said. "There has been no release to the environment, there is no evidence anyone has inhaled or ingested radioactive particles."
The plant has been sealed off and an investigation has begun, the UKAEA said.
-------- china
China Says Its Arms Controls Are Same as U.S.
November 14, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/politics/politics-arms-china.html
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - China's top arms control official said on Thursday his country's export controls are now ``basically the same'' as those of the United States and he hoped U.S. curbs on satellite cooperation could soon be lifted.
Liu Jieyi, director general of the Chinese Foreign Ministry's Department of Arms Control and Disarmament, spoke at the annual Carnegie Endowment for International Peace non-proliferation conference, which draws hundreds of experts and officials.
He cited the recent issuance of new export control rules as evidence of Beijing's commitment to the ``urgent task'' of checking the spread of nuclear, chemical and biological arms and missiles.
``In a nutshell, China's export controls ... are basically the same as those of the United States, EU (European Union) and other countries in both scope and enforcement,'' he said.
Bush administration officials have praised China's progress in adopting international non-proliferation standards but have said the newly-issued export controls do not go far enough to warrant lifting arms-related sanctions.
Specifically, Beijing wants the United States to resume issuing licenses so U.S. manufacturers can send their satellites into space on Chinese rockets, a potentially multibillion dollar industry.
Liu said the launches benefit both sides and added, ``We would hope to see progress'' in this regard.
The licenses were halted because Washington says Beijing violated a November 2000 agreement to halt the transfer of missile technology to Pakistan and implement an export control system.
U.S. officials have said there is still more China must do, such as reaffirm at the highest levels its commitment to the November 2000 agreement, clarify what activity prohibited by the agreement is alleged to be ongoing and demonstrate that it is willing to punish violators.
In his speech, Liu repeated Chinese assertions that Beijing has ``steadfastly'' pursued a policy of not assisting any other country in developing weapons of mass destruction.
``The proliferation of weapons of mass destruction is detrimental not only to world peace and stability but also to China's security,'' he said.
-------- europe
Al Qaeda Suspect Says He Targeted Belgian Nuke Base
November 14, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-attack-belgium-alqaeda.html
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - A Tunisian arrested in Belgium last year on suspicion of having links to the al Qaeda network told a radio station on Thursday he had planned to attack a Belgian air base thought to house U.S. nuclear bombs.
RTBF public radio said Nizar Trabelsi, a former professional soccer player, was speaking by telephone from his jail cell.
He was arrested in possession of explosives and firearms two days after the September 11 attacks on the United States and has since been charged with involvement in organized crime and illegal possession of firearms but has yet to face trial.
Trabelsi has been linked by Dutch judicial authorities to Algerian-born Adel Tobbichi, who along with three others has been charged in a Dutch court with plotting to attack Belgium's Kleine Brogel air force base and the U.S. embassy in Paris.
Asked by an RTBF reporter whether he was involved in a plot against the airbase, Trabelsi replied: ``Yes, exactly.'' His remarks have since been carried widely by Belgian media.
``The products they (the police) found in my place, were the same as were used against Nairobi and Dar es Salaam,'' he added, in an apparent reference to the bloody 1998 al Qaeda bomb attacks at the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
``It's the most serious bomb around,'' he said.
Anti-nuclear activists say U.S. nuclear weapons are stockpiled at the Kleine Brogel base in eastern Belgium, an allegation officials have neither confirmed nor denied.
Trabelsi denied, however, that the U.S. embassy in Paris was another of his targets.
According to a Dutch request to Canada seeking the extradition of Tobbichi, the Algerian allegedly provided false travel documents to Trabelsi to enable him to travel to Afghanistan to train for a suicide mission.
Trabelsi said he knew and admired al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, who spent years based in Afghanistan.
``I love him a lot, like a father. For me, he's my father. I don't care what happened on September 11 or what he did, that doesn't interest me,'' Trabelsi said.
``I had a good relationship with him. I talked a lot with him. I felt he wasn't playing with me. He gave me advice.''
-------- germany
German nuclear load, delayed by protests, nears waste dump
Thursday, November 14, 2002
By David McHugh,
Associated Press
http://enn.com/news/wire-stories/2002/11/11142002/ap_48955.asp
DANNENBERG, Germany - Guarded by riot police, a train bringing 1,320 tons of nuclear waste to a German dump reached a terminal near its final destination Wednesday after being delayed for hours by protesters who occupied tracks and chained themselves to the rails along the route.
The convoy of 12 waste containers, the largest shipment yet to the Gorleben dump site, repeatedly ground to a halt on its 24-hour trip north through Germany after leaving from a French processing plant Monday.
A dozen protesters forced a one-and-a-half-hour delay south of Bremen on Wednesday by occupying the tracks as others set fire to tires nearby. Earlier along its 600-kilometer (375-mile) German leg, the train had to stop twice for police to free activists who had chained themselves to the tracks.
Antinuclear activists put up determined resistance along the final stretch, defying a ban on demonstrations within 50 meters (yards) on either side of the route.
Police said they detained about 250 protesters Wednesday, 150 of them alone in Hitzacker, near Dannenberg, where protesters clashed with police bearing riot shields, who stood shoulder to shoulder along the rail line. Several dozen police vehicles were damaged in the clashes to the point where they needed to be towed away, police said.
Another 27 protesters were detained after they occupied tracks outside Hamburg hoping to disrupt the shipment. Instead, they forced a passenger train traveling at 110 kilometers an hours (70 mph) to slam on the emergency brakes, police said. No one was injured.
By dusk Wednesday, the train trundled into the rail terminal at Dannenberg, which was sealed off with barbed wire to protect the containers that were to be loaded onto trucks for the final stretch to the Gorleben dump.
The demonstrations brought together young protesters, local farmers, and seasoned antinuclear activists such as Berlin architect Michael Eggert, 52, who first demonstrated against the Gorleben dump in 1979. Activists argue that neither the waste containers nor the dump, a disused salt mine, are safe.
"The main point is not to keep the train away. It's to show the world there is still a need to demonstrate against this scandal," said Eggert, blocking a road in Hitzacker in his wheelchair. "In the whole world, there is no example of safe waste disposal," he insisted. "The government has written off this area even though 99 percent of the people here are against it."
The shipment is the first to the site since last November, when demonstrators defied some 17,500 police and staged sit-down protests along the route through Germany. An estimated 10,000 to 15,000 officers throughout Germany were deployed for the latest transport.
Waste shipments to Gorleben resumed in March last year after a three-year break. The previous German government had suspended shipments after radioactive leakage was discovered in some containers.
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.
Last year, the government and power companies signed an agreement to phase out nuclear power within about 20 years. Activists hope that protesting waste shipments will push up the security bill and force a quicker shutdown. Germany's strong antinuclear lobby has made Gorleben a focus of its cause ever since the dump, about 120 kilometers (75 miles) southeast of Hamburg, was approved by the local government in 1977.
--------
Nuclear Waste Arrives at German Dump
November 14, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Germany-Nuclear-Waste.html
DANNENBERG, Germany (AP) -- A shipment of nuclear waste arrived early Thursday at a dump in northern Germany following a trip across the country that was slowed by determined protesters.
A convoy of trucks carrying the 12 containers of reprocessed waste arrived shortly after dawn at the Gorleben waste storage site, about 75 miles southeast of Hamburg and for more than two decades a focus of Germany's strong anti-nuclear lobby. With the loaded containers weighing in at a total 1,320 tons, it was the biggest shipment yet to the site.
Overnight, police cleared several hundred protesters from the road along the 12-mile final stretch of road from a rail terminal in the town of Dannenberg, where the containers were loaded onto trucks overnight.
Accompanied by a fleet of police vans, the convoy set off from the sealed-off terminal for its hour-long trip to the aboveground shed at Gorleben, where it was greeted with loud whistles but no trouble. Demonstrations were banned within 50 yards on either side of the route.
About 16,700 police were deployed to guard the shipment.
Protesters caused a delay of several hours as the containers traveled by train across Germany Tuesday and Wednesday on their journey from a reprocessing plant in western France, repeatedly occupying tracks.
Police twice had to free demonstrators who had chained themselves to the rails. By Thursday, 950 demonstrators had been arrested, with charges being pressed against 67, police said.
Protests were mostly peaceful but the two groups clashed several times, resulting in damage to 38 police vehicles and injuries to 80 demonstrators.
Waste shipments to Gorleben resumed in March last year after a three-year break. The previous German government suspended shipments after radioactive leakage was discovered in some containers.
Activists argue that neither the waste containers nor the dump are safe.
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.
Last year, the government and power companies signed an agreement to phase out nuclear power within about 20 years. Activists hope that protesting waste shipments will force a quicker shutdown.
-------- india / pakistan
India hits West on terror tactics
By David W. Jones
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
November 14, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20021114-61895800.htm
SRINAGAR, India - Indian officials say they have presented the United States with voluminous evidence that Pakistani support for an insurgency in India's Kashmir Valley continues unabated five months after Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf pledged to an American envoy that it would end. Top Stories
Frustrated with the failure of the United States and its allies to hold Gen. Musharraf to the June 6 promise made to Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage - which headed off a likely Indian military attack on Pakistan - Indian leaders accuse the West of a double standard in its war on terrorism.
"We get the feeling that terrorists are bad [only when] they are attacking the United States," External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha said in an interview in his New Delhi office. "The war [against terrorism] is being fought with standards that are open to question."
U.S. officials, grateful to Pakistan for assistance in the war on al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan, acknowledge that infiltration continues despite Gen. Musharraf's promise but say they are not convinced of a government role. Pakistani officials suggest the evidence may have been fabricated by India to disguise its inability to cope with an indigenous uprising.
India's evidence, which was shown to The Washington Times, includes aerial surveillance photographs of purported training camps in Pakistan and Pakistani-held Kashmir, statements by captured infiltrators, intercepts of radio transmissions between Kashmir and Pakistan, identifying documents and notebooks seized from killed or captured insurgents, and material published in the Pakistani press.
"The direct role of the Pakistani army is known through technical and human intelligence," said Girish Chandra Saxena, the New Delhi-appointed governor of Jammu and Kashmir.
"We also know it from the types of arms captured - remote-control mines and wireless sets that would not otherwise be available to them. We intercept messages from Pakistan, thousands in a month, both in code and clear. We have shared all of this with the U.S. administration."
Lt. Gen. V.T. Patankar, the suave and engaging commander of Indian forces in Kashmir, said there are 40 to 45 guerrilla training camps in Pakistan and Pakistani Kashmir, down from a high of 142, "but now they are larger."
"Many training camps are close to Pakistani army camps. Some of the militants have been given fatigues. They share a firing range at the Chakothi camp" in Pakistani-held Kashmir near the Line of Control (LOC), which divides Kashmir into its Indian and Pakistani sectors.
"Most infiltration is aided by heavy fire across the LOC" from the Pakistan army, he said.
Gen. Patankar and his aides also displayed dozens of captured training notebooks, identity cards and code books during a briefing at the Indian army's heavily guarded XV Corps headquarters in Srinagar. He said similar briefings had been given to U.S. Ambassador Robert Blackwill and other American officials.
The United States remains skeptical about some of the evidence, and indeed it is hard for a layman to tell whether India's aerial photographs show what the Indians claim they do.
Similarly it seems surprising that Pakistani guerrillas would cross the Line of Control carrying laminated identity cards with the names of proscribed terrorist groups printed in large letters - and in English.
Mohammad Sadiq, deputy chief of mission at the Pakistani Embassy in Washington, said yesterday that some sites identified by India in the past as training camps have been in fact civil-defense facilities open to the public.
Pointing out that Pakistan has proposed neutral observers patrol the Line of Control, he good-naturedly noted it "speaks very poorly of both of us" if Pakistan were allowing its radio transmissions to be picked up by India and the Indians were incapable of acting on them.
Asked whether he thought India might have fabricated its evidence, he said, "India is capable of doing it."
Nevertheless, a senior U.S. official knowledgeable about the region acknowledged last week that the infiltration has been continuing and has increased in recent weeks. "We continue to focus on it closely. It is something we have a strong interest in."
Mr. Blackwill, the U.S. ambassador in New Delhi, went further in public remarks late last month that infuriated Pakistan, saying, "The problem in Kashmir is cross-border terrorism. It's virtually now, in my judgment, entirely externally driven."
Such statements do little to assuage the Indians, who see them as further evidence that the United States is simply allowing Pakistan to foment terrorism against India as long as it cooperates in the war against al Qaeda and the Taliban.
"We realize the problem of the international community. They won't pressure Gen. Musharraf beyond a certain point because they fear the alternative to Musharraf in Pakistan is more fundamentalism," said Mr. Sinha, the foreign minister.
"But he has been pushed to the wall on Afghanistan and still was able to get 98.5 percent in a referendum. But you say that on Kashmir he cannot be pushed?"
The Indian officials are particularly incensed that assistance to the Kashmir insurgency has continued after Gen. Musharraf's promises to end to it.
Most residents of the Kashmir Valley agree the insurgency began in 1989 as an indigenous uprising fed by years of poor local government and a history of severely flawed state elections.
But over the years, Indian security forces say, the movement has been taken over by Pakistani and other foreign "jihadis," or holy warriors, many of them trained in the same religious schools that gave rise to al Qaeda and the Taliban.
Of the three main guerrilla groups, they say, Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed are headed by Pakistanis and run from the Pakistani cities of Lahore and Bahawalpur, respectively. Both are on the U.S. list of terrorist organizations.
The third main group, the largest and the only one with a preponderance of local members, is the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, which is headed by Sayeed Salauddin, a Kashmiri living in Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-controlled Kashmir.
India moved more than half a million troops to the Pakistani border following a December 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament that was blamed on Jaish-e-Mohammed, prompting Gen. Musharraf to declare on Jan. 12 that Pakistan "will not allow its territory to be used for terrorist activity anywhere in the world."
When India again prepared to attack in early June, following the massacre of more than two dozen women and children at an Indian army camp in Kashmir, top U.S. diplomats rushed to the region to head off what they feared could develop into a nuclear exchange.
Mr. Armitage arrived in New Delhi from Pakistan on June 7 with what the Indians say was a firm pledge from Gen. Musharraf to permanently end the infiltration of militants into Kashmir.
Mr. Armitage "told us that Gen. Musharraf had promised a permanent end to infiltration and made these points: One, it will be visible. Two, it will be to your satisfaction. Three, he would dismantle the infrastructure of terrorism," said Mr. Sinha, who took over the foreign ministry post in July.
He said the infiltration levels declined during June and July but began picking up again in August and September. "Gen. Musharraf made a promise to Richard Armitage, but he has not kept it."
Another senior official close to Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee said India has "communicated to the [United States and Britain] our deep disappointment at their failure to persuade Gen. Musharraf to implement his commitments made to them."
"I am not going to doubt the sincerity of the administration in pushing Musharraf to do what he had promised, but we certainly have a feeling that both the U.S. and [Britain] did not put all the pressure they could have on Musharraf," the official said.
The senior U.S. official, who appeared surprised at the bluntness of the Indian criticism, acknowledged there are "extremist elements in Pakistan that are of great concern," but said, "The degree to which there is government support for them is no longer clear."
Noting that the United States placed both Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed on its list of foreign terrorist organizations following the Dec. 13 attack on the Indian Parliament, the official said the Pakistani government subsequently banned both groups.
"The American view is that their offices have been closed and that large numbers of their members have been jailed where there is sufficient evidence to hold them. The United States believes the groups are a threat to Pakistan as well as to India. "
"Pakistan is our friend, and they are proving it every day. I think you cannot overlook the fact that there are over 400 terrorists that Pakistan has helped us to catch. Some of the most important ones were caught with help from President Musharraf."
Asked, however, whether the United States sees the struggle in Kashmir as part of the wider war against terrorism, the official hesitated. "All violence against civilians for political purposes," he said, "is unacceptable."
-------- inspections
Iraq Agrees To Receive Inspectors
U.N. Team to Arrive Next Week
By Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 14, 2002; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A51573-2002Nov13?language=printer
Iraq yesterday said it is ready to receive United Nations weapons inspectors in accordance with the Security Council resolution approved last week, bowing to intense international pressure two days before a U.N. deadline.
An eight-page letter to U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan from Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri was filled with invective against the United States, Britain and the 13 other council members that voted unanimously for the measure. Sabri asserted that Iraq has no weapons of mass destruction for inspectors to find, but he said: "We are prepared to receive the inspectors within the assigned timetable. . . . We are eager to see them perform their duties . . . as soon as possible."
"We take it they have accepted," Annan told reporters after a White House meeting with President Bush. The first inspectors, Annan said, will arrive in Iraq on Monday to begin setting up their headquarters and establishing a work plan.
Iraq's acquiescence to the resolution -- along with its apparent acceptance of the tough new inspection program it establishes -- crosses the first, and perhaps the easiest, of a number of hurdles set out by the Security Council. The Bush administration has said that failure at any juncture would provide justification for war, either under U.N. auspices or, if the Security Council does not agree, with U.S. forces acting alone or with like-minded allies.
Baghdad now has until Dec. 8 to provide inspectors and the council with "a currently accurate, full, and complete declaration" of all its chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs. Under the strict timetable, inspections must officially start no more than 15 days after that. Chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix then has 60 days -- until nearly the end of February -- before he must make his initial report to the council on Iraqi cooperation.
Bush made no comment on the Iraqi response in a brief Oval Office statement to reporters before he began his 40-minute meeting with Annan. But in earlier remarks, after a morning Cabinet meeting, he said the United States will have "zero tolerance" for Iraqi deception. "About as plain as I can make it," he said. "We will not tolerate any deception, denial or deceit, period."
The resolution calls for Blix to immediately report any Iraqi "interference with inspection activities," and for the council then to reconvene to decide what action to take. The administration has said that it will participate in those deliberations, while reserving the right to make its own decisions.
In an indication of how fragile the international consensus remains after two months of deliberations, during which some council members sought to fashion a resolution that would restrain U.S. eagerness to attack, Annan said yesterday that he hopes all parties will "be careful" in deciding how to respond to possible Iraqi provocations. "Anything seen as a flimsy, hasty excuse to go to war will create difficulties in the council," he said.
In its letter to Annan, Iraq repeated that it has no weapons of mass destruction, saying that both Bush and "his lackey, [British Prime Minister] Tony Blair . . . know, as well as we do . . . that such fabrications are baseless." Those who "pressured" the council to adopt the resolution, it said, "have other objectives."
The text of the letter was read last night on Iraqi television, voiced over a videotape of President Saddam Hussein meeting his top aides for what was described as a discussion of the resolution. U.N. sources said they believe the harsh wording was directed primarily at the Iraqi public, which only on Tuesday heard the Iraqi parliament urge Hussein to reject the resolution. Although Iraq's ambassador to the United Nations, Mohammed Douri, described the letter as an "unconditional" agreement with the council's terms, it was, at best, grudging.
Describing the resolution's "bad contents," the letter said that "if it is to be implemented according to the premeditated evil of the parties of ill-intent, the important thing in this is trying to spare our people from harm." Other governments had signed on to the resolution, the letter said, under U.S. "pressure and threat that it would leave the United Nations if [others] did not agree to what America wanted, which is to say the least, extremely evil and shameful to every honest member of the United Nations." Iraq, it said, would have preferred that the United States "carry out its aggressions against us unilaterally" rather than "obtaining an international cover."
In an apparent reference to terrorist attacks against Americans, the letter said that U.S. "infliction of injustice and destruction" on those who oppose it, principally "Muslim and Arab believers," is why the United States is now "reaping the hatred of the peoples of the world due to its policies and aggressive objectives."
Although the Iraqi letter concluded with a stated intention to send a further communication "at a later date" stating Iraq's belief that parts of the resolution are "contrary to international law," U.N. officials said it was not clear whether Baghdad intends to argue with the terms that Bush said are nonnegotiable.
"There's no negotiations with Mr. Saddam Hussein," Bush said at the White House. "Those days are long gone. And so are the days of deceit and denial. And now it's up to him. And I want to remind you all that inspectors are there to determine whether or not Saddam Hussein is willing to disarm. It's his choice to make. And should he choose not to disarm, we will disarm him."
But the resolution itself, and U.S. interpretations of it, have already caused some confusion. It warns that any Iraqi failure to comply with the resolution will be a "material breach," making Iraq liable for "serious consequences." But it does not define those terms. Annan -- who had asked to meet with Bush during a previously planned trip here to receive an award and deliver a speech on the Middle East -- repeatedly reiterated the need for council "credibility" and "serious, meaningful [inspections], not looking for excuses," during a breakfast meeting with reporters before his session with Bush. On several occasions, he disagreed with public statements about the resolution made by administration officials over the past week.
Last Friday, for example, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld cited "a number of opportunities in the coming weeks to discover [Iraqi] intentions." He added: "Needless to say, Iraq ought not to take or threaten hostile action against inspectors or coalition aircraft upholding U.N. inspections." U.S. and British aircraft have for years patrolled the northern and southern zones in which Iraqi aircraft are prohibited, often exchanging fire with Iraqi installations on the ground.
At a White House briefing yesterday, spokesman Scott McClellan said that "part of the resolution calls for the regime in Iraq to stop firing" on such patrols. But while the resolution does say that Iraq "shall not take or threaten hostile acts" against any U.N. member personnel upholding the new resolution, it does not mention the no-fly patrols, which are not authorized or mentioned in any previous resolution.
"This is tricky," Annan said. "The U.S. maintains the no-fly patrols are in accordance with a resolution. A lot of others" on the council, including Russia, "don't agree."
The resolution does say, and the administration has emphasized, that any Iraqi omissions from the declaration due by Dec. 8 will be considered a "material breach." But Annan said yesterday that he does not think the council would automatically accept such an omission as grounds for war. "The test will come when the inspectors are on the ground," he said. "The inspectors have a sense of what constitutes a major breach" and will make a "judgment of what is intentional and serious."
Although the resolution says Blix must immediately report any Iraqi violation to the council, the administration has said, erroneously, that it also authorizes individual council members to make such reports. "I think we are all agreed that the chief inspectors will be the ones to report serious breaches," Annan said.
"The U.S. does seem to have a lower threshold than the others may have" for what constitutes a breach, he said. "The key is that whatever we do must have broad support from allies and the public." If there is a decision to go to war against Iraq, he said, "the reasons must be seen as reasonable, credible and not contrived."
Staff writer Walter Pincus contributed to this report.
----
BAGHDAD
Iraq Tells the U.N. Arms Inspections Will Be Permitted
November 14, 2002
New York Times
By JULIA PRESTON
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/14/international/middleeast/14IRAQ.html
UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 13 - Iraq said very reluctantly today that it would allow United Nations weapons inspectors to begin work in the country and would "deal with" a Security Council resolution obligating it to disarm.
In their nine-page letter, however, the Iraqis seethed with hostility toward the United States, and repeatedly denied President Bush's assertions that they have weapons of mass destruction, setting the stage for further confrontation between Washington and Baghdad.
In Washington, Mr. Bush had no specific reaction to the Iraqi letter but stressed again that "there's no negotiations with Saddam Hussein."
"We will not tolerate any deception, denial or deceit, period," Mr. Bush said during a meeting with his cabinet.
The United Nations secretary general, Kofi Annan, struck a markedly different tone, urging patience on the White House before it begins any military action if Iraq balks at the rigorous weapons inspections approved on Friday with a 15-to-0 vote in the Security Council.
Even right after that vote, it was clear from speeches by delegates here that some Council members would view war as justified only if Iraq flagrantly violated the new inspections regime. There appears to be a growing gap between those nations and the Bush administration.
Administration officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, indicated that they were content for now to wait until Dec. 8 - the deadline for Iraq to submit a complete list of its weapons programs - before making an issue of violations.
"There's no use being taunted into an argument now over what he's got," a senior official said, referring to Mr. Hussein. "There will be time for that next month."
Once that list is submitted, it will be up to Hans Blix, the head of the United Nations weapons inspectors, to check it. Administration officials have said that only then will they pass the most sensitive American intelligence on Iraq's weapons programs to Mr. Blix.
Forgoing diplomatic niceties, the letter raged against the Americans and the British, co-authors of last Friday's resolution, calling them the "gang of evil" and accusing them of "the biggest and most wicked slander" against Iraq.
The United Nations, the letter said, "has now been transformed into a kitchen house for big power bargaining, providing cover for war, destruction, blockades and starvation to be inflicted upon peoples."
The letter to Mr. Annan was signed by Foreign Minister Naji Sabri of Iraq, but Council diplomats said it had the tone of Mr. Hussein.
Today, most Security Council nations welcomed Iraq's begrudging assent, calling it adequate to meet a requirement in Friday's resolution, which gave Baghdad seven days to agree to its terms.
Mr. Annan, who met today in Washington with Mr. Bush and other senior administration officials, said he was satisfied that Iraq had provided the necessary agreement. The letter arrived two days before the Friday deadline.
"What is important is that they have said yes," Mr. Annan said here late this afternoon after returning from Washington.
The letter said, in an English translation provided by Iraq, "We hereby inform you that we will deal with Resolution 1441, despite its bad contents." It added, "We are prepared to receive the inspectors, so they can carry out their duties, and make sure that Iraq had not developed weapons of mass destruction, during their absence since 1998."
United Nations inspectors withdrew from Iraq in December 1998, on the eve of bombing by the United States and Britain in punishment for Baghdad's failure to cooperate with the inspectors.
No passage in the letter said plainly that Iraq would give unconditional cooperation for the inspections. Instead, it said Iraqi officials would be watching to see if the inspectors "perform their duties in compliance with international law.
"If they do so, professionally and lawfully, without any premeditated intentions," it said, "the liars' lies will be exposed to public opinion, and the declared objective of the Security Council will be achieved."
By Dec. 8, Baghdad must present a complete declaration of all of its prohibited weapons programs. Any omissions or false statements could be the basis for "serious consequences," possibly a military attack, according to the resolution.
In its letter, Iraq repeatedly dismissed as lies the Bush administration's accusations that it has used the hiatus since the last weapons inspections to make biological and chemical arms and to work on a nuclear weapon. "Such fabrications are baseless," the letter said.
The letter arrived here only one day after the Iraqi Parliament recommended unanimously that Mr. Hussein reject the resolution, but left the decision in his hands.
Several Security Council diplomats dismissed the abrasive language in the letter as intended for the domestic audience in Iraq, allowing Mr. Hussein to say that in order to avert war, he had been forced to agree to the resolution, but had not bowed to the United States.
"The important thing in this is trying to spare our people from any harm," the letter said.
Mr. Blix confirmed today that his chemical and biological weapons team, - together with the inspectors for the nuclear program - would arrive in Baghdad on Nov. 18.
Just as Iraq said it was waiting to see how the inspectors would perform, Mr. Annan said the United Nations wanted to see how Iraq would cooperate.
"I think the issue is not their acceptance, but performance on the ground," he said in Washington. "So let the inspectors go in, and I urge the Iraqis to cooperate with them and to perform, and I think that is the real test we are all waiting for."
He said he did not want to jump to conclusions about the belligerent tone of Iraq's message.
"I will wait to see whether it is an indication that they are going to play games, or it is a message they are sending to their own people," said Mr. Annan, a veteran of many skirmishes over the inspections between the United Nations and Baghdad.
While the United States had no official reaction to today's letter, the other four permanent, veto-bearing Council nations accepted it.
"Iraq has now taken the first step," said the British foreign secretary, Jack Straw. "I welcome that."
But he added: "We must remain vigilant. Iraq's intentions are notoriously changeable." He said it was only the threat from Washington and London of all-out war to disarm Iraq that had brought it to accept the Security Council's will.
The French foreign minister, Dominique de Villepin, also guarded, said France "took note of Iraq's acceptance," and insisted that Paris wanted to see Iraq cooperate fully with the inspections.
Russia, which was the least enthusiastic among the Council powers about the threats of force in Friday's resolution, was the most enthusiastic about Iraq's response.
"We were sure Iraq would comply, as the decision is opening the way for the situation in Iraq to be settled politically," Foreign Minister Igor S. Ivanov told a Russian television station today.
The deputy representative from China, Zhang Yishan, announced in the Council this morning that "Iraq has decided to accept" resolution 1441 and "welcomes inspectors to come back." China is a permanent member that holds the rotating presidency of the Council for November.
Arab nations embraced Baghdad's decision with relief, pleased that Mr. Hussein had not provoked a crisis just days after they hailed Resolution 1441 as his last chance to avoid war with the United States.
In the letter, Baghdad parroted - but reversed - the words Mr. Bush used in a speech to the General Assembly on Sept. 12, when he summoned the United Nations to confront Iraq or become irrelevant.
Berating the Council nations that supported the American-British resolution, the letter said, "We fear that the United Nations organization may lose the trust and attachment of peoples, that is if it has not fallen to that place already.
"He who remains silent in the defense of truth is a dumb devil," the letter says, referring to the 15 nations on the Security Council.
Iraq's ambassador, Mohammed A. Aldouri, adopted a somewhat milder tone here this morning, saying Iraq was "eager" to see the inspectors work "in accordance with international law, as soon as possible."
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Inspectors' List of Sites Ready
'Road Map' Includes More Than 1,000 Locations in Iraq
By Colum Lynch
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 14, 2002; Page A28
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A51165-2002Nov13?language=printer
UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 13 -- With Iraq's announcement today that it will accept tough, new United Nations inspection terms, a team of disarmament experts will likely arrive in Baghdad on Monday to restart their surveillance cameras, install their communications equipment and begin the most intrusive weapons inspection operation in modern history.
Armed with tips and evidence amassed by Iraqi defectors, former U.N. arms experts and U.S. and British intelligence agencies over the past decade, the U.N. inspection team has created a road map of more than 1,000 sites that inspectors will potentially visit in their search of Iraq's suspected chemical, biological and nuclear weapons arsenals.
Over the next two months, U.N. inspectors will be zeroing in on a priority list of more than 100 sites, including an upgraded missile launch facility at Al-Rafah, a former nuclear power plant at Al-Furat and a chlorine production facility in the town of Fallujah outside Baghdad that once produced precursors for Iraq's nerve and blister agents, according to U.S. and U.N. sources. Inspectors are also expected to visit at least one of eight presidential compounds to test whether Iraq is willing to provide full compliance, officials said.
U.S. and British intelligence agencies maintain that these and other sites damaged by U.S. warplanes or destroyed by U.N. weapons inspectors have been rebuilt and expanded since the inspectors left Iraq in December 1998, on the eve of a U.S.-British bombing campaign.
"We have a plan of action which we cannot obviously lay out in detail," Mohamed El Baradei, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said in an interview. "But we will have to go and visit some of the facilities which have been relevant in the past". . . and conduct "no notice inspections" at previously unknown sites. "We would not want to work in an expected fashion; we will have to do some surprise visits to facilities that we might not be expected to visit."
El Baradei, an Egyptian arms expert who will head the United Nations' efforts to uncover Iraq's nuclear weapons program, said that these former sites represent only a piece of the broader picture of Iraq's weapons program. El Baradei and his counterpart, Hans Blix, the head of the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, which is responsible for ridding Iraq of chemical and biological weapons and long-range missiles, said the U.N. inspectors will set up an elaborate system of soil, water and air sampling equipment to detect any traces of chemicals or radioactive materials.
Inspectors will also appeal to U.N. member states to turn over intelligence on Iraq's efforts to purchase weapons-related equipment, and question hundreds of Iraqi scientists involved in Baghdad's previous weapons efforts to see whether they can provide credible evidence they have not been "moonlighting" in prohibited programs, El Baradei said.
But El Baradei and other senior U.N. officials say the key to identifying a secret weapons program is securing unimpeded access to any site in the country. "If there is a piece of equipment, it will have to be installed; and if it has been installed and is being used, we will have a chance to bump into it," said Jacques Baute, the head of the IAEA's Iraq action team.
Under the terms of a 1991 cease-fire agreement ending the Persian Gulf War, Iraq is obliged to allow U.N. inspectors to eliminate its chemical, biological and nuclear weapons program and any missile with a range of more than 90 miles. The former U.N. inspections agency, UNSCOM, destroyed more Iraqi weapons than the U.S.-led coalition forces in 1991 before it left Iraq in 1998, following confrontations over access to sites.
But Iraq retained massive stores of growth media and chemical precursors that could have been turned to chemical and biological weapons programs. U.S. officials suspect that Iraq has also developed longer range missiles and other delivery systems capable of threatening U.S. interests.
Blix and El Baradei will travel to Iraq on Monday with a team of nearly 30 logistical and technical specialists to set up communications and check on the status of an elaborate remote monitoring system that kept tabs on pieces of Iraqi equipment that could easily be converted from civilian to military uses. A team of about a dozen weapons inspectors are scheduled to arrive Nov. 25 to begin conducting spot inspections. A full team of 85 to 100 inspectors should be working in Iraq by the end of December.
Reports issued last month by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and Britain's Joint Intelligence Committee charged that Iraq has been engaged in an ambitious program over the past four years to rebuild facilities either torn down by previous U.N. inspectors or destroyed by U.S. and British warplanes.
The reports include the names of more than a dozen locations suspected of participating in banned weapons programs. One of them is the Al Mamoun Solid Rocket Motor Production Plant, where Iraq previously produced motors for the Badr-2000 solid propellant missile, which is capable of traveling 430 to 620 miles.
Although U.S. warplanes and U.N. inspectors have destroyed several structures at the site, the Iraqis have begun to rebuild them. "The Iraqis have rebuilt two structures used to mix solid propellant for the Badr-2000," according the CIA report. "The only logical explanation for the size and configuration of these mixing buildings is that Iraq intends to develop longer-range, prohibited missiles."
U.N. officials say that much of the information published in the report -- including an account of weapons-related equipment and materials sought from overseas suppliers by Iraq -- provides a helpful guide to future weapons inspections. But they also struck a note of caution, pointing out that Iraq will have plenty of time to sanitize those sites. "Where sites have been indicated publicly, it is not likely that they will contain anything proscribed when inspectors arrive," Blix told a team of recruits in Vienna last month.
El Baradei said that while his inspectors could easily detect whether Iraq has reconstituted an industrial-scale nuclear weapons program, it will be much harder to uncover evidence of Iraq's efforts to obtain weapons-grade nuclear fuel from a foreign supplier. He said that although he will begin inspections in "a couple of weeks' time," it could take as long as three months before the entire U.N. monitoring system will be up and running. "We need to take our time," El Baradei said.
El Baradei and Blix have repeatedly pleaded with Washington and London to provide them with fresh intelligence they have collected on Iraqi efforts to procure key ingredients that can be used for either conventional or nuclear weapons programs.
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UN Inspector May Clash with Bush on Iraq Standard
Reuters
Thursday, November 14, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A54621-2002Nov14?language=printer
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A key U.N. weapons inspector said on Thursday he would not run to the U.N. Security Council if Iraq made a minor, unintentional omission in disclosing its weapons of mass destruction, a stand that may put him at odds with President Bush's "zero tolerance" policy.
Under a timetable laid out in last week's U.N. Security Council resolution on new weapons inspections in Iraq, Baghdad has until Dec. 8 to declare any weapons of mass destruction programs it may have as well as an extensive list of materials in its petrochemical industry that could have military uses.
"If there is minor omission and this is clearly not intentional we are not running to the Security Council to say that it's a material breach," said International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Mohamed ElBaradei, who will lead the U.N. teams searching for any Iraqi nuclear weapons programs.
"If there is a pattern of lack of cooperation then we obviously have to report to the Security Council and the Security Council will decide (whether) that is a material breach," he said in a speech at a nonproliferation conference.
Asked on Wednesday how he would define a "material breach" of the U.N. resolution, a term that could lead to military action to disarm Iraq, Bush was blunt: "Zero tolerance ... We will not tolerate any deception, denial or deceit, period.
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U.N. Inspectors Will Face Many Problems in Iraq
Reuters
Thursday, November 14, 2002
By Alan Elsner, National Correspondent
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A52347-2002Nov14?language=printer
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.N. arms inspectors are likely to face major logistical and practical problems in their drive to uncover Iraqi chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, from Iraqi officials who have had years of experience in frustrating past inspections.
Former inspectors and other experts said Iraqi President Saddam Hussein might feel he has no choice other than to allow the inspectors back into his country to avert the threat of a U.S.-led military attack. But he would still make every effort to hide as many of his weapons programs as possible.
President Bush has described Saddam's previous tactics as "cheat and retreat" and has said he would not tolerate them in the future.
"There are a million ways the Iraqis could try to frustrate the inspectors. The most worrying scenario is the accumulation of small obstacles and deceits, each of which taken alone is too small to justify a war, but which collectively could add up to a serious problem," said Jessica Mathews, president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who recently edited a book on how to make inspections work.
She said the key to success was maintaining unity among the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and maintaining a credible threat of war if Iraq did not comply.
"As soon as one of those two conditions disappears, the inspections efforts will start to fail," said Mathews.
The chief U.N. weapons inspector, Hans Blix, has said inspections would prove unworkable without Iraqi cooperation.
SECURITY COUNCIL RESOLUTION
A U.N. Security Council resolution, adopted last Friday, ordered Iraq to give up its weapons of mass destruction and laid down a timetable. Iraq's U.N. ambassador said on Wednesday his country will accept the resolution without conditions.
Baghdad will have until Dec. 8 to provide the United Nations with a list of dangerous weapons it still might have as well as civilian chemical and biological "dual use" components, that might have military applications.
Inspections will then begin and the inspectors would have until Feb. 21 to file an initial report on Iraqi compliance. However, they must tell the Security Council of any serious violations sooner.
Jonathan Tucker, who worked as a nuclear inspector in Iraq in the 1990s, said Baghdad previously employed many techniques to frustrate the inspections. They included: providing incomplete, false or distorted statements, trying to lead inspectors away from sensitive sites, making key officials unavailable for interviews, destroying evidence, intimidating inspectors, disguising and camouflaging facilities and bugging rooms used by inspectors.
On several occasions, key officials were unavailable for interviews because their daughters were supposedly getting married. Other times, inspectors were told that people they wished to interview had been involved in car crashes on the way to their interviews.
"The new inspections regime will be much tougher than the old one but Iraq is a large country, about the size of California, with many places to hide weapons and clandestine production facilities, so the inspection process must be supported with accurate and timely intelligence," said Tucker, who is now at the U.S. Institute of Peace.
INSPECTORS HAVE NEW TECHNOLOGY
Iraq has had four years since the last inspectors withdrew in which to build underground sites and mobile facilities. But inspectors will be armed with new tools, including more accurate aerial and satellite surveillance data, portable X-ray devices and hand-held sensors that can instantly identify biological agents such as anthrax.
Unlike in the past, the inspectors will have the right to interview witnesses without Iraqi minders being present. They could also take scientists and their families out of the country, though several experts believe that would be unworkable in practice.
Terence Taylor, who was a senior nuclear inspector in Iraq from 1993 to 1997, said he was worried there would be too few inspectors and that they would be too inexperienced.
"When we were there, the Iraqis managed to penetrate our organization and suborn U.N. personnel in New York as well as in our forward staging station in Bahrain. They had paid off key people so they often knew our plans in advance," he said.
"You must assume they will bug hotel rooms and other facilities used by inspectors and they will intimidate witnesses the inspectors wish to interview," said Taylor, who is now president of the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies.
"The Iraqi side has a detailed knowledge of what was uncovered by the previous inspectors and is very experienced in receiving inspectors, handling visits to sites and preparing for interviews," he said.
David Albright, who worked for the nuclear inspections team from 1992 to 1997, said the 250 trained inspectors available to the United Nations was not enough. Scores of inspectors will be needed to secure and investigate individual sites, but it was crucial that the inspectors keep the Iraqis off-balance by swooping on several sites at one time.
Albright also worried whether the inspectors would be sufficiently persistent and determined.
"It took me many years to learn how to do interviews and I was sometimes tricked. You need people used to dealing with the negative side of human behavior and I fear they may be short of those kinds of people," said Albright, who is now president of the Institute for Science and International Security.
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Former weapons inspector says war with Iraq inevitable
Thu Nov 14, 2:45 PM ET
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20021114/ap_wo_en_po/us_iraq_former_inspector_2
PASADENA, California - Former United Nations (news - web sites) weapons inspector Scott Ritter says the U.N. resolution on disarming Iraq of weapons of mass destruction makes war inevitable.
"We're going to war, and there's not a damn thing the inspectors can do to stop it, and that's a shame. Inspections worked once and they can work again," Ritter said Wednesday night during a speech at the California Institute for Technology.
The wording of the U.N. resolution will allow the United States to attack by mid-December, said Ritter, who was chief weapons inspector for the U.N. Special Commission in Iraq from 1991 to 1998.
He resigned in 1998, in part because weapons inspectors were being used to justify the Desert Fox bombing campaign against Iraq, Ritter said. Although he's a Republican who voted for President Goerge W. Bush, Ritter spent much of his speech criticizing the administration.
"The U.S. has a policy regarding Iraq of regime removal. The last thing Bush wants is a weapons inspection regime that works. That would mean lifting economic sanctions and Iraq coming back into the fold with Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) still at the helm," Ritter said.
He said the U.N. resolution carries a hidden trigger allowing Bush to attack after the Dec. 8 deadline for a weapons declaration from Iraq, and noted that there will be four U.S. aircraft carriers in the region in December.
If Iraq does not declare any weapons on Dec. 8, it will constitute the false declaration described in the resolution. Ritter said this would trigger a Security Council meeting to consider serious consequences.
Under the resolution, however, false statements or omissions alone would not constitute a new "material breach" for the council to consider. During negotiations, France, Russia and others demanded that an Iraqi failure to cooperate also be required for a new "material breach."
The resolution adopted unanimously last Friday says "false statements or omissions in the declarations submitted by Iraq ... 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."
During his years as a weapons inspector specializing in forensic archaeology, Ritter said the Iraqis lied at every turn, leading inspectors to dig up demolished ballistic missiles and track the serial numbers to their Russian manufacturer for confirmation that all existing missiles were destroyed.
With such detective work, inspectors confirmed at least 95 percent of all weapons were destroyed by 1996.
-------- korea
Crisis Could Push N. Korea to Expel Nuclear Inspectors
By Doug Struck
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, November 14, 2002; Page A22
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A51865-2002Nov13?language=printer
TOKYO -- In the countryside of North Korea, two men -- one Egyptian, one Chinese -- watch the still waters of a pool in a cold, nearly vacant building. Hundreds of silvery canisters sit in the clear water 30 feet below. Each contains highly radioactive metal that once fueled a power plant, metal that could be forged into the fearsome heart of a nuclear bomb.
The men re-run timed photos from poolside cameras, using a computer to detect changes in the image and confirm that nothing entered -- or left -- the water while they slept at a nearby dormitory. Assured, they make the rounds of other buildings, checking locks and seals on machinery and doors of the decrepit nuclear industrial complex.
They or their colleagues -- a new team is sent in about every six weeks from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) -- have been doing this chore at North Korea's Yongbyon nuclear plant 25 miles north of Pyongyang without interruption since Nov. 11, 1994.
But diplomats and analysts are worried that these international inspectors could be evicted from North Korea, and their crucial surveillance of the spent nuclear fuel aborted, following a decision by the United States and the other members of the executive board of the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO). That decision would cut off future shipments of much-needed heavy fuel oil unless North Korea takes verifiable steps to dismantle a newly disclosed, separate program to enrich uranium for use in nuclear weapons.
President Bush, in a meeting with senior advisers Wednesday, decided to inform the other members of the KEDO board -- South Korea, Japan and the European Union -- that the United States will allow the current November shipment to be delivered but will not approve a December shipment unless North Korea takes the necessary steps. U.S. officials, who have closely consulted with allies in recent weeks, said they expect the other members to agree. A decision will be formally announced as early as today when the KEDO board meets in New York.
Under the 1994 Agreed Framework, KEDO is helping build nuclear power plants for North Korea in exchange for Pyongyang freezing operations at facilities capable of producing weapons-grade material and putting existing plutonium under inspection. The agreement also provides that 3.3 million barrels of oil are to be shipped to North Korea each year.
In the growing diplomatic standoff over the demand to end the uranium enrichment program, one of the biggest risks is that the nuclear fuel quarantined under international inspection after the last major nuclear row in 1994 could be freed up and made into weapons.
"If North Korea decides they want to really rattle sabers, they could expel the IAEA and threaten to reprocess the fuel. That would be a very serious situation," said C. Kenneth Quinones, who helped set up the inspection program in 1994.
If the oil flow is stopped, analysts and diplomats said, North Korea might evict the inspectors from Yongbyon. With some repair of the rusting infrastructure, the government could begin reprocessing the spent fuel rods from the pool into plutonium for atomic bombs in six to eight months, according to some estimates. The 8,000 spent fuel rods could conceivably make 30 or more atomic weapons, Quinones said.
"North Korea can quickly un-can the stored fuel rods to begin extracting plutonium, allowing it to build up a nuclear force far more quickly than would be possible through uranium enrichment," said Timothy Savage, a visiting fellow at Kyungnam University in Seoul.
North Korea also could unlock the IAEA seals on the old nuclear plant at Yongbyon, and, with a major overhaul, restart the Soviet-era reactor to begin churning out even more potential weapons fuel.
Before the U.S. decision on the oil was announced, a parade of U.S. officials who had come for consultations privately advocated stopping the shipments, and said Congress would do so next year anyhow.
But Japan and South Korea disagree; they have told the Americans that it would be a mistake to end the oil flow and the 1994 Agreed Framework under which the shipments were sent. They argue that move could prompt an escalation of brinkmanship by North Korea.
"Unless we find some better alternative, it's very risky for all of us to throw it away," said Katsunari Suzuki, in charge of the North Korean negotiations for Japan. "It's better than nothing."
There are gaps in perceptions, the Japanese Defense Agency head, Shigeru Ishiba, acknowledged in parliament Monday. He warned that U.S. pressure to halt the KEDO oil shipments could cause disarray.
And it may escalate North Korea's moves, others say.
"If America stops the oil shipments, North Korea will consider the 1994 Agreed Framework completely dead and will restart the nuclear program. Definitely," said Kim Myong Chol, the former editor of People's Korea magazine in Tokyo, who often reflects Pyongyang's line. "And if America imposes economic sanctions -- depending on the nature of the sanctions -- North Korea could regard that as an act of war."
Assistant Secretary of State James A. Kelly, the State Department point man on the issue, has said the United States will not negotiate with North Korea until there is "a complete and visible dismantling" of North Korea's uranium enrichment program.
The United States contends that a unified diplomatic front to isolate North Korea will force it to capitulate. But others who have dealt with North Korea for years say its traditional pattern is to increase the stakes, not to back down.
North Korea also has other cards to play, they point out.
The North's response might be as mild as halting the program under which the U.S. military has made regular trips to North Korea since 1996 to search for the remains of more than 8,000 American servicemen who died in the Korean War, an action it has taken twice before.
But North Korea could act more drastically and eject the 1,400 South Korean and Uzbek KEDO workers now pouring the concrete for the foundations of a light-water reactor power plant on the eastern coast under the 1994 pact.
"If they feel the United States is going to end the fuel shipments, they would most likely respond by evicting KEDO," said Quinones, speaking from Centreville, Va. Quinones said he believes that both sides will try to avoid an escalation of tensions. Both have shown some willingness to contain the confrontation, he said.
But the light-water plant is five years behind schedule, and North Korea may feel it will never get power from the completed project anyway, he said. North Korea has long protested that the United States and other KEDO countries failed to uphold their part of the agreement.
Evicting the IAEA inspectors and removing the spent fuel would considerably ratchet up the crisis. The Clinton administration was on the verge of ordering military strikes against North Korea in 1994 over just those sorts of preparations by Pyongyang after the IAEA detected possible diversions in its nuclear power plant fuel.
The most incendiary escalation of the stakes would be a test-firing of a long-range missile by North Korea, similar to one it launched in 1998 that alarmed Japan and its neighbors. North Korea warned last week that it may end its moratorium on such tests, adopted in 1999 as a gesture to the United States.
"North Korea could test-fire long-range missiles off the coast of Washington or New York in the Atlantic Ocean, and it would be legal under international law," Kim said. "It all depends on the American response. We're just at the beginning of a crisis. We're on a threshold."
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U.S. Ties Oil Deal to N. Korea Nuclear Bid
By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 14, 2002; Page A22
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A51194-2002Nov13?language=printer
Upping the stakes in a confrontation with North Korea, President Bush yesterday decided to halt future shipments of heavy fuel oil to the energy-starved nation unless it takes verifiable steps to dismantle a newly disclosed program to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons.
The decision, made at a meeting with the National Security Council, came after weeks of consultation and discussion with Japan, South Korea and the European Union, which are also members of the consortium that provides the oil to North Korea. U.S. officials said they expect the other members to agree, and a decision will be formally announced when the executive board of the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization meets in New York today.
KEDO is expected to permit a ship making this month's delivery of fuel oil to complete its journey, but a mid-December shipment would be canceled unless North Korea accedes to international demands.
Under a 1994 bilateral accord, North Korea agreed to suspend operation of nuclear reactors capable of producing weapons-grade material and to place plutonium already produced under international safeguards. In return, the United States agreed, among other things, to supply Pyongyang with regular shipments of fuel oil, totaling 3.3 million barrels (500,000 metric tons) a year. Under a separate accord, Japan, South Korea and the United States agreed to construct two light-water reactors to generate electricity.
But North Korea last month admitted that it had begun a program to enrich uranium, in violation of previous accords, and that the 1994 pact was "nullified.''
Since then, U.S. officials have pressed hard to end the fuel deliveries, but the KEDO board operates on consensus. Some officials supported ordering the ship carrying about 43,000 metric tons of oil to turn around.
But Bush yesterday concluded that halting the ship was such a provocative step that Pyongyang might react rashly, such as evicting international inspectors and restarting its nuclear reactors. "We didn't want to do something so they lose face," one official explained.
Another official said that U.S. officials will inform their allies that if they do not agree to stop December's delivery, the United States will not support completion of the November shipment. "We want to make it crystal clear that this is it,'' he said.
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U.S. will halt fuel oil shipments
From combined dispatches
November 14, 2002
Washington Times
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20021114-24867136.htm
The Bush administration decided yesterday to cut off monthly shipments of fuel oil to North Korea under a 1994 nuclear agreement because of Pyongyang's recent admission it had a secret nuclear-weapons program.
Senior U.S. officials said the November shipment, which left Singapore for North Korea last month, would be the final one. Two more shipments - in December and January - had been contracted for.
Washington's decision came a day before a meeting in New York of the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO), which handles the oil deliveries, as well as the building of two light-water reactors in the reclusive state.
North Korea receives 500,000 metric tons of heavy fuel oil a year, which is paid for mostly by the United States.
Japan, South Korea and the European Union, the other members of KEDO's executive board, have been much more cautious about taking drastic measures against the North. Some officials from these countries had expressed hope that the shipments would continue.
Within the Bush administration, however, there had been voices advocating stopping the delivery before it reaches the North Korean ports.
Frank Gaffney, a leading conservative Republican defense analyst, told Reuters news agency that letting the oil shipment proceed "signals to North Korea that the rhetoric being employed against them, if not empty, doesn't have immediate material effect."
He predicted there would be continuing pressure from South Korea, Japan and the State Department as well as threats from North Korea that could result in new fuel shipments and "further concessions" to Pyongyang in the months ahead.
North Korea had taken important steps to end its international isolation in recent months. But in October, confronted with U.S. intelligence data, the communist country conceded it had a covert program to produce highly enriched uranium, a key ingredient of nuclear weapons.
It has threatened to withdraw from the 1994 Agreed Framework, signed with the United States, if the fuel oil shipments are halted.
North Korea's economy is in desperate shape, and winter is approaching. Although KEDO's fuel oil shipments have been a major energy source, Russia and China are also providers.
In a separate development, a former U.S. diplomat who met with authorities in North Korea last week was quoted by the Associated Press as saying that Pyongyang has decided against returning the captured spy ship USS Pueblo after indicating last month that it might do so.
Donald Gregg, president of the Korea Society and a former ambassador to South Korea, said yesterday that a deal for the Pueblo was hinted at in an Oct. 3 letter in which Vice Foreign Minister Kim Gye-gwan invited him to visit Pyongyang.
But when Mr. Gregg raised the issue during his Nov. 2-5 talks with Mr. Kim and others, he said he was told, "The climate has changed. It's no longer an option."
Mr. Gregg said it was clear the North Koreans were referring to the dispute that erupted after North Korea admitted secretly pursuing a program to produce highly enriched uranium for nuclear weapons. The Bush administration has refused to resume any negotiations until the North verifiably eliminates the program.
Mr. Gregg, who served as U.S. ambassador to Seoul during the administration of the elder President Bush, said a decision to halt the fuel oil shipments could worsen the nuclear crisis.
He said it was clear to him from his talks in Pyongyang that the North Koreans want to resolve the matter through negotiations.
In Mr. Gregg's view - not widely shared within the current Bush administration - the suggestion of returning the Pueblo was North Korea's way of indicating its interest in improving relations with the United States.
"I thought it was a very good symbol, or could be" of the North's interest in better relations, he said.
He said he had first discussed the Pueblo's return in a visit to Pyongyang in the spring.
Mr. Gregg said that after he was told the Pueblo's return to U.S. custody was no longer an option, he asked to visit the ship, which has been docked near Pyongyang in recent years and used as an anti-American museum.
Mr. Gregg said the Pueblo was not at its usual mooring and he was told it had been returned to Wonsan, on the opposite coast of North Korea, where it had been held for decades after its capture on Jan. 23, 1968.
The capture of the Pueblo was one of the most shocking acts of communist aggression during the Cold War. North Korean patrol boats seized the intelligence-gathering ship in international waters, and one of the 83 U.S. crew members was killed. The rest were removed from the ship and held prisoner for 11 months.
----
Japan Says to Press N.Korea on Biochemical Arms
Reuters
Thursday, November 14, 2002
By Teruaki Ueno
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A52918-2002Nov14?language=printer
TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan said on Thursday it would take up the issue of North Korea's suspected development of biological and chemical weapons in future talks on establishing diplomatic ties between the historic foes.
In the latest round of full-scale talks in Malaysia last month, Japan pressed Pyongyang to scrap a nuclear weapons program which North Korean officials had admitted to James Kelly, the top U.S. negotiator for North Korea.
Quoting an unidentified Japanese government official, Japanese media said on Thursday that North Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Kang Sok-ju had told Kelly that Pyongyang possessed biological as well as chemical weapons.
Japan's top government spokesman, Yasuo Fukuda, declined to confirm the report but quoted Kelly as saying that North Korea had told the United States it had "more powerful" weapons than nuclear arms.
"It has long been suggested that North Korea possesses such weapons, and we have long been concerned about North Korea's development of weapons of mass destruction," he told reporters.
He said that Japan would take up the issue in the next round of talks on forging diplomatic ties, but it remained unclear when the two sides would meet again.
Japan and North Korea remain far apart over the key issues of Japanese citizens abducted by North Korean agents and Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program.
ABDUCTEES
North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, in talks with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi in September, admitted that Pyongyang agents had abducted 13 Japanese during the 1970s and 1980s.
The unexpected admission cleared the way for the two nations to resume talks on normalizing ties.
But bickering over the abductees issue and North Korea's subsequent confession that it was pursuing the nuclear arms program, in violation of a 1994 pact with Washington, have snarled the negotiations.
The five surviving abductees are currently visiting Japan and it is unclear when or where they will be reunited with their children, who are still in Pyongyang.
Pyongyang said on Thursday that unless the five were returned, it might indefinitely postpone the launch of security talks set for later this month.
A spokesman for the North Korean Foreign Ministry also said that not returning the abductees could "complicate" the resolution of all issues between the two nations but stopped short of mentioning talks to establish diplomatic ties.
"The Japanese side should know that as long as it does not honestly observe the agreement reached with the DPRK (North Korea) on sending them back, this will entail grave consequences including the indefinite postponement of the talks on security," the spokesman told the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
NO DECISION ON FUEL SHIPMENTS
Washington has said Pyongyang clearly violated the 1994 agreement to freeze work on nuclear weapons in exchange for oil shipments and two light-water reactors that cannot be easily used to produce weapons-grade material.
A senior U.S. official said on Wednesday that a fuel delivery due in North Korea shortly was being allowed to go ahead, but it could be the last following the North's admission of its nuclear weapons program.
Fukuda said no decision had been made on deliveries.
"It is favorable to implement and keep the Agreed Framework. It hinges on how North Korea would respond," Fukuda said, referring to the 1994 agreement.
Japanese, U.S., South Korean and EU officials start a two-day meeting of the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO) in New York on Thursday to decide what to do. KEDO is implementing the Agreed Framework.
A diplomatic source in Tokyo with close ties to Pyongyang told Reuters on Tuesday that North Korea would likely scrap other nuclear commitments if the shipments stopped -- raising the spectre of resuming its mothballed plutonium extraction work.
Japan's defense minister, Shigeru Ishiba, held talks with his South Korean counterpart Lee Jun in Tokyo on Thursday, but a Japanese official said the two did not discuss North Korea's nuclear weapons program.
The official quoted Lee as telling Ishiba that it was important to bring North Korea into the international community.
Asked by Ishiba whether the Kim Jong-il regime had changed, Lee was quoted as saying: "It is not clear whether the regime has make visible changes."
----
N. Korea Changes on Return of USS Pueblo
Associated Press
Thursday, November 14, 2002; Page A04
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A51039-2002Nov13?language=printer
North Korea has decided against returning the captured spy ship USS Pueblo after indicating last month that it might do so, according to a former U.S. official who met with authorities in the North Korean capital last week.
Donald P. Gregg, president of the Korea Society and a former ambassador to South Korea, said yesterday that a deal for the Pueblo was hinted at in an Oct. 3 letter in which Vice Foreign Minister Kim Gye Gwan invited him to visit Pyongyang.
But when Gregg raised the issue during his Nov. 2-5 talks with Kim and others, he said he was told, "The climate has changed. It's no longer an option."
Gregg said the Pueblo was not at its usual mooring and he was told it had been returned to Wonsan, on the opposite coast of North Korea, where it had been held for decades after its capture on Jan. 23, 1968.
The capture of the Pueblo was one of the most shocking events of the Cold War. North Korean patrol boats seized the intelligence-gathering ship in international waters and one of the 83 U.S. crew members was killed. The rest were removed from the ship and held prisoner for 11 months.
Gregg said he had first discussed the Pueblo's return in a visit to Pyongyang last spring.
-------- terrorism
Al Qaeda Suspect Says He Targeted Belgian Nuke Base
Reuters
Thursday, November 14, 2002; 11:26 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A57209-2002Nov14?language=printer
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - A Tunisian arrested in Belgium last year on suspicion of having links to the al Qaeda network told a radio station on Thursday he had planned to attack a Belgian air base thought to house U.S. nuclear bombs.
RTBF public radio said Nizar Trabelsi, a former professional soccer player, was speaking by telephone from his jail cell.
He was arrested in possession of explosives and firearms two days after the September 11 attacks on the United States and has since been charged with involvement in organized crime and illegal possession of firearms but has yet to face trial.
Trabelsi has been linked by Dutch judicial authorities to Algerian-born Adel Tobbichi, who along with three others has been charged in a Dutch court with plotting to attack Belgium's Kleine Brogel air force base and the U.S. embassy in Paris.
Asked by an RTBF reporter whether he was involved in a plot against the airbase, Trabelsi replied: "Yes, exactly." His remarks have since been carried widely by Belgian media.
"The products they (the police) found in my place, were the same as were used against Nairobi and Dar es Salaam," he added, in an apparent reference to the bloody 1998 al Qaeda bomb attacks at the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
"It's the most serious bomb around," he said.
Anti-nuclear activists say U.S. nuclear weapons are stockpiled at the Kleine Brogel base in eastern Belgium, an allegation officials have neither confirmed nor denied.
Trabelsi denied, however, that the U.S. embassy in Paris was another of his targets.
According to a Dutch request to Canada seeking the extradition of Tobbichi, the Algerian allegedly provided false travel documents to Trabelsi to enable him to travel to Afghanistan to train for a suicide mission.
Trabelsi said he knew and admired al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, who spent years based in Afghanistan.
"I love him a lot, like a father. For me, he's my father. I don't care what happened on September 11 or what he did, that doesn't interest me," Trabelsi said.
"I had a good relationship with him. I talked a lot with him. I felt he wasn't playing with me. He gave me advice."
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
-------- new york
Takeover of Indian Point by Westchester Is Proposed
November 14, 2002
New York Times
By WINNIE HU
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/14/nyregion/14NUKE.html
WHITE PLAINS, Nov. 13 - The Westchester County executive, Andrew J. Spano, said today that he wanted to shut down the two nuclear power plants at Indian Point by buying them, or if necessary, taking them through a condemnation process.
Citing concerns about the safety of the plants, Mr. Spano said he was setting aside $500,000 in his proposed 2003 budget for a six-month study on acquiring the Indian Point plants in Buchanan, about 40 miles north of Midtown Manhattan, and replacing them with a new natural gas plant. He estimated the purchase and construction costs alone at $2 billion to $3 billion, at least twice the amount of the county's annual budget.
"We think that these plants should not have been built here in the first place, and we'd rather have them somewhere else, and we're going to pursue this attack," Mr. Spano said during a news conference at his office.
But Mr. Spano and other county officials offered few details about their proposal, except to say that the study would address a wide range of questions, including where the money would come from and whether the county would act alone or try to seek partners. Mr. Spano has said he would not raise taxes to buy the plants.
Indian Point's owner, the Entergy Corporation, said today that it was not interested in selling the nuclear plants and that it would oppose any effort to close them.
"Entergy hasn't put out a for-sale sign," said Jim Steets, an Entergy spokesman. "We'll talk to the county executive about whatever he wants, but we're not looking to sell Indian Point. It's too valuable to Entergy and to the residents of New York State."
The company bought the plants in the last two years, and Mr. Steets said it had spent hundreds of millions of dollars to upgrade equipment and increase training. Together, the two plants generate about 2,000 megawatts of electricity for homes, businesses and public buildings in Westchester and New York City; one megawatt is enough to power about 1,000 average homes.
Mr. Spano's announcement follows more than a year of divisive public debates here over the safety of Indian Point since the Sept. 11 terror attacks. The Westchester Board of Legislators and dozens of villages and towns across the county have passed resolutions calling for the nuclear plants to be decommissioned.
Brian Nickerson, director of the Michaelian Institute for Public Policy at Pace University, said that while Mr. Spano was clearly responding to the concerns of his constituents, his proposal for a takeover of Indian Point faced many logistical and regulatory hurdles. "I don't know if it's completely unrealistic," he said. "But I think it's a difficult sell."
Several Westchester legislators and others questioned whether the financially strained county could afford to buy the plants, let alone build a new one. Just last month, Mr. Spano, a Democrat, proposed a 31.7 percent increase in the county's share of the property tax levy to help offset a projected gap of more than $100 million next year in the county's roughly $1 billion budget.
"I'm not willing to sign off on Westchester County becoming Westchester Lighting Company," said Legislator George Oros, the Republican minority leader. "I think there are basic, fundamental questions that you have to address first before you commit the $500,000 for the study."
But Legislator Michael B. Kaplowitz, a Democrat, said that whether or not the county took over the nuclear plants, the proposed study would take a serious look at issues that need to be addressed.
"The economic arguments to keep it open are very powerful," he said. "And yet the reasons to close it for public safety are more compelling. This is a way to do both. You would close the nuclear side and build a natural gas plant."
-------- us politics
House Passes Homeland Security Bill
Plan for Agency Is Readied As Senate Vote Approaches
By John Mintz and Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, November 14, 2002; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A51343-2002Nov13?language=printer
As the House of Representatives passed legislation last night establishing a new Department of Homeland Security, the Bush administration is pressing ahead with plans for a tightly choreographed sequence of actions starting in late January or early February to create the new agency.
Working from a 500-page playbook, government officials are preparing for an explosion of activity 60 days after President Bush signs the bill, when they will begin consolidating 22 separate agencies into a new federal agency with 170,000 employees.
The reorganization, the largest in government since the creation of the Defense Department in 1947, is intended to fashion a single agency that would protect America -- along with its seaports, nuclear plants, energy pipelines and other infrastructure -- by using intelligence information. The new agency also would train police officers, firefighters and health workers to respond to terrorist attacks and develop new technologies to detect threats.
In the House last night, the bill passed by a vote of 299 to 121. Voting yes were 87 Democrats and 212 Republicans; voting no were 114 Democrats, 6 Republicans and 1 independent.
With the Senate poised to pass the homeland security bill in coming days, administration officials said Bush was likely to name a secretary for the new Cabinet-level department within weeks after the bill is signed, so the nominee can be confirmed by the Senate and on the job at the moment of the agency's birth.
The front-runner for the job appears to be Tom Ridge, head of the interim homeland security office, who had told colleagues for months he did not want the job, well-placed sources said. Working out of a White House office, he has coordinated domestic security activities since October 2001, when Bush persuaded him to leave his position as governor of Pennsylvania.
Other names have been mentioned for the secretary job as well, but they are considered longer shots, sources said. They include Joe M. Allbaugh, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and a former political aide to Bush in Texas, and retired Adm. James M. Loy, director of the Transportation Security Administration and a former Coast Guard commandant.
Two other people are likely to serve as top-level aides in the new department, informed sources said: Gordon R. England, the current Navy secretary and a former high-ranking executive of Lockheed Martin Corp., and John Gannon, a former deputy director of the CIA who has been helping run a transition office for the new department.
Under the legislation being considered by Congress, once the new department is up and running it will have one year to consolidate the agencies it will house. They include the Coast Guard, the Customs Service, the Secret Service, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the Border Patrol, FEMA and the recently formed Transportation Security Administration.
"We're ready and waiting to move on this," Gordon Johndroe, spokesman for Ridge's Office of Homeland Security.
A secret White House team has spent five months preparing plans for the Department of Homeland Security on the assumption that Congress would yield to Bush's demands for reorganization, administration officials said yesterday. The White House's Office of Management and Budget has taken the lead in doing much of the detail work.
"They've made quite a bit of progress and have done an enormous amount of planning out of the public's view," said Phil Anderson, a senior fellow and domestic security specialist at the nonprofit Center for Strategic and International Studies who has worked with administration officials on the plan.
One of the first actions on the new secretary's agenda, officials said, will be creating a suspect watch list based on the dozen or so separate terrorist watch lists employed by other agencies, from the FBI and CIA to the Transportation Security Administration.
The agencies will be moved over in clusters over the year's time. Back-office tasks such as payroll and other administrative tasks of the migrating agencies will be handled by their old departments during that period.
Ridge and his top assistants have spent months preparing for the day when the government would need to herd together the disparate agencies. They examined each agency's telecommunications, computer and e-mail systems, trying to figure out how to enable them to communicate with one another. They scrutinized personnel, payroll and pension systems to imagine how to unify them.
Moreover, Ridge has brought in top corporate executives who have managed mergers, such as Hewlett-Packard chief executive Carly Fiorina, to advise U.S. officials
Ridge's office also has struggled with seemingly trivial items that, in fact, loom as emotional issues for the agencies that are being asked to give up their independence -- such as the new agency's emblem.
Some agencies are resisting requests that their agents and inspectors wear uniforms with only the arm patches of the new department; they want their agencies' emblem on their uniforms, too. Some people have chafed at the idea that Border Patrol employees and Customs and INS inspectors would be required to wear the same uniform and work under common command, sources said.
"There will be a new seal of the department, but we'll be respectful of the traditions of these long-standing agencies, as well," Johndroe said.
The reorganization plan has its critics.
In July the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank, said that the new agency "merges too many different activities into a single department," and warned that managers will be so preoccupied with consolidation details that they might give "insufficient attention to their real job: taking concrete action to counter the terrorist threat at home."
Also yesterday, the Senate joined the House in giving final approval to a $393 billion defense authorization bill for the fiscal year that started Oct. 1 after striking a deal that would allow some but not all military retirees to receive both pension and disability payments. The administration had opposed full coverage as too expensive.
House and Senate negotiators also approved a bill providing an array of initiatives to protect the country's seaports, including comprehensive security planning for all ports. But funding for the new programs was left unresolved because of objections to a cargo user fee from shippers, port officials and most Republicans.
Staff writers Helen Dewar and Bill Miller contributed to this report.
----
Pro-Industry Senator to Chair Environment Committee
By Cat Lazaroff
Environment News Service,
November 14, 2002
http://ens-news.com/ens/nov2002/2002-11-14-06.asp
WASHINGTON, DC (ENS) - The Republican leadership has elected new chairs of all Senate committees and subcommittees, choosing leaders who illustrate vividly the shift in legislative priorities that will come with the Republican controlled Congress. The Republican announcements were followed by Democratic decisions regarding Senate leadership on Wednesday, and today, by the selection of California Representative Nancy Pelosi as the new House minority leader.
With the Republican party now holding a four seat majority in the Senate, all committee and subcommittee chairs will be turned over to senior Republicans when Congress returns in January for the 108th Congress. On Wednesday, with little controversy or debate, the party annointed its new Senate leaders, replacing, in many cases, environmental champions with senators who generally vote against increasing protections for the environment.
ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS
Senator James Inhofe speaks at a press conference. (Photo courtesy Office of the Senator)
Senator Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma will take over leadership of the crucial Environment and Public Works Committee, which reviews almost all major legislation concerning conservation and environmental enforcement. As the longest serving Republican senator on this committee, he will succeed Senator Jim Jeffords, the Vermont Independent whose abdication from the Republican party gave power to the Democrats in June 2001. While Jeffords is widely admired by conservation groups for his pro-environment stance, Inhofe is just the opposite. The League of Conservation Voters, a nonprofit group which monitors the environmental voting records of all Congress members, gave Inhofe a 0 percent rating for his lifetime voting record, noting his support for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and opposition to increased fuel efficiency standards, among other environmental issues.
Inhofe intends to protect the oil and gas industry, as he has stated many times over the past decade. In these February 24, 1999 comments to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Carol Browner, he said, "I hope we can work together and provide some regulatory relief to the oil and gas industry. I am concerned not about any specific rule, but about all pending regulations across the entire agency."
Believing that the states "are in the best position to enforce the environmental laws and regulations," Inhofe can be expected to limit the role of federal agencies, particularly the EPA. He said on June 10, 1997, "The EPA should be limited to an oversight role for consistency only and for providing advice to the States. They should not be in the business of second guessing States or playing the big bully on the block."
In contrast, Jeffords scored 76 percent for his votes in the 107th Congress, supporting proposals to require more energy production from renewable sources and opposing a vote to override objections by Nevada lawmakers and citizens and send the bulk of the nation's high level nuclear waste to a repository at Yucca Mountain.
Inhofe is considered one of the most conservative senators, and is a strong supporter of Bush administration proposals to increase domestic energy production and offer new incentives to the oil industry. Jeffords used his tenure as committee chair to launch investigations of industry involvement in administration initiatives like the national energy plan.
ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES
A slightly less conservative senator will take over the helm of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Pete Domenici of New Mexico will chair the energy committee when the panel's senior Republican member, Frank Murkowski of Alaska, steps down to become Alaska's new governor.
Senator Pete Domenici in the Senate Banking Committee in the 107th Congress (Photo courtesy Office of the Senator)
The Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources has jurisdiction over a sweeping array of issues, including energy resources and development, including regulation, conservation, strategic petroleum reserves and appliance standards; nuclear energy; Indian affairs; public lands and renewable resources; surface mining, federal coal, oil, and gas, other mineral leasing; territories and insular possessions; and water resources. Domenici was in line to chair the Budget Committee, a position he has held before, but opted to take over the energy panel because of the importance of energy issues to his home state of New Mexico. He takes over from Senator Jeff Bingaman, a New Mexico Democrat, keeping state issues front and center on the Energy Committee.
But while Bingaman voted in favor of environmental issues 64 percent of the time in the 107th Congress, according to the LCV, Domenici favored environmental issues just eight percent of the time, and holds a 15 percent environmental voting record over this five Senate terms. While Domenici is considered a moderate voter on many issues, he is expected to support the Bush administration's controversial national energy plan, which emphasizes fossil fuels and nuclear power.
"I am eager to take on this new challenge as chairman of a committee with such import to issues both nationally and in New Mexico," Domenici said. "The task ahead for me is something both new and exciting, and significant in terms of setting natural resource and land policy for the country. I want to find balanced, common sense approaches to these issues."
AGRICULTURE, NUTRITION AND FORESTRY
Senator Thad Cochran in his office (Photo courtesy Office of the Senator)
Senator Thad Cochran of Mississippi will chair the Agriculture committee, taking over from Iowa Democrat Tom Harkin. Cochran cast pro-environment votes just eight percent of the time in the 107th Congress, though he did help craft an agriculture proposal supported by many environmental groups: a 1996 bill to phase out federal subsidies for most crops, which has since been overturned by later legislation. However, Cochran opposed February 2002 proposals to end subsidies for large, polluting factory farms, and to offer money to states to buy agricultural water rights to conserve water for fish and other freshwater species. Harkin, who had an 84 percent pro-environment voting record in the 107th Congress, voted in favor of both of these proposals.
APPROPRIATIONS
The Senate Appropriations committee, which crafts budget proposals for every federal agency, will now be chaired by Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska, the Senate's senior Republican member.
Senator Ted Stevens on a visit to U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan (Photo courtesy Office of the Senator)
While Stevens, who has an eight percent pro-environment voting record for the 107th Congress, votes as a moderate on some issues, he has not been a friend to conservation groups, and is expected to support the Bush administration in its budget priorities. In contrast, the Democratic chair, eight term Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia, had a 56 percent pro-environment record in the 107th Congress. But both of these senior senators share a fondness for pork barrel spending, particularly when it comes to pet projects in their home states.
Besides taking the Appropriations chair from Byrd, Senator Stevens will also take his title as President Pro Tempore of the Senate, traditionally the most senior member of the majority party in the Senate. Stevens becomes the longest serving Republican in the Senate upon Senator Strom Thurmond's retirement at the end of the 107th Congress.
The U.S. Constitution provides for a President Pro Tempore to preside over the Senate in the absence of the vice president, and the Senate President Pro Tempore is also the third person in line of succession for the presidency, following the vice president and the Speaker of the House.
BUDGET
Oklahoma Senator Don Nickles will be the next chair of the Senate Budget Committee, because the committee's senior Republican, Pete Domenici, will take over the Energy Committee. The Budget Committee is responsible for writing Congress' annual budget plan and monitoring the impact of revenue and spending decisions on the federal budget.
Senator Don Nickles' official photo (Photo courtesy Office of the Senator)
The committee also oversees the Congressional Budget Office, which is charged with providing objective, nonpartisan analysis of the budget and economic impact of legislation. Nickles, a conservative who has voted against nearly every major piece of environmental legislation during his four terms in office, takes over from Kent Conrad, a North Dakota Democrat who voted pro-environment 56 percent of the time in the 107th Congress.
"The Senate Budget Committee is vitally important to guiding the decisions of the Senate and ensuring that our government works efficiently and effectively," Nickles said after his election as committee chair. "I'm looking forward to working with President Bush and Senators on both sides of the aisle to reinstate a realistic, fiscally responsible budget process that will promote economic growth, homeland security and national security."
COMMERCE, SCIENCE AND TRANSPORTATION
Senator John McCain in his office (Photo courtesy Office of the Senator)
John McCain, a moderate Republican from Arizona with a 37 percent pro-environment voting record in the 107th Congress, will take over the Commerce Committee from Ernest Hollings of South Carolina. McCain voted in favor of granting so called fast track authority to President George W. Bush, allowing the White House to negotiate trade agreements that Congress may reject but may not alter, a power that some say will result in less emphasis on environmental and human rights protections in international trade.
McCain has usually voted in favor of boosting vehicle fuel efficiency and supporting alternative fuels and public transportation.
ARMED SERVICES
Senator John Warner thanks a member of the American Legion. (Photo courtesy Office of the Senator)
Virginia Senator John Warner will chair the Senate Armed Services Committee, taking over from Carl Levin of Michigan. This committee determines priorities for the nation's military, and will play a major role in determining whether to exempt military training centers and operations from a variety of environmental laws. For example, the 2003 Defense Authorization Bill sent to President George W. Bush late Wednesday includes a provision to exempt the military from the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, meaning the armed services cannot be penalized when their operations kill protected birds on American soil.
Warner said last week that as committee chair, he would work to "provide the support and resources necessary for our men and women in uniform, active and reserve, to successfully perform their current missions around the world; and to assist our military in building the capabilities necessary to transform the force to successfully confront future threats."
Warner voted in favor of environmental issues 16 percent of the time in the 107th Congress, compared to Levin's 72 percent record.
GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
Susan Collins of Maine, a junior senator who begins her second term in January, will chair the Governmental Affairs committee, which oversees the actions of all government agencies. She takes over from environmental champion Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, who used his position as chair to launch investigations of Bush administration efforts to overturn or undermine environmental legislation.
Collins has a 64 percent pro-environment record for the 107th Congress, compared to Lieberman's 88 percent record.
FINANCE, FOREIGN RELATIONS, AND THE REST
The remaining committee successions include:
Banking, Housing and Urban Development: Richard Shelby of Alabama, a conservative and former Democrat who switched parties in 1994, will take over from Paul Sarbanes of Maryland. Shelby opposes government regulation of big business, and almost never votes in favor of environmental issues.
Finance: Charles Grassley of Iowa will take over the Finance Committee from Max Baucus of Montana, reversing the switch that took place in June 2001 when the Democrats took control of the Senate. Grassley, a conservative who rarely votes in favor of environmental issues, has said that his priorities as Finance chair will include reforms to welfare, Medicaid, and the State Children's Health Insurance Program.
Foreign Relations: Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana becomes senior Republican and chair of the Foreign Relations Committee due to the retirement of Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina. Lugar, who held the Foreign Relations chair 16 years ago before leaving to chair the Agriculture committee, succeeds Joe Biden of Delaware.
Health, Education, Labor and Pensions: Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, a moderate, will take over from Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts as chair of the Senate Health Education committee, which oversees some of the nation's largest domestic programs. Gregg is known for his willingness to work with Democrats on liberal issues such as the environment and education, and has a 44 percent pro-environment voting record for the 107th Congress.
Judiciary: Conservative Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah will resume the chair of the Judiciary Committee, putting him in a position of approving the Bush administration's nominees to the federal bench. He succeeds Patrick Leahy of Vermont, whose 96 percent pro-environment voting record in the 107th Congress stands in sharp contrast to Hatch's four percent record.
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Daschle Questions Whether U.S. Is Winning War on Terror
November 14, 2002
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/14/politics/14CND-TAPE.html
WASHINGTON, Nov. 14 - As intelligence experts tried today to determine if the voice of Osama bin Laden was indeed on a new audiotape praising recent terror attacks, the Senate's leading Democrat questioned whether the United States was winning the campaign against terrorism.
``I'm troubled that we haven't found bin Laden in all this time,'' Senator Tom Daschle of South Dakota said at a Capitol news conference. ``Frankly, I think that it really caused many of us to be concerned about whether or not we are winning the war on terror.''
The White House, which disputed Mr. Daschle's assertion, has been told that government linguistics experts believe the voice on the tape, which was broadcast on Arab television, is Mr. bin Laden's. If so, it would be the strongest evidence in many months that the terror-network leader is alive.
Whether the voice is his or not, the tape has stirred alarm.
President Bush said on Wednesday that the tape had ``put the world on notice yet again that we're at war and that we need to take these messages very seriously, and we will.'' The president emphasized that he had not concluded that the voice was Mr. bin Laden's and would leave that determination to the experts.
Nor did Mr. Daschle say he was sure the voice was Mr. bin Laden's. But he said the existence of the tape, and the threats it contained, showed the United States was still in danger.
In light of that peril, Mr. Daschle said, it was ``incredible'' that the House of Representatives had voted not to create an independent commission to investigate the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Hours later, however, the White House said it had reached an agreement with key members of Congress to establish an independent, bipartisan investigative commission. ``We have reached an agreement on remaining issues, and we believe we are close to passing a strong bipartisan commission that will look at a broad range of issues,'' a White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, told Reuters.
The 10-member commission would be headed by a chairman appointed by President Bush. It would take a majority of the board or agreement by the chairman and a Democrat-appointed vice chairman to issue a subpoena, Mr. McClellan said.
Earlier, Mr. McClellan the American people recognized that the campaign against terror ``is a long war.''
``The president is patient,'' Mr. McClellan said. ``We are making tremendous progress.''
On Wednesday, the House voted along party lines, 215 to 203, not to create the independent study commission as part of a bill to set up a new Department of Homeland Security.
Republicans asserted that the planning for the new panel had not been thorough enough. Democrats disagreed and said they might try to get the commission established through other pieces of legislation.
``I think it's critical - critical- that we have that vote and incorporate it in homeland security,'' Mr. Daschle said today.
It was not immediately clear this evening what had brought about the accord between the White House and Capitol Hill leaders on an investigation.
Mr. Daschle, who is about to yield the majority leader's gavel to Senator Trent Lott, Republican of Mississippi, emphasized that he was not declaring that the United States was losing the campaign against terrorism.
But he said: ``I think we have to question whether or not we're winning the war. We haven't found bid Laden. We haven't made any real progress in many of the other areas involving the key elements of Al Qaeda. They continue to be as great a threat today as they were a year and a half ago.''
On that last point, the White House and Mr. Daschle seemed to agree.
No matter the ultimate determination of whether the voice is Mr. bin Laden's, administration officials say they are bracing for the possibility that the tape may contain hidden messages to followers of Al Qaeda, and that these may spur further terror attacks. Some officials say they believe that another recent audiotape - thought to be from Ayman al-Zawahiri, Mr. bin Laden's mentor and chief deputy in Al Qaeda - may have inspired recent attacks in Kuwait and Bali, Indonesia.
``The assumption is that it is him, that it is legitimate and that it is cause for great concern,'' an administration official said on Wednesday. ``As we have been, we should continue to operate under the assumption that he is alive and still very capable of controlling the operations of Al Qaeda and determined to strike again.''
In an indication that the tape was made in the last few days or weeks, the voice said to be Mr. bin Laden's refers to several recent terror attacks, including two October attacks: the bombing in Bali and the mass hostage-taking at a theater in Moscow.
Both the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency are carefully scrutinizing the tape, which was first broadcast on Tuesday by Al Jazeera, the satellite television channel based in Qatar. Officials said that although it was being subjected to digital analysis, it was of such poor quality that experts would probably be unable to determine its authenticity conclusively. Even so, specialists were conducting still more comprehensive tests.
Senator Bob Graham, Democrat of Florida and chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said after a closed-door intelligence briefing Wednesday afternoon that the security agency's technical experts had not yet reached a conclusion on authenticity.
If the tape proves to be genuine, Mr. Graham said, the message provides further evidence that Al Qaeda is regrouping after losing its safe haven in Afghanistan.
One problem facing the analysts is that, at some point, the message was recorded or re-recorded over a telephone line, making the technical review more difficult. American officials said they were not certain whether Al Jazeera had recorded the message from a telephone line or whether the telephone connection had been made with some intermediary before the tape was given to the Arab network.
``It has been passed over a telephone line at some point,'' an official said.
Ahmad Muaffaq Zaidan, the reporter who provided the tape to Al Jazeera, said it had been given to him on Tuesday in Islamabad, Pakistan, by a bin Laden emissary. Although the man's face was partially hidden, Mr. Zaidan said he believed the same person had arranged a drop-off two months ago.
At the National Security Agency, the supersecret eavesdropping and code-breaking group, linguists who specialize in studying Mr. bin Laden's speech and voice patterns reported their belief that the voice on the tape was his, officials said. Their conclusion has circulated within the administration the past three days, prompting a number of officials to conclude that the tape is genuine. But the C.I.A. has remained reluctant to offer a definitive answer.
Attorney General John Ashcroft and the F.B.I. director, Robert S. Mueller III, have declined to say whether they believed the tape is authentic. But they said that the authorities were taking it very seriously.
``I will tell you that the fact of the tape out there does and should put us on greater alert,'' Mr. Mueller said.
The details of the message on the latest tape are also considered ominous, since it refers to the ``criminal gang at the White House'' and mentions President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld by name, while also warning of further strikes against Western targets.
``As you kill, you get killed, and as you bomb, you get bombed,'' the voice states.
For months, American officials have debated whether Mr. bin Laden survived the war in Afghanistan, with some counterterrorism experts convinced he died in a bombing raid in the Tora Bora region of Afghanistan near the Pakistani border.
The C.I.A. got the last hard evidence he was alive in December 2001, when a radio transmission from Tora Bora was intercepted. American analysts said they believed they heard him issuing orders to Qaeda fighters over the radio.
As time passed without proof that he had escaped the Tora Bora battle, some American counterterrorism experts began to conclude that he was dead. Dale Watson, then the F.B.I.'s chief of counterterrorism, said in July that he thought Mr. bin Laden was dead; some officers in the military's Special Operations Command also concluded that he had died in Tora Bora.
Even so, C.I.A. officials say the agency has continued to operate on the assumption that he is alive, largely because it has received a series of fragmentary intelligence reports about him. American intelligence officials also say that if other Qaeda leaders and Mr. bin Laden's family knew he was dead, they would betray that knowledge through differences in behavior.
One intelligence official said earlier this year that if Mr. bin Laden were dead, very few people inside Al Qaeda knew it, because the United States was not picking up any credible discussions among Al Qaeda operatives pointing to his death.
Intelligence officials said on Wednesday that the C.I.A. still believed he was most likely hiding somewhere along the Afghan-Pakistani border. Officials said they did not believe he had fled to one of Pakistan's major cities. He is believed to be too easily recognizable to risk trying to pass undetected in a major city - especially with a $25 million price on his head.
If it is determined he is alive, his ability to elude a huge American dragnet for the past year may raise new questions about the effectiveness of the administration's campaign against terrorism.
Critics of the military operation in Afghanistan have already complained that American commanders failed to block potential escape routes into Pakistan, thus allowing thousands of Al Qaeda fighters bottled up in Tora Bora and at other battlefields to flee.
--------
Tell the truth about U.S. assassination policy
By Robert Schroeder
November 14, 2002
Baltimore Sun
http://www.sunspot.net/bal-op.policy14nov14.story
WASHINGTON -- Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld probably spoke for most Americans when he called the Nov. 3 death of Qaed Salim Sinan al-Harethi "a very good thing." Mr. al-Harethi, recall, was a suspect in the October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole and al-Qaida's chief operative in Yemen. With a resume like that, few Americans likely paused to mourn his passing.
But the way he died may give pause to Americans concerned with how their government is prosecuting the war on terrorism. Mr. al-Harethi, also known as Abu Ali, was killed -- executed, if you like -- by a remote-controlled U.S. missile strike on his car as he drove around the northern Yemeni province of Marib.
Or so the story goes. Unfortunately, press citations from anonymous U.S. officials are about all the confirmation the public has of how this man met his end. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, in an interview with CNN, stopped short of calling the attack a U.S. operation. President Bush's spokesman, Ari Fleischer, deflected questions about U.S. involvement. "Sometimes the best course is a good offense," he said -- effectively telling reporters, and the public, to read between the lines.
What gives? After all, the Bush administration's post-9/11 pursuit of a policy of targeted killings is not particularly surprising or even, apparently, disturbing to most Americans. After the attacks, the administration, according to The Washington Post, decided that executive orders banning assassination do not prevent the president from lawfully singling out a terrorist for death by covert action.
The decision appears to have paid off with voters. There was no great outcry when the United States nearly killed Taliban leader Mullah Omar with a targeted missile strike on the first night of Operation Enduring Freedom, or when the CIA in May launched a Hellfire missile at Afghan Islamist warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.
Criticism has come instead, predictably, from Europe. "Even terrorists must be treated according to international law," Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lundh said in condemning the Yemen strike. "Otherwise any country can start executing those whom they consider terrorists."
Foreign opinion aside, what should disturb Americans is the administration's refusal to openly acknowledge its involvement in what until recently had been a taboo U.S. tactic: assassination. Mr. Fleischer, at a Nov. 5 press briefing, struck a note that should unsettle every small-D democrat when he said of the terror war, "There are going to be things that are done that the American people may never know about."
With rhetoric like that, one is tempted to ask what will become of government of, by and for the people.
In a way, one can't blame the administration for soft-pedaling operations of this sort. The tide turned against assassination decades ago, when in 1975 the congressional committee headed by Sen. Frank Church of Idaho revealed the CIA's "unseemly" behavior in attempts to kill foreign leaders in the 1960s and 1970s.
And in 1981, Ronald Reagan signed an executive order banning the assassination of political leaders. Sept. 11 changed all that, of course. Bush administration officials have said that the ban does not apply to al-Qaida terrorists, who are not national leaders.
Despite such distinctions, the new policy carries "difficulties," says Frederick P. Hitz, a Princeton University professor and former CIA inspector general. "How many nations are going to tolerate the possibility that U.S. forces are going to zap a citizen on their territory?"
Whether targeted killing is a moral or even effective way to deal with American enemies is subject to debate. But if the White House is going to do it -- and the al-Harethi killing makes deadly clear that it is -- the American public at least needs to be let in on it, as is the Israeli public when it comes to Israel's own assassination policy. Not in the form of blow-by-blow, on-camera CIA or Pentagon analyses of strikes against individuals, necessarily, but certainly in a more visible, accountable manner than an anonymous quote. "We did it," one would like to hear Mr. Fleischer say, "and here's why." That has a nice, democratic ring to it.
Like any other policy, assassination should be subject to public scrutiny. Because if the administration is indeed correct in thinking that Americans will OK any means necessary to fight this war, then there is no reason to leave truth-telling up to unidentified "U.S. officials."
To get consent, in other words, advise.
Robert Schroeder is a free-lance journalist who lives in Washington.
-------- MILITARY
-------- afghanistan
Senate passes $3.3 billion aid, peacekeeping package for Afghanistan
The Associated Press
11/14/02 11:06 PM
http://www.nj.com/newsflash/washington/index.ssf?/cgi-free/getstory_ssf.cgi?a0914_BC_AfghanAid&&news&newsflash-washington
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Senate on Thursday night authorized $2.3 billion in foreign aid over the next four years for rebuilding Afghanistan, plus another $1 billion for maintaining peacekeeping forces.
The legislation, passed on a voice vote, still needs to win approval in the House before it is sent to President Bush for his expected signature. The added $1 billion would go toward expanding the International Security Assistance Force, now based in the capital city of Kabul, to other parts of the country.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joseph Biden, D-Del., said the aid will help keep Afghanistan "from sliding back into chaos and becoming a haven for terrorists again."
He said "signs of U.S. and international commitment to Afghanistan are all the more important at a time like this, amid discussion of possible military intervention in Iraq."
On the Net:
Information on the bill, S. 2712, can be found at http://thomas.loc.gov
-------- arms sales
Lithuania to Buy Weapons From U.S.
November 14, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Lithuania-US.html
VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP) -- Lithuania agreed to buy 60 Stinger anti-aircraft missiles from the United States, some of which will be deployed to protect the ex-Soviet republic's sole nuclear plant in case of an attack, officials said Thursday.
The sophisticated, hand-held weapons will be the first of their kind sold to the Baltic states, which include Estonia and Latvia. All three former Soviet republics expect to win invitations to join NATO at an alliance summit next week in Prague.
The $31 million deal was signed by Lithuania's Defense Minister Linas Linkevicius and U.S. Ambassador to Lithuania John Tefft on Wednesday in Vilnius, the capital of this coastal nation of 3.5 million people.
Tefft said the purchase of the Stingers was a ``big step both to assure the defense of the people of Lithuania and to prepare Lithuania's armed forces to participate fully in NATO operations.''
Heat-seeking Stinger missiles are designed to shoot down low-flying airplanes and helicopters as well as cruise missiles.
``We're very happy about this,'' said Ona Tatolite, chief of procurement at Lithuania's Defense Ministry. ``This is a vote of confidence in our military; it means the U.S. trusts us.''
Tatolite said the Stingers would be delivered to Lithuania sometime in 2005, when Lithuania should already be a full member of NATO.
She said the missiles will reinforce the country's overall airborne defense and that an unspecified number would be deployed near the Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant, some 80 miles north of Vilnius.
-------
The Guns of Opa-Locka: How US Dealers Arm the World
by Jake Bergman & Julia Reynolds
November 14, 2002
The Nation
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20021202&s=bergman
A few years ago, the government of Colombia asked the United States to trace nearly fifty MAK-90 rifles it had seized from the National Liberation Army, or ELN. It turned out these rifles had been obtained by Colombian gun traffickers after being purchased at retail stores in the Miami area. The ELN is on the State Department's foreign terror watch list. Yet, like many other underground armies around the world, it buys its weapons in one of the world's freest arms markets. "The United States has for many years been a warehouse, a shopping center, if you will, for firearms," says retired Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (AFT) resident agent in charge Daniel McBride, "because of the ease of acquisition, not just in the state of Florida but typically throughout the United States. We are a very easy place from which to obtain firearms for transshipment back home."
Law enforcement officials describe the United States as a one-stop shop for the guns sought by terrorists, mercenaries and international criminals of all stripes. And September 11 has not changed that in any significant way. In fact, Attorney General John Ashcroft has refused to permit the use of gun purchase records to track crimes, a practice that the FBI had previously used and that conceivably could help to identify terrorists. Nor did Ashcroft propose closing gun loopholes as part of the USA Patriot Act. The result of the lax US system, says McBride, is "an ongoing cycle" in which weapons bought here end up fueling violence abroad, and in which America is regarded as the firearms "shopping center for the world."
Lobster Air and Gun Land
The story of a ragtag South Florida outfit called Lobster Air International illustrates just how easy US gun purchases can be. In the summer of 1998 Stephen Jorgensen began buying the first of what were eventually more than 800 MAK-90 semiautomatic rifles at a store called Gun Land in Kissimmee, Florida. He did not have a resale permit--known as a Federal Firearms License, or FFL--and he was not required to present one. But Jorgensen wasn't stockpiling the guns for his personal use; he was taking them to Opa-Locka airport near Miami and loading them aboard a light airplane headed for airstrips in Venezuela and Colombia, via Haiti.
Jorgensen's South American clients originally wanted AK-47s, but in the United States, the fully automatic AK-47 can be purchased from a dealer only with a Class 3 permit, which is difficult to obtain. The AK was modified in 1990 to get around the California Assault Weapons Ban--hence MAK-90, or "Modified AK 1990." It is virtually identical to the AK-47 but costs only $200 to $300, compared with $1,000 to $3,000 for a Russian-made AK-47. It is exempt from the national Assault Weapons Ban, enacted after the California ban, because it has slight alterations that give it a hunting-rifle appearance. Jorgensen, a hefty man with an easygoing manner, says the distinction is absurd. "These weapons happened to be a loophole because they didn't have a pistol grip on the stock. They had a thumbhole. How ridiculous!" The MAK-90 can use the same caliber bullet as the AK-47, and it can be converted to fully automatic with rudimentary mechanical skills; a number of websites offer kits and instructions.
The smuggling operation began when a lieutenant colonel of the Venezuelan Air Force asked Rafael Ceruelos if he knew anyone who could buy guns. Ceruelos, of Cuban origin, is a self-described import-export businessman who had already been doing business with the colonel, selling him aircraft parts through connections he had with an aircraft broker from Texas. Ceruelos speaks in a raspy voice, a more sophisticated version of Al Pacino's gruff Tony Montana character from Scarface. He likes to use words like "friggin'" a lot. He says that he just wanted to keep his clients happy.
Ceruelos says the Texan hooked him up with Jorgensen, an old Vietnam War buddy in Tampa who could get weapons at a discount. In 1998 several meetings took place in Dallas, Miami and Caracas to orchestrate a deal, which included setting up Lobster Air to import lobsters to the United States from Haiti. According to Jorgensen, the Venezuelan colonel and the interests he represented put up the money to buy an Aero Commander aircraft. Jorgensen contracted boat operators to circle Haiti and collect lobsters from remote villages, but that part of the plan never went forward. Lobster Air was apparently not in the business of selling lobsters.
On January 3, 1999, US Customs agents, acting on what they thought was a drug tip, stopped the Aero Commander, bound for South America, on a runway at Opa-Locka. But there were no drugs; instead, the plane was loaded with seventy-eight disassembled MAK-90s inside blue gym bags, along with 9,000 rounds of ammunition. Customs and ATF sources now say that Lobster Air's weapons were headed to Colombia's FARC rebels, another group on the State Department's terror list. But McBride, the retired ATF agent, says that "when guns are going into Colombia, there are a number of potential sources they could be going to, including the drug cartels, the various insurgency groups, paramilitary forces over there.... [It's] very difficult to tell exactly where those guns were going to go, unless you were fortunate enough to get some confiscated and then have the traces run back."
Jorgensen was detained and interrogated. Facing indictment on weapons and conspiracy charges, he quickly agreed to cooperate with what was now a US Customs-ATF investigation. Meanwhile, Ceruelos proceeded to concoct more business. Jorgensen, however, was recording their conversations for federal prosecutors. The Venezuelan customers needed 200,000 rounds of ammunition, so Ceruelos agreed that Jorgensen would buy the ammo at a local gun shop in 10,000-round increments, so as not to arouse suspicion. Jorgensen assured Ceruelos, "They don't monitor buying the ammunition; you don't sign, nobody knows you bought it. So that's a fairly low risk."
With the secret recordings in prosecutors' hands, Jorgensen and Ceruelos were soon indicted--not for buying the guns, but for violating the Arms Export Control Act. Ceruelos served fifteen months and Jorgensen received only probation, thanks to his cooperation and what he describes as a "sterling military record." It may be surprising to learn that buying hundreds of MAK-90s and thousands of rounds of ammunition that could supply US-designated terrorist organizations doesn't raise any eyebrows. But there is simply no requirement for gun stores to report suspicious activity. If a customer buys more than one handgun in five days, the store must report the sales to ATF, but the MAK-90 comes with no such restriction. Nor does ammunition. Some gun-store owners say they voluntarily tip off ATF to suspicious buyers, usually after the sale is made and the money collected.
'Bubba Did It'
When Gun Land's owner, William Ben Woodall, answers the phone, he doesn't use his real name. "Tell 'em Bubba did it," he laughs. "Bubba" says there's no limit to the number of guns that someone can buy in Florida. He says he'd probably call ATF if someone came in to buy hundreds of semiautomatic rifles, but that if the person "looked right and acted right" and passed the NICS test--the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, which requires gun-shop owners to call ATF and check whether a client is a felon or is otherwise prohibited from buying guns--he'd have no problem. Such a purchase, he says, is ultimately a customer's right. "Cars kill more people than guns," he says.
Weapons sold over the counter can quickly find themselves bound by air for distant countries. Since September 11, 2001, Customs has stepped up its monitoring of outbound small aircraft, but such inspections are aimed more at stopping the delivery of components used in weapons of mass destruction, like triggering devices or plutonium, than at halting gun shipments. McBride says we should also be concerned about guns. Recalling a 1985 rampage by one guerrilla group, he says, "The M-19 raided and assaulted the Palace of Justice in Colombia, killing 115 people, eleven Supreme Court justices, and wiped out the Supreme Court of the country of Colombia. And these were guns that were subsequently traced back to the United States."
McBride says South Florida investigators came to see a connection between purchases here and violence abroad. "We would see, all of a sudden, a rash of large gun purchases, a large quantity of gun purchases throughout South Florida. We would find that then, a month or two months later, we would see a coup take place in Haiti." McBride adds that Florida is especially attractive to South and Central America, "because of our geographic location [and] the ease with which firearms can be secured here."
Guns and the War on Terror
After September 11, Attorney General Ashcroft told the nation, "It's our position at the Justice Department and the position of this Administration that we need to unleash every possible tool in the fight against terrorism, and to do so promptly." The resulting USA Patriot Act includes broad changes in surveillance, information sharing and intelligence tools available to law enforcement. Although the "Patriot" part of the act's title refers to "Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism," the act contains no new provisions for the monitoring or control of firearms.
One tool became apparent in the weeks after the 9/11 attacks, when agents from ATF asked the FBI to cross-check a list of terrorist suspects against NICS records of approved gun purchasers. The records ATF wanted the FBI to examine were the normal background check records of potential gun purchasers, which are kept for ninety days. But when the FBI began its NICS checks, Attorney General Ashcroft and Justice Department officials stepped in and told the FBI it was out of bounds.
"This decision by the Attorney General was surprising in that he didn't place officer safety and the security of the American people first," says a former official at the Treasury Department, which oversees ATF. Kenneth James, recently appointed to the firearms committee of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, agrees. "If we have some form of identifying who of these terrorists may have had guns, that just makes our investigation and the people who are out there on the frontlines that much safer."
Ashcroft defended his decision on legal grounds. "It's my belief," he said, "that the United States Congress specifically outlaws and bans the use of the NICS database--and that's the use of approved purchase records--for weapons checks on possible terrorists or on anyone else." But an internal Justice Department memo shows that Ashcroft's own office of legal counsel believed otherwise and supported the longtime FBI practice of using NICS records in criminal investigations. "We see nothing in the NICS regulations," the memo read, "that prohibits the FBI from deriving additional benefits from checking audit log records."
Mathew Nosanchuk once worked for the Justice Department, where he became an expert on law enforcement's use of NICS. He now works for the Violence Policy Center, a Washington-based gun-control group. Ashcroft, Nosanchuk says, is forcing the FBI and ATF to "conduct the post-September 11 investigation with one hand tied behind their backs." Nosanchuk says Ashcroft's stance "really underscores his allegiance to the agenda of the gun lobby." The National Rifle Association's position is that NICS "has serious flaws that must be corrected."
According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the NRA and related pro-gun lobbyists contributed $48,900 to Ashcroft's failed 2000 Senate re-election bid. Federal Election Commission filings indicate the NRA also spent $239,000 on independent TV and radio ads, billboards and bumper stickers supporting Ashcroft's campaign. Later, the NRA Political Victory Fund spent more than $100,000 on an endorsement letter and $19,000 on bumper stickers at the time of Ashcroft's Justice Department confirmation.
Law enforcement has increasingly found guns to be a critical source of evidence in its investigations of terrorists and other criminal groups. It was the suspects' outdoor shooting activities that led to the October arrests of four alleged Al Qaeda trainees in Oregon and Michigan. As Ashcroft himself pointed out, members of the group "acquired various firearms and engaged in weapons training and physical training in preparation to fight a jihad." Among the detainees swept up in the weeks after 9/11 were several members of Al-Fuqra, a domestic group suspected of at least seventeen firebombings and thirteen homicides in the United States. Three Al-Fuqra members were arrested and convicted of illegally buying assault rifles, pistols and AK-47 ammunition in rural Virginia. A prior weapons-violation warrant was used to detain last month's Washington-area snipers until murder charges could be filed. (The Bushmaster rifle the snipers used is another modified weapon designed to avoid the Assault Weapons Ban.)
Even international criminals criticize America's lax gun laws and say they inevitably lead to international trafficking. Conor Claxton, who was convicted of smuggling more than 100 guns from Florida to the Irish Republican Army in 1999, said the group did its shopping near Fort Lauderdale because "we don't have gun shows in Ireland. You see things here like you never imagined." Rafael Ceruelos, who has lived in Spain since serving time for his offenses, says, "The right to bear arms made sense 200 years ago but not now." He adds, "As long as people can buy weapons in gun shops, there will be people from other countries who want to do business with them."
-------- biological weapons
Japan Says to Press N.Korea on Biochemical Arms
November 14, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-korea-north-japan.html
TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan said on Thursday it would take up the issue of North Korea's suspected development of biological and chemical weapons in future talks on establishing diplomatic ties between the historic foes.
In the latest round of full-scale talks in Malaysia last month, Japan pressed Pyongyang to scrap a nuclear weapons program which North Korean officials had admitted to James Kelly, the top U.S. negotiator for North Korea.
Quoting an unidentified Japanese government official, Japanese media said on Thursday that North Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Kang Sok-ju had told Kelly that Pyongyang possessed biological as well as chemical weapons.
Japan's top government spokesman, Yasuo Fukuda, declined to confirm the report but quoted Kelly as saying that North Korea had told the United States it had ``more powerful'' weapons than nuclear arms.
``It has long been suggested that North Korea possesses such weapons, and we have long been concerned about North Korea's development of weapons of mass destruction,'' he told reporters.
He said that Japan would take up the issue in the next round of talks on forging diplomatic ties, but it remained unclear when the two sides would meet again.
Japan and North Korea remain far apart over the key issues of Japanese citizens abducted by North Korean agents and Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program.
ABDUCTEES
North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, in talks with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi in September, admitted that Pyongyang agents had abducted 13 Japanese during the 1970s and 1980s.
The unexpected admission cleared the way for the two nations to resume talks on normalizing ties.
But bickering over the abductees issue and North Korea's subsequent confession that it was pursuing the nuclear arms program, in violation of a 1994 pact with Washington, have snarled the negotiations.
The five surviving abductees are currently visiting Japan and it is unclear when or where they will be reunited with their children, who are still in Pyongyang.
Pyongyang said on Thursday that unless the five were returned, it might indefinitely postpone the launch of security talks set for later this month.
A spokesman for the North Korean Foreign Ministry also said that not returning the abductees could ``complicate'' the resolution of all issues between the two nations but stopped short of mentioning talks to establish diplomatic ties.
``The Japanese side should know that as long as it does not honestly observe the agreement reached with the DPRK (North Korea) on sending them back, this will entail grave consequences including the indefinite postponement of the talks on security,'' the spokesman told the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
NO DECISION ON FUEL SHIPMENTS
Washington has said Pyongyang clearly violated the 1994 agreement to freeze work on nuclear weapons in exchange for oil shipments and two light-water reactors that cannot be easily used to produce weapons-grade material.
A senior U.S. official said on Wednesday that a fuel delivery due in North Korea shortly was being allowed to go ahead, but it could be the last following the North's admission of its nuclear weapons program.
Fukuda said no decision had been made on deliveries.
``It is favorable to implement and keep the Agreed Framework. It hinges on how North Korea would respond,'' Fukuda said, referring to the 1994 agreement.
Japanese, U.S., South Korean and EU officials start a two-day meeting of the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO) in New York on Thursday to decide what to do. KEDO is implementing the Agreed Framework.
A diplomatic source in Tokyo with close ties to Pyongyang told Reuters on Tuesday that North Korea would likely scrap other nuclear commitments if the shipments stopped -- raising the spectre of resuming its mothballed plutonium extraction work.
Japan's defense minister, Shigeru Ishiba, held talks with his South Korean counterpart Lee Jun in Tokyo on Thursday, but a Japanese official said the two did not discuss North Korea's nuclear weapons program.
The official quoted Lee as telling Ishiba that it was important to bring North Korea into the international community.
Asked by Ishiba whether the Kim Jong-il regime had changed, Lee was quoted as saying: ``It is not clear whether the regime has make visible changes.''
--------
Germ - Warfare Negotiators to Meet
November 14, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-UN-Biological-Ban.html
GENEVA (AP) -- A 146-nation conference unanimously accepted a proposal Thursday to look for new ways to combat biological weapons, the first meeting of the group since the United States rejected a plan to enforce a global ban as unverifiable.
``We are trying to set aside our differences,'' said Tibor Toth, the Hungarian diplomat who is conference chairman.
He noted that the United States remained adamant in its opposition to setting up an enforcement system under the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention while many other nations would like to set up such a plan.
But Toth said the accord reached Thursday would enable countries to guard against the threat of germ warfare in several ways, including discussing how countries can help each other when one is attacked.
The group has never had serious enforcement measures because the threat of biological weapons was believed to be minimal when the convention was drafted during the height of the Cold War. That changed with rising concerns that Iraq would use biological weapons during the Gulf War.
Talks were suspended for year last December after the United States ended attempts to continue negotiating enforcement procedures, saying it wouldn't be able to detect violations and such a program would give away defense and commercial secrets.
Stephen G. Rademaker, U.S. assistant secretary of state, told reporters that the Bush administration remains convinced that the treaty is ``inherently unverifiable'' because it is so easy to create biological weapons.
But he said the accord remains valuable in declaring biological weapons ``immoral and illegal'' and serving as a basis for joint world action against germ warfare.
``The United States is very pleased by the outcome'' of this week's conference, Rademaker said.
Britain and Germany welcomed the decision to set up annual conferences on ways to improve the world's defenses against germ warfare.
Other countries were less satisfied.
Peter Goosen, head of the South African delegation, read a statement by the Nonaligned Movement saying they were ``deeply disappointed at the inability'' by treaty countries to strengthen the accord.
Under the agreement by the conference, member nations plan to hold annual meetings on what they could do on their own or together short of changing the treaty.
The idea is to keep world attention focused on the threat of biological weapons. Topics are to include improving national control of microorganisms and toxins, enhancing international response to suspicious outbreaks of disease and adopting a code of conduct for scientists.
Iraq is not the only country suspected of having a germ warfare program. The United States says a dozen or more nations have such programs, including Iran, Libya, Sudan, Syria, Cuba and North Korea.
-------- colombia
U.S. Strategy in Colombia Connects Drugs and Terror
November 14, 2002
New York Times
By JUAN FORERO
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/14/international/americas/14COLO.html
LIMA, Peru, Nov. 13 - The United States war on drugs in Colombia is rapidly being subsumed in the war on terror, according to Bush administration officials.
The indictments of three leaders of the Marxist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, announced today in Washington by Attorney General John Ashcroft, are just the latest in a series of American indictments against Colombians. Carlos Castaño, the head of the right-wing Self-Defense Forces, was indicted on drug-trafficking charges in September, and four other men linked to the paramilitary group were indicted on drug-related charges in Houston this month.
The indictment unsealed today accuses three FARC military leaders, including Jorge Briceño Suárez, widely considered the second most powerful man in the rebel organization, of kidnapping and drug trafficking. Eight other, lower-ranking FARC members were charged with the same offenses.
Officials said that the indictments are part of a developing strategy of using the tactics of the drug war to help the new Colombian government of President Alvaro Uribe to combat both the right-wing paramilitaries and Marxist guerrillas who have been waging a 38-year civil conflict, fueled primarily with drug money.
"This is a two-pronged approach," said an aide to Mr. Ashcroft. "We're going after the drug traffickers and the terrorist groups at the same time."
The indictments are seen by the administration as the best, and perhaps only, way for Washington to put direct pressure on FARC and the Self-Defense Forces, known as the A.U.C. Both groups are included on the administration's list of terrorist organizations.
"Castaño's sins are many and multiple and they're not just drug trafficking; they're also rape, pillage and plunder," said a high-ranking Bush administration official involved in shaping Colombia policy. "In terms of crimes against the United States and U.S. law, drug trafficking is the most salient and the one we could get an indictment on."
The indictments also acknowledged implicitly that Colombia's justice system, long criticized as weak and ineffectual, could not be trusted to bring Mr. Castaño and his associates to trial.
"Since it is extremely unlikely that he would be prosecuted in Colombia, this indictment is a very positive step," said José Miguel Vivanco, the director of the Americas Division for Human Rights Watch, which vigorously supported the drug indictments against the paramilitaries. "We should never forget they got Al Capone on tax evasion charges."
The new American tactics seem to be producing results even though Mr. Castaño and the FARC leaders remain at large, with little immediate prospect of their being arrested. Because it was singled out first by the Bush administration, the effects are most evident among the Self-Defense Forces, a confederation with at least 12,000 fighters that carries out mass killings and assassinations to erode support for the rebels.
The indictments have deepened divisions within the group, paramilitary commanders in the Colombian city of Medellín and the surrounding countryside said in recent interviews, as commanders weigh how involved in the drug trade their factions should remain. They say that Mr. Castaño, who has denied direct links to drug trafficking, is trying to rein in those commanders who are heavily involved in it.
Paramilitary commanders have long argued over the advisability of getting involved in the drug trade, for practical and political reasons. Politically, some felt it sent the wrong message for groups that were supposedly defending the law against left-wing insurgents to be breaking the law themselves. Practically speaking, many feared exactly what has happened - that the involvement in drugs would make them vulnerable to prosecution.
The indictments have caused "a very bad uneasiness" among top paramilitary leaders, said Piolin, a commander in Medellín who works for Adolfo Paz, who leads a powerful faction within the A.U.C. considered to have among the closest ties to drug trafficking. They worry that Washington, with its aggressive campaign against terrorism, could take drastic action to capture or kill Mr. Castaño and other paramilitary commanders, Mr. Piolin said.
"We are talking about the United States," he added. "We are not talking about just any country."
Infighting between commanders over the drug issue has become such a serious problem that two factions are openly fighting, the paramilitary leaders say, and alliances between others are in tatters.
In an interview in his mountain camp far outside Medellín, a top commander once closely allied to Mr. Castaño said that he and the 1,500 men he leads in the so-called Metro Bloc had split from the A.U.C. because they oppose the close ties other factions have with drug trafficking. His group is openly fighting forces controlled by Mr. Paz.
"In the Self-Defense Forces the great majority are involved directly with narco-trafficking," said the commander, who uses the alias Rodrigo.
American officials are reluctant to claim credit for the new antiterror strategy - or even to admit that there is such a strategy. But they are clearly pleased with the unrest it has created.
"If indeed the indictment had the impact of further splintering the A.U.C., and further calling into question the leadership of those who from our point of view are tied to drug trafficking, so much the better," the Bush administration official said.
After the removal of Congressional restrictions on American aid to antidrug programs, the Bush administration is also training specialized commando units and helping establish a reliable system of intelligence gathering that the units would use in pursuing insurgent commanders.
American troops will soon train a special 400-man commando unit that would track paramilitaries and rebels, with a special emphasis on hunting down leaders. The American Congress is also considering legislation to provide $5 million for the training of an elite Colombian Army unit dedicated solely to pursuing paramilitary chiefs.
"Castaño has been a wanted man for years and they have yet to go after him," said Senator Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat who is chairman of the foreign operations subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee. "So we said, `We'll give you the money so you can have the capacity to capture them.' "
Those close to Mr. Castaño said the indictment had blindsided him, because the paramilitaries have always viewed themselves as allies of the Colombian Army in their war against the rebels.
In recent missives on his Website and in e-mail messages to associates, Mr. Castaño's tone has been one of increasing concern. He has called the indictment "totally erroneous," and charged that the rebels have manipulated the United States government. Mr. Castaño, in e-mail messages to a confidant, has also said he is "anguished and desperate," and expressed fears that the United States could bomb his camp.
Some who have spoken with Mr. Castaño said there is also concern that he could be killed, since drug traffickers and commanders with close ties to the cocaine trade may see him as a liability now that he has been branded a drug trafficker.
"There are people putting money up for Castaño to be turned in, because he is the pebble in the shoe," said someone who recently talked to Mr. Castaño and other paramilitary leaders.
-------- iraq
War in Iraq could kill up to four million - report
Story by Patricia Reaney
REUTERS UK:
November 14, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/18575/story.htm
LONDON - A war against Iraq could escalate into a nuclear conflict that would kill nearly four million people and have catastrophic health and environmental consequences, medical experts said.
Even without nuclear weapons, as many as half a million people could die, civil war, famine and epidemics could occur, oil fields may be set ablaze and the entire region could be embroiled in the conflict.
Many more people would probably be displaced, economic collapse in Iraq could ensue and soaring oil prices could trigger a global economic crisis, according to global health organisation Medact.
"The need to ensure that Iraq is disarmed of its weapons does not warrant a war," said Gill Reeve, the assistant director of the group of doctors, nurses and health experts.
"We're making a last ditch effort to make people see reason, to think about the consequences," she told Reuters.
Medact argues that other options are available and described the massive death and destruction a war with Iraq would cause.
In a report that examines the impact of the war from a public health perspective, the group warns that any conflict against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is likely to drag on, would cost as much as $200 billion and leave Iraq in ruins.
"The US goal of leadership change is counterbalanced by Saddam Hussein's goal of survival, so a short, clinical campaign is probably wishful thinking," it said.
TIME RUNNING OUT
Saddam has until Friday to cooperate with a United Nations resolution to eliminate all weapons of mass destruction programmes or face the consequences.
Iraq's parliament voted this week to reject the resolution but ultimately the final decision will be Saddam's.
U.S. officials have said they are sceptical he will comply and President George W. Bush has already approved a war plan to oust the Iraqi leader.
Based on data from the Gulf War, comparable conflicts and information from political sources, the Medact report entitled Collateral Damage envisions air attacks on government and military facilities in Iraq, followed by ground forces to seize control of oil-producing regions and the north of Iraq and then more ground and air attacks to take the capital Baghdad.
The report, which is available on www.medact.org, warns that Saddam could retaliate by setting fire to oil wells, releasing chemical, radiological or biological weapons or by launching attacks on Kuwaiti or Saudi oil fields or civilian centres in other Gulf states.
"There would be widespread damage to the environment of Iraq and possibly neighbouring countries. Oil wells would be fired, creating spills and toxic smoke. Troop movements and land mines will destroy the fragile desert economy," Reeve said.
Refugees escaping the conflict would die in large numbers and put a strain on neighbouring countries. Emergency relief is likely to cost billions, she added.
Iraqis are still suffering from the results of the 1990-1991 Gulf War and subsequent sanctions and their health has not returned to pre-war levels. Any new conflict would be more intense and destructive than the Gulf War and hit them extremely hard, according to the report.
Medact, the British affiliate of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War which won the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize, estimates it will cost $200 billion in arms spending, occupation, relief and reconstruction.
That amount could easily pay for the health needs of the world's poorest people for about four years.
The organisation argues that if the war is likely to cause more problems than it solves, then it is ill-advised.
"According to the advice we have, it is not going to be short and sweet by any means," said Reeve.
"We just hope reason will prevail and other ways will be found to deal with the problem presented by Iraq."
-------- israel / palestine
Israeli Tanks Raid Outskirts of Gaza City
Reuters
Thursday, November 14, 2002
By Nidal al-Mughrabi
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A52118-2002Nov14?language=printer
GAZA (Reuters) - About 50 Israeli tanks and armored vehicles backed by helicopter gunships raided the outskirts of Gaza City Thursday and detained four men before swiftly pulling out, Palestinian security sources and witnesses said.
The Israeli army said it seized three wanted Palestinians in the operation who were involved in making mortar bombs and other weapons used in attacks against Israelis. It said one of the men was an officer in the Palestinian Preventive Security force.
Two Palestinian policemen and a local resident were wounded in the raid, the third big incursion into Palestinian cities in successive days following an attack on a kibbutz in Israel in which a Palestinian gunman killed five people Sunday.
The attack, the raids and sporadic violence have added to problems besetting a fresh U.S. peace mission that has been overshadowed by a stormy Israeli election campaign and the possibility of a U.S.-led war to disarm Iraq.
In Washington, U.S. officials said they were resigned to slow progress in Middle East talks at least until the scheduled Israeli election on Jan. 28.
But the United States will continue to work on the incomplete Middle East "road map" which has been at the center of international mediation between Israelis and Palestinians since the middle of this year, they added.
In a television interview Wednesday, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon took exception with a pledge by Foreign Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to expel Palestinian President Yasser Arafat if Netanyahu succeeds in his bid to become prime minister again.
"I promised the Americans not to harm (Arafat) physically," Sharon said on Israel's Channel Two television.
Pressed on whether his promise also included a pledge not to banish Arafat, Sharon replied: "The security establishment and intelligence people concluded it didn't pay to (expel him) now because it would cause Israel more harm than good."
Netanyahu is challenging Sharon in a Nov. 28 leadership election in their right-wing Likud party.
GAZA RAID FOLLOWS WEST BANK INCURSIONS
In Gaza, the Israeli tanks withdrew after briefly taking up positions near the home of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, founder of the Islamic group Hamas which has waged a suicide bombing campaign in a Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation.
Youssef Al-Meqdradi, a major in the Preventive Security force, was arrested and led blindfolded from his home with three brothers, Palestinian security sources said.
The sources said he was suspected of having ties with a militant group, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.
The raid followed incursions by Israeli tanks and troops into Palestinian-ruled Nablus in the West Bank Wednesday and by a smaller force into nearby Tulkarm Tuesday.
In Tulkarm, Israeli forces destroyed the family home of a Hamas militant who the army said killed three women in the Jewish settlement of Hermesh in the West Bank on Oct. 29. Soldiers guarding the settlement killed the gunman.
The army said the troops arrested about 30 wanted militants in Nablus, mostly from Hamas. Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz said the soldiers were looking for militants suspected of involvement in Sunday's attack on Kibbutz Metzer, a collective farm.
Israel tightened a military clampdown on much of the West Bank in April to try to quell the Palestinian uprising in which at least 1,656 Palestinians and 631 Israelis have been killed since violence erupted in September 2000.
The latest victim was a two-year-old Palestinian boy, Hamed al-Masri. His father and other witnesses said he was shot dead and his mother was wounded as the family fled its home in Rafah refugee camp in Gaza Wednesday when shooting began nearby.
Israeli military sources said troops had fired in the area after coming under attack from an anti-tank missile.
----
Sneak preview of Armageddon:
Visit Israel/Palestine and see America's future
Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2002
From: jane stillwater <jpstillwater@yahoo.com>
To: president@whitehouse.gov
A quick tour of the Holy Land -- if anyone would actually wants to go there -- will show us what America will look like in ten years if we also continue to invest our time and money in armaments, retaliation, violent solutions and war.
At the rate we are going, we too will soon have our check-points, concentration camps, homeland security, suicide bombers, political assassinations, hatred, war crimes, secret police, economic stagnation and skies filled with gunships and F-16's.
Rough Guide to the Holy Land: Israeli citizens are afraid to go out in public and their sons have become trained, blooded killers. 80% of all Palestinians killed by Israeli troops are/were under the age of 16. The entire population of Palestine lives under house arrest. America, welcome to the future.
I dare you to turn off your TV's, pack your suitcases and go off to tour Israel/Palestine. They are two sides of the same coin -- soon to become American currency too.
"Israel/Palestine" is the end result of a national policy based on the assumption that human beings can be beaten into submission.
After your tour of Armageddon, please consider going for a tour of Sweden or Canada or Australia or wherever people emphasize education, healthcare, moral values and democracy. Nobody ever wants to bomb Sweden!
Best regards, Jane Stillwater, Berkeley, CA
"Imagine a world where EVERY child is wanted, nurtured, protected and loved: World Peace in one generation!"
Links:
Sara Roy: Living with the Holocaust: The Journey of a Child of Holocaust Survivors http://www.ipsjps.org/jps/125/roy.html
Ruppert quotes Carville: "The American people just don't have a clue as to what's coming." http://fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/110602_elections.html
For day-to-day accounts of life in Palestine, visit www.rapprochement.org
--------
Israelis Return Stolen Equipment
November 14, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Israel-Army-Theft.html
JERUSALEM (AP) -- Two Katyusha rockets, 500 grenades, and 130 firearms were among $1 million worth of stolen army equipment returned during a monthlong amnesty period, Israeli army officials said Thursday.
Other equipment included rocket propelled grenades, shoulder-held anti-tank missiles, C-4 explosives, anti-tank grenades, heavy-caliber machine guns, tear gas canisters and over 200,000 rounds of ammunition, the army said.
Also turned in were weapons captured during wartime, such as pistols from the 1973 Mideast War and Katyusha rockets from Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982, Brig. Gen. Eran Ofir, head of the army's logistics brigade, told Israel Radio.
According to the Maariv daily, one Israeli civilian returned three separate stashes of equipment, including firearms, ammunition, grenades, mortar shells and two Strella anti-aircraft missiles, worth more than $150,000.
``It's simply amazing,'' Col. Yossi Belin told Israel Television's Channel 2. ``Explosives, a lot of grenades -- people simply stored them at home, and didn't consider the risks. We found places that were like bunkers ... where it took us two days to clean them out.''
Also returned were military flak jackets, helmets, boots, 5,000 army uniforms and army-issued underwear.
The amnesty, which began in October, is to end Nov. 15. During this period, Israelis are allowed to return stolen equipment without risk of punishment.
Most Israelis undergo compulsory army service at the age of 18, men for three years and women for two. Many men and some women continue doing reserve duty for about one month a year until they are in their 40s. Although storing army equipment at home is illegal, it is not uncommon.
-------- nato
NATO Means More Than War Games for Balkan Candidates
Reuters
Thursday, November 14, 2002
By Dina Kyriakidou
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A53261-2002Nov14?language=printer
FAGARAS, Romania (Reuters) - In heavy rain, a Romanian infantry platoon rushes to the rescue of a British company trapped on a muddy hill, pounded by enemy artillery.
The Carpathian slopes reverberate with the thunder of machine guns as soldiers from Britain's 51st Highland Regiment fire with Romanian Kalashnikovs -- not standard East European army issue, but modified to meet NATO demands.
The success of this joint exercise carried out near the Transylvanian town of Fagaras, north of Bucharest, has officers on both sides beaming with satisfaction.
But can NATO's Balkan applicants, Romania and Bulgaria, translate such cooperation with NATO troops into reforming large militaries, trained to defend their borders against capitalist enemies, to meet alliance standards?
"They are both making efforts, but they lack the money and it's difficult to change mentalities after all these decades," said one diplomat from a NATO member country.
The two Balkan neighbors, left out of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's first eastern expansion five years ago, look certain to win an invitation at the bloc's watershed Prague summit on Nov. 21 and 22, seen as ending Europe's long Cold War divisions.
Doubts over the strength of their democracies, endemic corruption and the slow pace of reforms have been put aside after the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington showed the enemy could strike from across the globe.
The Prague summit is expected to also invite the former communist states of Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Slovenia and Slovakia to join, in a move that would extend NATO from the Baltic to the Black Sea.
"FORCES OF CHAOS"
President Bush has backed the expansion, meant to make NATO a broader organization capable of fighting "the forces of chaos and hatred" all over the world.
"Romania and Bulgaria bridge the gap with (NATO members) Greece and Turkey. Their significance is in their strategic location -- the Black Sea and Caucasus," said a Western diplomat in Sofia. "The rest is not important. It can be fixed later."
Such views anger officials in the two candidate countries, who say their efforts to reform bloated, Soviet-type armies into strong, lean fighting machines as well as their contributions to international peacekeeping missions are underrated.
"The geopolitical aspect is really important, but I don't agree with the view it's the only reason we will be asked to join," said Gen. Miho Mihov, Bulgaria's defense adviser to the presidency and former chief of staff.
Both countries say their experience in dealing with international crime on their Black Sea shores, a crossroads between Europe and Asia, will be invaluable in a new era of fighting international terror.
"There is no distinction between organized crime and international terrorism. Really, it's the same," Mihov said.
In their eagerness to join NATO, Romania and Bulgaria rushed to offer military bases and overflight rights to Washington if it needs them in a possible attack against Iraq.
Romania was also the first country in the world to sign an agreement with the United States sparing American officers from having to face a new international war crimes court.
HARD ROAD AHEAD
Western observers say the former Warsaw Pact members are working hard on costly reforms set out in Membership Action Plans (MAPs), such as boosting civilian control of the army, and promoting the rule of law.
But their defense budgets, high for the size of their struggling economies, are among the smallest in NATO, which is expected to foot the rest of the bill.
A country of about 22 million people, Romania has pledged to slash its armed forces to 90,000 in 2007 from 300,000 when communism collapsed in 1989. It will also spend around $1 billion on defense this year, 2.38 percent of GDP.
Bulgaria, which has about a third of Romania's population, has vowed to cut military personnel to 45,000 from over 150,000 during communism. Defense spending last year was 2.65 percent of GDP, at about 400 million euros ($398 million).
Once Moscow's closest ally, Sofia has dismantled its arsenal of some 100 Soviet-made surface-to-surface SS-23, Scud and Frog missiles at NATO's request.
Both Sofia and Bucharest are planning to offer specialized units to NATO -- Romanian alpine troops and Bulgarian special teams trained in nuclear, chemical and biological warfare.
And both are training officers to speak English and cooperate with NATO colleagues, a lengthy process that often stumbles on attitudes.
"The most important thing is to change the mentality," Mihov said. "The biggest problem is the middle ranks, not the younger or senior officers."
A LONG HAUL AHEAD
Diplomats said the real hurdle for both countries, which are struggling with harsh economic reforms, is to lay off people and improve their technical ability to fight alongside other NATO armies.
The prospect of joining NATO is popular in both countries, where people expect it will bring stability by entrenching their impoverished nations firmly in the West, as well as attracting foreign investment and delivering prosperity.
"Poverty is a temporary phenomenon. Our strategic goals are long-term," Bulgaria's Defense Minister Nikolai Svinarov told Reuters. "Joining NATO will help solve such problems."
After touting NATO as the cure for all ills, some politicians are now trying to tone down the rhetoric, fearing a backlash from public disappointment when NATO soldiers do not suddenly arrive bearing cash after the Prague summit.
"We must clearly understand that our relationship with NATO does not end in the aftermath of the Prague summit," Romanian Prime Minister Adrian Nastase told reporters.
"We need to take a more serious approach." ($1=1.005 Euro)
-------- pakistan
Pakistanis Split on U.S. Execution
November 14, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Pakistan-Kasi-Execution.html
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) -- A delivery man, car washer and former spy chief in Pakistan were all opposed to Thursday's execution of countryman Aimal Khan Kasi in the United States for killing two CIA employees.
But their reasons differed, underscoring the complex and unusual relationship between America and Pakistan -- allies in the ongoing war on terror.
Kasi, 38, died by injection at the Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt, Va., at 9:07 p.m., as the State Department warned of global retaliation against Americans.
In Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, in the hours before the execution, Pakistanis spoke out. Delivery driver Abur Rahim's outrage about the death sentence was fueled by a strong feeling of anti-Americanism and a perception that the United States has launched a new crusade against Islam.
``America is an enemy of Muslims,'' Rahim said as he got behind the wheel of his small truck on Thursday, before the execution.
Others hail Kasi as a hero for gunning down the CIA staffers -- communications worker Frank Darling, 28, and physician Lansing Bennett, 66 -- as they sat in their cars at a stoplight outside CIA headquarters in McLean, Va., in January 1993. Kasi wounded three other men while walking along the row of cars, shooting into them with an assault rifle.
Some Pakistanis believe the killings were justified because they consider the CIA one of the greatest sources of evil in the world.
``Kasi did good,'' said Pervez Masih, a 23-year-old car washer and minority Christian in predominantly Muslim Pakistan.
But 76-year-old Mohammed Ismail, a scrap metal collector, said Kasi's punishment matched his crime and other factors -- such as U.S.-Pakistan relations and history -- should not be considered.
``Blood for blood. This is the edict of the Quran,'' Mohammed said, referring to the Muslim holy book, as he loaded a stack of empty oil cans onto his bicycle.
Raja Zahoor, an Islamabad newspaper vendor, shared the same view.
``Absolutely, he should get the punishment,'' he said earlier Thursday. ``After all, those he killed were human beings. A human life is a human life, no matter Muslim or not.''
A common theme among many responses on Islamabad's streets was a feeling that Pakistan's government betrayed its people by allowing the United States to arrest Kasi.
After the killings, Kasi fled to Pakistan, where FBI agents working with Pakistani security agencies arrested him in 1997 at a hotel in the southern city of Dera Ghazi Khan. He later was flown to the United States without extradition proceedings in Pakistan.
``He was our citizen and Americans kidnapped him,'' said Hamid Gul, a former head of Pakistan's military-run Inter-Services Intelligence agency.
Gul has filed a petition in the High Court, arguing that Kasi should have appeared in a Pakistani court before being handed over to the United States because the two nations did not have an extradition treaty.
``Pakistani laws were grossly violated. It brings into question our citizenship,'' Gul said. ``It is very insulting.''
-------- spy agencies
Bin Laden Hunt Frustrates Pentagon
November 14, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Cant-Find-Bin-Laden.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Now that Osama bin Laden is thought to be alive and threatening more attacks, the Senate's top Democrat said Thursday the administration's inability to catch the al-Qaida leader raises questions about ``whether or not we are winning the war on terror.''
``We can't find bin Laden. We haven't made real progress'' in finding key elements of al-Qaida, said Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D. ``They continue to be as great a threat today as they were one and a half years ago. So by what measure can we claim to be successful so far?''
Asked about it at the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld ducked the question of whether the United States was winning the war. He also refused to speculate on whether bin Laden was dead or alive in light of the release this week of a threatening audiotape thought to have come from the al-Qaida leader.
``The answer is yes, he is alive or dead,'' Rumsfeld said.
The questions irked White House aides, too, as spokesman Scott McClellan refused to say whether President Bush and his team were frustrated by the failure to find bin Laden.
``Let me put it this way: If Osama bin Laden is alive, we know he's on the run,'' the spokesman said. ``We have dismantled his terrorist network. And we are going to continue tracking down these trained killers and their leaders and their networks wherever they are and bringing these people to justice.''
Senate Republican Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., said, ``It seems to me like Senator Daschle's comments are inappropriate and out of order.''
Still, the failure to catch the world's No. 1 terror suspect and other key figures has dogged the Bush administration, other arrests and successes around the world notwithstanding.
Is the United States winning the war against terrorism?
``No, I don't think so,'' said foreign policy analyst Ivan Eland of the Cato Institute.
But, like the administration, Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute, another think tank, said, ``We are definitely making progress.''
Not in catching up to bin Laden.
Over the past 14 months, U.S.-led forces have been unable to find him despite their billion-dollar high-tech spy equipment, a multimillion-dollar reward, search operations by thousands of troops and hours of questioning prisoners.
The Pentagon is hoping to get new hints following the airing of the audiotape that threatens America and its allies.
Though bin Laden tops the Pentagon's wanted list, defense officials said the war has never been about one person.
Tens of thousands of U.S., British, Canadian, Australian, Danish and other forces have worked in the region around Afghanistan over the past year -- searching by land, air and sea for al-Qaida and former Taliban rulers who scattered in the first few months after the Afghan bombing campaign began in the fall of 2001.
Across patches of Afghanistan, special operations forces from several nations have secretly spied in villages and mountain passes that could be possible hideouts.
Troops have collected and analyzed heaps of documents, computer disks and other evidence left by enemy fighters in caves and underground bunkers. They have monitored satellite images and intercepted radio, telephone and e-mail communications.
Unmanned spy planes equipped with cameras and Predator drones fitted with Hellfire missiles have been used by CIA operatives. In one instance, they killed a tall man gathered with others under a tree. DNA analysis of his remains later showed that it was not the 6-foot-4 bin Laden.
And an international naval task force has monitored thousands of seafaring vessels in hopes of catching al-Qaida fleeing by water.
In Afghanistan, officials have been saying for months that bin Laden is hiding in neighboring Pakistan's tribal border region, accessible by hundreds of foot paths that wind through the area's rugged peaks.
U.S. Special Forces joined Pakistani troops more than six months ago in an attempt to flush out al-Qaida and Taliban fugitives, angering the tribesmen who continue to back the Taliban and bin Laden's organization despite the Pakistani government's joining Washington's side in the war.
Anyone who might know where bin Laden is apparently isn't saying, despite promises of big money. The United States has offered a $25 million reward for information to help capture him.
Less than half of some 30 al-Qaida leaders have been captured or killed during the war, though the routing of the network from Afghanistan has put the terrorists on the run and made it harder to operate, officials say. Arrests, the clamping down on terrorist finances and other efforts have foiled some planned attacks, officials said, though there was a resurgence of attacks around the world last month.
As for bin Laden, some intelligence officials say the best chance to catch him was lost last December, when he was believed hiding at his Tora Bora stronghold during U.S.-led airstrikes but escaped because too few American troops were committed to the hunt
Rumsfeld has denied such an error was made and said in April that despite numerous tips, rumors and other intelligence, the U.S. military simply had never had the ``actionable intelligence'' -- enough good and timely information on bin Laden's whereabouts -- to mount a mission to go after him.
Officials said that remains true.
-------- un
Annan Presses Bush to Avoid a Rush to War
November 14, 2002
New York Times
By PATRICK E. TYLER
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/14/international/middleeast/14ANNA.html
WASHINGTON, Nov. 13 - Secretary General Kofi Annan said today that the United States seemed to have a lower threshold for going to war in Iraq than other nations on the United Nations Security Council.
After meeting with President Bush, Mr. Annan urged the White House to be "a bit patient" against any rush toward military action. If it comes, he added, military action would have to be based on credible evidence of Iraq's obstruction, and not a "flimsy" excuse to go to war.
Mr. Annan also said Iraq's letter today accepting the terms of last week's Security Council resolution to send United Nations weapons inspectors back to Iraq after four years' absence means that the arms experts can now "begin their work actively" next week.
The secretary general's comments reflected the divergence of views between the Bush administration and some Security Council nations over what kind of obstructions would constitute the trigger for going to war.
Mr. Annan indicated that United Nations inspectors, with tough new powers under the resolution, are returning for what could be an indefinite program to inspect former and suspected weapons sites, to set up surveillance cameras and other monitoring equipment, and to run down every bit of intelligence on Iraqi efforts to develop nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, and the missiles that could be used to hurl them across borders. But he refused to be drawn into discussing hypothetical details of what might constitute obstruction.
The position of the Bush administration has trended the other way. Mr. Bush and his senior aides have emphasized that President Saddam Hussein is unlikely to confess to years of concealing illicit stockpiles of weapons, including banned nerve agents and anthrax spores. Some conservative aides continue to denigrate the United Nations' role.
In comments today to a British newspaper, The Guardian, Richard N. Perle, chairman of the Defense Policy Board and an adviser to the Pentagon, criticized the choice of Hans Blix to lead the weapons inspection team because, Mr. Perle said, when Mr. Blix was director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, he failed to detect Iraq's nuclear weapons build-up before the gulf war.
Mr. Bush again struck what has been an unrelentingly muscular tone on Iraq during a meeting today with his Cabinet. "There's no negotiations with Mr. Saddam Hussein," he said. "Those days are long gone."
Asked what he would consider a new "material breach" by the Iraqis, Mr. Bush said: "Zero tolerance. About as plain as I can make it. We will not tolerate any deception, denial or deceit, period."
Mr. Annan came to Washington to give a series of speeches, but an aide said he had asked to see Mr. Bush to undertake some "missionary work" to underscore the political benefits that could accrue both to Mr. Bush and to the United Nations if they proceed in tandem to disarm Iraq.
On Sept. 12, Mr. Annan had challenged Mr. Bush to work through the United Nations in words that were almost as forceful as those Mr. Bush used to challenge the Security Council to enforce its resolutions on disarming Iraq.
"I want to thank you, Mr. President," Mr. Annan said to Mr. Bush today in the presence of reporters. "Nobody knew which way you were going to go" in confronting Iraq. "I was pleading that we go the multilateral route. And I think we were all relieved that we did - you did."
But patience was Mr. Annan's watchword today. During a meeting with reporters before he went to the White House, he observed that the United States "does seem to have a lower threshold" for what would trigger war.
Still, he admonished, "We need to be patient and give the inspectors time and space to do their work. We should not be seen as rushing the process and impatiently moving on to the next phase."
The secretary general said he was not troubled by the intensity of the comments from Mr. Bush and some of his senior advisers.
Mr. Annan said Mr. Bush's uncompromising remarks showed that the American administration was engaged in a "psychological game" with Mr. Hussein, one that could be useful in persuading Mr. Hussein to cooperate unconditionally.
"One has to maintain the pressure," Mr. Annan said. "Quite frankly, for four years we were not able to get them to agree that we return to Iraq, but four days after the president's speech to the General Assembly" Iraq agreed to the return of inspectors without conditions.
Still, a number of Security Council members remain concerned that Washington was too eager to find a pretext to go to war.
Mr. Annan said any Security Council decision that finds Baghdad in "material breach" of the resolution must be based on serious or flagrant attempts to obstruct weapons inspectors. Otherwise, he said, it would look like a "flimsy or hasty excuse to go to war."
Such a pretext, he said, would draw opposition not only from Security Council nations, but also from ordinary Americans who have expressed a desire for Mr. Bush to work with the United Nations in confronting Iraq.
Neither Mr. Annan nor the State Department spokesman, Richard A. Boucher, would say whether continued Iraqi attacks on allied warplanes enforcing no-flight zones in Iraq could be construed as a "material breach" and a cause for war. "It would probably take some kind of analysis by the lawyers of the resolution," Mr. Boucher said.
Mr. Annan indicated that any event that triggered war would have to show deliberate calculation on Iraq's part. "Whatever reason we decide to use military action to go to war, the circumstances must be seen as reasonable and credible, and not contrived or stretched," he said. "And if we do that, there will be general acceptance and people will understand." During the long Security Council debates on the resolution, Mr. Annan said the same nations that were concerned about not granting an "automatic" trigger for war in the first stage of the Iraq confrontation - France, Russia and China - "were also worried about a very low threshold" being set for war. During the debates, he said, the United States resisted discussing hypothetical conflicts that might come up and form the basis for claims that Iraq was in "material breach."
Mr. Annan said that while the United States had clearly reserved its right to act alone if Iraq does not satisfy Washington's standard for disarmament, he believed that Mr. Bush had taken note of "poll after poll" that showed Americans were eager for Mr. Bush to act with the United Nations.
"Most member states would prefer to see the U.S. not go it alone," Mr. Annan said, though he acknowledged that "some in Washington find that restraining and confining."
"My sense at this stage on the disarmament issue is that everyone is together," he continued. "The issue is disarmament. Regime change is not on the agenda," though he acknowledged that Washington could still undertake a military campaign and then return to the United Nations for help in "nation building" and "to pick up the pieces."
-------- us
Defense Bill Includes Exemption for Military
November 14, 2002
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/nov2002/2002-11-14-09.asp#anchor1
WASHINGTON, DC, The 2003 Defense Authorization Bill sent to President Bush late Wednesday includes a provision to exempt the military from the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.
The bill authorizes $393 billion for defense programs - almost the same amount requested by the White House, which asked for $383.4 billion for core programs and $10 billion for the war on terrorism. The House passed the bill Tuesday, so it now heads to the White House for signature by President George W. Bush.
The measure includes a provision sought by the Bush administration that would allow the incidental take of migratory birds on 25 million acres of land controlled by the military. The Bush administration had requested an exemption for the military from a variety of laws, including the Endangered Species Act, the Marine Mammal Protection Act, Clean Air Act and Superfund (CERCLA).
Efforts by Senate Democrats helped bar most of these exemptions, but the bill will exempt the military from the Migratory Bird Treaty Act for one year while it develops regulations for a long term exemption.
The Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 implements a treaty the U.S. signed with Canada, Mexico, Japan and Russia. It provides protection for more than 850 species of migratory birds including songbirds, hawks and seabirds.
"We are thankful that Congress was able to defeat many of the anti-environmental exemptions originally in this bill," said Susan Holmes, legislative representative for the environmental lawfirm Earthjustice. "Unfortunately, the bill also includes a special exemption for the military to kill migratory birds and to destroy their habitat."
"The United States has fought a World War, Korea, Vietnam, and most recently the Persian Gulf War with this law in place," Holmes added. "Now, when many of these species are in decline, is not the time to turn our backs on our international commitments to protect species."
Environmental groups fear that in the next Congress, the Republican controlled Senate may prove more willing to give the White House the additional environmental exemptions it is seeking.
----
Two soldiers killed in Louisiana exercise
November 14, 2002
Washington Times
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20021114-013444-5292r.htm
FORT POLK, La., Nov. 14 (UPI) -- Two soldiers were killed Thursday when they were run over by an M-1 tank during a urban combat training exercise at Fort Polk, an Army spokesman said.
The soldiers assigned to the 3rd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) based at Fort Campbell, Ky., were flown by air ambulance to the Fort Polk hospital where they died from their injuries, said Ron Elliott, a Fort Polk spokesman.
The accident occurred about 5:20 a.m. "when an M-1 tank ran over the soldiers," Elliott said. The two were not part of the tank crew but were in the vicinity of the tanks, he said.
An assault was under way on a mock village as part of an urban combat training exercise being conducted at the sprawling Army post in central Louisiana.
About 4,000 soldiers are undergoing training at Fort Polk. Most are from the 101st Airborne division, but some other units are from Fort Riley, Kan.
Army safety experts from Fort Rucker, Ala., are expected at the post Thursday to begin an investigation of the accident, Elliott said.
The names of the victims were not released because next of kin have not been notified.
"Our sympathies go out to the families," Elliott said. "The U.S. Army lost two great soldiers this morning."
The 101st Airborne is a rapid-deployment, air-assault division trained for assignment anywhere around the globe with 36 hours. Units of the division recently returned from a deployment in Afghanistan.
--------
The Chicken Hawks' War
Vietnam Draft-Dodgers Are The Force Behind An Iraqi Invasion
Nov 14 2002
TomPaine.com
http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/6741
George Johnson served in the Navy from 1962 to 1966. He is the Vice Commander of American Legion Post 315 and a member of Veterans for Peace.
This past Veterans Day, I took time out of my busy schedule to remember the many people, some of them my friends, who gave the greatest sacrifice for their country. It's a commemoration I undertake every year, and always with a heavy heart. But this year my thoughts are especially somber, because this year I know that the United States is again headed for war, and that other unnecessary deaths are likely to occur.
As a veteran of the U.S. Navy, I am strongly opposed to the proposed invasion of Iraq. This war seems to me ill-considered and ill-planned. Almost all the countries of the Middle East are opposed to a war with Iraq; our allies in Europe think an invasion is foolhardy. A credible case has not been made that Saddam Hussein poses a clear and present danger to the United States. Most disturbing to me is the White House's notion of a pre-emptive attack, an idea that contradicts the United States' historic policy of not acting as an aggressor. They treat the issue so cavalierly because they have never actually seen war, they don't know its horrors and its fears.
These are intellectual concerns. What really makes me sad and angry -- what keeps me up at night -- is the thought that this senseless war is being initiated by a group of people who have never seen combat, people who don't know what war is really about.
The media has dubbed the war-happy individuals who never served in war "chicken hawks." These were the people who did all they could to avoid service in Vietnam while tens of thousands of young Americans -- and countless more Vietnamese -- were dying. Some people, including friends of mine, avoided service because they held principled objections to the war in Vietnam. Let's be clear: The "chicken hawks" weren't peacenik draft dodgers. Rather, they were cowardly draft dodgers. And now they are the ones who are so eager to start another war.
Vice President Dick Cheney has said he didn't serve in Vietnam because he had "other priorities." Clearly, so did President Bush, who was in the National Guard, but went nearly 14 months without reporting for service and was almost declared AWOL. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a prominent hawk who is currently settled in a right-wing think tank, was in graduate school. Republican Whip Tom Delay also asked for a school deferment. Radio commentator Rush Limbaugh claimed a medical problem, as did current House leader Dennis Hastert. Senator Trent Lott was busy leading his college cheerleading squad.
Now Lott, along with the rest of the chicken hawk brigade, is busy cheerleading for war. They treat the issue so cavalierly because they have never actually seen war, they don't know its horrors and its fears. Combat teaches you that war is a serious, deadly business. Too many of the officials in Washington never learned that lesson the hard way. For them, war is a theoretical exercise, like playing chess, or sports.
For the chicken hawks, war seems easy because they have never born the weight of war -- and they will never have to. Nor, more than likely, will their sons and daughters. The rich and the privileged -- the sons and daughters of Senators and Congressmen -- aren't the ones who go to combat. Today's military is much like the military I served in 40 years ago -- disproportionately poor and working class, disproportionately made up of African-Americans and other people of color.
Those who have really seen war know better than the chicken hawks. The veterans within the Bush Administration, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Secretary of State Colin Powell, have been the most cautious voices when it comes to Iraq. And there are other veterans -- Representative Charles Rangel of New York, Senator Ted Kennedy, and Congressional Medal of Honor winner Senator Daniel Inouye -- who voted against attacking Iraq.
War is hell. But it's also true that war is an easier route to follow than peace -- throughout history, war has been the path more frequently taken. Attacking someone you don't agree with is a fairly straightforward affair; sitting down with your adversary and working out your disagreements is much more difficult. At the end of the day, it takes more courage to negotiate than to fight. Unfortunately, that's not the kind of courage we can expect from our chicken hawk leaders.
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-------- propaganda wars
Media Curbs Advance in Russia
World In Brief
Thursday, November 14, 2002
Washington Post
Reuters
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A51840-2002Nov13?language=printer
MOSCOW -- Russian legislators overwhelmingly approved tough media curbs during anti-terrorist operations to give authorities greater control over reporting of crises such as last month's Moscow theater siege.
The amendments were approved 145 to 1 in the Federation Council, the upper house of parliament, and now go to President Vladimir Putin for signature.
The changes were passed on Nov. 1 by the State Duma, or lower house, days after the Moscow theater siege, in which 128 hostages and 41 Chechen guerrillas died.
The new rules bar dissemination of information seen as hampering anti-terrorist operations and endangering lives, as well as remarks judged as propaganda or justifying resistance to counter-terrorist measures.
They also would prevent the media from publishing information about technology, arms, ammunition and explosives used in anti-terrorist operations.
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS
[DC law spreads across the land. Watch the lenses multiply. et]
Mayor backs surveillance cameras
By Brian DeBose
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
November 14, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/metro/20021114-83132466.htm
D.C. Mayor Anthony A. Williams yesterday said he supports the Metropolitan Police Department's use of surveillance cameras despite waning support on the council.
The mayor said the police cameras can help maintain a high level of security and deter crime.
"Surveillance cameras properly employed with the sensible regulations can be an effective tool," Mr. Williams said at his weekly press briefing.
He said D.C. Council members' recent debate over and criticism of the surveillance program during a hearing last week is understandable and appropriate.
The council last Thursday narrowly passed legislation to regulate the police department's use of surveillance cameras. The 13 council members also criticized the mayor for "circumventing the democratic process" by instituting the surveillance program without their knowledge or consent.
Before giving a speech on his homeland-security bill on Tuesday, President Bush toured with Mr. Williams and Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey the Joint Operations Command Center, the nerve center of the surveillance program. Hundreds of cameras - most controlled by federal agencies - are linked to the center, including 14 operated solely by the city.
Mr. Bush praised Mr. Williams for taking steps to ensure security and aiding "first responders" - fire, police and emergency medical services workers - using the cameras as a tool.
But the president would not comment on the local debate about security vs. privacy concerns.
Mr. Williams yesterday would not indicate whether he and Mr. Bush discussed the matter during the tour.
"If you want to know the president's view, you'll have to ask him. I'm not going to go out and pretend to speak for him," Mr. Williams said.
Meanwhile, some council members have said they are close to introducing legislation to abolish the cameras.
The council last Thursday initially opposed the legislative regulations on a 7-6 vote, saying it would send a message to Mr. Williams and Chief Ramsey that the cameras are unacceptable. But it later reversed its position and voted 7-6 to allow the department to use its 14 closed-circuit television cameras.
Council members Kevin P. Chavous, Ward 7 Democrat, and Jim Graham, Ward 1 Democrat, said they are close to concluding that the city would be better served without the cameras.
Officials in the mayor's office said Mr. Williams would oppose any legislation that would abolish the cameras.
Some members expressed discomfort with spending money on cameras instead of hiring more police officers and providing better deployment. Mr. Williams opposed a bill introduced this year by council member David Catania, at-large Republican, that would have mandated that 60 percent of the city's police officers be placed on street patrols.
"The council and I came up with a plan to deploy more officers, and I think it can be documented that we are getting more police on the street," Mr. Williams said yesterday.
----
D.C. cops get video funds
By Jerry Seper and Brian DeBose
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
November 14, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/metro/20021114-28418204.htm
The Metropolitan Police Department will receive a $149,315 federal grant to buy 27 video cameras for its vehicles.
The Justice Department's Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) will provide the funds from a $3 million grant program for purchasing 747 patrol-car video cameras by 20 state police agencies, including the District's. The department also will provide $500,000 for training to ensure the cameras are installed and used properly.
The cameras will be mounted on the dashboards of the patrol cars, "just like you see on the television show 'COPS,'" said Sgt. Joe Gentile, D.C. police spokesman.
Justice Department officials said video cameras installed in patrol vehicles promote officer safety and integrity, and can be particularly beneficial to law- enforcement agencies, officers and citizens during traffic stops. The cameras serve as deterrents to assaults on officers, as training devices and as evidence in trials, officials said.
"Over the past few years, both law-enforcement agencies and the public have come to appreciate the security provided by in-car cameras," said Carl Peed, executive director of COPS. "Cameras help provide an objective record of what takes place during traffic stops or other scenarios. They encourage professionalism on the part of the officer and cooperation on the part of the public.
"COPS is pleased to be able to provide these resources," he said. Metropolitan Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey yesterday said "the cameras will be useful for us in traffic cases, mostly DWI [driving while intoxicated] and DUI [driving under the influence] stops, giving us clear evidence we can use in court."
The Metropolitan Police Department applied for the grant several months ago and was considering seeking additional money to install more cameras in the near future, Sgt. Gentile said. Part of the $149,000 grant will provide training for officers in using the devices.
Several officers will be selected to take specialized training courses offered by the Law Enforcement Mobile Video Institute in Bryan, Texas, Sgt. Gentile said, adding that the department has not yet determined how many officers it will send.
"We got notification of the grant today," he said. "We will decide which officers we will send over the next few weeks."
Including the federal grants announced yesterday, COPS has provided $18.2 million to fund the purchase of more than 4,300 in-car video cameras.
Since 1995, COPS has invested $9.6 billion to advance community policing, including grants awarded to 12,900 state and local law-enforcement agencies.
----
False explosives threat stops traffic
By H.J. Brier
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
November 14, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/metro/20021114-11829451.htm
A Woodbridge man claiming he had explosives in his van yesterday froze traffic around the Agriculture Department for about two hours during the morning rush hour and forced 7,000 workers to evacuate two of the department's buildings.
Shortly after 8 a.m., the Federal Protective Service officer saw the man screaming and acting strangely in the middle of the 1200 block of Independence Avenue SW, placed him in a patrol car and sought medical attention, said Viki Reath, a spokeswoman for General Services Administration.
The 38-year-old man told the officer "the truck is going to blow up," referring to his Budget rental van parked on Independence Avenue in front of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, said Ms. Reath, adding that the officer requested additional police assistance.
Bomb-sniffing dogs from D.C. police and the Federal Protection Service responded, Ms. Reath said.
Police later determined that the van and its contents were safe. The investigation determined that the man has a history of mental illness.
"Basically, he said something to the effect of wanting to meet the president and then he later made a statement to the effect of he had explosives in the truck," said Sgt. Joe Gentile, a D.C. police spokesman.
The man was not charged last night, Sgt. Gentile said. The U.S. Attorney's Office is expected to resume screening the case this morning.
Police closed Independence Avenue from Eighth to 14th streets and the 14th Street Bridge as a safety precaution, Sgt. Gentile said.
Police requested that Metro close entrances and exits at Smithsonian subway station, said Metro spokesman Steven Taubenkibel. Trains bypassed the Smithsonian stop until the station reopened.
About 7,000 USDA employees were evacuated from the South Building and the Administration Building, Ms. Reath said.
The D.C. police bomb squad cut the lock on the van and found a suspicious suitcase and briefcase inside, Sgt. Gentile said. They were blown open with a water cannon and found to contain personal items.
The unidentified man was committed to the George Washington Hospital for mental observation, Sgt. Gentile said. The van was taken into evidence by the FBI, Ms. Reath said.
Among those caught in yesterday's gridlock were two U.S. Supreme Court justices commuting separately from their Virginia homes to hear a challenge to the constitutionality of listing sex offenders on the Internet.
Justices John Paul Stevens and Antonin Scalia joined the other seven justices 35 and 40 minutes into the two-hour hearing, while court was in session. Both have access to written transcripts and audio tapes of the arguments made in their absence.
The incident ended shortly after 10 a.m., when all employees were permitted to return to work.
•Frank J. Murray contributed to this report.
-------- courts
Blair advocates judicial overhaul
By Jill Lawless
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20021114-27719872.htm
LONDON - Prime Minister Tony Blair's government promised yesterday to "rebalance" the justice system in favor of victims, partly by allowing some suspects to be tried twice for the same crime.
Planned legislation for the coming year, outlined in the traditional queen's speech opening a new session of Parliament, will allow juries to be told details of defendants' previous convictions and scrap the centuries-old "double jeopardy" prohibition on suspects being tried twice for the same crime.
"At the heart of my government's legislative program is a commitment to reform and rebalance the criminal justice system to deliver justice for all and to safeguard the interests of victims, witnesses and communities," said Queen Elizabeth II, who sat on a golden throne in the chamber of the House of Lords.
As customary at this event, the queen read a speech written by the government outlining its legislative plans. Lawmakers and red-robed peers packed the chamber for the speech, a ceremony redolent with pomp and pageantry.
The queen said a new criminal justice bill "will allow retrials for those acquitted of serious offenses where new and compelling evidence emerges."
The principle of double jeopardy first appeared in England in the 1160s at the center of a squabble between King Henry II and Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Becket. The rule is included in the legal codes of many former British colonies, including the United States.
Lawyers and human rights groups oppose the government's plan, which has been discussed for more than a year.
Matthias Kelly, spokesman for the Bar Council lawyers' organization, said the change would encourage police to prosecute on the basis of shaky evidence, knowing they could have a second chance later.
"The risk is these proposals will lead to more miscarriages of justice," he said.
Mark Leech, founder of the ex-convicts' charity Unlock, said the reforms were "dangerous and flawed."
"While it is true that the criminal justice system doesn't do enough to help victims of crime, you do not improve their lot by moving the legal goal posts and making convictions easier to obtain," he said.
On the international front, the government promised to continue its support for the U.S.-led war on terrorism. Referring to Iraq, the queen said the government also would combat weapons of mass destruction, "which are among the most serious threats to the security of the United Kingdom and our allies."
The government also used the queen's speech to declare war on vandals, litterers and louts.
Mr. Blair has been saying for several weeks that he plans to attack petty crime and anti-social behavior.
-------
Police Efforts Lead to Arrests of Homeless
November 14, 2002
New York Times
By AL BAKER
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/14/nyregion/14HOME.html
Arrests of homeless people for offenses ranging from minor violations to felonies have sharply increased in the last month, reflecting a shift in the city's policy of dealing with what many have labeled a rapidly growing homeless population.
The arrest tally is, in part, a result of increased police attention to traditional homeless encampments and to complaints about homeless people violating public nuisance laws, police officials said.
With the number of homeless people appearing to be on the rise, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said last month that such a conclusion was based more on perception than reality. But he later conceded that there probably were more homeless people and that the city has been pressed to find ways to move them off the streets.
About a month ago, the Police Department merged two units assigned to homeless outreach and assigned more officers to it. The merged unit has 80 officers, compared with about 50 in the separate units.
But advocates for the homeless and others say that rather than trying to encourage the homeless to go to shelters, or to take them there forcibly in cold weather, the police have pursued a policy of making arrests. That has drawn an objection from the New York Civil Liberties Union.
While officials in the Bloomberg administration and the Police Department acknowledged that there has been a sharp increase in the number of homeless people being arrested, they said the department's policy continues to be focused on outreach. "There is no question that the mayor and the police commissioner want more aggressive handling of homeless people in the streets and that's what is happening," said an aide to Mayor Bloomberg. "But there is no directive from City Hall to lock them up."
Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said in an interview yesterday that the increase in arrests is a byproduct of more frequent interactions between homeless people and the police in the refashioned Homeless Outreach Unit, which now works 24 hours a day, seven days a week. "I know our arrests are up," Mr. Kelly said, "but our arrests are up because we have a lot more contacts and the contacts are up."
The latest statistics provided by the police show that 580 homeless people were arrested for crimes and violations in the one-month period ending Nov. 11, up from 499 in the previous month, a 16.2 percent increase. Of those, the total arrests directly attributed to police officers assigned to provide assistance to homeless people jumped to 172 from 142, a 21.1 percent increase. In nearly the same period, the police reported more than 30,000 arrests citywide.
In the comparable month last year, 288 homeless people were arrested. Just 28 of those arrests were directly attributed to outreach efforts. Officials noted that the city was still reeling from the Sept. 11 attacks and that homeless enforcement had not been a priority.
Michael P. O'Looney, Mr. Kelly's chief spokesman, pointed out that the number of contacts officers have made with homeless people has grown sharply, to 4,180 between Oct. 11 and Nov. 11 of this year, from 450 in the same period a year ago. Those contacts have resulted in more trips to intake and health facilities for the homeless, city officials said.
Neither the city nor groups that advocate on behalf of homeless people keep a tally of the number of transient homeless people living on the city's streets, so it is difficult to say with certainty whether that population is rising, declining or holding steady. Over the last few years, the number of homeless people in the city's shelters has surpassed records set in the 1980's and early 1990's, but it is believed that thousands of people shun the official shelter system.
Police officials and other analysts have said that the homeless are more visible now because of the displacement that occurred on Sept. 11. Many homeless people lost footholds in subterranean passages beneath the World Trade Center. Also, as the police began patrolling beneath bridges and beside waterways for security reasons, they disturbed camps where homeless people lived, forcing them into public view.
Still, some employees of the Police Department with firsthand knowledge of the Homeless Outreach Unit called the latest efforts misguided. "They want arrest numbers; it is that simple," one said. "They are discouraging services to be offered to the homeless. They are encouraging mass arrests. They want to try to change attitudes. They want to get the homeless to think twice about where they are going to put down roots."
The arrests have drawn an objection from the New York Civil Liberties Union. The new approach is "selective law enforcement," said Donna Lieberman, the organization's executive director, who requested a meeting with Commissioner Kelly or his staff in a recent letter.
"Being homeless isn't a crime, but what is a crime is the policy of arresting people for being homeless," Ms. Lieberman said.
Ms. Lieberman said the numbers of arrests belie the claim by the police that the increases are just a byproduct of more contacts. In the letter, she described how the organization was informed that officers were ordered to single out homeless people for arrests even if others who were not homeless were engaged in the same low-level criminal activity, such as being in a city park after closing time.
Mr. Kelly said he had not yet seen the letter, but he said the issue was important and part of Mayor Bloomberg's effort to improve the city's quality of life by cracking down on noise, panhandling and other nuisances.
"This is part of it," the police commissioner said. "We are committed to it."
-------- refugees
French Police Evict Asylum-Seekers From Church
By Keith B. Richburg
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, November 14, 2002; Page A24
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A51167-2002Nov13?language=printer
CALAIS, France, Nov. 14 (Thursday) -- As many as 70 asylum-seekers, most of them Iraqi Kurds and Afghans, were evicted by police from a Catholic church in this northern port today, as France began imposing tough new rules to try to stem the flood of illegal migrants to this corner of the country.
The showdown began Saturday, when the refugees entered the St. Pierre-St. Paul Church , threatened a hunger strike and vowed to kill themselves if police tried to evict them.
Gilles Gaudiche of the Pas-de-Calais regional government told the Associated Press the operation took place "without incident."
Migrants flooding into Calais want to continue their journey across the English Channel to Britain, where refugee and political asylum rules are considered more lenient than in France, and where many of them have family connections. The normal way station en route to Britain is a Red Cross center near here at Sangatte, but on Nov. 5 the French government stopped all new entries to Sangatte, pending its permanent closure in April. Sangatte has about 1,800 residents who will be given a choice of returning home or applying for asylum in France.
Closing Sangatte was a major pledge of France's new center-right government, which took office in May. The refugee center was seen as a magnet for illegal immigrants, who risk their lives trying to get to Britain through the Channel Tunnel, often by sneaking aboard the fast-moving Eurostar train. The British government and officials from Eurostar have also been calling for the camp's closure.
But the refugees keep coming. And without a designated refuge, they now make their home on the sidewalks of Calais.
"We sleep in the streets," said Mohammed, 20, an Iraqi Kurd who arrived here six days ago. "I want to go to Britain, but the way is closed," he said, speaking in the halting English he learned in school. He had a blanket rolled under his right arm, and a hood and a towel wrapped over his head for warmth against the chilly air. In a pocket of his brown leather jacket were a few slices of white bread -- all he has left to eat, he said.
"I need bread. I need water," said Kurshid, 18, another Iraqi Kurd who arrived here after a week-long truck journey through Turkey. He said he dreams of working in a restaurant in Britain, Canada or Australia.
As for France, he echoed the sentiment of many refugees. "It's no good," he said. "They make you wait two, three years, and then refuse you a passport."
Calais residents have complained about their town becoming a magnet for Britain-bound migrants and have long wanted to see Sangatte closed and the refugee problem disappear. Residents of this normally quiet, working-class town reported a surge of violence blamed on refugees.
Local frustration was behind the unexpectedly strong showing here of far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen in the first round of France's presidential election on April 21.
President Jacques Chirac easily beat Le Pen in the final ballot two weeks later. But Chirac said he understood the message of Le Pen's showing and quickly named a new center-right government that made closing Sangatte and cracking down on illegal immigration top priorities.
Nicolas Sarkozy, a longtime Chirac ally who was named interior minister and given expanded powers, made an early trip here and then secured a deal with Britain to close the camp. France promised to do so, while Britain said it would toughen its asylum procedures to try to deter new arrivals.
Many refugees arriving here in the last week were surprised to find Sangatte closed. On Wednesday, some went inside the church for shelter, while others waited outside trying to plot their next course for getting to England. And they seem undeterred by Britain's tougher rules. "My friends are in England. My family is in England," said Mohammed.
The French government, backed by local officials, had offered to relocate the migrants to other parts of France and allow them to apply for asylum.
Jack Lang, a Socialist legislator from the region, called the issue "very complex" and one that should not be treated "as a political question."
"I agree with the decision to close the center," Lang said in an interview. "At the same time, there should be a transition period."
Not everyone else here was taking a tough view of the immigrant influx. Mireille Lecoustre, a mother of five, arrived outside the church Wednesday with a plastic bag filled with bananas and started handing them out to the hungry refugees.
"I have a lot of children, so I'm sad to see young people like this," she said. She called Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin "insensitive to the misery of other people."
-------- terrorism
New Suspects Named in Bali Bombings
Indonesian Police Probe Family Ties
By Ellen Nakashima and Alan Sipress
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, November 14, 2002; Page A26
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A51833-2002Nov13?language=printer
JAKARTA, Indonesia, Nov. 13 -- Indonesian authorities named four new suspects today in their investigation of last month's bombing attack in Bali as investigators focused on links to regional terrorism within the Indonesian family of the prime suspect in the blasts, who is now in custody, and three of his brothers, who are at large.
National Police Chief Da'i Bachtiar said today "it is very possible" that an Islamic teacher named Mukhlas, who is an older brother of chief suspect Amrozi, may now be acting as operations chief of the regional militant Islamic network Jemaah Islamiah, and that Mukhlas is a key suspect in the Oct. 12 explosions, which killed almost 200 people, most of them foreign tourists.
Jemaah Islamiah has been headed by Riduan Isamuddin, better known as Hambali. The change in leadership may have taken place because Hambali, the region's most-wanted terror suspect, left for Afghanistan, Bachtiar said. Intelligence officials say Hambali is the main link between Jemaah Islamiah and al Qaeda.
Beginning with last week's arrest of Amrozi, a 40-year-old motorcycle mechanic and the alleged field commander in the Bali operation, police have made steady progress in unraveling the bombing plot and identifying suspects in the worst act of terrorism since Sept. 11, 2001.
Today Bachtiar interrogated Amrozi in a glass-enclosed room, allowing reporters to see, though not hear, their discussion. After the hour-long interrogation, Bachtiar told reporters that Amrozi was in good condition, adding that he was fasting for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Mukhlas and Amrozi have long-standing ties to radical Muslim cleric Abubakar Baasyir, with the older brother graduating in the early 1980s from an Islamic boarding school in central Java founded by Baasyir and becoming an Arabic language teacher there.
When Baasyir fled to Malaysia in 1985 to avoid a crackdown on Islamic militants by then-President Suharto, Mukhlas joined him in exile, according to acquaintances from the school. He lived intermittently with Baasyir in Malaysia over the next 11 years, according to teachers who knew him in central Java. Mukhlas is still in Malaysia, according to another brother, Mohammed H. Khozin, who founded an Islamic boarding school in East Java similar to Baasyir's.
Singaporean authorities say they believe Mukhlas is the regional chief for the Malaysian wing of Jemaah Islamiah, which includes Singapore. Officials there said he was involved in a failed plot to blow up the pipelines that supply Malaysian water to Singapore. He also ran an Islamic school in Johor, in the southern Malaysian peninsula, they said. Mukhlas, they said in September, was wanted by Malaysian authorities and had gone into hiding.
Amrozi spent many years traveling between Malaysia and Indonesia, as well as in other Southeast Asian countries. He first visited Malaysia in 1985, police said, and worked there in construction. In the early 1990s, he studied Islam under his brother and Baasyir in Malaysia, Bachtiar said.
It was then that Amrozi began to believe in the need to defend Islam from kedholiman, an Arabic word meaning threat to Islam, Bachtiar added. Amrozi began to idolize Mukhlas, Baasyir and a third cleric, Jafar Umar Thalib, the leader of an Islamic militia, Laskar Jihad, whom Indonesian police arrested last spring on charges of inciting hatred.
According to Indonesian investigators, both Mukhlas and Amrozi spent time in Afghanistan.
National police spokesman Ahmad Basyir Barmawi told the Associated Press that teams of investigators have been sent to Singapore, the Philippines and Malaysia to search for evidence in the Bali blasts and uncover the terrorists' regional network.
In his interrogation today, Amrozi looked fresh and relaxed, occasionally laughing, as he spoke to Bachtiar.
Amrozi told Bachtiar that a man named Imam Samudra asked him to buy the chemicals to make the powerful bomb that destroyed the Sari Club in Bali's famed Kuta district as well as the Mitsubishi L-300 van used to carry the bomb.
Samudra, also known as Hudama, is one of four new suspects in the Bali attack named by police today. Authorities had already been searching for him because of his alleged involvement in a series of church bombings on Christmas Eve 2000, including one on the island of Batam near Singapore.
Baasyir is under arrest for suspected involvement in the same church blasts.
The three other suspects named today were identified only as Umar, Idris and another Umar, which is in keeping with the Indonesian tradition of using only one name. Complicating this case is the fact that most of the suspects also have aliases.
Amrozi said that he, Samudra, Idris and another man, named Martin, met more than once in Solo, in central Java, to discuss the bomb plan, according to Bachtiar's account. The three others promised to give Amrozi money to buy the materials for making the bomb. Amrozi told police that Idris gave him the equivalent of more than $5,000 in U.S., Singaporean and Malaysian currency.
Amrozi told Bachtiar that his "friends" made the bomb. According to Bachtiar, the men, whom he did not name, met on Oct. 6 in Denpasar, the capital of Bali. On that day, Amrozi visited one of the rooms rented by his friends and saw a Nokia 5110 cell phone with a cable linking it to the bomb, Bachtiar said.
Amrozi, who was raised in a remote farming village, Tenggulun, in East Java, has 12 brothers and sisters. Besides Mukhlas, two other brothers, Ali Imron and Ali Fauzi, are wanted by police in connection with the bombings. They are both teachers at Al Islam, the Islamic school in Tenggulun founded by their brother Khozin.
Bachtiar also played a tape of apology by Amrozi. "I apologize to my parents, brothers and sisters and other relatives over the incident that has caused so much trouble," he said. "Those involved were me and my younger brother Ali Imron."
According to Bachtiar, Amrozi heard about the bombings in Bali on the radio at 7 a.m. on Oct. 13. He was "very excited" to hear that "his bomb [attack] worked," Bachtiar said. Then Amrozi laughed. When his wife asked him why he was laughing, Bachtiar said, he could not explain why.
Sipress reported from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
----
World's Most Wanted Proving Elusive for U.S.
Failure to capture Bin Laden, Omar adds to their stature. Hussein may pose similar risk.
By Alissa J. Rubin and Maura Reynolds
Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
November 14 2002
http://www.latimes.com/la-fg-manhunt14nov14,0,7129249.story
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- On a cold winter night nearly a year ago, the spiritual leader of the Taliban took one of two open roads leading out of this city, his movement's last stronghold, and vanished into the desolate mountains of central Afghanistan.
There were U.S. warplanes in the air, a Marine base nearby and Afghan allies on the ground. But Mullah Mohammed Omar had an advantage: He knew the moonscape terrain from childhood.
Meanwhile, about 300 miles to the northeast, U.S. forces searching for Osama bin Laden along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border heard the last confirmed transmission from him. In the months since then, a series of massive military operations by U.S. forces has found no trace of either man. And each unsuccessful foray has increased the fugitives' stature with their followers.
The disappearance of the two most wanted men in Afghanistan is a potent reminder of the difficulty of hunting down enemy leaders. The apparent reemergence of Bin Laden in a taped message this week looms large as the United States prepares to go after one more "most wanted" figure: Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
U.S. experts have concluded that the voice on the tape urging new attacks on the United States and praising recent acts of terrorism elsewhere in the world is almost certainly that of Bin Laden.
Some experts say the United States errs when it focuses on individuals, who are vastly more elusive than the bridges, airfields and other fixed assets of a regime.
Such figures can serve as a rallying point for protests, or an inspiration for further terrorist attacks. Every mission to capture them runs the risk of causing civilian casualties, which increase resentment of U.S. power.
"We put ourselves into a trap by demonizing these people and insisting on total victory, and we often don't have the strategic means to get them," said Donald Abenheim, an expert in military strategy and history at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. "It makes the individual the center of gravity, and we feed [a desire] to create an uprising against the West - and that remains the greatest threat to security."
The pattern was apparent shortly after the Sept. 11 terror attacks, when President Bush declared he wanted Bin Laden "dead or alive."
Such pronouncements fit into a long history that includes Gen. John Pershing's futile pursuit of Pancho Villa in the rugged mountains of northern Mexico, a missile attack on Libyan dictator Moammar Kadafi in the 1980s and the capture of Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega in 1990.
In Bosnia-Herzegovina, U.S. and other international forces periodically raid villages, looking for war crimes suspect Radovan Karadzic. The former Bosnian Serb leader, like Omar, is thought to be hiding in the mountains that were his childhood home.
In Afghanistan, Omar's knowledge of the landscape clearly helped him escape during a chaotic 24-hour period between Dec. 6 and 7, when the Taliban agreed to surrender Kandahar, its last stronghold.
Four roads lead out of Kandahar, only two of which were blocked by Afghan forces allied with the United States. On the city's outskirts, signs of habitation vanish quickly into a landscape of flat plains and barren hillsides that is at once deceptively simple and an utter mystery.
Either of the two roads open to Omar that night led into friendly terrain - areas he knew well enough to avoid confrontations with forces loyal to Hamid Karzai, who was fighting there at the time and has since become Afghanistan's president.
One route traversed Zabol province, home to semi-nomadic herders, many of whom had backed the Taliban. The other led to Helmand province. Many Taliban leaders, including Omar, had homes and allies in Helmand and adjacent valleys in Oruzgan province.
Afghan officials acknowledge that the two factions friendly to the Americans closing in on Kandahar that night were unaware of each other's activities. Neither one moved to block the roads.
"This was not very good coordination between the two Afghan groups," recalled Engineer Yusuf Pashtun, a top aide to local warlord Gul Agha Shirzai.
Deeper into the desert plains, anti-Taliban warlords lacked telephones or other means of communication and were barely even in touch with forces allied with the U.S. They learned of Omar's impending surrender from radio broadcasts.
Lack of Weapons
Along the road to Helmand, commander Malim Khad Mazer in the village of Gereshk mustered all the men he could. He says there were about 1,000 of them, but only about 150 had weapons. They seized the police station and stopped there. For the rest of the night they lay low.
"If we had been armed and had food and money and satellite phones, then we could have arrested each and every Taliban, including their leaders," Mazer said.
Elsewhere, Salman Shah's men were braver - but even more poorly armed. Warned by a messenger that the Taliban was escaping, Shah gathered 20 men. Only five had guns. They picked a point on a main track with a high wall on one side, so approaching vehicles would not be able to see how few men and guns confronted them.
After the first Taliban trucks halted, vehicles toward the rear turned around. A mile back down the road was a river ferry; on the other side were the trackless mountains that could best conceal those fleeing. Residents told Shah later that they heard as many as 20 vehicles crossing the river that night.
"The Taliban were from here so they knew how to operate the boats themselves," Shah said.
It is not known whether Omar and other Taliban leaders crossed the river that night or took another route. There are similar stories about the disappearance of Bin Laden along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, where mountains rise like giant teeth and experience is required to endure biting cold and pick a path through rocks, roots and thorn bushes.
Warlords Not Trusted
While local commanders complained that the U.S. was relying too much on air power to pound the deep caves at Tora Bora where Bin Laden was believed to be hiding in early December last year, there were doubts about some of the Afghans' commitment as well.
One warlord, Haji Mohammed Zaman, was accused by other Afghans of negotiating a break in the bombing so that he could negotiate with Al Qaeda, only to use the respite to help Arab fighters, presumably after the payment of healthy bribes, escape into the lawless Pakistani tribal areas. According to Western officials, another warlord, Hazrat Ali, also allowed his troops to escort Al Qaeda figures into Pakistan.
In many cases the warlords or the commanders who worked under them had known the Al Qaeda figures for years. In tribal landscapes, personal history - and often money - counts more than geopolitics.
Bin Laden disappeared so completely that up until this week, many top U.S. officials had said they thought he was dead. Others believe he is operating in the wild tribal lands of Pakistan near the Afghan frontier.
It could be equally difficult to track down Hussein if he survives a U.S. attack - a prospect many military planners and analysts regard as unlikely - and heads home to the Tikrit region of central Iraq. The United States lacks even the basic local assets there that it had in central Afghanistan, where its ally Karzai at least had a loose network of connections and allegiances.
"Saddam Hussein has institutions around him, guards, intelligence officers, all of whom are Tikritis, clans with blood loyalties to him.... From an intelligence perspective, those kinds of bonds are almost impossible to infiltrate," said Timothy Lomperis, chairman of the political science department at St. Louis University and a former Army intelligence officer.
U.S. troops would be faced with the prospect of searching villages for Hussein, a prospect that increases the risk of civilian casualties. Their experience of Afghanistan illustrates that killing or wounding civilians has an impact far beyond the villages where the incidents occur.
The U.S. military's standing in southern Afghanistan, already damaged by inadvertent attacks on Afghan allies, sank further last summer when U.S. soldiers searching for Omar in Oruzgan province mistakenly killed dozens of people, the majority of whom were women and children attending a wedding party.
Local Afghan leaders, whose support is crucial to the effort to capture remnants of the Taliban, were openly critical. Officials in Kabul, the capital, who usually support the Americans, demanded changes in the U.S. military's operating procedures. Further complicating the hunt, unidentified gunmen, who could either be relatives of those who died in the attacks or former Taliban, have repeatedly fired on U.S. soldiers in the area.
As they face the prospect of tracking down Hussein, U.S. officials now face a renewed challenge from Bin Laden. And intelligence sources say they believe that Omar remains hidden in the mountain redoubts near his birthplace, suggesting the difficulty of the task ahead.
"I do not think they [U.S. forces] will get Mullah Omar," said a senior diplomat in Kabul who has traveled extensively in the Afghan heartland for 20 years. "For the people where he is hiding, he is from there, he is of them. He acted as they think he should act."
Times staff writer Reynolds was recently on assignment in Afghanistan.
-------- ENERGY AND OTHER
-------- alternative energy
US "energy lite" bill omits wind, renewable fuels
REUTERS USA:
November 14, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/18572/story.htm
WASHINGTON - A Republican proposal for a last-ditch U.S. energy bill is limited to interstate pipeline safety and nuclear power plant insurance and does not include incentives for wind power and other renewable fuels.
Danish wind turbine manufacturers such as Vestas Wind System and NEG Micon are among the companies that have closely watched the difficult negotiations over a broad energy bill to promote more oil drilling, automobile efficiency standards and conservation measures.
But with hopes for a broad bill dead, Rep. Billy Tauzin, a Louisiana Republican who heads the Senate and House negotiating panel, proposed language Monday for a sharply-streamlined energy bill.
Tauzin and other House Republicans hope to steer the bill through Congress during its final session this month.
But Senate Democrats have not yet indicated whether they are willing to go along with the so-called "energy lite" bill.
Proposals for renewable energy incentives, ethanol production, coal technology and billions in tax breaks will be revived when the new Congress begins work in January, according to legislative aides.
----
Ontario to give incentives for clean, green energy
Thursday, November 14, 2002
By Reuters
http://enn.com/news/wire-stories/2002/11/11142002/reu_48948.asp
TORONTO - Ontario's government said Wednesday it would offer tax credits to firms investing in energy-saving equipment and consumers buying solar panels to boost energy supply in a province where a struggling competitive market has sent electricity prices soaring.
Ontario Energy Minister John Baird said new investments in qualifying energy-saving equipment would be eligible for a 100 percent writeoff.
The commissioner of alternative energy, Steve Gilchrist, also said the government will set an energy conservation example for the province to follow by reducing electricity consumed in its own operations by 10 percent.
Baird told a news conference, "Our government will make sound investments and offer strategic support to make clean energy cheaper and affordable for everyone."
The latest announcement is meant to heal wounds created by the government's much touted move toward energy deregulation, which has caused public outrage and high prices. Since May 1, when the market opened, electricity prices have risen 25 percent.
On Monday the government announced a freeze on electricity rates until 2006 to help hard-pressed consumers and small businesses. The government is expected to pay nearly C$700 million this year to compensate consumers and small businesses. Analysts say the cost could exceed $2 billion over the four years.
On Tuesday, Baird promised a tax holiday for firms producing clean energy from solar, wind, natural gas, and hydro sources.
But as the government promises to alleviate the financial burden on consumers and businesses, critics said Ontario's power woes are only expected to grow worse, with the possibility of power shortages ahead.
Deregulation was meant to introduce competition into the market, with supporters saying that would mean lower prices as new entrants new generating capacity and competed against each other. But six months later, with just one new power plant in the works, the government has reregulated the market, drawing criticism that it is scaring off potential investors.
Baird also said the government will try to target taking 20 percent of its electricity from renewable sources and challenged consumers to buy green power.
"Our goal is to convert 100,000 homes to solar power within five years," Baird said.
-------- environment
US States Try to Fight Global Warming on Their Own
Reuters
Thursday, November 14, 2002; 2:28 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A54653-2002Nov14?language=printer
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - While the Bush administration has pulled the United States out of an international treaty to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, individual U.S. states have taken steps on their own to fight global warming, an environmental report said on Thursday.
The report, from the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, said measures to slow global warming that been fought at the federal level -- such as requiring more electricity to be generated from solar and wind energy and mandatory reporting of greenhouse gas emissions -- have been successfully implemented by states.
Texas, which is President Bush's home state, has promoted more renewable energy use to help the state become energy independent and fight air pollution.
Still, the report warned that a fragmented, state-by-state approach to climate change policy will be less effective than coming up with a national plan.
"These state initiatives are achieving real (emission) reductions and are opportunities for learning, but they should not be viewed as a substitute for a comprehensive national policy that includes mandatory measures," said Eileen Claussen, President of the Pew Center.
The Pew Center reviewed emissions reduction programs in nine states: Georgia, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oregon, Texas and Wisconsin.
The report said while climate change action is underway at the local level, states face some limits, such as having little funding available to fight global warming and constitutional restrictions from entering foreign agreements on the issue.
The report also pointed out that not all states are interested in fighting global warming and some legislatures have prevented state agencies from pursuing any programs that would reduce greenhouse gases.
The European Union and Japan have said the United States should do more to fight global warming, because the U.S. market is the world's biggest energy consumer and also largest producer of greenhouse gas emissions.
Many U.S. allies have strongly criticized Bush for pulling the United States last year out of the Kyoto treaty that seeks to reduce greenhouse gas emissions produced by industrialized nations. Bush said he feared the treaty's restrictions would hurt the U.S. economy.
----
Microbes Help Clean Contaminated Harbor Mud
November 14, 2002
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/nov2002/2002-11-14-09.asp#anchor7
AMHERST, Massachusetts, Microorganisms are cleaning up contaminants in the mud beneath Boston Harbor, finds a new study from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
The study suggests that if humans prevent future fuel spills and leaks, the harbor could cleanse itself within the next 10 to 20 years. The findings are detailed in the November 15 issue of the journal "Environmental Science and Technology."
Scientists had already determined that these contaminants, called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs, could biodegrade if suspended in water. But it was believed that once PAHs sank into the silt at the bottom of the harbor, they could not be oxidized or degraded - a theory that the new study challenges.
"This is important because it demonstrates that the self purification capacity of the harbor is much greater than previously recognized," said UMass microbiologist Derek Lovley, a coauthor on the paper. "Furthermore, if future spills of contaminants can be eliminated, the harbor may get cleaned up in large part due to natural activity without the requirement for expensive remediation strategies. It does give us hope for the longer term, if practices change."
Marine harbors are often polluted with contaminants from fuel spills, industrial waste, shipping activities, runoff, soot and creosote treated pilings, Lovley said. Although some chemical portions of these contaminants degrade, PAHs tend to accumulate in the sediment.
"They're not very soluble in water, and they don't react chemically with many other compounds," said Lovley, "so they collect in the mud at the bottom of the harbor."
Previous research has shown that PAHs accumulate in fish and other aquatic animals, and are often associated with cancers in some fish. Some PAHs are toxic, and are suspected to cause cancer in humans.
The UMass team was prompted to study the issue after earlier research by Lovley found that benzene degrades in the absence of oxygen, in certain conditions. PAHs are groups of two to five benzene rings, Lovley explained.
The key component in the microbial action appears to be the existence of sulfate in the water, said Lovley. "As long as there is sulfate in the water, the PAHs can degrade slowly."
In addition to Boston Harbor, the team also studied marine contaminants in San Diego, California, and in Latvia. The work was funded by the Office of Naval Research.
For the local portion of the project, Boston Harbor sediments were pulled from the harbor near a former coal-tar plant in an area of Everett known as Island End. Coal tar works had been in production in the area from the late 1800s to about 1960. The sediments used in the study overlaid the site of a leaking underground storage tank that had been removed in the 1980s.
Scientists monitored the sediment samples in the lab, replenishing the samples with fresh harbor water roughly once a month. They found that the PAHs in the collected sediments broke down 20-25 percent over 338 days - a little less than a year.
"In a way, it seems slow, but if you're thinking about the alternatives, it's not bad to have some patience," Lovley said.
Other alternatives for removing the contaminants, including dredging, are expensive and disruptive to the marine environment. Dredging also creates the additional problem of how to dispose of the contaminated mud.
"Of course, you don't want to say, 'Oh, it's okay to keep dumping this stuff.' The fact that it's even there shows that the spillage rate is too fast for nature to keep up with," Lovley concluded. "You have to actively protect the environment."
-------- ACTIVISTS
Nuclear Waste Arrives at German Dump
(AP)
Nov 14,
By CLAUS-PETER TIEMANN
http://apnews.excite.com/article/20021114/D7N9P28O0.html
DANNENBERG, Germany - A shipment of nuclear waste arrived early Thursday at a dump in northern Germany following a trip across the country that was slowed by determined protesters.
A convoy of trucks carrying the 12 containers of reprocessed waste arrived shortly after dawn at the Gorleben waste storage site, about 75 miles southeast of Hamburg and for more than two decades a focus of Germany's strong anti-nuclear lobby. With the loaded containers weighing in at a total 1,320 tons, it was the biggest shipment yet to the site.
Overnight, police cleared several hundred protesters from the road along the 12-mile final stretch of road from a rail terminal in the town of Dannenberg, where the containers were loaded onto trucks overnight.
Accompanied by a fleet of police vans, the convoy set off from the sealed-off terminal for its hour-long trip to the above-ground shed at Gorleben, where it was greeted with loud whistles but no trouble. Demonstrations were banned within 50 yards on either side of the route.
Protesters caused a delay of several hours as the containers traveled by train across Germany Tuesday and Wednesday on their journey from a reprocessing plant in western France, repeatedly occupying tracks.
Police twice had to free demonstrators who had chained themselves to the rails. They were holding more than 160 people in custody Wednesday night.
An estimated 10,000 to 15,000 officers throughout Germany were deployed for the latest shipment.
Waste shipments to Gorleben resumed in March last year after a three-year break. The previous German government suspended shipments after radioactive leakage was discovered in some containers.
Activists argue that neither the waste containers nor the dump are safe.
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.
Last year, the government and power companies signed an agreement to phase out nuclear power within about 20 years. Activists hope that protesting waste shipments will force a quicker shutdown.
----
Weekend anti-war protests / Toronto Star
Age of protests makes a comeback
Saturday peace rally likely to be biggest since 1991
LESLIE SCRIVENER FAITH AND ETHICS REPORTER
Toronto Star
From: "Graeme Bacque" gbacque@colosseum.com
Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2002
Here in Toronto, we've never hesitated to take to the streets or take over the streets to make a point, mostly to the government, and sometimes we can even make a change.
On Saturday mornings and Sunday afternoons, we've been for peace, against nuclear testing. We're against government cutbacks but rallied to buck up Ottawa in the Quebec referendum. We're sometimes pro-choice, but also pro-life.
We're against poverty. We hate repression in foreign lands, and expressways cutting through our leafy neighbourhoods. Mostly we are law abiding, though sometimes we lose our heads and end up handcuffed in the back of a police van.
Continuing our anti-war tradition, which has been quiet in recent years, thousands are expected Saturday at a peace rally beginning at Queen's Park to tell Prime Minister Jean Chr=E9tien not to join the United States as it moves closer to war with Iraq.
"We want to persuade the Canadian government to be a voice for peace, not for war," says one of the rally organizers, Anthony Rapoport, a musician who plays the viola in several chamber orchestras. "The larger the movement, the greater the chance that we will be listened to."
It's expected to be the most significant peace march in Toronto since the Gulf War in 1991, though not likely to draw hundreds of thousands =8B the numbers who joined recent marches in London and Florence.
Similar weekend rallies are planned in 24 cities across Canada, from St. John's, Nfld., to Prince George, B.C., but, without question, the largest peaceful assembly in Canada will be Sunday's Santa Claus parade.
Canada has supported the U.S. in its war on terrorism and sent troops to Afghanistan. And Canadians learned this week that, if the audiotape is authentic, Osama bin Laden has now threatened Canada as a U.S. ally.
Will the news bring more people into the anti-war movement? Rapoport thinks it likely.
"Some who might stay at home might find some urgency because of this," he says.
About 50 organizations are supporting Saturday's rally, a diverse group that includes the Canadian Peace Alliance - which has 120 member groups - the TARIC Islamic Centre, Ryerson's Muslim Students' Association, Steelworkers locals, the Canadian Auto Workers, and Young Koreans United.
The United Church of Canada is also a key participant.
"The world we have is not the world God wants," says Rev. Chris Ferguson, who will march under the banner of Bloor Street United Church. "The well-being of the Earth, the people who inhabit it, is at its core a religious issue."
Most march with hopes that government leaders will change their thinking, a view sorely tested in the '90s in Ontario, as union members demonstrated relentlessly and mostly ineffectively against the Mike Harris government's cutbacks.
"But think, if there hadn't been resistance, how much further would they have gone?" asks John Clarke of the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty.
In Ontario, Clarke says, the concept of civic protest has been challenged by the Tories. "The difference is, the ideal of a social compromise has been revoked by the other side. Our side has relied on the notion that we can be indignant and be heard."
It seems clear that even a global movement protesting war with Iraq will not have a drop of influence on U.S. President George W. Bush.
"My belief is that these people demonstrating will be wasting their time if they think they will have any impact on the United States," says historian Michael Bliss. "Canadians don't really understand that impact of Sept. 11 on Americans."
But Stephen Lewis believes that, while Bush appears unstoppable, protest is not ineffective. It may bring future change.
"If George Bush is intent on attacking Iraq, it's going to happen. All the anti-war rallies will not stop this," says Lewis, the United Nations' special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa. But intransigent governments don't last forever, he adds.
"These are moments in time. Eventually the pendulum swings, and though we are in a particularly difficult moment with extremely reactionary governments, it won't go on forever. If you are undeterred, you will eventually make an impact."
Protests can make policy-makers sit up and listen, sometimes quickly.
The explosive demonstrations at the World Trade Organization meetings in 1999 in Seattle have led to a shift in agenda that now includes agricultural subsidies, issues of critical importance to the developing world, Lewis says.
He's seen effective protest in South Africa, where the coalition Treatment Action Campaign filled the streets, forcing the government to provide drugs to mothers that prevent transmission of HIV to babies.
Some Toronto protests have appeared to be one man against the world.
At Christmas, 1969, Rev. Leo Reilly, a Basilian priest, tried to draw attention to the famine in Biafra. For four hours a day, for six days, he walked outside Queen's Park alone. "My feeling was that I can't do much, but I can't do nothing. I can't sit in the comfort of St. Michael's College and ignore what is happening in Biafra," he said.
The largest demonstrations of the '60s were the anti-Vietnam War protests, though none on the scale of some in the U.S. It took a decade for American leaders to realize they had lost support for an unpopular war.
In 1973, police called a march by 30,000 teachers protesting a ban on teachers' strikes the largest and most orderly demonstration in Ontario's history.
David Lewis Stein, now retired from the Star, sometimes joined in anti-poverty demonstrations.
"These marchers want to help the poor through politics changing the system, rather than through the discipline of social work. They want to be leaders as well as helpers of the poor. They make some people very, very nervous," Stein said.
Protests in the '80s tackled cruise missile testing in the north and abortion rights - for and against.
Planners with the Toronto Committee Against Sanctions and War on Iraq aren't estimating how many people will join Saturday's march, which begins at 1 p.m. at Queen's Park with short speeches and music, and ends on University Ave. near the U.S. consulate at about 4 p.m.
They say they do not support Saddam Hussein's regime, which they call brutal and anti-democratic. They just want to give peace a chance.
---------
Iranian Refuses to Challenge His Death Sentence for Apostasy
November 14, 2002
New York Times
By NAZILA FATHI
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/14/international/middleeast/14IRAN.html
TEHRAN, Nov. 13 - A university professor who received a death sentence last week declared today that he would refuse to appeal the sentence, setting off a fifth day of student demonstrations against Iran's hard-line leadership.
The professor, Hashem Aghajari, 45, was charged with apostasy for saying in a speech in August that Muslims should not blindly follow leaders like "monkeys." He was at one time a committed revolutionary who lost his leg and a brother in the brutal war with Iraq, but he had grown critical of Iran's clerical regime in recent years.
In a letter to his lawyer that was read in a news conference today, Mr. Aghajari said: "I should have died when I lost my leg defending my country but I've lived two decades. . . . If the death verdict is true, let them carry it out, and if it is wrong, then judiciary needs to work on its shortcomings."
His decision was welcomed today among the more than 2,000 demonstrators at Amir Kabir University in central Tehran who are seizing the occasion to issue a range of criticisms, including some of the country's supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
"No one believes that this verdict with such heavy political consequences was issued independently by a junior judge in the town of Hamedan," said Aliakbar Moussavi Khoini, a member of Parliament and a former student activist.
Many in Tehran see the verdict against Mr. Aghajari and the arrests of three reform leaders in the past month as part of a new crackdown aimed at Iran's reformist president, Mohammad Khatami.
In his first public comments on the case, Mr. Khatami said on Wednesday that the sentence was "improper" and should not be carried out.
He called on rallying students to remain calm. "At the present time, nothing should be done that creates tension and problems," he told reporters.
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War on Iraq Not Yet Justified, Bishops Say
November 14, 2002
New York Times
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/14/national/14WAR.html
WASHINGTON, Nov. 13 - Roman Catholic bishops in the United States issued a statement today saying that they cannot now find a moral justification for a pre-emptive war against Iraq because there is no adequate evidence that Iraq is about to attack.
The bishops, gathered here on the third day of their annual fall meeting, urged the United States government and the world to "continue to pursue actively alternatives to war." They said that an attack on Iraq did not meet the Catholic tradition's criteria for a "just war," in part because such a war could create more "evils and disorders" than it would eliminate.
They said that a war against Iraq could cause more suffering to Iraqi civilians, provoke wider conflict and instability in the region and detract from the effort to stabilize Afghanistan and prevent terrorism elsewhere.
"We continue to find it difficult to justify the resort to war against Iraq, lacking clear and adequate evidence of an imminent attack of a grave nature," the bishops' statement says. "With the Holy See and bishops from the Middle East and around the world, we fear that resort to war, under present circumstances and in light of current public information, would not meet the strict conditions in Catholic teaching for overriding the strong presumption against the use of military force."
In introducing the statement for the bishops' consideration today, Cardinal Bernard F. Law of Boston, chairman of the bishops' international affairs committee, said that the statement "does not ignore Iraq's dangerous behavior, intentions and threats."
"We call on the government of Iraq to comply with the world's legitimate demands," Cardinal Law said.
The bishops debated an amendment from Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Gumbleton of Detroit pledging the "prayerful support" of the bishops to military personnel who "conscientiously dissent from a choice for war."
Auxiliary Bishop John J. Kaising, an auxiliary bishop of the military services who is also a veteran, objected to Bishop Gumbleton's amendment, saying: "If we pass this, does that mean that those who do not object and who go because their units are going and their commanders say they've got to go, does that mean they're wrong? I don't think we can do that to a soldier, sailor or marine who follows his commander in chief."
The final statement included a compromise in which the bishops said: "We support those who risk their lives in the service of their nation. We also support those who seek to exercise their right to conscientious objection."
The bishops' statement praises the United States for winning the unanimous support of the United Nations' Security Council for a resolution calling on Iraq to disarm.
The bishops said they would pray that the United Nations action "will not simply be a prelude to war but a way to avoid it."
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EPA Sued Over Washington DC Air Quality
November 14, 2002
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/nov2002/2002-11-14-09.asp#anchor2
WASHINGTON, DC, The Sierra Club has filed suit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) challenging the agency's failure to enforce federal clean air requirements in metropolitan Washington DC.
The environmental lawfirm Earthjustice is representing the Sierra Club in the suit, which seeks to require EPA to reclassify metropolitan Washington from serious to severe for ground level ozone or smog, which would trigger stronger pollution controls for industries and motor vehicles. The suit also seeks to compel the EPA to reject the region's clean air plans, which the conservation group calls "inadequate."
"EPA needs to address our region's dirty air now," said Earthjustice attorney David Baron. "Clean air is a basic necessity for everyone. That's why we're pushing for full compliance with the Clean Air Act."
Last summer, the Washington region suffered from the worst ozone pollution in more than a decade. There were nine code red days, and another 19 code orange days when children were warned to limit outdoor play.
The situation looked even worse when measured against the EPA's new, more protective eight hour ozone standard, which was exceeded on 36 days in 2002 - including two code purple days when the air was deemed very unhealthy.
"Healthy air is a necessity, not a luxury," said Dr. Ronald Karpick, a Falls Church, Virginia, pulmonary physician. "I've treated hundreds of local residents suffering from asthma and other respiratory diseases who are unable to go outside in the summertime due to high ozone levels. This is unacceptable."
Ozone is a lung irritant that damages lung tissue and reduces lung function, causing symptoms such as chest pain, nausea and pulmonary congestion. At levels often experienced in the capital region, ozone can harm vulnerable individuals like the elderly, children and people with respiratory problems.
During a typical smoggy summer in the Washington DC area, breathing difficulties send more than 2,400 people to the emergency room and cause 130,000 asthma attacks.
Although the DC region's air has violated federal ozone standards for decades, the region still does not have an EPA approved plan to stop the violations. The Clean Air Act required adoption of such a plan by 1994.
In response to a previous Earthjustice suit on behalf of the Sierra Club, a federal court rejected the EPA's attempt to extend the 1999 clean air deadline to 2005 without reclassifying the area to severe. But since the court ruled in July, the EPA has indicated that it may allow delay of new clean air plans until March 2004.
"It's time for EPA to stop dragging its feet and start complying with the law," said Sierra Club spokesperson Melanie Mayock. Mayock pointed out that air quality staff at the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments have indicated that a new clean air plan could be completed by spring of 2003, yet the EPA is proposing to give the region an extra year beyond that to write the plan.
"We need an effective, enforceable plan to get the necessary pollution reductions for healthy air, and we need it now," said Mayock. "The residents of Metropolitan Washington have waited too long to breathe healthy air because of delays from EPA."
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Forest Activists Shut Down Citibank
November 14, 2002
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/nov2002/2002-11-14-09.asp#anchor3
WASHINGTON, DC, Activists from the Rainforest Action Network (RAN) blockaded a Citibank branch in the heart of Washington's financial district today to protest the environmental destruction the group says is caused by Citigroup's lending practices.
At the same time, RAN activists blockaded every Citibank branch in the heart of the financial district in San Francisco, California.
At the DC protest, RAN unfurled a 30 foot banner reading, "Corruption on the Inside, Destruction on the Outside," from the bank's entrance. The group charges Citigroup with using its customers' money to fund some of the most environmentally destructive projects in the world, chopping down endangered forests and driving the global warming crisis.
Citigroup's lack of environmental standards is only one on a growing list of the financial giant's corrupt business practices, RAN says.
"Citigroup cannot be trusted with your money," said Ilyse Hogue, global finance campaigner, Rainforest Action Network. "It uses its customers' money and intentionally lags behind the industry's best environmental standards to profit off environmental devastation."
In San Francisco, 19 activists were arrested after the group hung a banner from one Citibank branch and inflated a giant earth balloon at the Citicorp Plaza. Citigroup has just acquired California based Golden State Bancorp in an effort to increase its market presence in the state.
In total, 24 activists locked themselves to the doors of all four Citibank branches in downtown San Francisco.
The San Francisco and Washington DC protests came on the heels of a full page ad targeting Citigroup, placed by RAN in Wednesday's "New York Times." The ad's headline read, "Did you know that someone is using your Citigroup credit card without your authorization?" and was accompanied by images of destruction that RAN says was caused by Citigroup funded projects.
RAN is calling on Citigroup to meet the financial industry's best environmental and social practices, already in place at some of the industry's leading players in Europe, including Dutch bank ABN AMRO, which has policies prohibiting the financing of extractive industries that clear or degrade primary forests or operate on native lands.
In contrast, Citigroup CEO Sandy Weill has refused to establish meaningful environmental and social lending policies, despite public support for wilderness preservation, RAN says.
"Citi's lack of business ethics bears a high cost to people and the environment," said Hogue, pointing to the controversial Camisea gas project that threatens the Peruvian Amazon, funding for palm oil plantations in critical orangutan habitat in Indonesia, and a pipeline through the Orinoco Delta in Venezuela.
According to Citigroup's website, the company is now working in Brazil to find ways to "contribute to the protection of the Atlantic forest and Amazon rainforest." In Indonesia, Citigroup says it is no longer working with Lonsum, a company involved in expanding and opening new palm plantations, and the company claims to be working with oil companies Conoco and Petroleos de Venezuela to ensure than environmental safeguards are included in the Orinoco Delta pipeline project.
"We understand that conducting business in an environmentally responsible manner is an ongoing process, and we are committed to taking a leadership role in the financial industry through our efforts in community, environmental and social initiatives," Citigroup says in its environmental policy statement. "We are committed to protection of the environment and the health and safety of our employees and the communities in the more than 100 countries in which we conduct business. We recognize that environmental impact and sustainable development are among the most important issues affecting business today."
Today's blockades and banners are the latest moves in RAN's Global Finance Campaign to transform the funding practices of the corporate financial system. RAN and a broad coalition of groups and individuals are calling on Citigroup to lead the corporate financial sector in ending investments in fossil fuel and deforestation and prioritize investments in clean, renewable energy.
For more information on RAN's campaign against Citigroup, visit: http://www.ran.org/ran_campaigns/citigroup/
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Biotech Contamination Riles Activists
November 14, 2002
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/nov2002/2002-11-14-09.asp#anchor4
WASHINGTON, DC, Activist groups say the contamination of 500,000 bushels of Nebraska soybeans with genetically engineered corn points to a wider problem with experimental biotech plantings.
Prodigene Inc. also had problems in Iowa that led to the destruction of 155 acres of corn, federal officials revealed today.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), in coordination with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is now investigating ProdiGene for violations of the Plant Protection Act.
On Wednesday, APHIS announced that a small amount of corn, genetically engineered to produce a pharmaceutical product, had contaminated thousands of bushels of soybeans grown in Nebraska. And at a ProdiGene test site in Iowa, APHIS ordered the company to harvest and incinerate 155 acres of conventional corn that may have been cross pollinated by an engineered variety.
The Genetically Engineered Food Alert coalition is concerned because the Agriculture Department (USDA) has not revealed what chemical or drug was grown in the biopharmaceutical corn, or divulge the exact location where the contaminated soybeans are being quarantined. The USDA was unable to ensure a 100 percent containment of the contaminated crop, the coalition says, or to offer specifics on the failure of the biotechnology regulatory system.
"We warned the USDA earlier this year this was going to happen. If the USDA continues to allow biopharm food crops to be planted, someone is going to get prescription drugs or industrial chemicals in their corn flakes," said Larry Bohlen, director of health and environment programs for Friends of the Earth.
In a letter sent today, Friends of the Earth demanded that the USDA disclose specific information concerning the biocontamination, including:
- The name of the genetically engineered drug or chemical
- Detailed information on how the contamination occurred
- Information on potential human health impacts the drug or chemical could cause
- Confinement information
- The application and contingency plan from ProdiGene - the company that produced the crop
- Extensiveness of contamination
- Records of the USDA inspections
"The public has the right to know what's going on," said Matt Rand, biotechnology campaign manager for the National Environmental Trust. "There is a genetically engineered pharmaceutical or industrial chemical that mistakenly entered into the grain supply only one stop away from getting into our food and the government isn't talking."
The Genetically Engineered Food Alert coalition is calling on the USDA to prohibit open air cultivation of all crops genetically engineered with biopharmaceuticals such as vaccines, industrial chemicals, or other substances with potential human health impacts
APHIS says that once it completes its investigation into ProdiGene's compliance with federal regulations, it will decide whether the company's actions warrant a fine. Under the Federal Plant Protection Act, APHIS regulates the movement, importation and field release of genetically engineered plants.
APHIS requires safeguards to prevent the unauthorized release of genetically engineered material. Any company or individual that violates the Act faces civil penalties of up to $250,000 per violation, or $500,000 per adjudication, and may have their permits revoked.
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