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NUCLEAR
Defector From N. Korea Creating a Stir in Japan
Toxic Munitions And Deadly Vaccines
Inspectors Examine Two Sites Outside Baghdad
Inspectors Conclude First Mission
Iraq Set to Open Sites Previously Off-Limits
U.N. Body to Urge N.Korea Nuclear Checks
Teller Honored by Energy Dept. Secretary
Nevada senators seek Yucca Mountain probe
Los Alamos nuclear lab warns of radioactive trees
New Mexico Lab Fires Two Whistleblowers
Indian Point 3 Will Increase Power Output
Bush Names Kissinger to Lead 9/11 Probe
The Latest Kissinger Outrage
Terrorism insurance bill signed into law
MILITARY
Dogfight Over the F/A-22
Figuring the Costs of War
Rebel attacks on pipelines weakening state oil company
Court Throws Out Colombian Army's Emergency Powers
U.S. Wants to Move Fast on Sensors for India Border
Israel seeks military aid increase
Israeli and Palestinian doves meet
Israel Asks U.S. for an Increase of $4 Billion in Military Aid
US ultimatum to Saudi leaders, 'do it, or we will'
Yemeni Proclaims His Nation's Solidarity With U.S.
NATO: The More the Murkier
FBI puts 'Spiders' to work in Pakistan
Face of U.S. espionage changing
Pentagon Wants $10 Billion a Year for Antiterror Fund
A very public wargame
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS
Kissinger to Lead 9/11 Inquiry
N.C. Sets Up `Actual Innocence' Panel
Bush Signs Bill to Boost Cyber Security
105 foreigners on watch list got visas
ENERGY AND OTHER
BP Solar drops thin film solar cells, up to 260 US jobs
Northern Calif. Geothermal Plant OK'd
Court Requires Cheney to Disclose Energy Documents
Agency Proposes Relaxing Rules on Logging in National Forests
Bush Signs $250M Great Lakes Cleanup Bill
Whole Foods in Los Angeles Goes Solar
Woman to Bear a Clone, a Doctor Says
Stem Cell Mixing May Form a Human-Mouse Hybrid
U.S. Urges Abolition Of Tariffs
Saved, or Ruined, by 'White Gold'
ACTIVISTS
Russia Greens say security service oppressing them
Government, ACLU reach a pact on Patriot Act data
Where is Israel's Daniel Ellsberg?
Protest Against G.I.'s Leads to Breaching of Post Near Seoul
Iran Releases Four Student Protesters
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- asia
Defector From N. Korea Creating a Stir in Japan
Legislature Cancels Testimony on Nuclear Claims
By Doug Struck
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, November 27, 2002; Page A12
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A43573-2002Nov26?language=printer
TOKYO -- Kenki Aoyama complains he is the spy no one wants to hear.
A self-described double agent, a man with roots in two countries and a passport from a third, a man who uses a pseudonym and talks from the shadows, he says he has now come out of the cold.
He wants to tell the stories that the Japanese Foreign Ministry has been buying ever since he escaped to China from North Korea four years ago, wading across a river with his family after working 38 years for the secretive government.
Some of those stories are blockbusters: Aoyama says North Korea has developed a nuclear bomb. He says it has a phalanx of missiles dug into a hillside, some aimed at Japan. He says North Korea kidnapped dozens more Japanese nationals than it has admitted.
But the party chiefs in the government's ruling coalition abruptly canceled Aoyama's scheduled testimony before the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives last week. The party leaders said they cannot be sure enough of Aoyama's background to allow him to speak. Opposition politicians cried foul; they said the government fears being embarrassed by what Aoyama would say.
In particular, say the critics, the Foreign Ministry does not want to explain why it did not raise earlier and louder alarms about Aoyama's nuclear and missile claims.
"There are lots of things [the ruling parties] don't want out," said Masaharu Nakagawa, of the opposition Democratic Party. "We want to know what facts he gave the Foreign Ministry, and whether they neglected the information."
Masahiro Imamura, a senior ruling party member of the committee, said the testimony was canceled because Aoyama's background is too murky. "We don't know what kind of person he is," Imamura said. By uninviting him, "we've protected the honor of the Parliament."
The Foreign Ministry, already embroiled in controversy over its political ties to legislators, is trying to distance itself from the issue. "We had no involvement" in the decision to cancel his appearance, said a Foreign Ministry spokesman. He would not comment on why the ministry had helped Aoyama get into Japan and why it had bought his information. The matter is secret because of intelligence-gathering, he said.
Other Foreign Ministry sources said privately that Aoyama's background as a North Korean engineer-turned-spy, and the details he has provided from his long career, have not been discredited. But they say his more sensational claims also cannot be proved -- and could complicate delicate diplomacy with North Korea.
"We just don't know for sure" about Aoyama, insisted a high-ranking official.
Aoyama is not his real name, the confessed spy acknowledges, although that is on his Japanese driver's license. He was born in Japan, to Korean parents, in 1939 under a different name, and lived in North Korea under yet another. He revealed the names to a reporter, but asked that they not be used.
"The North Koreans don't know who I am. They smell me, but they haven't confirmed it. If they learn my real name, all my relatives in North Korea will be" -- he drew his finger across his throat.
Aoyama, a slight, pale man, chain-smokes nervously. He talked to a reporter in a "safe" hotel outside Tokyo. He wore a toupee, and would not agree to be photographed. He illustrates his points with schematic sketches on a scratchpad, like the engineer he says he is, and tells his story in painstaking detail.
After 21 years in Japan, where Koreans were denied Japanese citizenship rights and suffered discrimination, Aoyama joined a "return to the homeland" movement then popular and left for North Korea in 1960.
There, he met and married his wife, also a Japanese-born Korean, and earned his way into a prestigious engineering college. Many engineers, he said, were being sent after graduation to Yongbyon, a backwater town that was the site of North Korea's fledgling nuclear program, but he was lucky. He was assigned to an engineering unit in the capital, Pyongyang, that did research, communications and work related to missiles, Aoyama said. Through his job and network of school classmates -- a lifelong bond in Korean society -- Aoyama followed North Korea's missile and nuclear pursuits, he said.
"Kim Il Sung's ambition to develop nuclear was burning," Aoyama wrote in a recent article in a Japanese magazine, referring to the founder of North Korea.
Work proceeded with Russian help, though slowly, until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Then, more than 40 scientists and engineers -- most of them Russians but also some East Germans and Czechoslovaks -- moved into apartments in Pyongyang to work on the program.
In about 1996, Aoyama said, his fellow engineers were celebrating the arrival of centrifuges that could process the country's abundant natural uranium into nuclear weapons fuel. Two years before that, Aoyama said, he ran into a group of 30 to 40 visiting Pakistani engineers, and his classmates confirmed the connection.
"They were there to exchange technologies," he said. "The Pakistanis came to learn our missile technology. Pakistan, naturally, gave North Korea nuclear technology in return."
The United States has said it has evidence that Pakistan aided North Korea's nuclear program in exchange for help in making missiles that could target India. Pakistan has denied it.
North Korea's nuclear capabilities have long been a source of speculation. The CIA estimates North Korea could have developed one or two nuclear bombs, and Chinese estimates put the number higher. But those estimates are unproven; North Korea has neither tested a bomb nor outright claimed to have one.
Aoyama said his suspicions were confirmed around 1997. He was working as an industrial spy in Beijing, and he met an old friend, a North Korean nuclear scientist, at a bar there.
The man looked terrible, thin and wan. His eyebrows had disappeared from accidental radiation, Aoyama said.
"I said, 'Are you still working on it?' " Aoyama recalled.
"No," came the reply. "It's done. We succeeded."
"It" was a nuclear bomb, and Aoyama said the man told him that Pyongyang's long quest to obtain an atomic weapon had been achieved.
"I've been telling them [Japanese authorities] North Korea has a nuclear weapon for three years," Aoyama said this week.
Aoyama turned from scientist to spy starting in 1994, he said. His technical expertise and fluency in Japanese earned him an assignment in Beijing as an industrial spy.
Aoyama said he pocketed large profits from his efforts. But in the spring of 1998, he was abruptly summoned back to Pyongyang, where he learned he had fallen under official suspicion, a likely death sentence. Within two days, he said, he and his wife and three children were on a train to the northern border, where they bribed guards to let them wade across the river into China at night.
With more bribes, he had earlier obtained a Chinese passport, though he said he does not speak Chinese. He took some of his information to the Japanese Embassy in Beijing, he said, and in March 1999 was brought to Japan by the Foreign Ministry.
Aoyama said he gave 32 reports detailing what he knew of North Korea to the Japanese Foreign Ministry. He received $1,500 per month, or less, in return -- barely subsistence in Japan.
But after more than three years, Aoyama said, he became angry that the Japanese government was not more alarmed by his reports, particularly those about the nuclear and missile programs.
"I've given them information they couldn't buy with any money," he said.
He wrote a book, published in September, mostly about life in North Korea. Then he published his more volatile charges in an article this month in the Monthly Gendai magazine, resulting in his now-revoked invitation to testify. Instead, he met last week with opposition party members. Speaking from behind a screen, he spurred the growing controversy with additional allegations.
There is more to North Korea's missile and nuclear programs than Japan or the United States recognize, he said.
He said North Korea has an extensive biochemical warfare program -- though he said he does not know details of it.
He alleged that a kingpin of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party, the late Shin Kanemaru, had received unmarked gold bullion from North Korea for secret negotiations with the isolated regime. The story fit the discovery of unmarked bullion in Kanemaru's home in 1992, but this charge was indignantly denied by the ruling party officials. Two high-ranking Foreign Ministry officials privately acknowledged in interviews that payments were made to Aoyama. But both insisted that this did not lend Aoyama credibility.
"We pay for lots of information, but we don't believe all of it," one official said.
-------- depleted uranium
Toxic Munitions And Deadly Vaccines
American Soldiers Endangered By Their Own Instruments Of War
Nov 27 2002,
TomPaine.com
http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/6815
Conn Hallinan is provost at the University of California at Santa Cruz and a foreign policy analyst for Foreign Policy In Focus
Every time I hear the likes of Vice-President Cheney, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, or Sen. Lieberman go on about war with Iraq, it reminds me of a history lesson. Congress should keep in mind when it begins its debate over Iraq: Wars are waged with the bodies of the young, and they always come home.
The 1991 Gulf War is a case in point. As wars go, it was a slam-dunk for the United States side. While Iraqi casualties were somewhere between 85,000 to 100,000, the United States lost 148 soldiers in combat, the majority of those the victims of so-called "friendly fire."
Gulf War II is likely to be a repeat. The United States is better armed than it was 11 years ago, while a decade of sanctions and bombings -- more tonnage has been dropped on Iraq since the end of Gulf War I than was dropped on Yugoslavia during the war over Kosovo -- has reduced the Iraqi military to a shadow of its former self. I suspect we will take Baghdad in less than a week. But that's when the real trouble starts.
Out of 700,000 U.S. soldiers who served in Gulf War I, 118,000 are suffering from chronic fatigue, headaches, muscle spasms, joint pains, anxiety, memory loss and balance problems. Gulf vets are twice as likely to develop Lou Gehrig's Disease, and two to three times more likely to have children with birth defects.
War has always been a toxic business, but it is much more so today than it was 50 years ago. Modern battlefields are saturated with Depleted Uranium Ammunition (DUA), and other chemicals, and soldiers are pumped full of untested vaccines and antidotes.
In the last Gulf go-around, the United States fired 860,590 DUA munitions. While the military keeps claiming DUAs are harmless, tank crews protected by DUA armor get the equivalent of a chest x-ray every 20 to 30 hours. Ask your doctor if that is a good idea. The Army's own Chemical Command concluded back in 1991 that troops exposed to DUA should wear protective masks, respirators and clothes, "at a minimum." Fighting in such gear is almost impossible, which means it is unlikely to be used much, and probably only if chemical or biological weapons are used.
One major suspect in Gulf War Syndrome is the experimental anthrax vaccine required for all military personal. That requirement has caused an exodus from the Air Force. According to the Associated Press, the vaccine is a leading reason for aircrews and pilots resigning from the National Guard and Air Force Reserve units, and 86 percent of those who take the vaccine report local or system-wide reactions.
The effect of another war on Iraqis, of course, will be horrendous. The Pentagon projects a minimum of 10,000 Iraqi civilian deaths for Gulf II.
If Congress and the American pubic don't bring a halt to all this, we are going to kill and maim tens of thousands of innocent people, goad angry young Muslims to commit more terrorism against American civilians, and create yet another round of deadly Gulf War Syndrome for our troops.
Young men pressed into the service of empire have always paid for it with their lives. Rudyard Kipling's epitaph for them still resonates today:
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
-------- inspections
Inspectors Examine Two Sites Outside Baghdad
Iraq Says Nuclear Facility Houses Only Civilian Programs
By Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, November 27, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A45556-2002Nov27?language=printer
AL-RASHAD, Iraq, Nov. 27--U.N. inspectors resumed their search this morning for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq by fanning out in two groups to visit a large military compound and a government-run factory on the outskirts of Baghdad, commencing a mission that could determine whether the United States launches a war against Saddam Hussein's government.
U.N. officials did not issue any immediate comment about their visits, but journalists following both groups did not witness any problems. Both teams were able to enter the compounds quickly and were subsequently observed touring the facilities with Iraqi officials.
The inspectors left the U.N. compound in Baghdad at 8:30 a.m. local time (12:30 a.m. EST), traveling in a convoy of nine white four-wheel-drive vehicles and one ambulance. The vehicles, which were pursued by dozens of cars filled with foreign journalists, quickly split into two groups, with one traveling to the complex at Al-Rashad and the other heading to a graphite factory.
The site at Al-Rashad, identified by Iraqi officials as the Al-Tahaddi Center, was visited by seven specialists from the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is working with a special U.N. commission examining Iraq's weapons programs. The Al-Tahaddi facility, located about 12 miles northeast of Baghdad, has been associated in the past with Iraq's nuclear-energy program and was searched by previous groups of inspectors in the 1990s.
Iraq insists that it does not posses weapons of mass destruction and no longer has a civilian nuclear-energy program. Al-Tahaddi's director told journalists after the three-hour inspection that the facility is engaged only in civilian projects, principally producing and repairing high-voltage electronic motors for cement factories and oil refineries.
"We don't have anything that's not permitted here," said the director, Haythan Mahmood.
After the inspectors left, he escorted a small group of television cameramen to one building in the compound, a three-story structure where several workmen clad in blue and orange jumpsuits were working on what appeared to be engine parts, hammering and bolting various pieces of metal. The journalists were not permitted to visit other buildings at the site.
The inspectors, however, were seen walking around the compound and entering several other buildings, at least one of which appeared to be newly constructed. Two others looked to be mobile structures.
Charles A. Duelfer, a former deputy chairman of an earlier U.N. commission charged with examining Iraq's weapons programs, told a U.S. Senate subcommittee in February that the Al-Tahaddi Center has been one of the "key facilities where [nuclear weapons] personnel congregated."
"These centers have legitimate rationales for their on-going work, but the presence of teams of alumni from the nuclear weapons program is a key tip-off," he said in prepared testimony.
About an hour after the inspectors left the U.N. compound, a long, thin line of smoke from a lone fighter jet could be seen in the skies over Baghdad. Air raid sirens sounded across the capital, followed by an all-clear some 10 minutes later.
An Iraqi civil defense official told the Reuters news agency that Western planes flew over the capital. But U.S. and British officials denied any activity over the city.
"Iraqi claims that Western warplanes flew over Baghdad tonight are false," a Pentagon spokesman was quoted as saying by Reuters.
Baghdad is just north of a southern "no-fly" zone routinely patrolled by U.S. and British planes. In the past, sirens have sounded in Baghdad when the planes struck at targets near the edge of the zone in response to Iraqi anti-aircraft fire.
The second group of inspectors visited the military-run Graphite Rod Factory, located in the town of Amariyah, about 25 miles southwest of Baghdad, according to report filed by an Associated Press reporter who followed that group of inspectors. Those inspectors were members of the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission.
A U.N. Security Council resolution approved unanimously earlier this month calls for inspectors to be given access to any person or place in Iraq--including mosques, military bases and Hussein's palaces--without having to seek permission or provide advance notice. The resolution also requires Iraq to permit its scientists and their families to be interviewed abroad, and it gives Hussein's government until Dec. 8 to provide a complete account of the status of its chemical, biological and nuclear facilities.
Although his government has condemned the resolution as a violation of Iraq's sovereignty based on concocted evidence, Hussein has grudgingly accepted it as a last-ditch chance to avert a military showdown with the United States. The resolution states that Iraq could face "serious consequences" if it fails to cooperate.
U.N. inspectors first arrived in Iraq in 1991, shortly after the end of the Persian Gulf War. They have been credited with destroying large quantities of Iraq's chemical weapons stockpile and monitoring equipment that could be used in the manufacture of nuclear and biological devices.
But the inspectors found themselves embroiled in frequent disputes with the Iraqi government, which restricted the inspectors' ability to travel and visit certain sites. Finally, in 1998, the inspectors withdrew, declaring that Iraq's defiance made it unable to carry out their work. The United States and Britain subsequently launched four days of air strikes against Iraq.
U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan said today that Iraqi cooperation "is the only way to avoid a military conflict in the region."
"I do not believe war is inevitable," he told Europe 1 radio in Paris.
Iraqi U.N. Ambassador Mohammed Al-Douri, in remarks broadcast on Radio Cairo Wednesday, said: "Iraq is not afraid of the inspectors' work because it has nothing to hide, but Iraq fears that some of the inspectors will misuse their authority and make trouble that the United States will use to strike Iraq. Iraq will not give them such an opportunity."
----
Inspectors Conclude First Mission
Reuters
November 27, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43564-2002Nov26.html
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.N. arms inspectors today completed their first field mission in Iraq in four years - the formal start of a hunt for banned Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.
The inspectors spent about three hours at a large military compound east of Baghdad before heading back to their headquarters at the old Canal Hotel on the southeastern outskirts of the capital.
There was no immediate word from the inspectors or the Iraqi authorities on how the inspection went.
----
Iraq Set to Open Sites Previously Off-Limits
By Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, November 27, 2002; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A43564-2002Nov26?language=printer
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Nov. 27 (Wednesday) -- As U.N. arms experts began to hunt today for clues that President Saddam Hussein's government has or is developing weapons of mass destruction, the inspectors and the government both say they will be heading into previously out-of-bounds territory in a quest to avert a U.S. military attack.
The inspectors set off early today in a convoy of nine white vehicles with U.N. logos and drove to a large military compound about 12 miles east of Baghdad. They were escorted by Iraqi officials and followed by about 50 cars carrying journalists, who were barred from entering the compound.
The inspectors, reinforced by a new Security Council resolution, say they finally will be able to visit any place in Iraq, including secret military research laboratories and Hussein's presidential palaces, without giving advance warning to Iraqi officials, a power that eluded their predecessors during more than seven years of inspections in the 1990s.
The Iraqi government, secretive and intensely nationalist, says it is willing under the resolution to open itself up to foreign officials in ways never before imaginable here. If it follows through on promises to cooperate, the government will be required to allow the U.N. inspection teams to walk through some of the country's most sensitive installations -- where not even many Iraqis penetrate -- and permit top scientists to be taken abroad for interviews.
The degree of Iraqi compliance with the new inspection requirements, laid down Nov. 8 in a unanimous resolution, remains to be seen. It is also unknown whether Hussein's government is telling the truth when it claims that it no longer has weapons of mass destruction or programs to build them. But the government has vowed to abide by the new rules, and several signs point to a response that will be markedly different from the way Iraqi officials handled previous inspections from 1991 to 1998.
An adviser to Hussein said Tuesday that "every ministry, every site in the country that the inspectors might want to visit, has received instructions to cooperate fully."
"This is the first time the government has given this directive," he said. "They have been told, 'Prepare the keys. Prepare the person to accompany the inspectors. Prepare the gates to be opened 24 hours a day.' "
U.N. officials said they also were told by Iraqi officials that such orders have been issued. One of the inspection leaders, Mohamed ElBaradei, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, has said the Iraqi government promised to provide the inspectors "full cooperation and full transparency."
Hans Blix, the chief U.N. inspector, told the Security Council Monday that Iraqi officials informed him during a visit to Baghdad last week that, despite the pledge of cooperation, inspections of sensitive laboratories and presidential sites cannot be as routine as those of more mundane sites. But he did not specify what conditions the Iraqi government might impose, and his lieutenants here put emphasis on the promises of cooperation.
"Things look different this time," said Demetrius Perricos, leader of an 11-member team from the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, Blix's organization charged with inspecting Iraq's chemical, biological and missile programs. Inspectors from the IAEA, who will work alongside those from the United Nations, will be responsible for nuclear issues.
U.S. officials are skeptical of Iraq's promises to cooperate, noting that Iraq has failed in the past to provide an honest accounting of weapons programs. They also contend that although Iraq might have destroyed much of its production capacity, it may also have hidden small caches of chemical and biological weapons that would be hard to find in a country of 168,000 square miles.
Many Iraqis, official and unofficial, expressed opposition to the demand to open up any building to the inspectors, calling it a violation of their sovereignty. But they said they were willing to put up with it if a war with the United States could be averted.
"Can you imagine inspectors going into the White House and searching everywhere without giving notice?" said Mohammed Akram, a Baghdad shopkeeper. "It's very difficult for us to imagine that people should be allowed to do that to us."
But, he said, if it might help prevent a U.S. attack, "we must swallow our pride and do this."
The Iraqi government also has indicated it will accommodate journalists who want to cover the inspections. The Information Ministry issued press passes Tuesday to about 100 foreign reporters and told them they would be free to follow the inspectors wherever they went. Usually, any visits to government buildings require advance permission and the presence of a government minder.
Government officials said they would be more than happy for journalists to witness the inspections in their entirety, filming the experts as they run their Geiger counters and scoop up soil samples. "We want the cameras inside," the presidential adviser said. He said the government "wants to document the work of the inspectors, particularly if they try to create problems."
U.N. officials, however, nixed the presence of journalists at inspection sites, saying their Security Council mandate gives them the power to make places that are being searched "exclusion zones," where nobody can enter or leave. "Our job is to be done in a quiet manner, away from the cameras," Perricos said.
With a clear Security Council mandate and the equivalent of nationwide backstage passes, the inspectors said they also plan to approach this round of searches differently. For starters, they have a clear game plan for inspections over the next few weeks, based on studying satellite photos and sifting through intelligence reports for the past four years, since the last group of inspectors withdrew.
"It is our first opportunity to go under the roofs to see what's there," Perricos said.
He refused to detail where they plan to visit first, but other U.N. officials said the initial searches almost certainly will occur at well-known sites long linked to Iraq's weapons programs, where the experts may install cameras and other surveillance equipment. Those visits, U.N. officials said, likely will result in little new evidence or confrontation, but will provide important practice for the newly arrived inspectors, many of whom have never worked in Iraq.
U.N. officials said they plan to pay close attention to Western intelligence reports that Iraq has shifted some of its chemical and biological weapons-related facilities underground and put others in mobile laboratories. The IAEA said it also intends to look into allegations that Iraq may be using recently imported aluminum tubes to enrich uranium compounds into weapons-grade material.
At a news conference Tuesday, the inspectors showed off some of the 20 tons of equipment they have flown into Baghdad in recent days, including ground-penetrating radar that can uncover underground facilities and radioactive isotope detectors. This round of searches will employ more advanced technology than inspectors have used in the past. Photographs, for instance, will be taken with digital cameras, allowing images to be sent to experts outside Iraq for their advice while inspectors are still examining a site, Perricos said.
-------- korea
U.N. Body to Urge N.Korea Nuclear Checks - Sources
November 26, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-korea-north-iaea-inspections.html
TOKYO (Reuters) - A U.N. nuclear watchdog will urge North Korea to open its atomic weapons program to inspections, diplomatic sources said on Wednesday, a move that would boost pressure on Pyongyang but could offer it a way out of isolation.
Diplomatic sources in Tokyo said the Board of Governors of the 137-member International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) would issue a statement urging the inspections at its meeting in Vienna on Thursday.
U.S. officials said last month that North Korea admitted it was pursuing a nuclear arms program in violation of a landmark 1994 agreement, putting Pyongyang on a collision course with the world community.
But the sources said an IAEA call for inspections could offer the isolated communist state a face-saving way to compromise.
``This means not only pressure on North Korea but also a message that could make it easier for them to make concessions without losing face,'' one diplomatic source, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters.
Washington has said Pyongyang's uranium enrichment project clearly violated the 1994 pact 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.
Under the accord with Washington, Pyongyang agreed to regular inspections of its nuclear facilities by IAEA experts, but the U.N. nuclear watchdog's verification has yet to begin.
Following Pyongyang's shock admission, the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO), a U.S.-led international consortium in New York, decided earlier this month to suspend fuel oil shipments starting from December.
Analysts have said the freeze on oil shipments could deal a serious blow to North Korea's energy supplies ahead of its severe winter as well as to its munitions industry.
MULTILATERAL APPROACH
The diplomatic source voiced hope that the IAEA's overture would draw a positive response from North Korea in a way that would avert a nuclear crisis.
``We really hope that North Korea would respond positively before the next KEDO meeting set for December 11,'' he said.
``Otherwise, the issue could become even more serious and we may not be able to find a way out.''
A second diplomatic source in Tokyo said approaches by multilateral organizations such as the IAEA could be more effective in convincing the North to scrap its nuclear arms program give that Pyongyang is locked in a stand-off with key countries.
Washington is insisting it will not talk to the communist state before it abandons the nuclear arms program.
Japan resumed talks on establishing diplomatic ties with North Korea last month but the dialogue has stalled due to wide gaps over the key issues of Japanese citizens abducted decades ago and the nuclear arms program.
It is now unclear whether a second round of Japan-North Korea negotiations can be held before the end of the year.
South Korea has pursued a policy of engagement with the North, but that could change if an opposition candidate wins Seoul's December 19 presidential election.
``When it comes to encouraging North Korea to come forward, multilateral bodies are sometimes more effective and useful than individual countries,'' the source said.
A similar call by the IAEA for nuclear site inspections in March 1993, however, prompted a crisis when Pyongyang said it was withdrawing from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
The threatened pullout was only averted after talks with the United States, which eventually led to the 1994 agreement.
EXCUSE FOR STIFFER STANCE?
The source expressed concern that the United States could harden its already stiff stance and stop backing the KEDO projects if North Korea refused to accept nuclear inspections.
``That could give an excuse for America to toughen its stance toward North Korea,'' he said.
The United States has ruled out negotiations with North Korea, which President Bush labelled part of an ``axis of evil'' with Iraq and Iran, until the Stalinist state dismantle the uranium enrichment program.
In Washington on Tuesday, Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly said that it was time for Pyongyang to dismantle its nuclear program, not jockey for new negotiations.
``What we really need to have is action from North Korea rather than negotiations and words,'' Kelly, who oversees Asia and Pacific policy, told Reuters.
-------- u.s. nuc weapons
Teller Honored by Energy Dept. Secretary
November 27, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Teller-Honored.html
LIVERMORE, Calif. (AP) -- Nuclear physicist Edward Teller, who is best known for his role in creating the hydrogen bomb, received the Energy Department's highest honor for his many contributions to science in the 20th century.
In accepting the Secretary's Gold Award on Tuesday, Teller said the next generation of scientists will harness the power of supercomputers to do ``more, much more than I have done.''
``Things can be done that you cannot imagine,'' Teller said. The best minds of science ``will be able to keep up with computers ... and create a new world by the end of this century.''
Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, who presented the award at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, said he was there to recognize the accomplishments of the lab as well as the 94-year-old scientist. ``Both have served this nation well. Livermore for 50 years and Dr. Teller for a little bit longer,'' he said.
Teller, sitting on stage in his wheelchair, his hallmark black cowboy boots offset by a colorful tie patterned after the U.S. flag, raised his hand modestly as the auditorium of lab employees stood to applaud warmly.
``Sixty years of my long life have been devoted to what we are doing and this is cause of whatever pride I have,'' he said.
Frail, hard of hearing and sight, Teller nevertheless delivered a strong homily on the past achievements and future possibilities of science.
Unlocking the secrets of DNA through high-speed modern computers is the wave of the future, he said. ``To understand that, to understand life may be the big thing that is coming in the 21st century,'' he said.
Teller worked on the atomic bomb during World War II at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and later helped found the Livermore lab in California.
It was there that he worked on the H-bomb and also helped usher in the era of supercomputing, Abraham noted.
On the Net:
http://www.llnl.gov
http://www.lbl.gov
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
-------- nevada
Nevada senators seek Yucca Mountain probe
Wednesday, November 27, 2002
By JoAnne Allen, Reuters
http://enn.com/news/wire-stories/2002/11/11272002/reu_49056.asp
WASHINGTON - Nevada's U.S. senators on Wednesday demanded a federal investigation into the treatment of whistle-blowers who have raised questions about quality assurance problems within the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump site project.
Citing safety concerns, Senate Democratic Whip Harry Reid and Republican John Ensign, along with officials from the state, have vehemently opposed the Bush administration's plan to put a permanent nuclear waste repository in the Nevada desert, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
In a letter to the General Accounting Office, Reid and Ensign urged congressional investigators to look into reports of alleged mistreatment of quality assurance contractors who questioned the integrity of the scientific process in the Yucca Mountain project.
A spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Energy had no immediate comment.
The senators cited a recent Las Vegas Review-Journal newspaper report which said two workers were removed from their jobs because they had been aggressive in identifying technical deficiencies in the project.
"Once they came forward and identified defects with the science, they were either terminated or relocated," Reid said and in a joint statement with Ensign. "Apparently, these employees were used as an example: 'Keep your mouth shut or you'll be removed.'"
Ensign added, "We have project workers who are trying to warn the public about the possible dangers at Yucca Mountain. Now it appears that someone at the Department of Energy may be trying to silence those voices."
Reid and Ensign also asked the GAO to investigate claims made in an anonymous whistle-blower letter they received of a significant loss of scientific data that would be needed to make a licensing determination for the project.
The Energy Department won legislative approval in July to apply to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to license the $58 billion Yucca Mountain repository. The facility is scheduled to open in 2010 and hold 77,000 tons of radioactive material that the Environmental Protection Agency says must be isolated for 10,000 years.
U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham contends that $4 billion in studies over the past 20 years have found Yucca Mountain, which would receive shipments of waste from around the country, would be a safe site.
Backers of the project contend it would be safer to have the waste in one place rather than scattered at facilities nationwide.
But Nevada has refused to concede in an ongoing fight to prevent development of the nuclear waste dump and is pursing three legal challenges.
-------- new mexico
Los Alamos nuclear lab warns of radioactive trees
Wednesday, November 27, 2002
By Reuters
http://enn.com/news/wire-stories/2002/11/11272002/reu_49048.asp
LOS ALAMOS, N.M. - Workers trying to thin forests near Los Alamos National Laboratory have been told not to remove trees cut down in certain areas because they might be radioactive, lab officials said Tuesday.
"The lab has identified a few patches in a zone not heavily forested that was surveyed before and after experiments in the 1940s and 1950s," said Jim Danneskiold, a spokesman for the lab in New Mexico where the first atomic bomb was built in 1945. "As a precaution, we've told them (workers) to steer clear of those areas."
The trees are located in Bayo Canyon, a destination about 40 miles northwest of Santa Fe which is popular with horseback riders and hikers. The site, formerly known as Technical Area 10, was used in the 1940s and 1950s as a place where scientists at the nuclear lab studied explosions.
Danneskiold said the area where radioactive contamination has been detected is a one-acre site in Bayo Canyon, where all the trees were blown away during tests on explosives.
That area has been fenced off to both workers and the general public. The lab is warning workers not to remove wood thinned in the 30 surrounding acres as a precaution against possible radioactive contamination.
"There is no risk to recreational users," Danneskiold said.
But not everyone agrees. "Recreational users should be worried. Breathing that dust is not good," said Greg Mello, who heads the Los Alamos Study Group, which monitors lab activity. He contends there are several contaminated sites near the lab.
Hundreds of homes and thousands of acres were burned in May 2000 when fire ravaged the area near Los Alamos and threatened the laboratory.
Since then, forest and county officials have been thinning parts of the pine forest to reduce the risk of fire, said Bill Armstrong, a forester with the U.S. Forest Service.
Trees collected on laboratory property from areas where experiments never occurred are being offered to the public as free firewood, Danneskiold said.
--------
New Mexico Lab Fires Two Whistleblowers
November 27, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Lab-Fraud-Inquiry.html
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) -- Los Alamos National Laboratory has fired two internal investigators after someone delivered their reports alleging widespread theft and fraud at the lab to a national watchdog group.
At least one congressional investigation was already under way Tuesday, a day after Glenn Walp and Steven Doran received identical letters terminating their employment.
Walp and Doran were hired this year to investigate the nuclear research lab's handling of government property and money. They said they uncovered a lack of controls on money and high-tech hardware.
Walp submitted a report to Los Alamos authorities in March that listed 263 desktop or laptop computers as missing since 1999, many of them presumed stolen. In all, about $2.7 million worth of equipment is unaccounted for, according to Walp's reports.
``I think there has been a culture that has been embedded in that environment that is almost conducive to committing a theft,'' he said Tuesday by phone from Santa Fe.
Reporting a desktop computer lost, he wrote, ``is parallel to my spouse telling me she just lost the refrigerator.''
Information on the pair's findings was turned over anonymously to news media and to the Project on Government Oversight, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit watchdog group. Walp and Doran said they were not the source.
Lab spokesman Jim Danneskiold said he couldn't say why Walp and Doran were fired. But he said the lab did not need a reason because both were still in their probationary phase of employment and subject to discretionary dismissal -- as long as the firings were not retaliatory.
``The laboratory's position is that there was no retaliation in these two terminations,'' Danneskiold said.
Both Walp and Doran said Tuesday that they had done nothing wrong and would work with Congress and the FBI to clear up the climate at the lab. Doran blamed lab officials for ``roadblocking'' the investigation with legal maneuvers and said he and Walp had aggressively pushed higher-ups at the lab to do something about the lack of controls on money and high-tech hardware.
``I think there has been a culture that has been embedded in that environment that is almost conducive to committing a theft,'' Walp said Tuesday.
Danneskiold responded: ``I have worked for the lab for 12 years and haven't observed that culture.''
Danneskiold said that the lab, as any institution would, consulted legal counsel when allegations of wrongdoing were uncovered.
``The FBI is forwarded any evidence as soon as it comes to the lab's attention,'' he said, noting that Los Alamos officials have cooperated since the investigation began.
The University of California operates the nuclear weapons laboratory for the Department of Energy.
Rep. Jim Greenwood, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee's investigative arm, said in a telephone interview Tuesday that the subcommittee would probably look into the firings.
In a letter to the University of California earlier this month, the Pennsylvania Republican asked for documents relating to the lab's guidelines for purchasing equipment.
Security at the lab has been under scrutiny since scientist Wen Ho Lee was fired and accused of dozens of lab security violations. Lee pleaded guilty in September 2000 to a single count of using an unsecured computer to download a defense document and a federal judge freed him with an apology.
On The Net:
Los Alamos National Laboratory: http://www.lanl.gov
-------- new york
Indian Point 3 Will Increase Power Output
November 27, 2002
New York Times
By MATTHEW L. WALD
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/27/nyregion/27NUKE.html
WASHINGTON, Nov. 26 - The Nuclear Regulatory Commission gave permission to the Indian Point 3 nuclear reactor today to raise its power output slightly.
The reactor will be allowed to increase its output 1.4 percent, to produce 1,041 megawatts of power. When it was sold in 2000 by the New York Power Authority to its current owner, the Entergy Corporation, it was rated at 1,027 megawatts; when it entered commercial service in 1976, it was rated at 965 megawatts.
The reactor and its near-twin, Indian Point 2, have been the subject of intense opposition since the attacks of Sept. 11 from people who say the plants would be attractive targets for terrorists. But the commission said that it had published a notice of the proposed change in the Federal Register in July, and had received no public comments in response.
The plant will use its existing systems to produce more steam and thus more electricity. The commission said in July that the operators had installed more accurate equipment to measure the amount of power being produced in the nuclear core, and could thus run the reactor at a higher level without fear of exceeding the ability of the emergency core cooling system and other equipment to handle any problems.
The change will not decrease the margin of safety or increase the consequences of an accident, the commission said. The operators plan to begin producing more power in mid-December, the agency said.
-------- us politics
Bush Names Kissinger to Lead 9/11 Probe
By JENNIFER LOVEN
Associated Press Writer
Nov 27, 2002
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/B/BUSH?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
Kissinger says he won't be afraid to tread on the toes of America's allies. (Audio) http://customwire.ap.org/audio/20021127112814-230.ra
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush named former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger on Wednesday to lead an independent investigation of the Sept. 11 attacks and said the probe "must uncover every detail and learn every lesson" of the terrorist strikes.
Kissinger pledged to "go where the facts lead us."
"We are under no restrictions, and we will accept no restrictions," Kissinger told reporters at the White House.
Kissinger, 79, will lead an investigative commission created under a bill Bush signed authorizing intelligence activities in the 2003 budget year.
"This commission will help me and future presidents to understand the methods of America's enemies and the nature of the threats we face," Bush said at a White House ceremony with lawmakers, survivors and victims' families.
"This investigation should carefully examine all the evidence and follow all the facts wherever they lead," said Bush, who was initially cool toward creating an independent commission. "We must uncover every detail and learn every lesson of September the 11th."
Kissinger spoke briefly to family members before talking with reporters after the ceremony. "To the families concerned, there's nothing that can be done about the losses they've suffered, but everything must be done to avoid that such a tragedy can occur again."
Kissinger is one of the best known diplomats of the 20th century, but also a controversial figure.
He was secretary of state to Presidents Richard M. Nixon and Gerald R. Ford. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973 with North Vietnam's Le Duc Tho for cease-fire negotiations during the Vietnam war. Kissinger also made a determined peacemaking effort in the Middle East and made repeated trips to the region. But he has also been called a war criminal by his harshest critics, for the role he played in Vietnam and other hot spots, working at times with corrupt governments in pursuit of U.S. interests.
The commission has a broad mandate, building on the limited joint inquiry conducted by the House and Senate intelligence committees. The independent panel will have 18 months to examine issues such as aviation security and border problems, along with intelligence.
Bush called on members to report back more quickly than 18 months, saying the nation needed to know quickly how it can avoid terror attacks in the future.
However, Bush did not set as a primary goal for Kissinger to uncover mistakes or lapses of the government that could have prevented the Sept. 11 attacks. Instead, he said the panel should try to help the administration learn the tactics and motives of the enemy.
"This commission is not only important for this administration, this commission will be important for future administrations until the world is secure from the evildoers that hate what we stand for," Bush said. He pledged his administration will "continue to act on the lessons we've learned so far to better protect the people of this country. It's our most solemn duty."
It was Bush's third major bill-signing in as many days and served as a holiday send-off for the president, who was leaving immediately afterward to spend the long Thanksgiving weekend at his Crawford, Texas, ranch.
Like the Homeland Security Department, the independent commission was an idea to which Bush's support came late.
The White House held that only Congress should investigate, arguing that an independent probe could distract administration officials from anti-terrorism efforts and produce leaks that could compromise intelligence operations. The change of heart came in September, as family members of Sept. 11 victims applied pressure and congressional hearings began to uncover intelligence and law enforcement failures.
The White House had concerns about the leadership and subpoena powers of the panel. Bush insisted only a bipartisan group should be able to compel testimony and documents, fearing that one-party subpoenas would lead to ineffective finger-pointing and allow the panel to be used merely to score political points.
The 10-member commission will be evenly divided between Republican and Democratic appointees.
White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said Bush does not envision testifying before the panel.
But Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., a leading advocate of the commission, said it is likely Bush will be asked to address the panel.
In addition to serving as secretary of state, Kissinger also was national security adviser for Nixon and Ford from 1969-75. He made history in July 1971 when he made a secret trip to China, ending a Sino-American estrangement that had lasted for more than two decades.
He is the only secretary of state to have held down the job of national security adviser at the same time. He served in both posts from October 1973 to October 1975, when he left the NSC while retaining his role as secretary of state.
Kissinger also is well known for his efforts to achieve detente with the Soviet Union. The idea was to strengthen trade and economic ties with Moscow, giving the Soviets a stake in stable relations and perhaps taming Moscow's expansionist ambitions. The policy had mixed results.
----
The Latest Kissinger Outrage
Why is a proven liar and wanted man in charge of the 9/11 investigation?
By Christopher Hitchens
Wednesday, November 27, 2002
Slate Magazine
http://slate.msn.com/?id=2074678
The Bush administration has been saying in public for several months that it does not desire an independent inquiry into the gross "failures of intelligence" that left U.S. society defenseless 14 months ago. By announcing that Henry Kissinger will be chairing the inquiry that it did not want, the president has now made the same point in a different way. But the cynicism of the decision and the gross insult to democracy and to the families of the victims that it represents has to be analyzed to be believed.
1) We already know quite a lot, thanks all the same, about who was behind the attacks. Most notable in incubating al-Qaida were the rotten client-state regimes of the Saudi Arabian oligarchy and the Pakistani military and police elite. Henry Kissinger is now, and always has been, an errand boy and apologist for such regimes.
2) When in office, Henry Kissinger organized massive deceptions of Congress and public opinion. The most notorious case concerned the "secret bombing" of Cambodia and Laos, and the unleashing of unconstitutional methods by Nixon and Kissinger to repress dissent from this illegal and atrocious policy. But Sen. Frank Church's commission of inquiry into the abuses of U.S. intelligence, which focused on illegal assassinations and the subversion of democratic governments overseas, was given incomplete and misleading information by Kissinger, especially on the matter of Chile. Rep. Otis Pike's parallel inquiry in the House (which brought to light Kissinger's personal role in the not-insignificant matter of the betrayal of the Iraqi Kurds, among other offenses) was thwarted by Kissinger at every turn, and its eventual findings were classified. In other words, the new "commission" will be chaired by a man with a long, proven record of concealing evidence and of lying to Congress, the press, and the public.
3) In his second career as an obfuscator and a falsifier, Kissinger appropriated the records of his time at the State Department and took them on a truck to the Rockefeller family estate in New York. He has since been successfully sued for the return of much of this public property, but meanwhile he produced, for profit, three volumes of memoirs that purported to give a full account of his tenure. In several crucial instances, such as his rendering of U.S. diplomacy with China over Vietnam, with apartheid South Africa over Angola, and with Indonesia over the invasion of East Timor (to cite only some of the most conspicuous), declassified documents have since shown him to be a bald-faced liar. Does he deserve a third try at presenting a truthful record, after being caught twice as a fabricator? And on such a grave matter as this?
4) Kissinger's "consulting" firm, Kissinger Associates, is a privately held concern that does not publish a client list and that compels its clients to sign confidentiality agreements. Nonetheless, it has been established that Kissinger's business dealings with, say, the Chinese Communist leadership have closely matched his public pronouncements on such things as the massacre of Chinese students. Given the strong ties between himself, his partners Lawrence Eagleburger and Brent Scowcroft, and the oil oligarchies of the Gulf, it must be time for at least a full disclosure of his interests in the region. This thought does not seem to have occurred to the president or to the other friends of Prince Bandar and Prince Bandar's wife, who helped in the evacuation of the Bin Laden family from American soil, without an interrogation, in the week after Sept. 11.
5) On Memorial Day 2001, Kissinger was visited by the police in the Ritz Hotel in Paris and handed a warrant, issued by Judge Roger LeLoire, requesting his testimony in the matter of disappeared French citizens in Pinochet's Chile. Kissinger chose to leave town rather than appear at the Palais de Justice as requested. He has since been summoned as a witness by senior magistrates in Chile and Argentina who are investigating the international terrorist network that went under the name "Operation Condor" and that conducted assassinations, kidnappings, and bombings in several countries. The most spectacular such incident occurred in rush-hour traffic in downtown Washington, D.C., in September 1976, killing a senior Chilean dissident and his American companion. Until recently, this was the worst incident of externally sponsored criminal violence conducted on American soil. The order for the attack was given by Gen. Augusto Pinochet, who has been vigorously defended from prosecution by Henry Kissinger.
Moreover, on Sept. 10, 2001, a civil suit was filed in a Washington, D.C., federal court, charging Kissinger with murder. The suit, brought by the survivors of Gen. Rene Schneider of Chile, asserts that Kissinger gave the order for the elimination of this constitutional officer of a democratic country because he refused to endorse plans for a military coup. Every single document in the prosecution case is a U.S.-government declassified paper. And the target of this devastating lawsuit is being invited to review the shortcomings of the "intelligence community"?
In late 2001, the Brazilian government canceled an invitation for Kissinger to speak in Sao Paulo because it could no longer guarantee his immunity. Earlier this year, a London court agreed to hear an application for Kissinger's imprisonment on war crimes charges while he was briefly in the United Kingdom. It is known that there are many countries to which he cannot travel at all, and it is also known that he takes legal advice before traveling anywhere. Does the Bush administration feel proud of appointing a man who is wanted in so many places, and wanted furthermore for his association with terrorism and crimes against humanity? Or does it hope to limit the scope of the inquiry to those areas where Kissinger has clients?
There is a tendency, some of it paranoid and disreputable, for the citizens of other countries and cultures to regard President Bush's "war on terror" as opportunist and even as contrived. I myself don't take any stock in such propaganda. But can Congress and the media be expected to swallow the appointment of a proven coverup artist, a discredited historian, a busted liar, and a man who is wanted in many jurisdictions for the vilest of offenses? The shame of this, and the open contempt for the families of our victims, ought to be the cause of a storm of protest.
----
Terrorism insurance bill signed into law
By Joseph Curl
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
November 27, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20021127-398178.htm
President Bush yesterday signed legislation that guarantees insurance companies up to $100 billion in federal reimbursements after any future terrorist attacks, a move he said would jump-start $15 billion in construction projects nationwide.
"Today we're taking action to strengthen America's economy, to build confidence with America's investors and to create jobs for America's workers," said the president, flanked by six construction workers in jeans and boots at a White House signing ceremony.
"Should terrorists strike again, we have a system in place to address financial losses and get our economy back on its feet as quickly as possible," he said.
The measure, called the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act, guarantees the federal funds for insurance companies in the three-year aftermath of an attack. The law, which critics called a taxpayer-financed gift to insurance companies, requires insurance companies to offer terrorism coverage.
The September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon cost as much as $50 billion in insurance claims, prompting insurance companies to balk at offering terrorism coverage in new policies. That reluctance, Mr. Bush said, has delayed more than $15 billion in construction and real estate transactions.
"It will give people the comfort they need to go ahead with large building projects," said Larry Mirel, D.C. Department of Insurance and Securities Regulation commissioner. "The market was beginning to adjust before the legislation, but it's going to be a lot easier with the legislation in place."
But Sen. Phil Gramm, Texas Republican, and some Democrats fought the bill on the grounds it overexposed taxpayers to losses, discouraged development of a private terrorism insurance market and did nothing about punitive damage awards against those hit by terrorism.
The Consumer Federation of America said the new law makes taxpayers liable for billions of dollars in losses that the insurance industry could easily afford. It also disputed reports of construction delays due to insurance worries, saying that for "all but the highest risks, such as skyscrapers, rates are falling and banks are lending freely."
"It is shocking that Congress and the president accepted the wild claims made by insurance and real estate lobbyists at face value," said J. Robert Hunter, the group's director of insurance.
Under the new law, the government could aid the industry on terrorism-related claims that surpassed $5 million. Insurance companies would pay deductibles ranging from 7 percent to 15 percent of the premiums they received the previous year. The federal government would then cover 90 percent of everything above the deductible with the companies paying the other 10 percent.
The program would be capped at $100 billion over three years.
During dozens of campaign stops over the past few months, Mr. Bush, who received significant campaign contributions from the insurance industry in 2000, hammered Senate Democrats for holding up the legislation. Days after Republicans retook the Senate, Democrats relented and the bill passed with strong bipartisan support.
While Mr. Bush bowed to Democratic demands for unlimited punitive damages in civil lawsuits stemming from terror attacks, a provision many Republicans consider a boon to trial lawyers usually allied with Democrats, he said the new law will discourage "abusive lawsuits."
"Civil cases resulting from a terrorist attack will be combined in a single federal court. Lawyers will be prevented from shopping for courts with a reputation for outrageous awards," he said.
"It's important for our taxpayers to understand that taxpayer dollars will not be used to pay punitive damages."
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce supports the new law, saying it will improve the legal rights of plaintiffs and defendants, as well as help American workers and the economy.
Carl G. Stoecklin, president of the National Association of Professional Insurance Agents, agreed.
"The lack of available, affordable terrorism insurance has adversely affected many of our members whose clients need this coverage. This temporary backstop will provide the market stability necessary for carriers to again offer this coverage without seriously jeopardizing their solvency," he said.
• Tom Ramstack contributed to this report.
-------- MILITARY
-------- arms sales
Dogfight Over the F/A-22
By William M. Arkin,
Special to washingtonpost.com
Wednesday, November 27, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A45246-2002Nov27?language=printer
The Air Force announced last week that it was shaking up the management team for the F/A-22 Raptor, the new super-fighter jet now in development. Two new generals and a new Lockheed-Martin executive were put in charge. Typically for a mammoth Pentagon weapons program, the word only later dribbled out that the F/A-22 was over budget, behind schedule, and under assault from Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's office.
Now comes the real war.
Rumsfeld, looking at some $25 billion of the taxpayer's dollars already spent on research and development, is likely to order a reduction in the number of planes to be purchased. The Air Force wants to procure at a minimum 295 F-22 fighters; Rumsfeld's office is floating a proposal to buy less than 200.
Although Rumsfeld lives and breathes the language of military "transformation," there is little chance that he will cancel the F/A-22 program outright. For all of the Rumsfeld's rhetoric about shaking up the Pentagon, a troubled and expensive program conceived during the Cold War will remain in place. Rumsfeld was bolder when he cancelled the Army's dubious Crusader artillery gun earlier this year. So what is the reason for his timidity now? The F/A-22 is the Holy Grail of the so-called "fighter mafia" in the upper ranks of the Air Force. The Secretary may exude decisiveness and abuse the uniformed leadership and even occasionally make an unpopular decision. But again and again he has proven unwilling to make the toughest decisions or to back up his own staff when going toe to toe with the armed services.
Disparaging the F/A-22 is sure to get me cut from the Air Force's Christmas card list. But I want to make one clear: I've never been in the ranks of the F/A-22 haters. I have come to see that the plane sucks up money that might otherwise be used to leapfrog to a next generation of technology. It also promotes the notion in the Army and Marine Corps that the Air Force doesn't really care about them, and that the precision weapons revolution isn't for real.
There is no question that the F/A-22 will be the best fighter the world has ever seen. Originally known as the plain old F-22, it was designed as "air superiority" fighter. It was renamed the F/A-22 only after September 11, and as the plane started to run into flak at the Pentagon, to emphasize the addition of air-to-ground functions. Given the enemies that the United States is likely to face in the next 20 years, America doesn't need a fighter that is both the best dog fighter in existence and one that is such an expensive (though limited) bomber.
In a time of perpetual war on terrorism and with scores of cheaper alternatives in the form of heavy bombers and long-range smart weapons, the F/A-22's ability to stealthily attack the toughest air defenses on the ground is extravagant. The Air Force should focus instead on improving and extending the life of its current F-15 and F-16 fleet of fighters, and prepare to purchase a much larger number of F-35 Joint Strike Fighters, which were designed for ground attack. This solution won't put the triple somersaulting F/A-22 in the air by 2005, but the United States just doesn't need the acrobatics.
"The fact is, we're at too critical a stage of this program to accept anything less than absolutely stellar performance, and we're holding people accountable," Air Force spokesman William Bodie said last week about the $690 million unanticipated Raptor overrun.
It is admirable that the Air Force is holding people accountable. But it is the concepts behind the fighter that have as much gotten it into trouble. F/A-22 proponents argue that enemies will be dissuaded from even attempting to compete with the United States in the arena of aerial dog fighting if it is purchased. They say that for the first time the United States will have the ability to put stealth jets in the air 24 hours a day, seven days a week. They stress the plane will be able to cruise faster than the speed of sound for longer periods of time and will be able to bomb heavily defended ground targets.
The Air Force "Transformation Flight Plan" asserts: "Most U.S. tacair [tactical aircraft] is vulnerable to rapidly improving enemy [air defenses] and cannot achieve air superiority in most well defended areas in [the] future." But whose integrated air defenses are we talking about?
The fact is that United States (and Israel) pilots flying the venerable F-15 have a perfect unbeaten record against enemy fighters. There really isn't much difference between the Mach 1.6 speed of the F/A-22 and the Mach 1.4 that the F-35 will attain. And is there any conceivable military scenario in which the United States' current nighttime stealth capabilities, plus cruise missiles, plus new satellite-guided weapons, wouldn't be good enough to prevail? If the answer is China, then we are building the wrong military anyhow.
The Air Force is also making other arguments. Perhaps the most compelling is contained in its October 21 "Paths to the Future" briefing, which decries the age of the overall U.S. aircraft fleet. According to the briefing, though the objective of average U.S. fighter jet is 12.5 years old, Air Force planes currently average 15 years in age.
But this is the territory of lies, damn lies, and statistics. The brief posits that the only way that the Air Force can achieve its goals for reducing the average age of its fleet (to 12.2 years by 2030) is to purchase 762 F-22's. This argument depends on a bit of sleight of hand. Up to now, the assumption has been that the Air Force would buy more than 1,700 F-35's. By quietly assuming it will only buy 956 F-35's, the Air Force makes the purchase of more F/A-22s seem more urgent than it really is.
On the issue of fleet age, one retired Air Force senior officer said, "I guess it's an argument."
"But if you really want to do something about your average airframe age, start buying block 60 F-16's [a new production more capable model of the aircraft] tomorrow. Trying to fix the problem with a high-end fighter is kind of crazy. It prices the Air Force out of existence."
And why do we continue to make believe that a silver bullet airplane will win wars rather than the proven combination of intelligence, air surveillance, networks, and tactics? The whole concept of defense "transformation" that Rumsfeld expounds recognizes it isn't hardware that is decisive but operational concepts, training, organization, culture, and experience.
Sure some F-22's will be purchased because the production line is already open, and so much has already been invested. But the best decision Rumsfeld could make now is indeed limit the number of planes that America will buy, and order the Air Force to upgrade and extend the life of its F-15's, renew the F-16, and plan to buy lots of F-35's when they are ready. By not sucking up even more money, more emphasis could then be placed on unmanned systems and new weapons to defeat better air defenses in the future.
About the Author
• William M. Arkin, the author of ten books and numerous studies on military affairs, is a consultant to numerous organizations, and a frequent television and radio commentator. He was an Army intelligence analyst during the 1970's, a nuclear weapons expert during the Cold War, and pioneered on-the-ground study of the effects of military operations in Iraq and Yugoslavia. In 1994, his "The U.S. Military Online: A Directory for Internet Access to the Department of Defense" was published. His Dot.Mil column, launched in November 1998, appears every other Monday on washingtonpost.com. E-mail Arkin at william.arkin@wpni.com.
-------- business
Figuring the Costs of War
By Robert J. Samuelson
Wednesday, November 27, 2002
Washington Post; Page A17
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A43774-2002Nov26?language=printer
It is Feb. 7, 2003, just after U.S. troops have seized several Iraqi airfields to be used as staging areas. Suddenly, Scud missiles -- armed with both chemical and conventional warheads -- strike the airfields. Hundreds of Americans die. The U.S. battle plan is thrown into disarray. The Iraqis (it turns out) meekly abandoned their airfields with little resistance precisely to make them easy targets.
We don't know if there will be a war or, as this imagined story suggests, how it might unfold. But the fact that we don't know overhangs the economy. It weighs on confidence. Companies hesitate to make commitments. The uncertainties can't be dispelled by low interest rates or lofty reassurances. At a recent congressional hearing, Democratic Rep. Pete Stark quizzed Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan.
Stark: [President Bush has] an obsession, it appears, to plunge us into war. [On] the assumption that we will be there one or two years and [spend] $100 billion [or] $130 billion a year . . . what effect would this have on our economy?
Greenspan: The numbers you quote are clearly very much on the high side. . . . I would be very doubtful if the impact on the economy is more than modest, largely because this is not Vietnam or Korea. Korea . . . had a really monumental effect, because the economy was so much smaller.
Well, maybe. Since 1950, the economy's gross domestic product has grown from $1.7 trillion to $9.2 trillion in 2001 (figures in inflation-adjusted 1996 dollars). A war would probably last some months, and the Congressional Budget Office estimates the costs to the federal budget at $6 billion to $13 billion a month: not crushing for so wealthy a society. But the true economics are murkier. What happens to oil prices? Might war trigger a recession? Would a swift victory revive confidence? Because no one knows, "scenario building'' -- the next best alternative -- is now in vogue.
Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington reports the following: Saddam Hussein's army totals about 375,000 men; his air force has 316 planes, maybe half operational; the air defenses are extensive; weapons of mass destruction are unknown. For a CSIS conference, Cordesman provided three war scenarios, and economists judged the consequences.
The "benign case" anticipates rapid victory. Much of Hussein's army surrenders or defects. Because uncertainty lifts, the economy fares better than under a "no war" scenario. The temporary loss of Iraqi oil is no big deal. Iraq's production now represents about 2 percent to 2.5 percent of world oil use. Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf suppliers offset the loss. Their surplus capacity is about 6 percent of global oil consumption, says analyst Adam Sieminski of Deutsche Bank. The United States might also release oil from strategic reserves.
By contrast, Cordesman's other scenarios -- though deemed less probable -- are scarier. In the "intermediate case," fighting lasts up to three months. Iraqi attacks slightly damage other Gulf oilfields. Oil prices, now about $25 a barrel, hit $42 by early 2003. In the worst case, Iraq badly damages other oilfields. Production drops by at least 5 million barrels a day, out of a total global consumption of 77 million barrels a day. Oil prices hit $80 a barrel. Intense urban fighting incites the U.S. antiwar movement. Social unrest spreads in the Middle East. In the intermediate case, unemployment (now 5.7 percent) reaches almost 6.5 percent by late 2003. In the worst case, it goes to 7.5 percent.
Another dark assessment comes from Yale economist William Nordhaus, writing in the New York Review of Books. He says that a worst case (including a long-term occupation and reconstruction of Iraq) could cost $1.6 trillion over a decade. Only about half this total would be federal budget costs; the rest would reflect slightly higher oil prices and slower economic growth. "It seems likely," he says, "that Americans are underestimating the economic commitment involved in a war." (One omission in his math: In the next decade, U.S. GDP should exceed $100 trillion; even his cost is less than 2 percent of the national income.) Life after major wars is not like life before them. They change -- for better or worse -- the political, economic and psychological landscape in basic ways. A quick and successful war against Iraq might transform the Middle East by empowering Arab moderates. A long and messy war might destabilize the region and, by showing that U.S. power is exaggerated, abet terrorism, tensions and conflicts around the world. Pax Americana would recede; a power vacuum would develop.
The wisdom of war depends on the answers to these questions and one other: What's the alternative? If it's peace and prosperity, then war makes no sense. But if fighting now prevents a costlier war later, it makes much sense. To be blunt: If Saddam Hussein gets nuclear weapons and threatens his neighbors (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait) or drops one on Tel Aviv, prompting Israeli retaliation, we'll face a horrendous war.
The economy's fate ultimately hinges on these issues. It's unsatisfying to say that they are a matter of judgment and that we don't know and, probably, can't know the answers. But that is what candor compels.
-------- colombia
Rebel attacks on pipelines weakening state oil company
Wednesday, November 27, 2002
By Javier Baena,
Associated Press
http://enn.com/news/wire-stories/2002/11/11272002/ap_49059.asp
BOGOTA, Colombia - Leftist rebels have dynamited Colombia's oil pipelines 123 times this year, Colombia's state oil company Ecopetrol said Tuesday.
The resulting spills dumped almost three times the amount of oil spilled by the Exxon Valdez off the coast of Alaska in 1989.
The company lost US$7.2 million as a result of the 691,000 barrels spilled. Continued violence and declining production of crude oil will force Ecopetrol to lay off 1,250 workers over the next three years, said company president Isaac Yanovich at a news conference.
Attacks are actually down from last year, when rebels dynamited the pipelines 276 times. But investors continue to shy away from the violence-ridden nation, leading to the layoffs and plans to freeze general operating expenses at Ecopetrol next year.
Colombia signed 28 oil exploration contracts with oil companies in 2001. This year, it appears there will be just 17 contracts, Yanovich said.
The layoffs at Ecopetrol, which employs 7,400 workers, will begin next year, he said.
Oil products are Colombia's primary legal export, accounting for about 25 percent of total revenues.
The rebels are waging a 38-year civil war against the government and illegal right-wing militias. The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, and the National Liberation Army, or ELN, have frequently attacked the Cano Limon, the country's second-largest pipeline.
The United States is preparing to train an elite military unit to protect the Cano Limon, which carries oil for Los Angeles-based Occidental Petroleum, from rebel attacks. Colombia produces 590,000 barrels of oil a day, despite the frequent attacks on pipelines.
--------
Court Throws Out Colombian Army's Emergency Powers
November 27, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-colombia-emergency.html
BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) - A court in war-torn Colombia has hamstrung the government's tough new security measures, ruling the military cannot tap phones, make arrests or raid homes without warrants.
In a decision announced late Tuesday, the Constitutional Court threw out many of the powers that President Alvaro Uribe gave to the U.S.-backed military in special ``war zones'' set up under the state of emergency he declared in August. Advertisement Click Here
Uribe was elected in May promising to get tough with leftist guerrillas and far-right paramilitaries who are fighting in a cocaine-fueled war which claims thousands of lives a year and which has dragged on for 38 years.
Less than a week after taking office in August, Uribe declared a 90-day state of emergency, which was later extended. Using these emergency powers, he decreed ``war zones'' in two relatively small but very violent rural areas, each with heavy guerrilla presences, freeing the military of the need to seek approval from judges when carrying out arrests and raids.
Human rights groups said the new powers opened the door to arbitrary detentions and harassment, but polls showed war-weary Colombians, millions of whom live in areas where rebels or paramilitaries lord it over civilians, overwhelmingly in favor.
``For the military to be able to act as judicial police, there has to be a constitutional reform,'' the court's president, Marco Gerardo Monroy, told reporters.
The government was planning permanent legislation to make permanent the military's emergency powers.
The powers were at the heart of a security strategy that also included setting up a network of secret civilian informants throughout the country, which the government hoped would enable the overstretched military to respond more quickly to threats from illegal fighters roaming Colombia's rugged countryside.
Many of the emergency war zone measures remained in place. The army could still stop vehicles and pedestrians to check identities and declare curfews in the war zones.
RESTRICTIONS ON FOREIGN REPORTERS UNCONSTITUTIONAL
The court also overturned the government's decision to make foreign reporters seek permission every time they entered one of the war zones, saying it violated the constitutional guarantee of freedom of the press.
Uribe is an enthusiastic ally of the United States, which has provided almost $2 billion in mainly military aid to Colombia in the past few years, directed mainly against the cocaine trade.
The government, which had several times pointedly reminded the constitutional court of the size of its electoral mandate and warned it not to get in the way of security policies, said it had not been officially informed of the ruling.
The army has used its new powers to make mass roundups of suspects, carrying out identity checks and making dozens of arrests in Arauca, a steamy city in eastern Colombia near an oil pipeline which is a constant target of guerrilla bombings.
The court, which threw out emergency security laws passed by the government of former President Ernesto Samper in the 1990s, also told the government to reissue the decree creating the war zones, because the way it was drawn up was faulty. But this ruling should not have much practical effect.
-------- india
U.S. Wants to Move Fast on Sensors for India Border
November 27, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-arms-india-usa.html
CALCUTTA, India (Reuters) - The United States will act fast on India's request for sensors to warn of infiltration across the border with Pakistan, U.S. ambassador Robert Blackwill said Wednesday.
He said Washington would also provide New Delhi with more weapons-locating radars.
Electronic sensors can detect human movement and Indian officials say they may be placed on India's volatile frontier with Pakistan in Kashmir to check incursions by Islamic rebels.
``The Pentagon is expeditiously processing the Indian army's request for significant Special Forces equipment and border sensors,'' Blackwill said in a speech to business executives in the eastern Indian city of Calcutta.
He did not give details.
Nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan were on the brink of war in May and June this year over New Delhi's allegations that Islamabad was fueling a bloody revolt against its rule in Kashmir, a charge Islamabad denies.
The tensions have since eased.
Blackwill also said India would be leasing more weapons-locating radar sets in addition to those New Delhi had already agreed to buy.
U.S. officials said earlier this month both nations had made headway in the transfer of eight of the radars under a deal signed earlier this year.
That deal was the first weapons sale by Washington to New Delhi since the United States lifted sanctions imposed after India conducted nuclear tests in 1998.
Indo-U.S. ties have warmed considerably in the past few years, especially after the September 11 attacks when India was quick to back the U.S.-led war on terrorism.
-------- israel / palestine
Israel seeks military aid increase
From combined dispatches
November 27, 2002
Washington Times
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20021127-15818954.htm
Israel is asking the Bush administration for about $4 billion in new military aid and $8 billion to $10 billion in loan guarantees to bolster its economy, a U.S. official said yesterday.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's chief of staff, Dov Weisglass, and the director general of Israel's finance ministry, Ohad Marani, made the request at a meeting Monday with National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice.
"They described the economic impact on Israel of the ongoing war on terrorism as well as the impact of continuing uncertainty in the region," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said. "In this context, the officials indicated that Israel is preparing a proposal for assistance."
The Israeli Embassy declined to disclose how much help was requested, but said the Israelis were promised a prompt reply. An administration official provided the price tag on the condition of anonymity.
Mr. Marani presented an account of the economic situation in Israel and he and Mr. Weisglass had a detailed discussion with Miss Rice, the embassy said in a statement.
A 26-month war with Palestinian terrorists has strained Israel's defense budget while the violence has sharply reduced foreign investment and tourism.
Israel is the largest recipient of U.S. loans and grants, receiving about $2.9 billion annually.
The State Department said last week it would ask Congress for $2.16 billion in military aid for Israel for fiscal 2004, which begins next September. That is an increase of $120 million from a request for $2.04 billion for this year.
Israel relies on guarantees, which effectively make the U.S. government the "co-signer" on the loans, to borrow at lower interest rates. There is no cost to the United States if the loans are repaid, and Israel never has defaulted on a loan.
Israel's role, if any, in a U.S. war with Iraq is not clear. Mr. Sharon has said Israel reserves the right to respond if attacked. In the 1991 Persian Gulf war, even while under Iraqi missile fire, Israel complied with U.S. requests and did not respond in order to keep other Arabs in the American-led coalition against Iraq.
Preparations for a war are contributing to Israel's military expenses, but officials denied that military and economic assistance would be tied to Israeli cooperation in any war with Iraq.
"This is not directly related to compensation in the event of attack," Mr. Fleischer said.
Any aid package would be subject to congressional approval, which could come early next year.
The Bush administration is also assembling a military and economic aid package to help Turkey weather major economic disruptions if war with Baghdad breaks out, according to administration and congressional sources.
The congressional sources said Mr. Bush is considering an initial $700 million to $800 million package, which, in addition to economic assistance, could clear the way for Turkey to purchase eight S-70B Seahawk and six UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters. Over the next five years, bilateral aid could amount to several billion dollars.
Tourism and trade in mainly Muslim Turkey could be hurt if hostilities break out, strangling economic recovery and adding to the country's huge debt burden, which a $16 billion International Monetary Fund pact is supposed to reduce.
----
Israeli and Palestinian doves meet
By Joshua Brilliant
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
November 27, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20021127-054125-2093r.htm
TEL AVIV, Israel, Nov. 27 (UPI) -- The speakers of the Israeli Knesset and Palestinian Legislative Council met in Jerusalem Wednesday amid signs that moderate Palestinian politicians are seeking to help Israeli doves in the national election campaign.
"We must continue with negotiations and the peace process as if there is no violence, and we must stop violence and terror and fight them as if there is no peace process," declared Palestinian Speaker Ahmad Qurei after the talks.
An almost identical sentiment had been expressed by the Israeli Labor Party's new leader, Amram Mitzna, earlier in the week. "We will continue to fight terrorism like there are no negotiations and continue to negotiate like there is no terrorism," Mitzna said.
Knesset Speaker Avraham Burg, who belongs to Miztna's Labor Party and took part in the talks, remarked: "The only place we can present our misunderstandings and disagreements is around the table, not around funerals."
The two apparently reached no agreements and Qurei, also known by his nom de guerre Abu Ala, said the Palestinian Authority "is unable to stop suicide bombings 100 percent. We are under occupation. We cannot achieve peace with military power on our land."
But the meeting was seen by analysts a further indication that moderate Palestinians were rallying to support Israel's dovish Labor Party in the January elections.
The top Palestine Liberation Organization official in Jerusalem, Sari Nusseibeh, wrote this week that another victory for the right wing Likud Party would mean Israeli - Palestinian peace negotiations -- stalled by the violence of the intifada -- would be tougher. The Israeli floating vote will determine the results, and this uncommitted constituency had to be influenced.
Mamduh Nofal, a former militant commander, called on Mitzna for immediate help. A declaration on a cession of attacks on civilians boost the Israeli peace camp forward, he was quoted as saying.
Polls in Israel this week, however, suggested the right-wing Likud Party was headed for another election victory led by the current prime minister, Ariel Sharon. However, in the usual pattern of Israeli elections Sharon would be forced to form a coalition.
One possibility Sharon has mentioned in campaign speeches is a return to the government of national unity with the Labor Party. Elections loomed in Israel last month when Labor withdrew its support from the Sharon government.
Meanwhile, Mitzna has warned the Palestinians talk alone will not have an impact on the Israeli voter. "Don't just talk," Mitzna urged the Palestinian leadership Monday. "Do something to gain back the confidence of the Israeli people that there is someone to talk to on the other side."
Likud members have criticized the Labor moderates for talking to the Palestinians. Likud minister Danny Naveh slammed the Burg-Abu Ala meeting. "What more has to happen for this camp (of doves) ... to understand that after they brought here (Palestinian leader Yasser) Arafat and his terrorist gang from Tunisia we, in the past two years have been reaping murder and blood in Israel's streets (and) that there is no one to talk to? This leadership that came with Arafat from Tunisia cannot be a partner for peace."
Israel agreed to allow Arafat to establish the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Gaza as part of the Oslo Accord.
But, Naveh said, "the only way to reach a political dialogue is (to first) beat this terror in a military fashion."
----
Israel Asks U.S. for an Increase of $4 Billion in Military Aid
November 27, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/27/international/middleeast/27ISRA.html
WASHINGTON, Nov. 26 (AP) - Israel is asking the Bush administration for about $4 billion in new military aid and $8 billion to $10 billion in loan guarantees to bolster its economy, a government official said today.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's chief of staff, Dov Weisglass, and the director general of Israel's finance ministry, Ohad Marani, made the request at a meeting on Monday with Condoleezza Rice, President Bush's national security adviser.
The Israeli Embassy declined to disclose how much help was requested, but said the Israelis were promised a prompt reply. An administration official provided the figures.
Mr. Marani presented an account of the economic situation in Israel, and he and Mr. Weisglass had a detailed discussion with Ms. Rice, the embassy said in a statement.
A 26-month conflict with the Palestinians has strained Israel's defense budget, while the violence has sharply reduced foreign investment and tourism.
Israel is the largest recipient of United States loans and grants, amounting to $2.9 billion this fiscal year.
The State Department said last week it would ask Congress for $2.16 billion in military aid for Israel for fiscal year 2004, which begins next September. That is an increase of $120 million from a request for $2.04 billion for this year.
Israel relies on loan guarantees to borrow at lower interest rates. There is no cost to the United States if the loans are repaid, and Israel never has defaulted on a loan.
Israel's role, if any, in a United States war with Iraq is not clear.
Mr. Sharon has said Israel reserves the right to respond if attacked. In the Persian Gulf war, in 1991, while under Iraqi missile fire, Israel complied with United States requests and did not respond.
In any event, preparations for a possible war are contributing to Israel's military expenses.
-------- mideast
US ultimatum to Saudi leaders, 'do it, or we will'
November 27 2002
By Douglas Farah
Washington Post
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/11/26/1038274301779.html
A US National Security Council taskforce is recommending a plan to President George Bush designed to force Saudi Arabia to crack down on terrorist financiers within 90 days or face unilateral US action to bring the suspects to justice.
Senior United States officials said yesterday that the interagency plan was devised before the recent furore over allegations of Saudi involvement in the financing of terrorism.
It comes amid growing concern among some congressional leaders and US allies that the government has been unwilling to press Saudi Arabia for action for fear of alienating a key Arab ally as possible war looms with Iraq.
The officials would not say what unilateral US action might entail. But they said the US would first present the Saudis with intelligence and evidence against individuals and businesses suspected of financing al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, coupled with a demand that they be put out of business. In return, one senior official said, the administration would say, "We don't care how you deal with the problem; just do it or we will" after 90 days.
The officials said the goal was to cut off funds before another terrorist attack could occur, and said they would press the Saudis to act even if there was not enough information to convict someone in a court of law.
US intelligence agencies and financial investigators had put together a classified working list of nine wealthy individuals believed to be the core group of financiers for al Qaeda and other radical Islamic terrorist groups, US officials said. Of those, seven were Saudis, one was a Pakistani merchant and one was an Egyptian businessman. The officials would not identify individuals.
"There are some who argue that sharing intelligence with the Saudis is just plain stupid," one official said. "But in so doing we put down a marker. We are saying we are not acting unilaterally, we are not moving precipitously, we are not acting as a hostile force.
"We tell them the problem and leave it to them to solve, presuming they will act in good faith. But if they do not act in 90 days, we assume solving the problem is beyond their ken and the United States will solve it."
News of the decision to confront the Saudis follows a weekend of news reports that a charitable contribution by Princess Haifa al-Faisal, the wife of the Saudi ambassador to the United States, may have indirectly benefited two of the men who participated in the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
----
Yemeni Proclaims His Nation's Solidarity With U.S. in Fight Against Terrorism
By Nora Boustany
Wednesday, November 27, 2002
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A43812-2002Nov26?language=printer
Comically candid and light on his feet, Abdel-Karim Iryani knows instinctively what a Washington audience wants to hear. The ageless former Yemeni prime minister and foreign minister, now serving as a senior adviser to President Ali Abdallah Salih, insists that Yemenis are fed up with terrorists in their midst. In an interview Monday and in other public remarks here, he made it clear that Yemen was cooperating wholeheartedly with the United States in its war against terror, with no hesitation or fear of backlash.
Last September, a joint operations room was set up by top U.S. and Yemeni security officials to combat terrorism, Iryani said in an interview. "Even the Saudis are brought in and connected to it sometimes," he added. Asked repeatedly whether there would be a strong domestic reaction to attacks launched to capture or kill terrorists on Yemeni soil, his answer was an unequivocal "no." The opposition would complain about Yemeni sovereignty being compromised, he said. But if it had nothing to protest, it would not qualify as opposition, he quipped.
Asked on Fox television Saturday whether Yemen would allow a repeat of the Nov. 3 missile attack from a CIA-operated, unmanned Predator aircraft against a vehicle carrying a top al Qaeda leader, Iryani's answer was "sure." Sinan al Harithi, also known as Abu Ali al Harithi, a senior leader of the group suspected of planning the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole, was killed in the strike, with four others. "We still have at least two more at large," Iryani said after a dinner at the residence of Yemeni Ambassador H.E. Abdulwahab Abdulla Al-Hajjri.
Iryani disclosed that Yemeni authorities, using informers from the country's far-flung tribes, are tracking other such wanted "Yemeni-Afghans." But each time that convoys of jeeps were "ready to fetch them, the men we were hoping to catch would be gone by the time we got there. The same informants probably tipped them off about our planned chase. They cash in on both sides of the street," Iryani explained. "So we needed more sophisticated assistance to trace and get them before they got away."
Where realpolitik begins and ends in this seasoned statesman's mind is anybody's guess, but nine days after the Sept.11 attacks last year in New York and at the Pentagon, Iryani was in the U.S. capital to try to dispel any notion of an Afghanistan scenario being mounted against Yemen. He had meetings at the National Security Council, the Pentagon and the State Department.
"I came at the instruction of the president to say we are ready to cooperate. We did it because we felt we were targeted. Everyone was saying it was going to be Yemen after Afghanistan," he said. "In Yemen we will never regret that we cooperated with the U.S.," he declared, because Yemen has been hit by terror repeatedly. "Nothing happened after the Predator attack. Why? Because Yemen has suffered from these guys. The public is convinced that these people cannot be let loose."
The 1999 execution of Abol Hassan Almihdhar, a Yemeni, for kidnapping foreign tourists provoked no reaction, he recalled, noting that Almihdhar was a relative of a Sept. 11 hijacker, Khalid Almihdhar, and that they came from the same village in Hadramout, in the south of the country. There also have been several kidnappings of Westerners, the strike against the Cole and an attack last month on a French tanker along Yemen's southern coast.
"It has created the worst environmental disaster in Yemen and perhaps in the Arabian Sea," Iryani said of the tanker attack. "Two thousand fishermen were deprived of their livelihood; that is a minimum of 10,000 people deprived of their daily bread because a crazy man was aiming at a symbol of the Western world. Who is suffering from this action? It is only poor Yemeni fishermen families. This is why I am standing here defending the Yemeni-U.S. fight against terror."
"People like Osama bin Laden say they are fighting non-Muslims, but the falling heads are Muslim," he pointed out. Asked how he would interpret bin Laden's latest audiotaped message threatening more devastating attacks if the United States and its allies embarked on a war against Iraq, Iryani shrugged. "In my view, the man will do whatever he manages to do, with or without a war against Iraq." He dismissed reports that bin Laden was hiding somewhere in Yemen.
-------- nato
NATO: The More the Murkier
By Christopher J. Dodd
Wednesday, November 27, 2002
Washington Post; Page A17
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A43772-2002Nov26?language=printer
At the NATO summit in Prague, President Bush pressed for "the most significant reforms in NATO since 1949," including the creation of a rapid reaction force to deal swiftly and effectively with new and emerging threats. He also called on members to invest more money in modernizing their militaries, to ensure that each will contribute to the common defense. All this took place against the backdrop of the admission of seven new NATO members, including the former Soviet states of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.
NATO has much to celebrate. Ten years after helping to win the Cold War, it remains the most powerful military alliance in history, with nations lining up for membership all across Central and Eastern Europe.
Unfortunately, missing from the summit in Prague were any discussions or proposed solutions to the biggest challenge faced by NATO today: reconciling an expanding membership with the ability of the organization to act cohesively and expeditiously.
President Bush deserves great credit for proposing important new military missions for NATO in the 21st century, including combating international terrorism and stemming the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. These are the most important common security threats faced by America and our allies today, and confronting them will certainly be NATO's greatest challenge for years to come.
But the fact is, the military reforms necessary to deal effectively with these threats -- particularly the creation of a rapid reaction force capable of deploying around the world in a moment's notice -- will prove meaningless unless NATO also reforms its policy and decision-making structures.
Throughout its existence, NATO's decision-making has been based on consensus -- every member state must agree on every important course of action. When 16 NATO countries all faced a common Soviet threat, achieving consensus on major issues was not much of a problem.
With this latest round of expansion, NATO will have 26 members, and at least three more are poised for admission in coming years. The idea that the alliance's decisions will soon be dependent on the unanimous consent of so many diverse nations highlights the need for changes in its operational planning structure to ensure its ability to act quickly and decisively.
NATO membership should certainly remain open to any country that proves its commitment to Western values. But to ensure that NATO can continue to function effectively as a military organization, some form of top-tier administrative council -- similar to the United Nations' Security Council -- ought to be created.
The rules and structure of the new council should be left to the organization to decide, but to work, it would have to permanently include the leading military powers, such as the United States, Britain, France and Germany.
At first blush, this may seem a radical idea, likely to meet with opposition from many NATO members. But the goal of NATO in the 21st century cannot simply be to share common values -- it must be to protect and defend those values against new threats to our common way of life. Moreover, Europe already has a forum whose principal purpose is to promote economic and political integration -- the European Union.
Unless changes are made to strengthen the ability of NATO to act, there is little to prevent the diminution of its power and effectiveness as a military alliance, which would leave America, Europe and the world far worse off in the long run. Global peace and security still depend on an America engaged in the security affairs of Europe. But if the United States comes to view NATO as an organization too cumbersome to serve our core security interests, we will likely drift even farther down the road of unilateralism.
To prevent this, NATO needs to shake up its decision-making structure. A facelift every 50 years or so is not too much to ask.
The writer, a Democratic senator from Connecticut, is a senior member of the Foreign Relations Committee.
-------- pakistan
FBI puts 'Spiders' to work in Pakistan
By Aamir Latif
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
November 27, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20021127-24240168.htm
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - The FBI has organized some former Pakistani army officers and others into a band known as the "Spider Group" to locate Taliban and al Qaeda fugitives hiding in tribal areas along the Afghanistan border.
A federal law-enforcement official in Washington said yesterday that the move marked an attempt by the FBI to develop a "free flow of information" to U.S. agents who previously had worked under some restrictions with Pakistan's official Inter-Services Intelligence agency.
The ISI had deep and long-standing ties to the Taliban and is believed by many to remain beyond the control of the central government in Islamabad.
The Spider Group consists largely of retired officers of Pakistan's army, some of whom had reached the rank of brigadier and colonel, say law-enforcement authorities in Washington and sources in Pakistan familiar with the operation.
Most of those involved have had a long experience dealing with Afghanistan, going back to the U.S.-backed war against the Soviets in the 1980s and as recently as the period of Taliban rule, from the mid-1990s until last year.
The new group is based in the Pakistani border city of Peshawar, a gateway to Afghanistan.
It is charged with tracking the activities and movement of Taliban and al Qaeda outfits that operate in a largely autonomous belt of tribal areas nearby.
Sympathy for the Taliban and its brand of Islam is widespread in Pakistan's Northwest Frontier province, of which Peshawar is the capital.
Candidates of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), a coalition of six militant anti-Western Islamic parties, won a majority in the province's legislature in recent elections.
Some of those elected to the provincial assembly taught Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar and other top Taliban officials. The provincial assembly's new leaders have vowed to block the FBI from carrying out its mission, saying they want to hunt for the Taliban and al Qaeda themselves.
Initially, the Spider Group was assigned to keep an eye on public gatherings and seminars involving the MMA, especially the leaders of the Jamiat-e-Ulema Islam (JUI) party, which is especially close to Taliban leaders.
The FBI fears that the provincial MMA-led government will give the Taliban and al Qaeda the freedom to meet, recruit members and plan attacks against pro-Western targets.
The FBI also believes that fugitive Islamists from Afghanistan are hiding in a network of madrassas, or religious schools, that are operated by the JUI.
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf denies that the schools harbor terrorists or that the ISI is beyond his control. He has said his government will not allow anyone to challenge its participation in the U.S.-led war against terrorism.
The Spider Group has also been asked to recruit locals in Pakistan's tribal areas, where hundreds of wanted terrorists are holed up under the patronage of tribal chiefs.
Despite a sizable Pakistani army presence in those areas, they are considered havens for Taliban and al Qaeda fugitives.
Members of the Spider Group, a mix of Muslim and Christian retired army and intelligence officers, have been trained and equipped by the FBI, and, sources in Pakistan say, all have command of the Pashto language spoken in the region. They have also hired Arabic translators.
Active Pakistani intelligence officials have begun monitoring Spider Group members, and their presence in army receptions and ceremonies has been banned. Pakistani intelligence operatives have also been directed not to have meetings with the group members.
The FBI decided to set up the Spider Group after it concluded that "lack of cooperation" from the ISI made it impossible to hunt down Taliban and al Qaeda fugitives in the tribal areas, the sources said.
The FBI found that the ISI helped several Taliban and al Qaeda fugitives escape to Iran after the military campaign in Afghanistan last year.
The FBI believes the ISI might still be helping fugitives by providing authorities with a steady flow of incomplete information.
An ISI spokesman would neither confirm nor deny the existence of the Spider Group.
"I have heard about it; however, I cannot comment on that without any concrete information," said the spokesman, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. He also denied that the FBI had ever expressed no confidence in information or hints provided by Pakistan's intelligence agency.
"Pakistani secret agencies are completely following the government policy vis-a-vis the war against terrorism and the recent arrests of al Qaeda leaders from Pakistan," the spokesman said.
Two top al Qaeda operatives have been arrested in Pakistan, both outside the tribal areas. In September, U.S. and Pakistani authorities captured Ramzi Binalshibh, believed to be a planner of the September 11 attacks, in Karachi. In March, al Qaeda financier Abu Zubaydah was arrested in the Pakistani city of Faisalabad.
•Jerry Seper contributed to this report in Washington.
-------- spies
Face of U.S. espionage changing
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
November 27, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20021127-17047651.htm
American spies are increasingly women and foreign-born citizens who succeed in passing secrets as volunteers, according to a Defense Department report on espionage.
About 20 Americans have committed espionage or tried to spy since 1990, the report states, and the globalization of economics and the information-technology revolution have made it difficult to stop government employees from giving away or selling secrets.
"It does point to a kind of confluence of factors - the increase in the number of naturalized citizens, people who have foreign attachments and people who cite divided loyalty as a motive" for spying, said Katherine Herbig, co-author of the report, in an interview.
"These are all signs that the globalization we see going on is also happening in espionage."
Recent American spies "have been older, more likely to be women and more likely to be civilian" than in the past, she said. They are also more likely to be from an ethnic minority.
The report, "Espionage Against the United States by American Citizens 1947 to 2001," was produced by the Defense Personnel Security Research Center, a government think tank in Monterey, Calif., known as PERSEREC.
It surveyed 150 spy cases involving Americans and found that most spies in the past were white men in the military with little education.
"The end of the Cold War did not mean the end of espionage by Americans," the report stated, "but it seems to have brought changes in the practice of this crime."
Of the 20 spy cases since 1990, the report said, three involved spying by women and 11 involved Americans of an ethnic minority. Five of the spies from the 1990s, or 25 percent, were naturalized U.S. citizens for whom foreign attachments were a factor.
The survey compared the spies of the 1990s with two groups of spies in earlier periods: The 65 spies uncovered between 1947 and 1979, and the 65 spies caught between 1980 and 1989, the so-called decade of the spy.
"American spies of the 1990s have been older, with a median age of 39, than either of the two earlier groups," the report said. "They include a larger proportion of women (15 percent), of racial and ethnic minorities, notably the 25 percent who were Hispanic Americans, and a lower proportion of married persons."
The increase in female spies is significant because out of 150 spies uncovered since 1947, 11 were women. The report noted that 10 of the 11 women spies worked as accomplices or partners of men.
The report was written before the discovery of a longtime spy within the Defense Intelligence Agency, Ana Belen Montes, who spied for Cuba for 10 years before being arrested in September 2001.
Reflecting an apparent decline of counterintelligence efforts, the report stated that 1990s spies were more successful than those in the '80s, when up to 45 percent of them were stopped before providing secrets to foreign nations.
Recent spies were successful in passing secrets four out of five times.
The vast majority of espionage cases since 1947 involved the Soviet Union and Russia, with a total of 114 out of 150 espionage cases involving Moscow or its Soviet bloc allies.
Among the other nations identified as "recipient countries" of American spies since 1947 were China, Cuba, the Philippines, Egypt, South Africa, Poland, East Germany, North Korea, France, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Libya, Ecuador, Japan, Vietnam, Liberia, South Korea, Greece, Britain, the Netherlands, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Ghana, El Salvador, Jordan, Iraq and Taiwan.
The report states that naturalized American spies with "foreign attachments" - relatives abroad, emotional ties to foreign nations or overseas business ties - were more easily recruited by foreign intelligence services than those with no foreign ties.
Security vetting did not find people engaged in spying: At least five spies were not detected by screening and had clearances renewed while they committed espionage.
A key trend identified by the study was the "globalization" of economics, which is affecting the loyalty of Americans. Another was high-technology information systems. Spies' methods of collection, synthesis and transmission are changing, "shifting to take advantage of opportunities in these new technologies," the report said.
-------- us
Pentagon Wants $10 Billion a Year for Antiterror Fund
By THOM SHANKER and RICHARD W. STEVENSON
November 27, 2002
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/27/politics/27DEFE.html?position=top&ei=5006&en=c61d87a262137df2&ex=1039064400&partner=ALTAVISTA1&pagewanted=print&position=top
WASHINGTON, Nov. 26 - The Defense Department is seeking an extra $10 billion a year for the next five years, beyond the growth in its regular budget, to carry out its campaign against terrorism, senior Pentagon and other administration officials said today.
Pentagon officials, who are putting the final touches on the request, are consulting with the White House on whether the annual $10 billion appropriation would be placed in a separate contingency fund, similar to one rejected by Congress this year, or would be written into the regular military budget.
Both Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill proved unwilling this year to create a $10 billion fund for the Pentagon to spend with little Congressional oversight.
But with President Bush now in a more commanding position politically after the Republican victories in the midterm elections, administration officials seem increasingly confident not only of getting the money from Congress, but also of getting it on their terms: in a separate fund.
The extra $10 billion a year could be used for military actions, for other emerging counterterrorism operations around the world and for the costs of added protection for military bases in the United States and overseas. None of it would go to the new Department of Homeland Security, or for increases requested by other departments and agencies, like the C.I.A. and the F.B.I., for their roles in counterterrorism.
The $10 billion would be insufficient to pay for a major war against a country like Iraq. The 1991 war in the Persian Gulf cost about $60 billion, most of which was paid by other allied nations.
The extra money is reflected in a budget request to the White House for 2004, along with a related five-year request, that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld is expected to complete over the Thanksgiving holiday. Administration officials said the White House was expected to look positively on the $10 billion, given that Mr. Bush expressed disappointment this fall when Congress passed a military appropriations bill for the current fiscal year without including a war reserve fund of that amount.
Mr. Rumsfeld has not commented on Pentagon budget proposals, but in a meeting with foreign journalists today he emphasized that the United States and its allies needed to spend more on the military.
"We, as free people, must be willing to make the kinds of investments over a period of time that will enable our respective free countries to contribute to peace and stability, or we're making a terrible mistake," he said. "That is not directed at any one country. To the extent it's directed at all, it's directed to the United States of America. We need to do that."
The $10 billion would be in addition to budget growth that would cover inflation and whatever other increases for personnel, procurement, operations, maintenance, or research and development might be proposed by the president and approved by Congress.
"We are coming to a general agreement that our budget over the years would increase by inflation plus a $10 billion figure for the global war on terror," a senior Defense Department official said.
The request, if approved by the White House, would no doubt raise the same questions among members of Congress that this year's request did. With the power to wage war increasingly concentrated in the hands of the president, Congress has vigorously guarded its control over military expenditures, and this year's request by the Pentagon for $10 billion with no strings attached left members of both parties uneasy.
The Pentagon and the White House are still working out a framework for the $10 billion sum. It could again be proposed as a reserve fund, or it could be written into the budget as specific line items.
On Oct. 23, in signing the $354.8 billion military appropriations bill for the current fiscal year, Mr. Bush lamented Congress's refusal to include a $10 billion war reserve fund.
"I am disappointed that the act does not fund the $10 billion I requested to support the war on terrorism," Mr. Bush said in a statement issued then.
Noting that the Pentagon had also gotten less than it had requested for operations and maintenance, he added, "Without these funds, we may be forced to reduce other important programs to finance the war on terrorism."
Even so, Mr. Bush has largely won Congressional approval for what he has called the largest military buildup in 20 years. And adding $10 billion a year to the regular budget for the next five years would amount to a further shift in priorities toward national security, and increase the pressure to cut spending on domestic programs.
Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a liberal-leaning policy research center, said proposals for a separate $10 billion counterterror reserve fund would not give the public or Congress sufficient oversight.
Quite apart from the costs of war in Afghanistan or any war in Iraq, Mr. O'Hanlon said, "nobody knows how to figure the eventual costs for things like base security, homeland defense, protecting key infrastructure, help to the National Guard and Reserve to prepare for catastrophic contingencies."
"So Rumsfeld is asking us to trust his first guess at what those costs are," Mr. O'Hanlon said. "To his credit, he is trying to isolate that piece. But there is not nearly enough information to give the Defense Department this much money almost into perpetuity."
The Pentagon's request highlights the difficulties faced by Mr. Bush and his budget director, Mitchell E. Daniels Jr., as they put together a plan for the 2004 federal budget at a time when the deficit is growing.
Mr. Bush has made clear that in setting budget priorities, he will put domestic and international security first. But some Democrats say he has shortchanged domestic security programs and underestimated the costs of getting the Department of Homeland Security fully operational.
At the same time, there is political pressure from both sides of the aisle to increase spending on education, to add prescription drug coverage for retirees and to finance other social programs. In addition, Mr. Bush has signaled that he intends to propose another round of tax cuts.
-------
A very public wargame
As the military build-up continues in the Gulf, Julian Borger in Washington sees US forces preparing for house to house combat
Wednesday November 27, 2002
UK Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/journalist/story/0,7792,848798,00.html
After 10 months of secrecy and denial, US military preparations for the looming conflict with Iraq have abruptly been turned into well-catered press events over the last few days. Clearly, the message has changed.
American journalists have been invited into the vast tented camps run by US forces in Kuwait's western desert, concentrated along the Iraqi border. All together, some 12,000 troops have taken over an entire quarter of Kuwaiti territory, which is now off-limits to civilians.
US television crews have been asked aboard the warships cruising in the Persian Gulf, where a fearsome armada including four or five aircraft carriers will have gathered by the end of December. Journalists have even been permitted to fly in planes patrolling the skies of northern and southern Iraq.
Meanwhile, in Louisiana last week, a group of more than a dozen foreign journalists - including a crew from the Arabic language television station, al-Jazeera - were allowed to visit the Fort Polk urban training centre to watch the 101st Airborne, the 'Screaming Eagles', practise house to house combat.
Someone somewhere in the Pentagon has decided we should be allowed to see everything.
The message from Fort Polk was obvious enough. Iraqi officials have hinted to journalists visiting Baghdad that the crack troops of the Special Republican Guard would not make the Iraqi army's mistake of 11 years ago, standing in wait for the American offensive in the desert and making an easy target for the US air force. Instead they suggested the diehard troops would gather in cities, among civilians, and prepare for death and glory in a bloody last stand, possibly bolstered by chemical or biological weapons.
It is no coincidence then, that the 101st Airborne Division were put on display bursting through doors and climbing through windows. They were making the point that the US will not be afraid to pursue Saddam Hussein into the labyrinth of city streets in Baghdad or Tikrit, the dictator's home town.
It was certainly an impressive show. For much of the night of the war game, we watched events unfold in a hi-tech command centre on an array of flat screens showing thermal images of the division's 3rd Brigade closing in on the mock-up town, which went by the distinctly un-Iraqi name of Shughart Gordon.
Towards daybreak, we walked outside and saw the small imaginary settlement being stormed. Its small but ferocious defence force of some 70 US paratroopers acting the part of generic "bad guys", was overcome and rooted out of the cellars and attics of the town. A large painted slogan nearby boasted that Fort Polk was "Forging the Warrior Spirit".
Watching the war game reach its dawn climax, I could not help thinking about the elaborate charade put on for the press a few months before the Gulf war, when the marines staged extensive rehearsals for a coastal assault on the Iraqi forces. Of course, there was never going to be a seaborne attack, and the media event was all part of the Pentagon's programme of psychological operations.
While it is clear the US readiness to fight at close quarters in city streets is being improved, it is still a safe bet that the administration would like to avoid urban warfare if at all possible. The technological superiority of US military muscle, particularly its air power, is enormously reduced in a cramped urban setting, where even "smart bombs" risk killing countless civilians. Meanwhile the defenders' "home advantage" increases tenfold in the twists and turns of city streets.
No official casualty figures were released after the Fort Polk exercises we watched, but it was clear that the Screaming Eagles had been seriously depleted by snipers.
One of their huge M1-A1 Abrams tanks was brought to a halt at the town entrance by a roll of barbed wire snarled in its tracks. The men of the 3rd Battalion made the mistake of clearing a house, but then leaving it empty while they moved on to another, permitting the defending troops to creep back into the first. Partly for that reason, it took the 101st Airborne until well into the morning to finish the job, despite the fact that they had eight times as many men, as well as night goggles and bags of equipment not available to the other side.
As part of the exercise, the US troops were attacked with chemical weapons on three occasions as they prepared for the assault, and some scouts donned chemical and biological protection suits in the final onslaught on the town. But it was assumed that the defenders would not resort to such desperate and ultimately suicidal measures, even during their last stand - an assumption which may not hold in the final days of Saddam's Iraq.
The truth is that urban warfare is one of the US military's worst nightmares and past failures continue to haunt the force. The 101st Airborne itself suffered horrendous casualties in its advance across the towns of northern France in 1944. Within living memory, every US soldier has seen videos of what happened when US special forces and Rangers went into Mogadishu in 1993. The ersatz town of Shughart Gordon is named after two of the 18 dead.
The Pentagon is currently thinking of ways to avoid a repetition of Mogadishu on a far bloodier scale. Its emerging urban warfare doctrine, not on show for the press in Louisiana, reportedly involves sealing off towns held by the enemy and crippling their will to resist by lightning strikes against a few selected command posts, with the help of precision air strikes and Predator drone aircraft armed with hellfire missiles. The hope is that the cities will crack one by one before large numbers of US troops have to be sent in.
The same is true for US military strategy in general. There are now 50,000 US troops in the Gulf region and equipment for at least twice as many. The build-up is slow and deliberate and designed to show that Washington, while not hell-bent on war, is ready for one.
Meanwhile, the troops provide an extra edge to the UN weapons inspections, now beginning in earnest, and a mark of serious intent which the administration believes will turn the tide in other Arab regimes who are reluctant to give their support for fear of another botched job.
The gathering US forces are also meant to be an inspiration to Saddam's opponents inside Iraq, and perhaps inside the regime, who will only make their move once they are convinced the dictator is doomed.
But if there is no coup, and the inspectors find nothing, the Bush team will face a serious challenge. It believes that US credibility depends on its willingness to deliver on its threats. It will not march its men to the top of the hill and march them down again. In that sense, at least, Washington is already committed to a conflict.
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS
Kissinger to Lead 9/11 Inquiry
November 27, 2002
New York Times
By DAVID STOUT
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/27/politics/27CND-BUSH.html
WASHINGTON, Nov. 27 - Henry A. Kissinger, a former Secretary of State and one of the most prominent and controversial United States diplomats of the 20th century, was appointed by President Bush today to be chairman of a new independent commission to investigate the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
"Dr. Kissinger will bring broad experience, clear thinking and careful judgment to this important task," Mr. Bush said in a White House ceremony in which he signed the bill creating the commission.
"Mr. Secretary, thank you for returning to the service of your nation," the president said.
Dr. Kissinger, 79, said afterward that he felt "a special responsibility to those who have suffered such a terrible loss," and that he had been assured by both the president and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell that his commission would have a free hand.
Speaking to reporters outside the White House, Dr. Kissinger pledged to "get all the facts."
"We are under no restrictions," he said. "And we would accept no restrictions."
The 10-member commission will be evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats. Mr. Bush, who initially opposed the creation of a commission, demanded and received the authority to select a chairman.
There were reports this afternoon that Democrats intend to pick former Senator George Mitchell of Maine to be vice chairman. A former Democratic majority leader, Mr. Mitchell more recently led efforts to negotiate a peace in Northern Ireland.
Dr. Kissinger, whose appointment met with some hostile reaction, served as secretary of state for Presidents Richard M. Nixon and Gerald R. Ford. He was also national security adviser to both presidents from 1969 to 1975.
For two years beginning in October 1973 to October 1975, he was both secretary of state and national security adviser - the only person to hold both posts simultaneously. In October 1975, he left the security-adviser position while remaining secretary.
Dr. Kissinger won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973, along with Le Duc Tho of North Vietnam, for negotiating the cease-fire that preceded the end of the Vietnam War.
He also made a famous secret trip to China in July 1971, setting the stage for the resumption of relations between Washington and Beijing after more than 20 years of near-total estrangement.
In announcing Dr. Kissinger's appointment, President Bush said he and the new chairman "share the same commitments."
"This investigation should carefully examine all the evidence and follow all the facts, wherever they lead," Mr. Bush said. "We must uncover every detail and learn every lesson of September the 11th."
The law that Bush signed today gives the commission broad subpoena powers and the authority to interview anyone in the government. This marks a victory for the victims' families and a compromise by the administration, which originally opposed allowing government employees to be called to testify. In most cases, six commission votes will be required to issue a subpoena.
The president characterized the commission's mandate as one of fact-finding and learning, rather than one of attaching blame for the failure of various agencies to detect the terrorist plot that preceded the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Dr. Kissinger said he expected to play no part in the selection of the other commission members, and that it would not be appropriate for him to have such a role.
The panel is to report its findings within 18 months, but Mr. Bush said he hoped for the sake of the country's security that it would not take that long.
Asked if he expected President Bush himself to testify before the panel, Dr. Kissinger said, "One doesn't start with the president of the United States, and so I don't want to make a judgment until we have all the facts, until we have other commissioners. But it will be done on an agreed basis within the commission."
But Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, the Connecticut Democrat who was a leading advocate of the panel, said he expected the commission to take testimony from the current and former presidents along with other high officials "in pursuit of the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth."
Dr. Kissinger's remarks in the White House driveway indicated his familiarity with the levers of power in Washington, as well as his longevity in public service.
He said he had already reached out to Speaker J. Dennis Hastert of Illinois; to Representative Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri, the departing Democratic minority leader; and to his successor, Representative Nancy Pelosi of California.
He said he had also talked with Senators Trent Lott of Mississippi, who will be the Republican majority leader in the new Senate, and to another prominent Republican, Senator John S. McCain of Arizona.
Asked how he would deal with American relations with Saudi Arabia, whose regime has come under criticism by those who think it has not done enough in the campaign against terrorism, Dr. Kissinger replied: "Well, I think that's one of the subjects that we will deal with. When I was secretary of state, Saudi Arabia was a good ally. But that was 30 years ago."
Dr. Kissinger, a German-born Harvard scholar, attracted attention as an authority on international relations and defense policy in the late 1950's.
He has credited Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller of New York with giving his career a giant boost. Even before Mr. Rockefeller was elected governor in 1958, Dr. Kissinger came to his attention for his work for the Council on Foreign Relations.
Dr. Kissinger served as a consultant to President Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson as well as to Governor Rockefeller, whom he served as speech-writer as well as adviser.
After Governor Rockefeller's final attempt to win the Republican presidential nomination fell short in 1968, Dr. Kissinger gravitated to the administration of Richard Nixon, Mr. Rockefeller's previous rival.
Dr. Kissinger's admirers have praised his intellectual powers, his long-range strategic vision and his ability to work with politicians of varying persuasions.
His detractors have said he is overly ambitious (as he showed when he helped to nudge Secretary of State William P. Rogers out of the Nixon Cabinet), and that his pragmatism can be devoid of principles. His harshest critics have gone so far as to label him a war criminal, asserting that he negotiated only a sham, cynical peace in Vietnam and was partly responsible for the suffering of Cambodia by pushing for the secret bombing of that country during the Vietnam war.
"Kissinger is not distinguished as an impartial judge of government misconduct, to put it mildly," Steven Aftergood, a government secrecy expert at the Federation of American Scientists, said in an interview with Reuters. He said Dr. Kissinger is a man who "has stubbornly resisted the disclosure of official information to members of Congress, courts of law, private researchers and others."
Dr. Kissinger has defied easy labels. He has sometimes been called "a compassionate hawk" and a "vigilant dove," for instance.
Today, Dr. Kissinger described himself as a man with a mission of the heart as well as an investigator. "It means a great deal to me, as somebody who grew up in New York, to contribute to the finding of the facts and to the bringing out of all these facts," he said.
And he said he had a message for those who lost relatives in the Sept. 11 attacks. "There is nothing that can be done about the losses they have suffered," he said, "but everything must be done to avoid that such a tragedy can occur again."
--------
N.C. Sets Up `Actual Innocence' Panel
November 27, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Innocence-Commission.html
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) -- A group of legal authorities has created an unprecedented commission that will review how innocent people are convicted and how to free them when it happens.
The N.C. Actual Innocence Commission was convened for the first time last week by I. Beverly Lake Jr., chief justice of the state Supreme Court. State Attorney General Roy Cooper, a prosecutor, a public defender, several law professors, judges and law enforcement officials are on the panel.
``We need to make sure that we don't convict an innocent person -- and if we do, to catch it fairly quickly,'' Lake said. ``The ultimate object of any court process is to find the truth. I think we can do some good. And I think North Carolina can take the lead on this.''
Concentrating on procedures, not individual cases, the group will consider ways to improve crime investigations and trials. It also will consider proposing a review for claims of innocence beyond the normal appeal process.
Ten states, including North Carolina, have examined their death penalty systems in recent years. North Carolina's review two years ago led to exempting the mentally retarded from executions.
Lake said he was motivated to establish the commission because of a high-profile string of wrong convictions in the state.
They include the convictions of Ronald Cotton and Lesly Jean, who each spent about a decade in prison for rapes that DNA tests later showed they had not committed.
Other innocent inmates included Charles Munsey, a death row inmate who died in prison in 1999 while awaiting retrial, and Terence Garner, who spent more than four years in prison for a robbery and shooting before evidence of his innocence led a judge to free him in February.
Possible reforms, Lake said, include making suspect lineups and photo identifications more accurate and giving juries more information about prosecutors' deals with defendants who testify against one another.
Another possibility is establishing an executive-branch panel to review evidence of innocence with the cooperation of prosecutors and defense lawyers after ordinary appeals have run their course.
--------
Bush Signs Bill to Boost Cyber Security
November 27, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/technology/AP-Bush-Cyber-Security.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush on Wednesday signed a bill authorizing $900 million in grants to spur federal agencies, industry and universities to devote more energy to cyber security research.
The five-year program would require the National Science Foundation and the National Institute of Standards and Technology to bring industry and academic experts together to fund new research and to help attract top researchers to the field. It also would encourage efforts to recruit new students into cyber security programs.
Senate proponents of the legislation were Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and George Allen, R-Va.
On the Net:
Information on the bill, H.R. 3394, can be found at http://thomas.loc.gov.
-------- immigration
105 foreigners on watch list got visas
11/27/2002
The Associated Press
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2002-11-27-visas_x.htm
WASHINGTON (AP) - Visas were issued to 105 foreign men who should have been prevented from entering the United States because their names appeared on government lists of suspected terrorists, congressional investigators have found.
The visas have been revoked by the State Department. A federal law enforcement official, speaking Tuesday on condition of anonymity, said the revocation prevented 100 of the men from entering the United States, while three others were turned away at the U.S. border. Two made it into the country but have since left without incident, the official said.
Officially, the Justice Department said it was reviewing the matter "to verify the status of each of the visas in question."
Under a security system first created in November 2001 called "Visas Condor," State Department applications for visas to enter the United States from certain national groups were to be checked against possible terrorist names in FBI and CIA databases. Men in these groups between 16 and 45 had to wait up to 30 days for the check before a visa could be issued.
However, the GAO found, until recently the name check system did not work properly as responsibility it shifted between the Justice Department and FBI, the CIA, the State Department and the multiagency Foreign Terrorist Tracking Task Force formed by President Bush in October 2001.
Few names initially forwarded by the State Department, known as "cables," were checked by either the CIA or FBI, congressional investigators said.
By April 2002, when the terror task force assumed control of the system, the FBI had a backlog of some 8,000 unchecked names from the State Department. Of the 38,000 "Condor" applications subsequently processed through Aug. 1, 2002, about 280 names turned up on the anti-terrorism lists.
The State Department was given a refusal recommendation for 200 visa applicants, but that came after the 30-day hold had expired - meaning the visas had already been issued. Because of misspelled or duplicate names, GAO officials now believe these visas were actually issued to about 105 men whose names appear on the anti-terror lists.
In many cases, U.S. officials say the refusal recommendation was made simply because there wasn't enough information available about the applicant. But it remains possible that some of the men had real terrorist connections.
Much of the information about the situation was made public last month in a GAO report addressing broader visa questions, but it was largely overlooked. The Chicago Tribune reported on the matter in Tuesday's editions.
Justice Department officials had no immediate comment Tuesday, but in a response to the GAO report a senior official said the FBI and the terror task force have taken steps to eliminate the backlog of names and work more closely with the State Department on streamlining the process.
Under another change made in September, the FBI has initial authority to check the names, then forwards those with a possible match to the State Department - which then has the CIA do another screening for terrorist connections.
"We are confident that our handling of Condor cables will remain responsive and timely, without sacrificing security," wrote Robert Diegelman, acting assistant attorney general for administration.
State Department officials hope to reduce review time for the Condor applications for those with no FBI records to 10 days or less.
-------- ENERGY AND OTHER
-------- alternative energy
BP Solar drops thin film solar cells, up to 260 US jobs
REUTERS USA:
November 27, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/18798/newsDate/27-Nov-2002/story.htm
NEW YORK - BP Solar, one of the world's largest solar power companies, will cut as many as 260 jobs in the United States in an effort to keep its solar panel sales growing at an annual rate of 30 percent, a spokeswoman said this week.
BP Solar, a unit of BP Group Plc , said it will no longer make thin film solar cells, one of two main solar technologies in the world. It will now concentrate entirely on crystalline silicon cells, which had already accounted for 85 percent of their solar cell production.
BP announced last year it would be creating 600 solar jobs at a plant in Madrid, Spain, where it will make crystalline solar cells, the older of the two technologies. BP will invest $100 million in the Madrid project.
But the company will close its Toano, Virginia, thin film plant, if it does not find a buyer by the end of the year, with a loss of up to 160 jobs. In Fairfield, California, 100 solar cell manufacturing jobs will be lost as the company converts the warehouse to the center for North America warehousing and distribution.
"Crystalline for BP Solar now is the core technology simply because it's an older technology and its applications are historically proven," said Sarah Howell, a BP spokesman.
Sharp , the world's largest manufacturer of solar cells, also concentrates mainly on crystalline cells.
"That doesn't necessarily mean that thin films technologies won't have their day in the sun, it's really just a question that most companies at some point have to focus," said the director of a solar cell consultancy in the western United States.
-------- energy
Northern Calif. Geothermal Plant OK'd
November 27, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Geothermal-Plant.html
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) -- The federal government approved a geothermal power plant in northern California, reversing an earlier decision, but required the developer to avoid areas important to environmentalists and American Indian tribes.
The 48-megawatt Fourmile Hill project is needed because of the nation's and California's drive for more domestic and more renewable energy, said Assistant Secretary of the Interior Rebecca W. Watson.
A tribal and environmental coalition already is suing to block the plant near Medicine Lake and will continue its opposition after Tuesday's decision.
``It's another betrayal by the federal government of another promise to the tribe,'' said Michelle Berditschevsky, environmental coordinator for the Pit River Nation and spokeswoman for the Native Coalition for Medicine Lake Highlands Defense. ``The site is extremely sacred to the tribe and has been for at least 10,000 years.''
The plant will produce enough power for about 50,000 homes by drawing naturally heated water from the earth, then reinjecting the water to be reheated and reused. Calpine estimates it will operate for 45 years.
Opponents noted most of the power will go to the Bonneville Power Administration, which serves Washington, Oregon and Idaho power users. Nonetheless, the California Energy Commission gave San Jose-based Calpine Corp. a $20 million grant for the project.
Calpine plans to build the $120 million plant at Telephone Flat, on the Modoc National Forest.
The approval requires Calpine to make some changes to meet the concerns of environmentalists and Indian tribes, including relocating a 13-mile power line east of the original proposed location. The line will now be built along an existing U.S. Forest Service road.
The revised project ``will produce renewable energy with fewer environmental impacts,'' said Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth. A Calpine spokesman declined to comment, saying the company hadn't seen the decision.
Bosworth and Bureau of Land Management Director Kathleen Clarke said they consulted extensively with the five nearby tribes. They said the tribes' concerns persuaded the agencies to require Calpine to reduce visual impact and noise wherever possible.
A coalition of environmental organizations and tribes sued in June to block the plant. They were particularly upset with the proposed location of the transmission line, but also concerned about what they said would be gases, heavy metals and other minerals released in steam.
``It's an unfortunate reversal of the original decision made in 2000,'' said Peggy Risch of the Mount Shasta Bioregional Ecology Center. ``It's clearly a victory for corporate interests.''
The plant site is within the Glass Mountain Known Geothermal Resource Area, targeted since the 1970s as a region with significant geothermal potential. The government sold leases for geothermal development in the mid-1980s, and received the plant development proposals in 1996. Supporters have touted geothermal plants as a form of renewable energy.
The site is on the edge of a caldera, a crater caused by a collapsed shield volcano, northeast of Redding. The Bureau of Land Management previously rejected a proposed plant within the caldera itself because it would have adverse affects on the American Indian cultural values and on recreation.
On the Net:
http://www.ca.blm.gov
http://www.sacredland.org/medicine--lake.html
http://www.mountshastaecology.org/
--------
Court Requires Cheney to Disclose Energy Documents
November 27, 2002
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/nov2002/2002-11-27-03.asp
WASHINGTON, DC, In a setback to the Bush administration's efforts to avoid handing over key Energy Task Force information, a federal judge Tuesday rejected an attempt by Vice President Dick Cheney to appeal a court order to release the documents. The White House has been resisting disclosure of the documents for months, but the court's earlier order requiring that the documents be produced by December 9 remains in effect.
Judge Emmet Sullivan of the Washington, DC Federal District Court ordered that The White House produce "non-privileged documents" in response to a lawsuit by Judicial Watch and the Sierra Club.
Cheney
Vice President Dick Cheney (Photo courtesy U.S. Defense Department) The defendants are Vice-President Dick Cheney; the National Energy Policy Development Group (NEPDG); Andrew Lundquist, executive director of the National Energy Policy Development Office; Joshua Bolten, assistant to the President and deputy chief of staff for policy; and Larry Lindsay, President George W. Bush's economic advisor.
The defendants are also directed to produce "a privilege log" specifying which documents or categories of documents are being withheld pursuant to an asserted privilege, as well as the grounds on which they are being withheld.
The Sierra Club and Judicial Watch assert in their lawsuit that by refusing to tell the public about the influence energy industries had in crafting the National Energy Policy, the Cheney Energy Task Force violated the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA).
The plaintiff groups are asking the court to require Vice President Cheney and other defendants "to disclose to the American people what went on behind closed doors in the creation of the National Energy Policy," the Sierra Club said in a statement today.
Lundquist
Andrew Lundquist, executive director of the White House National Energy Policy Development Group) (Photo courtesy American Association of Small Property Owners) The National Energy Policy issued by the Bush administration on May 17, 2001 relies heavily on oil, coal and nuclear energy, and calls for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and on other public lands. While renewable sources of energy are provided for in the policy, they are not emphasized.
"Today's decision brings the American people one step closer to finding out just who the Vice President's energy task force met with in drafting its dirty, dangerous energy plan," said David Bookbinder, senior attorney with the Sierra Club. "The Vice President should take this as a sign that the game is up, and come clean."
The defendants argued that Judge Sullivan's Orders reflect "clear error," and urged the Court of Appeals to order the lower court to dismiss Vice President Cheney from the action, and to decide the case on the basis of the administrative record alone, without further discovery.
Sullivan
Judge Emmet Sullivan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia (Photo courtesy U.S. District Court) But Judge Sullivan did not agree. He wrote that "once again the defendants have misrepresented precedent," in Tuesday's ruling. He admonished the Justice Department for "mischaracterizing the intent and effect of this court's orders."
The judge reinforced his earlier decision that more information is needed to satisfy the questions raised by the plaintiff groups. "This Court has already concluded that, in light of the delicate balancing of constitutional concerns required of the Court in this case, more information than is contained in the scant administrative record currently available, which consists in its entirety of the President's memorandum to the Vice-President establishing the NEPDG, the NEPDG's final report, and the affidavit of the NEPDG's former Deputy Director, is necessary to resolve the question of whether and how FACA is applicable to the NEPDG."
The Bush administration has presented the National Energy Policy as providing for "reliable, affordable, and environmentally sound energy for America's future."
But the plaintiff groups take issue with the environmentally sound portion of that characterization. "The energy policy that came out of the administration has serious impacts on the health and safety of American communities," said Bookbinder. "The public deserves to know who drafted that policy."
The Sierra Club and Judicial Watch are asking for a full accounting of what happened behind the closed doors of the Cheney Energy Task Force. They want to know who was in the room, what proposals did the energy industry executives and lobbyists make, what documents the energy industry submitted, and what Task Force documents they reviewed.
The National Energy Policy is online at: http://www.whitehouse.gov/energy/
-------- environment
Agency Proposes Relaxing Rules on Logging in National Forests
November 27, 2002
New York Times
By ROBERT PEAR
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/27/national/27CND-FORE.html
WASHINGTON, Nov. 27 - The Bush administration proposed today to give managers of the 155 national forests more discretion to approve logging and commercial activities with less evaluation of potential damage to the environment.
The proposal would thoroughly rewrite rules issued by President Bill Clinton in November 2000, two months before President Bush took office.
In issuing the proposal, the United States Forest Service said the Clinton administration rules were far too prescriptive and costly. Specifically, the agency said the Clinton rules included "unnecessarily detailed procedural requirements for scientific peer reviews" and the monitoring of individual species that live in the national forests.
"The proposed rule is designed to more effectively involve the public and to better harmonize the environmental, social and economic benefits of America's greatest natural resource, our forests and grasslands," said Sally Collins, chief operating officer of the Forest Service.
Environmental advocates and Democratic members of Congress denounced the proposal as a radical departure from federal rules and policies that have protected the forests for more than two decades. They asserted that the administration had deferred the rules till after Election Day and the adjournment of Congress because it knew the proposal would be unpopular.
Eight senators and seven House members sent a letter to the Bush administration saying the proposal would eliminate protections for fish and wildlife in the national forests. It is essential to maintain these protections, they said, because national forest lands are home to 25 percent of the species at risk of extinction in the United States.
Among those who signed the letter are Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, who will be the House Democratic leader in the new Congress, and Senator Jeff Bingaman, Democrat of New Mexico.
The American Forest and Paper Association, a trade group for the forest products industry, welcomed the changes, saying they would allow forest managers to reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfires.
Rodger Schlickeisen, president of Defenders of Wildlife, an environmental group, said: "The proposal is a brazen attempt to increase logging and help the timber industry. It closely follows the wish list of the National Forest and Paper Association."
The industry agrees with Bush administration officials who say the Forest Service has suffered from "analysis paralysis," spending time on planning and litigation rather than actually managing forest lands.
----
Bush Signs $250M Great Lakes Cleanup Bill
November 27, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Great-Lakes-Pollution.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Efforts to clean up pollution at the bottom of the Great Lakes basin will get $250 million over five years under legislation President Bush signed into law Wednesday.
The money would be given to local governments, states and American Indian tribes to clean, monitor and prevent contaminated sediment in the Great Lakes basin. The local partner would be required to match 35 percent of the grant amount.
Research shows contaminated sediment has caused tumors and impaired reproduction in fish, caused birth defects in fish-eating birds and mammals and increased cancer risk in people.
Dredging, treatment and disposal of contaminated sediment can cost about $50 to $1,800 per cubic yard, with a median cost of $300-$450 per cubic yard, according to the Council of Great Lakes Industries.
--------
Whole Foods in Los Angeles Goes Solar
November 27, 2002
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/nov2002/2002-11-27-09.asp#anchor6
LOS ANGELES, California, Environmentally conscious consumers in the Los Angeles region have a new alternative for reducing the impacts of their food buying habits - they can choose to shop at a partially solar powered grocery store.
Whole Foods Market(r), Inc. has teamed up with the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) to create an on site solar electric power cogeneration system.
Under the management of California Associated Power, Inc, the cogeneration system was installed at the Whole Foods Market store in Woodland Hills, California, making the company Los Angeles' largest major retailer and nation's largest food retailer to introduce solar energy as 25 percent of its power source.
Under the LADWP's Solar Incentive Program, which provided more than $582,000 in incentives, Whole Foods Market brought together California Associated Power, Sunny Boy, Shell Solar (formerly Siemens Solar), The Gas Company and Sempra Energy to create a 108kW solar electric system to power the Woodland Hills store. The solar array, composed of Shell Solar(r) panels covering 18,000 square feet on the store's roof, turns the sun's energy into usable power.
The solar panels are connected to Sunny Boy(TM) power modules, which feed high quality DC power to the store's existing electrical system and to the utility grid at large. This innovative solar electric and lighting system maximizes the usable solar energy produced by the photovoltaic panels and increases the efficiency of power conversion.
"We are a company actively looking for ways to help preserve our planet's natural resources, and natural solar powered lighting systems made sense both from an economic and an environmental standpoint," said Michael Besancon, Southern Pacific regional president of Whole Foods Market. "Most importantly, this initiative is helping us to further our corporate mission of preserving the environment by promoting clean energy. We are planning to implement this technology with other stores throughout the Southern Pacific region."
The project partners the world's largest natural and organic supermarket with the nation's largest municipally owned utility.
"I'm pleased that this highly regarded retailer and the LADWP are partnering to craft a smart energy solution that makes sense for our community and the environment," noted David Wiggs, general manager at LADWP.
Whole Foods Market's new solar electrical system is expected to deliver both economic and environmental benefits. The system will produce and save more than three million kilowatt hours of electricity over 20 years, avoiding more than 2,000 tons of CO2 emissions, the equivalent of removing 536 cars from the roadways.
-------- genetics
Woman to Bear a Clone, a Doctor Says
November 27, 2002
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/27/health/27CLON.html
An Italian doctor who announced previously that he was trying to clone humans said yesterday that a woman would give birth to a clone in January. But the doctor, Dr. Severino Antinori of Rome, would not reveal who the woman was or provide any scientific details of the cloning, Reuters reported.
He also said at a news conference that he was not in charge of the cloning project but added that he had made a "scientific and cultural contribution."
Fertility and cloning experts have long been skeptical of Dr. Antinori's cloning project, including his claims, last May, that three women were pregnant with embryo clones and that the farthest advanced pregnancy was 10 weeks. He would not say whether the woman due to give birth in January was one of the three.
"Why be so secretive about this if it is truthful?" said Dr. Jacques Cohen, the scientific director of assisted reproduction at St. Barnabas Medical Center in Livingston, N.J. "Why not tell us how this was done and where it was done and who the patient is? I would like to see some evidence."
For now, Dr. Cohen said, the pressing question for cloning is to understand why, in animals, so few embryo clones survive and why those that do survive so often have serious medical problems. While scientists have cloned a variety of species, including sheep, cows, pigs, mice, and cats, every effort has been beset with those problems and no one has found a way to solve them.
--------
Stem Cell Mixing May Form a Human-Mouse Hybrid
November 27, 2002
New York Times
By NICHOLAS WADE
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/27/science/27CELL.html
A group of American and Canadian biologists is debating whether to recommend stem cell experiments that would involve creating a human-mouse hybrid.
The goal would be to test different lines of human embryonic stem cells for their quality and potential usefulness in treating specific diseases. The best way to do that, some biologists argue, is to see how the cells work in a living animal. For ethical reasons, the test cannot be performed in people.
But if the human stem cells are tested that way in mice, any animals born from the experiment would be chimeras - organisms that are mixtures of two kinds of cells - with human cells distributed throughout their body. Though the creatures would probably be mice with a few human cells that obey mouse rules, the outcome of such an experiment cannot be predicted. A mouse with a brain made entirely of human cells would probably discomfort many people, as would a mouse that generated human sperm or eggs.
Dr. Irving L. Weissman, an expert on stem cells at Stanford University, said that making mice with human cells could be "an enormously important experiment," but if conducted carelessly could lead to outcomes that are "too horrible to contemplate." He gave as an extreme example the possibility that a mouse making human sperm might accidentally be allowed to mate with a mouse that had made its eggs from human cells.
At least two biologists in the group that is discussing the experiment said they believed that it was premature or unethical and could stir policy makers to limit further stem cell research or ban it.
Stem cells are a kind of universal clay, so responsive to local cues that they can morph into blood, skin, bone or any other replaceable tissues. They retain the gift of self-renewal, which, to curb the risk of cancer, is withdrawn from all the body's mature cells. Stem cells, when they divide, usually produce one mature cell and one stem cell.
They hold high promise as an all-purpose material for repairing many degenerative diseases of old age like Parkinson's, cancer and heart disease.
Other scientists say such experiments would be of great value and could be conducted with human stem cells engineered so that they could not produce brain or reproductive cells. That group acknowledged that even an experiment drawn up with such precautions should first undergo scientific review and public debate.
The proposal for the experiment grew out of a meeting on Nov. 13 at the New York Academy of Sciences sponsored by the academy and Rockefeller University. It was organized by Dr. Ali H. Brivanlou, a Rockefeller biologist who studies embryology.
Dr. Brivanlou invited eight other experts and, as observers, two editors of scientific journals and Dr. James F. Battey Jr., director of the National Institute of Deafness and chairman of the stem cell task force of the National Institutes of Health. The meeting was not intended to be public, Dr. Brivanlou said, and at one point, the nine experts held a closed session at which the observers, including even Dr. Battey, were asked to step outside.
One journal editor wrote of the meeting in the current issue of Nature, reporting that Dr. Battey "criticized participants for what he regards as excessive secrecy." Dr. Battey did not return telephone calls to his office.
The purpose of the meeting, Dr. Brivanlou said yesterday in an interview, was to discuss quality standards for several new lines, or colonies, of human embryonic stem cells being developed around the world.
In one test that they discussed, human embryonic stem cells would be injected into an early mouse embryo when it was still a small ball of cells called the blastocyst. Scientists would then see whether the human stem cells showed up in all the mouse's tissues. That ability, known as pluripotentiality, is the hallmark of a true embryonic stem cell.
Injection into another mouse's blastocyst is the standard test for mouse embryonic stem cells. Those cells, like human embryonic stem cells, come from a small pool of all-purpose cells a few days after the fertilized egg has started to divide.
No one knows whether human embryonic stem cells would survive in a mouse blastocyst. If they did, and they contributed to all the tissues, that would be a useful test for the many claimed human embryonic stem cell lines being developed, Dr. Brivanlou said.
One participant, Dr. Janet Rossant of Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, said that she did not consider the test necessary and that if the injected human cells made major contributions to the mouse, "I think that is something that most people would find unacceptable."
Dr. Weissman of Stanford, who was not at the meeting, said the experiment could help scientists follow the behavior of human cells with genetic diseases. Studying how the diseased human cells develop in a mouse could offer treatment insights.
Dr. Weissman said undesirable outcomes like a mouse with a brain made of human cells or a mouse that generated human sperm could be avoided by deleting certain genes from the human cells before injecting them into a mouse. He added that such procedures should be carefully reviewed by a body like the National Academy of Sciences.
"You must assure yourself and the public," he said, "that it's ethical. It's not for scientists alone to decide."
A biologist at the meeting here, Dr. Fred H. Gage of the Salk Institute, said that the question of making mice with human cells deserved further consideration and that scientists and the public "should listen to each other more" before reaching a conclusion to go ahead.
In using mice simply to test the pluripotentiality of human embryonic stem cells, it would not be necessary to let the mice grow to term, Dr. Gage said. The earlier the mice were killed the smaller would be the ethical issue, in his view.
Dr. Richard M. Doerflinger of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, who has long opposed research with human embyronic stem cells, said his primary objection remained with the first step, that of killing a human embryo to obtain embryonic stem cells. Dr. Doerflinger's initial reaction to the proposed experiment was that as a test for pluripotentiality it might not be objectionable.
"If you end up with one human cell per organ of a mouse, I don't think it raises a new problem," he said. "The amounts of human material in an animal would have to be pretty substantial to start talking about a human hybrid, and I don't think this raises that specter."
The nine participants at the conference are drafting a white paper to lay out proposed standards to test human embryonic stem cells. The mouse injection test is on the list, Dr. Brivanlou said, with the wording under discussion.
Federally financed researchers can work only with "presidential cell lines," the human cell lines established before Aug. 9, 2001, which President Bush declared as the cutoff for permissible stem cell work. The guidelines prepared by Dr. Brivanlou's group could be applied to those stem cells, as well as the nonpresidential ones.
-------- imf / world bank / wto
U.S. Urges Abolition Of Tariffs
Completion Date Of 2015 Proposed
By Paul Blustein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 27, 2002; Page E01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A43427-2002Nov26?language=printer
Seeking to regain the high ground on free trade, the Bush administration proposed yesterday that all members of the World Trade Organization eliminate tariffs on industrial and consumer goods by 2015 and exhorted U.S. trading partners to respond with similarly bold initiatives.
The proposal for a "tariff-free world" won praise from major business groups, which said it would ignite the slow-moving WTO negotiations for a new round of steps to lower trade barriers on a global basis.
But a number of trade experts, suspicious that the proposal is a public relations gambit, questioned whether the White House is truly prepared to expose heavily protected industries such as textiles and steel to fully free trade. The politically powerful American Textile Manufacturers Institute, for its part, denounced the idea of eliminating tariffs on manufactured goods worldwide as "an outright gift to China."
At a news conference, U.S. Trade Representative Robert B. Zoellick took the unusual step of emphasizing the benefits that would accrue to American consumers from abolishing tariffs. In the past, U.S. trade officials have tended to stress the gains in jobs and exports that stem from open trade -- and Zoellick did some of that, citing a study predicting that slashing nonagricultural tariffs to zero would generate an $83 billion increase in annual shipments of American goods abroad, about 11 percent above last year's level.
But with two Wal-Mart employees standing nearby holding baskets of goods, including flashlights, pacifiers, disposable cameras, men's sweaters and children's clothing, Zoellick focused on the savings that tariff elimination would mean for shoppers of imported merchandise. Without tariffs, those items, which currently cost $202, would cost $170, he said, adding jokingly: "It's a heck of a price rollback."
The proposal on manufactured goods is the latest of several opening positions that the administration has advanced in the WTO trade talks, which were launched a year ago in Doha, Qatar, with a 2005 deadline. The other proposals concerned trade in services and farm products. The talks have bogged down amid accusations that the United States, European Union and Japan don't appear genuinely willing to scrap the trade barriers and agricultural subsidies that hurt producers of clothing and crops in developing countries. The Bush administration has been the target of particularly severe criticism for adopting free-trade rhetoric while bowing to demands for protection from steelmakers and farmers.
Zoellick maintained that the "far-reaching" zero-tariff initiative ought to entice foreign governments to be more forthcoming in making the concessions that could win the necessary unanimous support for a deal among the WTO's 144 members. "We hope that countries hanging back in some areas will see the benefits," he said.
But he acknowledged that other nations would have to dismantle much higher tariffs than Washington would, citing figures that goods imported into the United States face duties averaging about 4 percent, compared with an average of 40 percent in other countries. Many developing countries insist that they must protect their industries to some extent, so their acceptance of the proposal is highly unlikely, many trade experts said.
"I know people will say, 'Are you being too ambitious?' " Zoellick said. But recalling his experience in the late 1980s as a top State Department official who helped negotiate the reunification of Germany, he said, "People said the Berlin Wall could never come down." He also maintained that poor countries stand to reap enormous gains from the proposal, citing World Bank estimates that free trade in goods would lift 300 million people out of poverty as export opportunities opened up to their industries and farmers.
Among the business groups hailing the initiative was the National Foreign Trade Council, whose president, Bill Reinsch, called it a "historic proposal that is both visionary and realistic."
But a scathing assessment was offered by Kevin Watkins, a policy expert at Oxfam, the development agency that champions the cause of poor nations. "This is an early negotiating gambit, a bit of a PR jaunt," he said.
He noted that although the United States is supposedly offering duty-free access to goods made in sub-Saharan African countries, the amount of apparel that could be shipped to the United States under the plan would be restricted and would have to be made from American fabric. "This doesn't create the impression of a country that's serious about expanding market opportunities for the poorest countries," he said.
J. Michael Finger, former lead economist for trade at the World Bank, agreed. "You put out all sorts of stuff that can get you a headline, and it looks good," he said.
Brink Lindsey, a trade expert at the Cato Institute, credited Zoellick for "laying down the right marker, an ambitious and bold marker that points" the WTO talks "in the right direction." But even without ordinary tariffs, he said, U.S. industries can shelter themselves behind the high duties available under anti-dumping laws. Many WTO members are demanding that the United States make its anti-dumping laws less tilted in favor of domestic industries.
"If the U.S. advances this proposal to zero out tariffs, while fighting intransigently against antidumping reform, that's going to alienate developing countries, because they're going to smell a scam," Lindsey said.
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Saved, or Ruined, by 'White Gold'
Corruption-Plagued Dam Project Is Also Lifeline for Lesotho
By Michael Grunwald
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, November 27, 2002; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A43572-2002Nov26?language=printer
KATSE, Lesotho -- The Lesotho Highlands Water Project has throttled wild rivers and drowned verdant valleys. Its concrete megadams have flooded out thatched huts, subsistence farms and grazing lands here in the impoverished mountain region known as the Roof of Africa. And now the project is embroiled in one of the biggest corruption scandals in the checkered history of African development.
In other words, this $8 billion scheme to ship water from the rugged peaks of Lesotho to the industrial heartland of South Africa seems to exemplify the current stereotypes of major dams: massive, expensive, destructive, exploitative and corrosive -- except that the highlands project is also the financial lifeline of this landlocked kingdom, a dynamic source of money, energy and jobs in an otherwise medieval economy.
"People love to attack big dams, but water is Lesotho's only natural resource," said Malefetsane Lepele, the general manager of the project's environmental and social services group. "It's cash. It's business. This project is the only way to keep this country alive."
Even though three of the project's five proposed dams are on hold because the calculations used to justify them were way off base, its former CEO is in jail and a dozen multinational corporations face bribery charges for feeding his Swiss bank accounts, a close look at Lesotho's experience suggests that big dams are not necessarily pure boondoggles.
The project's water fuels growth in the vital Johannesburg area, which has an economic output exceeding the rest of southern Africa's.
The project also benefits Lesotho, a Maryland-size nation where one-fourth of the 2.2 million residents are at risk of starvation and nearly one-third have HIV. The sale of fresh water -- "Lesotho's White Gold," the brochures call it -- is pouring $20 million in annual royalties into the country's coffers, about one-fourth of its total exports. The project has supplied more than 7,000 jobs and all of Lesotho's electricity, while providing new health clinics, schools, sanitation facilities and roads and upgraded water-supply systems for 150 villages. It has promised full compensation for 30,000 residents affected by the dams, as well as training and aid to help them sustain themselves in the future.
In general, the 16-year construction project has brought native highlanders -- who were often hours away from clean water and days away from a hospital -- much closer to the modern world. At the same time, the project has spawned a major spike in HIV rates by drawing outsiders to the hinterlands. But in interviews in the shadow of the 600-foot Katse Dam, Africa's tallest, and the slightly smaller Mohale Dam, completed this month, most Lesotho villagers said they welcomed the chance to modernize their lives.
"We want progress, and the dams bring progress," said Tsebo Pholo, a subsistence maize farmer who is now planting fruit trees and high-yield potatoes through programs created by the highlands project. "We shouldn't stay behind in the old ways. We want electric lights and running water." The Dream of Itjara
Before the dams, Malefatsa Natsoane was a typical Lesotho homemaker.
Her husband worked in South Africa's mines, along with 140,000 of his countrymen; the money they brought home to the hills made up two-thirds of Lesotho's economy. Natsoane spent much of her time scavenging for water, firewood and food. A trip to buy maize meal required a 10-mile mountain trek. "Oh, it was a very hard life," she recalled.
Today, Natsoane's husband has lost his job, as have three-quarters of Lesotho's miners. But with the help of the highlands project, Natsoane, 56, has transformed herself into a one-woman rural conglomerate. She grows peach trees through the project's sustainable forestry program. She has learned candle-making, basket-weaving and ceramics through the project's training program, and sells her wares along the new paved road that cuts through her village of Ha Lejone. She grows seed potatoes through the project's agricultural assistance program, as well as beet roots and mustard seeds never seen around here before.
"I feel so happy in my heart," she said. "I never thought I would have this itjara" -- the Sesotho-language word for self-reliance.
For Lesotho, the project is all about itjara; for South Africa, it is all about water. It was launched during the apartheid era -- with support from the World Bank despite official sanctions against white-ruled South Africa -- but has been embraced in the democratic era by the ruling African National Congress to help extend water supplies to millions among the long-oppressed black majority.
Southern Africa's extreme climate variations make the region uniquely susceptible to droughts, yet few steps have been taken to store the region's available water. On a per-person basis, the heavily dammed United States stores 100 times more water than most African countries.
Some critics say Johannesburg should address its water shortages by fixing leaks and reducing water use -- which has already begun to taper off because of the AIDS epidemic -- but water managers say conservation alone won't solve the problem.
"You can't run a metropolis of 10 million people without a reliable source of water," said Michael Muller, a top official at South Africa's Water Ministry. "This was just the best deal for everyone."
But for environmentalists, anti-globalization activists and other opponents of megadams, the project is a stark illustration of the general problems identified by groups like the World Conservation Union, which concluded in 1999 that dams are "the major cause of imperilment and loss of freshwater biodiversity." The U.N. World Commission on Dams issued a similarly harsh report the following year.
The highland project's critics complain that water rates have increased for poor South African blacks, that compensation for displaced Lesotho families has lagged, that community assistance programs have faltered and that the multination scandal makes a mockery of the World Bank's professed "zero tolerance" corruption policies.
In his recent book, "Unsustainable South Africa," Patrick Bond, a business professor at the University of the Witwatersand, called the project "costly, corrupt, poorly designed, badly implemented, economically damaging, ecologically disastrous and distributionally regressive." Even the project's own documents acknowledge problems with inadequate environmental planning and monitoring, initial training efforts that failed to provide marketable skills, and a now-defunct development fund that "became highly politicized and lacked transparency."
In some ways, Makobile Lakabane has come to symbolize the project's drawbacks. She lives with her husband and seven children in a dingy stone hut the size of a wrestling ring. Their hillside village, Ha Seotsa, was once home to 50 farming and herding families, but it will be underwater once the Mohale reservoir fills up, and the Lakabanes are the only residents left among the town's ruins. The project built a new home for all her neighbors who wanted one, but the Lakabanes have been embroiled in a bureaucratic dispute about the ownership of their hut. So they live an hour's drive away, along a treacherous dirt road, far from any companions, with no school and few provisions, watching the water slowly rise.
A Lesotho newspaper recently profiled the Lakabanes, bemoaning that "the danger of being swallowed by the dam stares at them every second and moment of their lives." A local human rights group, the Transformation Resource Center, has denounced project leaders who "steal millions but can't build a house for this poor family."
On a tour of her abandoned village, though, Lakabane did not sound like an anti-dam radical. She was just upset that she hadn't gotten the same resettlement offer as her neighbors.
"We would be happy if we can be resettled like everyone else," she said. "We want to be close to other things and other people."
In fact, project officials have now agreed to build a new home for the Lakabanes in a village of their choice, and the only remaining dispute involves $120 in moving costs. Overall, the project will displace only about 600 families. By contrast, more than 1 million people were in the way of China's Three Gorges Dam. 'People With Cash Arrived'
"I went to Lesotho expecting to hate the project, but it's not so bad," said environmental activist Steve Rothert, who once organized a meeting of local villagers and now works for the anti-dam conservation group American Rivers. "The people there really don't have any other economic opportunities."
The good news, said Sister Catherine Lebina, is that the highlands project recently built a mortuary for her hospital in Manohau, a great sanitary advance for a region that has never had the means to refrigerate corpses before.
The bad news, she said, is that the new mortuary is always full.
"This was a nowhere place before they built the dams," Sister Catherine explained. "Then people with cash arrived in a place without cash. Girls started doing things for money. And so? AIDS."
AIDS has been an unforeseen consequence of the highlands project, spread by its truck drivers and construction workers as well as villagers with new access to the outside world. Sister Catherine said 80 percent of her patients are infected with HIV. One study suggested a 40 percent rise in HIV rates. But literacy rates are also rising, and waterborne diseases are declining.
There are pros and cons to almost every element of the project. For example, it diverted 40 percent of the Orange River's flow, transformed the ecology of its valleys and wiped out nearby medicinal plants. But it also set aside two nature reserves, established the first botanical garden devoted to "Afro-alpine flora" and spent $2 million to save the endangered Maloti minnow. Similarly, the project had several development failures -- a recycling plant that sits idle, a soccer field washed away by a storm, a sanitation project doomed by rumors of snakes lurking in toilets -- but it succeeded in forming grazing cooperatives and promoting higher-value crops.
Even the scandal has led to a landmark prosecution, with a Lesotho judge recently ordering a Canadian multinational to pay an unprecedented $2.2 million fine for bribery.
Mahlape Mothepu, a top project official, was once a rural villager herself, rising every day at 5 a.m. to fetch her family's water. It is important, she said, to recognize problems caused by the dams. But she believes it's more important to remember problems that predated the dams.
"We've learned some bitter lessons," she said. "But please remember why we're doing this."
-------- ACTIVISTS
Russia Greens say security service oppressing them
Wednesday, November 27, 2002
By Oliver Bullough,
Reuters
http://enn.com/news/wire-stories/2002/11/11272002/reu_49052.asp
MOSCOW - Ecologists said Tuesday a police swoop on a group denouncing radioactive pollution of Russia's unique Lake Baikal was part of a long-term security service campaign to crush environmental movements.
Baikal Environmental Wave was raided Friday evening by the FSB (Federal Security Service), one of the successor groups to the KGB, whose officers took documents and computers, saying they contained state secrets.
More than 100 environmental and civil rights organizations signed a statement to protest the raid on the group, which publicized business and government activities it said were harmful to the vast lake's environment.
"Together with its fight against terrorism, fascism, drug smuggling and organized crime, the FSB is also conducting a fight against ecologists," the statement said.
Lake Baikal, a UNESCO heritage site as big as Belgium, holds one-fifth of the world's fresh water. It saw some of the Soviet Union's first environmental protests - against a factory that pollutes its waters to this day.
Environmental movements frequently have confronted Russian authorities, especially since President Vladimir Putin came to power.
Prominent environmentalist Grigory Pasko lost his appeal of a spying conviction this year for giving information to Japanese media about Russian dumping of nuclear waste off Russia's Pacific coast.
In another celebrated case, former navy Capt. Alexander Nikitin was acquitted in 2000 when tried on treason charges for publishing data on radioactive pollution in Arctic seas.
"The FSB is pushing (against environmentalists), and seeing if there is a reaction. If they get no reaction, that's fine, if there is one, they'll keep trying," Ivan Blokov, campaign director at Greenpeace Russia, told a news conference.
Maps seized by the FSB, the domestic security agency, contained details compiled by the group of radioactive pollution round the lake. It also campaigned against a pipeline due to run to China through the area and backed by YUKOS, Russia's number two oil company, and the China National Petroleum Corp.
The FSB made no reply to requests to comment on the raid.
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Government, ACLU reach a pact on Patriot Act data
ASSOCIATED PRESS
November 27, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20021127-83886212.htm
The government agreed to tell the American Civil Liberties Union by Jan. 15 which documents it would release about increased surveillance in the United States under a law passed in response to the September 11 terrorist attacks.
In response to a suit brought by the ACLU and other groups, the Justice Department also said it would supply a list of documents that it would keep confidential, citing national security concerns. The ACLU could challenge the decision to withhold any documents.
The agreement was reached yesterday before U.S. District Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle, who is hearing the case growing out of an Aug. 21 request filed under the Freedom of Information Act.
The civil liberties group wants to know how the government is carrying out the USA Patriot Act, passed in response to September 11. The law gives the government new powers to obtain personal information about U.S. citizens in an attempt to stop future terrorist attacks.
ACLU lawyer Jameel Jaffer asked for a specific date for the Justice Department to provide the information, saying that another federal judge set a deadline for the Energy Department to release documents and e-mail concerning Vice President Richard B. Cheney's energy task force.
"It's reasonable to ask for a fixed date," Mr. Jaffer said.
Justice Department lawyer Anthony J. Coppolino said the government needed until mid-January because the ACLU request was being reviewed by several agencies.
He said the government had produced 163 pages of information, but needed to check with the various agencies, including the Immigration and Naturalization Service, intelligence and the criminal division to determine whether the information could be released.
Judge Huvelle said the government was working toward meeting the ACLU's request.
"This is a matter of great public interest," Judge Huvelle said. "I am not unimpressed by the efforts of the government to comply. The government is moving heaven and earth to get what you want."
The ACLU asked the Justice Department for the number of times it has asked libraries or bookstores for lists of purchases or for the identities of those who have bought certain books, how many times law enforcement officials have entered people's homes without letting them know until later; how many times they have approved phone traces of people not accused of any crimes, and how many times they have investigated Americans for writing letters to newspapers, attending rallies or other First Amendment-protected activities.
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Where is Israel's Daniel Ellsberg?
By Akiva Eldar,
Ha'aretz
Wednesday, November 27, 2002 Kislev 22, 5763
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=234122&contrassID=2&subContrassID=4&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Yhttp://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=234122&contrassID=2&subContrassID=4&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y
Daniel Ellsberg, the U.S. Department of Defense official who in 1971 leaked classified documents subsequently known as the Pentagon Papers to The New York Times, has recently published his memoirs. The book presents evidence showing that for 23 years, five U.S. presidents waged a war (in Indochina) they knew America could never win.
In a tape recording, Lyndon Johnson is heard saying to a friend that he does not believe that the Vietnamese will ever surrender. "At the same time, he sent young men to their deaths," Ellsberg bemoans, reminding us that 58,000 U.S. soldiers and more than 2 million Asian civilians lost their lives in that very war.
Ellsberg was a passenger on Robert McNamara's plane when the former secretary of defense was heard saying that the American army was taking a beating in Vietnam. When the plane landed, however, Ellsberg was standing alongside McNamara when the latter announced to the press: "I am pleased to announce significant advances on all fronts."
Ellsberg suggests that we learn from the documents he disclosed that when it comes to war and peace, thinking people should not make do with information offered by the administration, not even Congress. The documents indicate that even the most classified of Congress's committees fell victim to blatant lies.
In an interview with the online news Web site, www.salon.com, Ellsberg says that the most intelligent of individuals, such as McNamara, can adopt destructive policies if their wisdom is undermined by stronger forces - political survival, fear of being labeled with a wimpish image, exhibiting weakness in the face of Communism.
Ellsberg argues that these same forces are driving the Bush administration - in the name of the war on terror - into a war steeped in the blood of Iraqi citizens. He warns that this war is likely to drag the Arab world into the hands of the Islamic fundamentalists and cost the lives of countless Americans, Europeans and Israelis.
According to Ellsberg, Ariel Sharon's war-on-terror policy is costing the lives of more Israelis than it is saving, and his opinion has significant backing from among the upper echelons of the Israeli establishment. The ongoing decline in moral standards is indeed eroding their strength, but in backrooms, there are still experts who are saying things and even writing papers indicating that top-level political and military officials are knowingly feeding the public with falsehoods. In their assessments of the current situation, no inkling of a basis can be found for the promise that Palestinian terror can be stopped without Israel putting an end to the occupation.
In off-the-record talks, senior sources in the defense establishment say that the chances "of wiping out the terror infrastructure" are tantamount to those of drying out the Mediterranean Sea. Occupying ourselves with the terrorists and those who send them out on their missions, explosives laboratories and the deportation of Yasser Arafat is diverting attention from the real danger: Hundreds of gangs of armed young men who answer to no one are threatening to turn the territories into a second Vietnam. They do not need an organization and it is almost impossible to garner intelligence ("warnings") about their plans.
Defense Ministry officials are whispering that the political echelon (with the help of the media) is selling the public the delusion that the separation fence is about to become a reality; these officials know that in the coming years, the state coffers will be unable to bear the burden of the ongoing war for the safety of the settlements together with the investment of billions of shekels in the seam-line area.
Military Intelligence doesn't know whether to laugh or cry on hearing Benjamin Netanyahu's argument against "Sharon's intention to establish a Palestinian state." Any junior intelligence officer knows that Sari Nusseibeh has a hard time finding even a handful of supporters for Ami Ayalon's generous offer of a state within the 1967 borders, and that by the end of this decade, a Jewish minority will be ruling an Arab majority between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River.
Ellsberg's message to the Bush administration can apply to Israel too: If you are in possession of documents that show that the government is misleading the public all the way into war, take them to Congress and the media. Even if it could cost you your job or get you sent to prison, tell the truth.
By the way, Ellsberg and The New York Times were completely acquitted by a court of law for the publication of the documents.
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Protest Against G.I.'s Leads to Breaching of Post Near Seoul
November 27, 2002
New York Times
By DON KIRK
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/27/international/asia/27KORE.html
UIJONGBU, South Korea, Nov. 26 - More than 50 protesters broke through a chain link fence today around a strategic American military post in this commuter town several miles north of Seoul, and paraded for 35 minutes with banners demanding that American troops leave South Korea.
The protesters chained themselves together during the final few minutes of the march in Camp Red Cloud, headquarters for the United States Army's Second Infantry Division. Korean policemen swarmed through the main entrance to the base and arrested the marchers.
Lt. Col. Steven Boylan, spokesman for the Eighth Army in Seoul, said the demonstrators "walked through shouting, `U.S. troops out of Korea!' " It was, he went on, "reasonable to assume there is concern" about the security of American bases in view of the incident.
United States Army officers said there were no injuries and almost no damage, but they were confounded by how easy it had been for protesters to cut through a fence surrounding the post from which the Army coordinates defenses on the main invasion route to Seoul.
The Second Division, the largest American unit in Korea, with 14,000 troops, is responsible for the 30-mile stretch between Seoul and the demilitarized zone that has separated North Korea and South Korea since the Korean War.
Privately, American officials discussed the implications of the episode for the 93 American bases scattered throughout South Korea, where 37,000 American troops are stationed. The underlying question being asked was whether the bases in Korea had proper defenses not only against demonstrators but also against terrorists or North Korean troops.
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Iran Releases Four Student Protesters
November 27, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Iran-Death-Sentence.html
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- Four student leaders who were arrested for organizing protests over a death sentence against a prominent university professor were released Wednesday but still face charges of endangering state security.
Saeed Razavi, Abdollah Momeini, Mehdi Aminizadeh and Akbar Atri were ordered to appear Saturday before the hard-line Tehran Revolutionary Court for further questioning, Atri's brother, Morteza, told The Associated Press.
In Washington, asked about the arrests in Iran and a ban on demonstrations, State Department spokesman Philip Reeker said the United States stands the quest by many Iranians ``for freedom, for civil liberties, for prosperity, for judicial due process and the rule of law.''
Reeker said the United States remains concerned about the death sentence still standing against Hashem Aghajari and the recent arrests of other activists.
When Iranians try to exercise their rights to speak out, he said, ``they are met with violence, with arrests and with death sentences.''
The four were arrested Tuesday by plainclothes security agents. They were blindfolded and didn't know where they were held, Atri said.
Tehran Deputy Governor Ebrahim Rezaei Babadi criticized the arrests as ``contrary to the country's interests'' and called on students to remain calm.
The four have been charged with ``insulting Islamic sanctities'' and ``endangering state security'' for leading demonstrations against the death sentence imposed on Aghajari, according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency.
The death sentence against the university professor for questioning hard-line rule has drawn widespread protests from parliament, university students and the public.
The professor has until Dec. 2 to file an appeal, but his lawyer, Saleh Nikbakht, has said that Aghajari refuses to do so.
Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say on all state matters, has ordered the judiciary to reconsider the verdict.
Aghajari's case highlights the power struggle between reformists supporting President Mohammad Khatami's program of social and political freedoms and hard-liners who control unelected institutions, including the police and judiciary.
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