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NUCLEAR
Trees Near N.M. Lab May Be Radioactive
U.N. Inspectors Revisit Iraqi Sites
U.N. Revisits Suspect Plants
Inspectors Find Only Ruins at an Old Iraqi Weapons Site
Iraq's Nuclear Threat
UN Watchdog 'Deplores' N.Korea Nuclear Stance
MIT faces criticism on missile test study
Turkish minister says nuclear energy plan revived
MILITARY
Special-forces convoy ambushed; one hurt
Bin Laden role seen in 2 Kenya attacks
Islamic council rejects journalist's death fatwa
Ivory Coast Fighting Intensifies; Town Taken
Dozen Held in Attacks on Israelis in Kenya That Left 13 Dead
Jet Purchase Splits Brazil:
War games missed
Allied Planes Bomb Facility in Northern Iraq
Leaflets, Bombs Dropped on Iraq
Iraq Says U.S. Will Try to Stoke Inspection Row
Sharon wins re-election as head of Likud Party
Israel Faces New Row with U.N., Arrests Militant
Australia trials new landmine detection system
U.N Agency Urges Russia Not to Close Chechen Camps
Briton Admits Spying on Defense Firm
U.K. Engineer Admits to Spying for Russia
U.S. Jets Respond to Indication of Approaching Craft
Right Wing Gets Gored
Commandos Specialize in Secret Missions
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS
Medical Marijuana Laws Surveyed
Domestic Spying Pressed
Fight Against Terror: Two Conflicts or One?
Ideal Terror Weapons: Portable, Deadly, Plentiful Missiles
ENERGY AND OTHER
Bulk of Vast Oil Slick Is Closing in on Spanish Coast
N.Y. Faces Record Number of Homeless
U.N.: 40 Nations Face Food Shortages
ACTIVISTS
Storytellers Pass On Lore Of Space Age Mentors and Their Memories
Iranian Student Protesters Call Referendum on Hard-Line Rulers
After Freeing Dissident, Burmese Rulers Move Slowly on Reform
Eco - Warriors Block Elderly Oil Tanker in Estonia
Iran Judge Says to Review Dissident's Death Verdict
Mideast Protests Mark Jerusalem Day
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- accidents and safety
[How disappointing that this was buried on the 41st page in Washington, D.C. So much better if the politicians saw it splashed across the front page. et]
Trees Near N.M. Lab May Be Radioactive
Reuters
Friday, November 29, 2002
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A51483-2002Nov28?language=printer
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 this week.
"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 in Bayo Canyon, 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 '50s as a place where scientists 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 workers and the 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 houses 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.
-------- inspections
U.N. Inspectors Revisit Iraqi Sites
By CHARLES J. HANLEY
AP Special Correspondent
Nov 29, 2002
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/I/IRAQ_WEAPONS_INSPECTORS?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
AL-DAWRAH, Iraq (AP) -- The U.N. weapons hunters, sweeping through a disused bio-warfare installation Thursday, spotted a disconnected refrigerator. They moved in, threw open the door, and recoiled in disgust.
The stench that wafted out may have come from a batch of harmless material left from a long-ago veterinary experiment. But it got the full treatment - a swab, a sample, analysis to come - in the second day of the painstaking U.N. search for any Iraqi doomsday arms.
After a four-year break, the international experts revisited two sites from Iraq's old weapons programs: a high-tech machining operation that could be key to any nuclear bomb-building, and a veterinary vaccine plant where deadly biological weapons were concocted a decade ago.
They found open doors. "It is very good cooperation," the director of the al-Dawrah vaccine plant told reporters afterward.
The lead inspectors seemed to agree. "It's a good start for the inspections," said Jacques Baute, team leader for the nuclear experts.
The work the inspectors do in the weeks and months to come - to eliminate any Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, or at least to reduce the possibility of them - must be convincing enough to avert a U.S. call for international military action to disarm the Baghdad government. From Iraq's point of view, the inspections must be good enough to persuade the Security Council to lift the U.N. economic sanctions crippling its economy.
But first the arms monitors must make a dent in a list of hundreds of sites potentially connected with programs to produce chemical, biological or nuclear weapons. They have begun by returning to important facilities surveyed and "neutralized" by U.N. inspectors in the 1990s.
Under U.N. resolutions after the 1991 Gulf War, arms inspectors uncovered and destroyed tons of Iraqi chemical and biological weapons and the equipment to make them, and dismantled Iraq's nuclear weapons program. But the monitoring collapsed in 1998 amid disputes over U.N. access to Iraqi sites and Iraqi complaints of U.S. spying from within the U.N. inspection agency.
The experts believe Iraq may retain some weapons, including some of the tons of botulinum toxin - a deadly biological agent - produced at al-Dawrah before the Gulf War. This is "part of what we call unresolved issues," Demetrius Perricos, in command of the chemical-biological inspectors in Iraq, told reporters.
Earlier Thursday, Perricos' team arrived unannounced at the Foot and Mouth Disease Vaccine Production Laboratory in this town on Baghdad's southern outskirts.
The inspectors gained immediate entry and quickly walked the grounds, as journalists watched from beyond the perimeter fence.
The U.N. team knew where to go based on data from the 1990s, when inspections led to the systematic destruction in 1996 of al-Dawrah equipment instrumental to production of biological weapons agents. The Iraqis had eventually acknowledged making the botulinum, which kills through paralysis and suffocation. The earlier U.N. teams also reported detecting anthrax spores at the site.
On Thursday, the clipboard-toting specialists appeared to check off items as they looked over tanks, pipes and other fixtures. One jeans-clad expert climbed up the side of a 20-foot- high tank, peered over the top, and nodded to a colleague as if to confirm previous information. They took swab samples from air filters and elsewhere.
The Iraqis say the complex has been idle since 1996. When the inspectors left after four hours, the Iraqis opened the gates to the waiting journalists, who found the rooms of the main lab building strewn with wrecked equipment, discarded files and dust-covered boxes of books on veterinary medicine and agricultural science.
They also found caretaker Dr. Karima Niaama inside the main building. Niaama, a veterinarian, said she had led inspectors to areas they inquired about, and it was she who recounted the story of the evil-smelling refrigerator.
Perricos later confirmed the complex "is not in operation, or at least looks like it is not in operation." The visit was part of the inspectors' "rebaselining," fixing the location of sensitive equipment to enable routine monitoring later.
Nuclear inspectors from the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) did the same thing Thursday at a complex of the government's al-Nasr company, 30 miles north of Baghdad, where they checked on sophisticated machine tools that can, for example, help manufacture gas centrifuges. Such centrifuges are used to "enrich" uranium to bomb-grade level - a method favored by the Iraqis in their bomb program of the late 1980s.
Both Perricos and the IAEA's Baute said they were satisfied that all sensitive equipment from both sites had been accounted for.
----
U.N. Revisits Suspect Plants
No Evidence of Rebuilding At Veterinary Medicine Lab
By Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, November 29, 2002; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A52069-2002Nov28?language=printer
AL-DAWRAH, Iraq, Nov. 28 -- After uncovering evidence in 1996 that a veterinary medicine laboratory here had been covertly producing strains of botulinum toxin, a deadly bacteriological warfare agent, U.N. weapons inspectors trashed the facility, slicing open fermentation tanks and chopping up metal piping. Much of the ventilation system was taken apart. Laboratory equipment was disabled or destroyed.
Today, a new team of U.N. experts, armed with clipboards and sophisticated testing gear, returned to the al-Dawrah Foot and Mouth Vaccine Production Laboratory to check whether military research had resumed. The inspectors did not say why they chose to visit the site on the second day of their resumed hunt for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but they might have been following up on a recent CIA report that the Iraqi government has plans to renovate the plant.
The inspectors would not detail what they found during their four-hour search. But after they departed, Iraqi officials, who insist there is no reconstruction work going on at the al-Dawrah center, permitted journalists to enter the site briefly. To the untrained eye, the site betrayed no signs of renovation -- but plenty of disrepair.
As weapons searches resume here after a four-year hiatus, U.N. experts and the Iraqi government appear after the first two days to have settled into a reasonably harmonious routine, at least for the initial phase of inspections. The lack of immediate problems has fueled optimism among some U.N. officials that this round of inspections finally may provide the world with a more accurate picture of Iraq's alleged weapons stockpiles and its capacity to develop nuclear, biological and chemical arms.
"It's a good start for the inspections," said Jacques Baute, an inspection leader from the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is coordinating the inspections with a special U.N. commission examining Iraq's biological, chemical and missile programs.
On both days, as soon as the inspectors pulled out of the U.N. compound in Baghdad, they were met by Iraqi officials who followed the white U.N. vehicles to the sites chosen for a visit. When the inspectors reached their destinations, there was no delay in admitting them. And when they sought to poke around, collect samples or pore through documents, there were no significant objections, according to U.N. officials.
Although the inspectors have not given Iraqi authorities advance warning of the sites they plan to search, they have commenced the inspections in a nonconfrontational way by visiting places that already were scoured by U.N. experts in the 1990s.
The inspectors have insisted that journalists be kept out of the sites during the searches. But so far, Iraqi officials have been willing to admit reporters after the experts depart, usually for brief photo opportunities, to show off what they say is their lack of banned weapons and their cooperation with the inspection process.
At each of the five sites that inspectors have visited, officials displayed equipment and operations that did not appear to violate U.N. restrictions. This suggests that if there is suspicious activity, it is taking place in other parts of the sites or in other locations.
The Iraqi government has not issued any statements about the inspections, but it has voiced none of the criticism that punctuated the U.N. inspection process in the 1990s. "Things appear to be working relatively well," a U.N. official said. "The Iraqi side appears to understand what we have to do, and we are respectful of them."
But, the official said, "it's still too early to tell if things will continue to be this smooth."
U.S. officials have expressed skepticism that the inspectors will receive the same level of cooperation if they attempt to search President Saddam Hussein's palaces or other sensitive sites. A U.N. Security Council resolution approved unanimously Nov. 8 calls for the inspectors to get access to any person or place in Iraq without having to seek permission or provide advance notice.
President Bush has threatened to force Iraq to disarm -- shorthand for a U.S. military invasion to destroy Hussein's government -- if it does not cooperate with the inspectors.
On Wednesday, the inspectors visited a large engineering center and a military-industrial complex on the outskirts of Baghdad that contains a missile-testing facility and a graphite-products factory. Today, they visited al-Dawrah, on the southern fringe of Baghdad, the capital, and the al-Nasr complex, about 25 miles north of Baghdad.
Factories at al-Nasr had produced bombs that were believed to hold chemical agents. They also had extended the range of Scud missiles imported from the former Soviet Union. Now, officials insisted, the factories make only light conventional ammunition and heavy civilian machinery.
During their visit to al-Nasr, the inspectors checked on sophisticated machine tools that can help manufacture gas centrifuges used to enrich uranium.
At the al-Dawrah site, journalists observed a half-dozen biological inspectors, wearing baby-blue U.N. hats and armbands, walking through the grounds with their clipboards, appearing to scribble notes and check off items. When they reached the back of the complex, one expert climbed to the top of a 20-foot metal storage tank to peer in. Others asked for a padlocked brick building to be opened, which prompted two Iraqi officials to scurry in search of keys.
The plant's director, Muntassar Omer, said the inspectors used cotton swabs to take samples from tanks and from the ventilation system. He said the inspectors also looked at cameras they had installed in the 1990s that no longer work.
The facility was set up with the help of French experts in the 1980s as a production center for a foot-and-mouth disease vaccine. Iraqi military researchers later installed a sophisticated biocontainment facility with an extensive air-handling and filtering system suitable for the production of lethal biological agents.
Before the 1991 Persian Gulf War, Iraq admitted that al-Dawrah had been used to develop biological agents, but the government insisted it had engaged only in "small-scale, defensive" research. It was not until 1995 that U.N. arms experts concluded that the facility had been used to develop significant quantities of botulinum toxin. U.S. and British intelligence agencies also suspect that the plant was used to manufacture anthrax.
In an unclassified report issued last month, the CIA noted that Iraq announced in 2001 that it would begin renovating al-Dawrah to once again produce a foot-and-mouth vaccine. But today's visit suggested that work has not begun.
Stacks of dusty, years-old veterinary journals lined the main hallway. Trash covered the floor and the overhead lighting was broken. Laboratory workbenches were piled high with grimy glass bottles, beakers and pipettes, but there was little in the way of equipment that appeared to work. In one large production room, strewn with bolts and mangled pieces of metal, signs of the earlier U.N. pipe-cutting and tank-busting were apparent.
"Everything is destroyed here," Omer said. "No one can do anything here."
----
HUNT FOR WEAPONS
Inspectors Find Only Ruins at an Old Iraqi Weapons Site
November 29, 2002
New York Times
By JOHN F. BURNS
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/29/international/middleeast/29IRAQ.html
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Nov. 28 - When United Nations weapons inspectors raced up to the gates of a scruffy industrial plant on the southern outskirts of Baghdad today they were met, amid the listless palm trees and acres of bare earth, by a large, green-painted sign at the gate with a deceptively innocuous legend.
"General Establishment for Animal Development," the sign read, in English and Arabic, and underneath: "Animal Health Development. Foot and Mouth Disease Vaccine Production Laboratory."
But the plant at Al Dawrah has as sinister a history as any on the weapons inspectors' list of about 1,000 sites across Iraq - sites the inspectors plan to search painstakingly.
Al Dawrah's story took a sharp turn in 1995, when Mr. Hussein's son-in-law, Gen. Hussein Kamel, then in charge of all of Iraq's nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programs, defected to neighboring Jordan with millions of dollars of government money. Among the secrets he took with him was confirmation of a huge biological weapons program that Iraq had insistently denied, with Al Dawrah as one of the principal production plants.
General Kamel was later lured back to Baghdad, where within days, he and several members of his family, taking refuge in his sister's luxurious villa, were killed in a furious shootout. But Al Dawrah became a focal point of the earlier round of United Nations weapons inspections. Those inspections were terminated in December 1998, over Iraq's persistent noncompliance. By that time, however, the United Nations specialized teams had determined that Al Dawrah had produced, among other things, at least 1,425 gallons of botulinum toxin.
When the new round of inspections began on Wednesday, Al Dawrah was high on the list for an early-morning, unannounced, arrive-at-high-speed search. One reason was that the Iraqis never accounted for all the botulinum, which kills by paralysis and suffocation. Another was that a British government document issued this summer named Al Dawrah as a site where there was a suspicion of renewed activity.
By the time the inspectors left the plant today, after four hours, they had concluded that the plant was no longer operational - not for the production of toxins, and not for animal vaccines either. Reporters who were allowed to wander through the plant after the inspectors left found the place largely in ruins. Apparently, it had been abandoned by the Iraqis after 1996, when the weapons inspectors took heavy cutting equipment to the fermenters, containers and pressurized tubing and valves used in the toxin production.
The darkened rooms of the compound's main building were little more than a garbage site, with mangled lengths of steel, document files strewn about to collect dust and piles of pressure valves and severed pipes. The inspectors, bearing clipboards, tape recorders, cameras and flashlights, spent much of their time scouring outbuildings, taking swab samples from air-filtration systems and, in the case of one inspector, clambering to the top of a 20-foot tank, then nodding to his colleagues as if to confirm that he had found what he expected. Equipment judged not to have been used in the toxin production, they found, had been left untouched.
Al Dawrah's director, Montasser Omar Abdel Aziz, had been summoned to the plant by aides after the inspectors began their search shortly before 9 a.m. Later, he told reporters, somewhat testily, that the inspectors had found exactly what Iraq had predicted when it said, repeatedly in recent months, that it had abandoned all its banned weapons programs. "You can enter inside, all there are destroyed," he said, speaking in English. "Nobody can do nothing inside. Now, nothing. Just a store."
The weapons inspectors agreed with the Iraqi official, but only up to a point. As they had on Wednesday, when they began their inspections by visiting a missile-engine factory, an adjacent graphite plant and a motor production complex, the leaders of the inspection teams acknowledged that the Iraqis had placed no impediments in the way of their work.
It is a point much emphasized by Iraqi officials, who have encouraged foreign reporters to follow the inspection teams and roam freely about the plants afterward.
"We had no problem with access," said Demetrius Perricos, the 67-year-old Greek chemical engineer who is leading the field inspection teams deployed by the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission. That agency is responsible for inspections of sites with potential involvement in banned biological, chemical and missile programs. "We conducted all the activities we had to do, so as far as we are concerned this is a good start." Mr. Perricos dispatched 14 inspectors to Al Dawrah today and met with reporters later at a United Nations briefing.
A similar view was offered by Jacques Baute, the French nuclear physicist who leads the field inspection teams for the International Atomic Energy Agency. Nine of the nuclear agency's teams today inspected the industrial complex at Al Nasr, 30 miles north of Baghdad, where sophisticated machine-tool equipment was identified during United Nations inspections from 1991 to 1998 as having been involved in producing rotors for centrifuges designed for enriching uranium, and engine parts for missiles. "We had no difficulty with access," Mr. Baute said. "We went into every technically significant building."
Al Nasr was heavily bombed by American and British aircraft after inspections were terminated in 1998, but has since been partly rebuilt. It was identified by American officials in October as one of the weapons sites the Iraqis were putting back into commission, but Mr. Baute said the new building shown in American intelligence photographs appeared to be inactive, at least during today's inspections. "As far as we observed today, it seemed to be very empty," he said.
Both men gave the Iraqis credit for keeping an accurate inventory of equipment "tagged" by the previous inspectors. When one fermenter at Al Dawrah was missing, plant officials said it had been moved to a veterinary plant north of Baghdad. When the inspectors went on to the other plant in search of the missing equipment, they found it. Mr. Baute said his men had a similar experience at Al Nasr, identifying every tagged piece of equipment at the plant, other than some the Iraqis had acknowledged moving in earlier declarations to the United Nations.
But neither Mr. Perricos nor Mr. Baute was ready to comment, based on the initial inspections, on the issue behind the months of American threats that led to the United Nations Security Council's action earlier this month in approving the tough new weapons-inspection mandate: whether Iraq still has banned weapons programs, or has abandoned them, as senior Iraqi officials have insisted. A key test of Iraq's intentions will come on Dec. 8, when the Baghdad government must make a full, formal declaration of all its banned weapons programs, if any, and of civilian work in related fields.
The inspectors said their work was not a matter of reaching conclusions from visits to individual sites, but of building a "mosaic" by visiting groups of related sites, then re-visiting some of them. Mr. Perricos described this process as "trying to make an assessment of what happened in the dark years" after 1998, when the inspections ceased.
Mr. Baute said the work could take "weeks or months" - longer, possibly, though he did not say so, than the Bush administration might be prepared to wait as it weighs its options for war.
--------
Iraq's Nuclear Threat
November 29, 2002
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/29/opinion/L29IRAQ.html
To the Editor:
A Nov. 25 front-page article says that "tracking Iraq's nuclear weapons sites is considered less complicated because of the radioactivity they emit and because the United Nations compiled a detailed picture of Iraq's program in the early 1990's."
Unfortunately, key technologies like centrifuges to enrich uranium for bombs release little detectable radiation. Fabrication of nonnuclear components for bombs, like high-explosive lenses, emits no radioactivity.
Before 1998, inspectors dismantled much of Iraq's bomb program. But significant issues remain unresolved: Iraq's bomb designs and nuclear-weapon components, for example, are still missing.
The greatest risk is Saddam Hussein's smuggling in bomb material stolen from civil or military programs, which the International Atomic Energy Agency concedes it has very little chance of detecting.
The only fail-safe approach is to halt production and use of plutonium and highly enriched uranium worldwide. Bomb-usable nuclear materials are too dangerous for civilian commerce. STEVEN DOLLEY Washington, Nov. 25, 2002 The writer is research director, Nuclear Control Institute.
-------- korea
UN Watchdog 'Deplores' N.Korea Nuclear Stance
November 29, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-korea-un-iaea.html
VIENNA (Reuters) - The United Nations' nuclear watchdog said on Friday it ``deplored'' North Korea's assertion it had a right to possess atomic weapons and called on Pyongyang to open its alleged weapons program to inspections.
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) head Mohamed ElBaradei told reporters the agency's board of governors said it ``deplores North Korea's repeated public statements that it is entitled to possess nuclear weapons.''
He said the board had called Pyongyang's stance a ``violation of North Korea's international commitments'' and demanded that it respond to ElBaradei's request for immediate senior-level discussion in Pyongyang or Vienna.
The board of governors, representing 35 of the agency's member states, also called on North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons program, which ElBaradei said was a serious threat to global peace and security.
``I think the message is clear -- that North Korea should cooperate,'' ElBaradei said. ``I hope that North Korea will see the merit of entering into a dialogue with the agency, which could be the beginning of a peaceful resolution of the issue.''
In its unusually strong statement, the board urged North Korea to ``open immediately all relevant facilities to IAEA inspections and safeguards.''
The United States said North Korea had admitted to having a secret nuclear weapons program during a visit to Pyongyang early last month by U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly.
Asked if continued non-compliance by North Korea could push the international community to get as tough with Pyongyang as it has been with Baghdad, which faces a U.S.-led military attack if it fails to comply with U.N. inspections, ElBaradei said:
``I don't think I'd like to speculate on that. But I think it has been made clear that this is a serious violation of their obligations and that at this stage the international community would like to see a solution through peaceful means.''
The State Department welcomed the resolution.
``This resolution sends a clear, strong and unmistakable signal that the international community will not tolerate a North Korean nuclear weapons program. North Korea must come into compliance with its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, including its safeguards agreement with the IAEA,'' said State Department spokesman Philip Reeker.
President Bush has labeled North Korea part of an ``axis of evil'' with Iraq and Iran and unveiled a doctrine of pre-emptive strikes against states allegedly developing weapons of mass destruction.
Although the IAEA has been carrying out very limited inspections in North Korea since the early 1990s, it has never been able to conduct intrusive inspections under the Safeguards Agreement needed to flush out any secret weapons program.
-------- missile defense
MIT faces criticism on missile test study
Some critics insist a coverup occurred
By David Abel,
Boston Globe Staff,
11/29/2002
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/333/metro/MIT_faces_criticism_on_missile_test_study%2B.shtml
After nearly a year reviewing allegations of scientific fraud at MIT, a senior professor called for a full investigation into whether MIT scientists knowingly gave their seal of approval to a major component of the fledgling national missile defense program that did not work.
Over the past year, some professors at MIT have vigorously criticized the university for a 1999 report that validated a crucial missile defense test for the Pentagon. Though researchers at the university's Lexington-based Lincoln Laboratory said sensors in the missile defense system worked as the manufacturer claimed, investigators later found that the sensors could not have worked properly, and critics have said MIT participated in a coverup.
In two reports released last March, congressional investigators confirmed that the studies by MIT scientists were flawed. But the question remains whether scientists or managers at Lincoln Labs made a simple scientific mistake or engaged in deliberate fraud, producing favorable results that helped the Pentagon justify spending billions of dollars on national missile defense.
The university appointed Ed Crawley, chairman of the aeronautics and astronautics department, to look into the allegations. In a letter provided to the Globe, Charlene M. Placido, an assistant dean for research, wrote that Crawley has decided ''to recommend an investigation ... under MIT's scientific misconduct policies.''
Crawley did not return calls for comment and university officials would not release his report.
''The reason for confidentiality is simple: The reputations of individuals are at stake,'' Massachusetts Institute of Technology spokesman Ken Campbell wrote in a statement.
Also at stake is the university's academic reputation for independent scientific review, which critics say was compromised by MIT's interest in maintaining hundreds of millions of dollars in annual government contracts.
In recommending an investigation, Crawley seemed to reverse his previous findings. In a draft report sent to administrators this summer, he called the Lincoln Labs study ''a well-reasoned analysis,'' adding ''not only do I find no evidence of research misconduct, but I also find no credible evidence of technical error.''
Senior administrators contacted this week would not say why Crawley has now called for an investigation or whether the university will follow his recommendations. MIT provost Robert Brown, who also did not return calls, will decide in coming months whether the university should investigate.
The call for an investigation represents a small victory for MIT physicist Theodore Postol, who alerted administrators to the possible fraud in April 2001 and has since urged them to launch a full inquiry. In the past year, Postol sent university officials and members of Congress thousands of pages to support his allegations of scientific fraud.
''This isn't simply a case of bad or fraudulent science, it was quite likely obstruction of justice - and every major official at the university has been fully aware of this,'' said Postol, who believes administrators misled federal investigators and want to avoid a full investigation.
''My hope is that whoever finally investigates this case, it will be free of bias,'' he added.
MIT officials wouldn't comment on Postol's allegations. But in the statement released by Campbell, they said: ''Professor Postol knows what the MIT policies say about confidentiality, and if he chooses to disregard them, he will have violated those policies.''
In response, Postol said: ''Evidence of criminality is not covered under MIT's confidentiality rules.''
Postol's allegations arose out of a lawsuit by a senior staff engineer at TRW, one of the main contractors for the missile defense system. The engineer, Nira Schwartz, alleged that the contractor had falsified results of a 1997 test, which the Pentagon later said proved that the system could correctly distinguish warheads from decoys, a vital task for any missile-defense system. The Lincoln Labs scientists were given data by TRW and confirmed the positive results.
Postol later assessed the raw test data himself and argued that there was no way scientists at Lincoln Labs could have approved the contractor's data in good faith. Two reports by the General Accounting Office validated his finding in March, saying the infrared sensors failed to cool sufficiently, producing a distortion that made it impossible for the sensor to properly detect warheads.
The Pentagon ultimately chose not to buy the TRW sensor, opting for a version built by Raytheon that uses similar infrared technology.
One of the five senior MIT researchers who did the review declined to comment yesterday. But Ming-Jer Tsai, a Lincoln Labs senior staff researcher, called it ''strange'' that Crawley initially found no problems with their work and then called for an investigation.
''I was surprised to realize there was a reversal of the professor's position,'' he said. ''I don't want to speculate what changed his mind.''
Postol said he believes Tsai and the other researchers could not have simply overlooked the data that showed that the missile system did not work. He believes there was a deliberate effort to misrepresent the results.
''I don't know who the responsible parties are,'' he said. ''I just know there was fraud - and someone has to be held accountable.''
David Abel can be reached at dabel@globe.com.
-------- turkey
Turkish minister says nuclear energy plan revived
REUTERS TURKEY:
November 29, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/18833/story.htm
ISTANBUL - Turkey plans to revive a project to build a nuclear power plant to diversify energy sources and help cut green house gas emissions, trade and industry minister Ali Coskun said this week.
Turkey's last government froze plans to build a multi-billion-dollar nuclear power plant in mid-2000, saying Turkey needed to wait for the country's finances to stabilise and improved technology.
A tender to build a nuclear plant on the Mediterranean coast near Akkuyu had been many years on the books, but it faced environmental opposition focused on concerns it would be built too close to active earthquake faultlines.
Coskun told reporters after a speech to the Istanbul Chamber of Industry that the new Justice and Development Party (AKP) government planned to push ahead with plans for nuclear power generation as well as more environmentally friendly methods such as wind and hydroelectric power.
Coskun gave no further details of timing or specific plans for nuclear power generation.
The AKP won a landslide election victory on November 3 to form Turkey's first single-party government in 15 years.
It has pledged to stick to the main planks of a $16 billion IMF rescue programme aimed at overcoming a devastating financial crisis last year that led to the worst recession since 1945.
Turkey is currently expanding its electricity production from natural gas in order to make use of excess imports already contracted in previous years.
Turkish electricity consumption was 126.8 billion kWh in 2001, down one percent from 2000 as the economy contracted following the crisis. A projected recovery this year is expected to raise consumption by four percent to 132 billion kWh.
-------- MILITARY
-------- afghanistan
Special-forces convoy ambushed; one hurt
World Scene
November 29, 2002
Washington Times
Combined dispatches and staff reports
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20021129-72638663.htm
BAGRAM - Gunmen ambushed a U.S. Special-Forces convoy in eastern Afghanistan and wounded one soldier in the leg, a U.S. Army spokesman said.
The soldier was riding in a convoy of four pickup trucks near the town of Gardez on Wednesday afternoon when as many as six gunmen in civilian clothes shot at them with Kalashnikov rifles, spokesman Col. Roger King said.
-------- africa
Bin Laden role seen in 2 Kenya attacks
By Hamza Hendawi
ASSOCIATED PRESS
November 29, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20021129-99909662.htm
CAIRO - With his Afghan allies embroiled in a ruinous civil war and most of his Arab comrades afraid to return home, Osama bin Laden and his top men decided a decade ago to seek refuge in Sudan, a vast, impoverished nation ruled by a strict Islamic government.
That decision may have sown the seeds for the twin attacks yesterday on an Israeli-owned beach hotel in Kenya and on an Israeli charter plane taking vacationers home from the East African nation.
The car-bomb attack on the hotel outside Kenya's Indian Ocean resort of Mombasa left 15 dead - including three suicide bombers - and scores injured. Simultaneously, two missiles were fired at an Israeli airliner as it took off from Mombasa airport with 261 passengers and 10 crew aboard. Both missiles missed and no one on the plane was hurt.
The previously unknown Army of Palestine claimed responsibility for the attacks. However, Israeli and Kenyan officials said they believed bin Laden's al Qaeda network was the likely culprit.
Bin Laden, a Saudi-born extremist blamed by the United States for the September 11 attacks, built a network of terror cells in the Horn of Africa region, including Kenya, during his four-year stay in Sudan.
He exploited the lawlessness of Somalia and the relatively lax security of countries such as Tanzania and Kenya, and drew on the sympathies of some African Muslims and others of Arab origin.
Mohammed Salah, an Egyptian who writes about militant Muslim groups for the respected London-based Al-Hayat daily, said bin Laden used his top lieutenants to scout for recruits in neighboring countries after he arrived in Sudan in 1992.
Fellow "Arab Afghans" - Arabs who fought against the Soviets in Afghanistan - were also a source of recruits. Many of the Afghan war veterans feared they would be arrested if they returned home, and took refuge in African countries.
The Horn of Africa region is home to thousands of Muslims of Arab descent. Mr. Salah said that was a big help in allowing al Qaeda operatives to live and work in relative safety.
Bin Laden's efforts first bore fruit in 1992 in Somalia, where his chief military commander, Muhammad Atef, was believed to have been behind the downing of a U.S. military helicopter. He also organized a mob that dragged the body of a dead American serviceman through the streets of Mogadishu in Somalia - a scene that persuaded President Clinton to withdraw U.S. troops from the country.
Atef, who was killed last year in the U.S. bombing of Afghanistan, was with bin Laden in Sudan - along with fellow Egyptian Ayman Al-Zawahri, who became al Qaeda's second-ranking figure. Al-Zawahri remains at large.
Bin Laden's African operatives struck again in 1998 with the simultaneous attacks on the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which killed 231 persons - including 12 Americans - and wounded more than 5,000.
"The main purpose behind the establishment of al Qaeda presence in African nations was using them as a place of refuge," said Dia'a Rashwan, a specialist on radical Islamic groups at Egypt's Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies. "But they eventually used their presence there to recruit and set up cells."
If al Qaeda was behind the attacks, it would be the first time the terror organization has targeted Israeli interests, but it also would fit with recent rhetoric attributed to bin Laden himself.
The choice of Israeli targets may be designed to make propaganda gains from the anger felt by many of the world's 1.2 billion Muslims over what they see as the Jewish state's use of excessive force against the Palestinians in more than two years of violence.
In an audiotape broadcast this month by the Arab satellite television station Al Jazeera, bin Laden linked the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and the confrontation between the United States and Iraq.
----
NIGERIA
Islamic council rejects journalist's death fatwa
World Scene
November 29, 2002
Washington Times
Combined dispatches and staff reports
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20021129-72638663.htm
KADUNA - Nigeria's supreme Islamic body said yesterday Muslims should ignore a fatwa issued by a northern state calling for the death of a journalist whose article on the Miss World pageant sparked bloody riots. The statement by the Jama'atu Nasril Islam was circulated as Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo faced angry church leaders in the riot-torn city of Kaduna who said most of the more than 200 dead in the unrest were Christians.
----
Ivory Coast Fighting Intensifies; Town Taken
By Matthew Tostevin
Reuters
Friday, November 29, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A51807-2002Nov28?language=printer
ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast, Nov. 28 -- Ivory Coast slid toward all-out war today as government troops attacked the rebels behind a two-month uprising, and a new group of insurgents seized a western town.
As fighting erupted in the center and west of the former French colony, West African mediators struggled to keep peace talks on track in nearby Togo.
The main rebel group, the Patriotic Movement of Ivory Coast, accused President Laurent Gbagbo of breaking the truce, but said it would keep talking and not go on the offensive.
"The attacks launched by . . . loyalist forces are meant to create a diversion from the talks in Lome. We will not fall for the ruse," rebel chief negotiator Guillaume Soro said.
The new insurgents, however, said they had no political aims and simply wanted Gbagbo's head, in an echo of the anarchic factional fighting that has torn apart neighboring Liberia.
Hundreds of people have died here during four weeks of fighting that followed a failed coup on Sept. 19, but peace talks have so far offered little sign of a deal to end a conflict that has split Ivory Coast, the world's biggest cocoa producer.
A commander of the Patriotic Movement of Ivory Coast, which holds the largely Muslim north, said Gbagbo's troops crossed the French-monitored cease-fire line early today.
"They opened fire with heavy weapons," Sgt. Zacharias Kone said by satellite phone from Vavoua, about 280 miles from the main city of Abidjan.
But a French army spokesman said the situation stabilized after the loyalist force reached 16 miles from Vavoua.
Lt. Col. Ange-Antoine Leccia earlier said that up to 200 mostly English-speaking mercenaries headed for the front before the attack. Most Ivorians speak French.
Ivory Coast has denied getting mercenary help, but regional military sources say it recruited dozens of South Africans and some French to beat back the rebels.
The new group of insurgents seized the western town of Danane near the border with Liberia, Leccia said. It was not clear who the attackers were, but Western diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they seemed to include supporters of the former junta ruler, the late Gen. Robert Guei.
The emergence of a new rebel group added to growing complexities in what was seen as a haven of stability in troubled West Africa until a 1999 coup.
The six-week-old cease-fire began to crumble Wednesday, when the army accused the rebels of attacking its lines and then struck back with helicopter gunships in raids that the rebels said killed dozens of civilians.
"Our mission is to monitor the cease-fire, it is not to impose it," Leccia said.
Asked about the fighting today, an army spokesman said: "The operations have started, the operations continue."
The rebels say they are fighting to end discrimination against people in the north. They want Gbagbo, a Christian from the southwest, to step aside to allow new elections.
The government insists that the rebels must disarm, accusing their leaders of being power-hungry army deserters.
Other countries in West Africa fear that the war in Ivory Coast, a nation of more than 16 million, could send chaos spilling across their borders and dwarf the crises that sprang from a dozen years of conflict in Liberia and Sierra Leone.
The newly formed Movement for Justice and Peace said it had no political aims and wanted Gbagbo's head for the killing of Guei, who was shot dead by loyalist troops during the failed coup.
--------
Dozen Held in Attacks on Israelis in Kenya That Left 13 Dead
November 29, 2002
New York Times
By DEXTER FILKINS with JAMES BENNET
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/29/international/africa/29CND-KENY.html
MOMBASA, Kenya, Nov. 29 - The Kenyan police said today that they were holding 12 people for questioning, including an American woman, over coordinated assaults on Israelis here on Thursday that left at least 13 people dead.
Two were held immediately after the incidents, in which terrorists fired shoulder-launched missiles at a crowded Israeli passenger jet, missing their target, minutes before three suicide bombers drove up to the doors of an Israeli-owned hotel and detonated their explosives.
A further 10 people were taken into custody this morning, Police Commissioner Philemon Abongo said at a news conference.
He declined to identify them by name or nationality, but the police later said that besides the American, and a Spanish-born resident of the United States who was accompanying her, those in custody were six Pakistanis, three Somalis and a Kenyan.
The American woman and the Spaniard booked into a hotel together and said they were from Florida.
Ben Wafula, general manager of Le Soleil Beach Club, said the couple, who appeared to be in their 20's, checked in on Tuesday and tried to check out about two hours after the bombing of the Paradise resort hotel. Mr. Wafula said the couple were held after his staff contacted the police.
A United States Embassy spokesman in Nairobi, Peter Claussen, confirmed today that the woman, whom he declined to name, was an American citizen. The man, believed to be her husband, is a Spanish national with resident status in the United States.
The bombers killed themselves and at least 13 others - 10 of them Kenyans and 3 of them Israelis - and wounded dozens more. The death toll rose this morning as rescue workers recovered the body of another Kenyan, a health official said.
Also today, Israel temporarily closed its embassies in the Philippines and South Africa and may shut down more diplomatic missions following the attacks, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said.
This morning Israeli and Kenyan investigators were still searching through the still-smoking rubble of the Paradise, pulling out car parts believed to have come from the vehicle used in the attack. They were to be joined later today by a team from the American Embassy.
All 283 Israeli tourists had been evacuated from Mombasa by this morning, including the 18 wounded in the attack, 10 of them seriously. Some 150 heavily armed Israeli commandos were sent to Mombasa to carry out the evacuation.
Most of those flown back to Israel had been staying at the Paradise. In the chaos of black smoke, screams and burning thatch, the blast gutted the resort hotel.
Asked if the Israeli troops were there for a military operation, Col. Yoram Asraf, an Israeli commander, said, "No. We are just evacuating."
An Israeli physician at the airport, Dr. Yoel Donchin, said that the most severely wounded were a mother - who lost two children in the blast - and her sole surviving child. The woman's husband was less badly wounded. The family had arrived at the hotel only an hour before the attack, Dr. Donchin said.
"They came here with three children and they went back to Israel with only one," he said.
Israelis who had hoped to take advantage of the Hanukkah holiday to escape to the seaside found themselves engulfed instead by the too familiar horrors of a suicide attack: the smell of burned flesh, the sight of the stunned and staggering wounded - a man with a deep slash in his back, a girl with a small hole in her stomach - and of those who were completely still. Witnesses said a single hand was found about 300 feet from the site of the explosion.
"It was like being back home, it really was," a survivor, Kelly Hartog, said by telephone from Mombasa. "It's the same pictures. And in one of these surreal things, when we got to the hotel here and saw CNN, it could have been a downtown street in Jerusalem."
Israeli and Kenyan officials said that, though there were competing claims of responsibility for the attack, it was possible that Al Qaeda was behind the attacks. But the Bush administration cautioned that it was premature to blame Al Qaeda.
Hours after the attacks in Kenya, in a separate suicide assault inside Israel, terrorists tied to Yasir Arafat's Fatah faction turned guns and grenades on Israelis as they went to the polls to choose the leader of the dominant right-wing party, the Likud. At least six Israelis were killed in that incident, in the town of Beit Shean in the northern Jordan Valley.
From his ranch in Crawford, Tex., President Bush issued a statement Thursday night deploring the violence in Israel and Kenya. "Today's attacks underscore the continuing willingness of those opposed to peace to commit horrible crimes," he said.
A Bush administration official said on Thursday that it still was not clear who was behind the attacks. "You can find 10 analysts who say it was Al Qaeda, and you can find 10 analysts who say it was one of the standard groups that attack Israel," the administration official said. It's clear this attack was aimed at Israel."
Officials from the United States Embassy in Kenya are expected to meet with Israeli and Kenyan investigators Friday to offer assistance in their investigation.
As Israelis came under attack abroad and at home on a day of spiraling violence, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon declared on Thursday that terrorists did not "look for reasons to kill Jews. Their aim is to kill young and old, women and children, only because they are Jews." Urging voters to go the polls, he said, "We should not let the murderers disrupt our lives." Early returns indicated that Mr. Sharon easily won the Likud primary, and with it a mandate from his party to pursue the elusive peace and security he promised when he first ran two years ago.
Mr. Sharon directed Israel's spy agency, the Mossad, to track down those behind the attacks in Mombasa. If Al Qaeda was responsible, it would be the first time the group was known to have struck at Israelis since the current American antiterrorism effort began, although its leader, Osama bin Laden, has often inveighed against Israel.
Israel's defense minister, Shaul Mofaz, vowed, "Our hand will reach them."
The attack raised the prospect that Israel might take a higher-profile role in the pursuit of fundamentalist Islamic terrorists worldwide, a change that security analysts said could alarm Arab states and complicate the Bush administration's plans for possible military action against Iraq.
Israel's foreign minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, called it "quite possible" that Al Qaeda was behind the attack, but said that Israel would explore other possibilities. Some Israeli officials said that the Lebanese guerrilla group Hezbollah might be involved.
As in the attack on a Bali nightclub last month that killed more than 180 people, most of them tourists, the twinned assaults in Kenya took place in a sandy resort town known more for its thriving tourist trade than for any radical politics.
The United States, which has been building up its forces in the Horn of Africa, has been concerned about continued Qaeda activity in the region. In nearly simultaneous attacks on Aug. 7, 1998, on the United States embassies in Nairobi, Kenya's capital, and in neighboring Tanzania, 224 people, including 12 Americans, were killed. Those bombings were attributed to Al Qaeda, and since 1998 the United States has given Kenya $3.1 million for anti-terrorist training, a State Department official said.
As recently as Nov. 12, the United States provided Kenya with $750,000 to improve airport security.
Mombasa is a popular destination for Israeli tourists, and those attacked on Thursday - both aboard the plane and in the Paradise hotel - were on package tours set up by an Israeli tourist agency that runs weekly flights there. With a kosher restaurant and a synagogue, whose Torah scrolls were rescued from the blaze, the Paradise resort hotel was particularly popular with Israeli tourists.
A senior official with the protection and security division of Israel's Shin Bet security agency said that the attack was carefully plotted.
"We're looking at a very planned, organized attack against Israelis in Mombasa," the official said. "They were looking for Israelis to kill. If the incident succeeded, it would have resulted in the deaths of over 300 to 400 Israelis."
He said that Israel had learned of two competing claims of responsibility for the attack, but, declining to name the groups, he said that intelligence agents did not consider the claims solid.
The Israeli government said that three of its citizens, including two boys, were killed in the bombing at the hotel. Witnesses said that most of those killed in the blast were members of a youthful Kenyan dance troupe that greeted the Israelis when they arrived at the Paradise. "They were singing and dancing with drums," said Ms. Hartog, an editor at The Jerusalem Post. "They were kids - they were young girls."
Witnesses at the scene provided conflicting accounts of the bomb attack. Some said that a green sport utility vehicle tucked in behind a bus carrying Israeli tourists in order to pass a barrier at the hotel's entrance; others said that the vehicle simply crashed through a barrier and headed for the hotel's doors.
Ms. Hartog said that her group had left the bus after their overnight flight and entered the hotel's dining room for breakfast when they heard a tremendous blast and felt the hotel tremble. "For a split second there was a complete silence, but then we started seeing the debris from the thatch roof," she said. "And then people started screaming."
An Israeli witness who gave her name as Naima told Israel Radio, "people had cuts in their hands, in their legs, they had holes all over their body."
Ms. Hartog said that she and others went to the aid of the wounded, searching for drinking water and using makeshift stretchers to carry them to a boathouse, out of the blazing sun.
"Afterwards, when we were dragging suitcases along the beach, Kenyans - more than one of them - came up and said, `We're so sorry this happened,' " Ms. Hartog said. "And really their fatalities were worse than ours."
The sport utility vehicle was obliterated in the attack, witnesses said. The bus the tourists arrived in was blasted and scorched to a skeleton.
The senior Israeli intelligence official said that the attack on the plane, which was carrying 261 passengers, occurred at about 7:30 a.m., roughly 20 minutes before the hotel bombing and less than 20 miles away. He said that two missiles appeared to have been fired, and that Israeli security agents at the scene recovered two spent canisters from what were probably SA-7 missiles. He described the weapon as a 30-year-old shoulder-launched, surface-to-air missile of Soviet manufacture.
Mr. Netanyahu called the attack in Kenya "a very dangerous escalation of terror."
Referring to the failed missile strike, he said, "It means that terror organizations and the regimes behind them are able to arm themselves with weapons which can cause mass casualties anywhere and everywhere."
-------- arms sales
Jet Purchase Splits Brazil:
New Leader Wants Voice
November 29, 2002
New York Times
By LARRY ROHTER
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/29/international/americas/29BRAZ.html
BRASÍLIA, Nov. 28 - The Brazilian government is about to spend nearly $700 million on a fleet of jet fighters, but the government leaving office at the end of the year and the one soon to replace it seem unable to agree who should decide what plane to buy. The outcome of their jostling may determine whether the lucrative deal goes to a company from Brazil, the United States or some other country.
Five aircraft manufacturers are competing for the contract, part of a multibillion-dollar program to modernize the Brazilian military. In addition to the American-made F-16, both the Russian MIG-29 and SU-35 are being considered, along with the British-Swedish Gripen and a consortium made up of the manufacturers of the French Mirage and the Brazilian company Embraer.
President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who ran on a platform of buying locally whenever possible, has told the current administration that "he wishes his views to be heard" before the contract is awarded, officials here said. The departing administration of President Fernando Henrique Cardoso has been cool to the request.
A meeting of the National Defense Council is expected to choose a winner soon, these officials said. But although the president-elect has been invited to send an observer to the meeting, they said, he will not be allowed to make the decision himself.
"This government is going to continue running things until the end of its term, until Dec. 31," Defense Minister Geraldo Quintão said when the council last met, less than a week after Mr. da Silva's victory. "The undoing of any public act matters not only in terms of responsibility but also in financial consequences," he also warned, referring to press reports that the new government might overrule the plane contract if it was not happy with the outcome.
Mr. da Silva, of the leftist Workers Party, has called for strengthening Brazilian industry. During the recent election campaign, for example, he sharply criticized the state oil company's purchase, through competitive bidding, of drilling platforms in countries as distant as Singapore and promised to reverse that practice.
In addition, Embraer, the world's fourth largest aircraft manufacturer, operates from São Paulo, the main political base of Mr. da Silva and his party. This week, the company announced an agreement to open a new factory to manufacture planes in China, which the Workers Party has indicated it views as a trade and strategic partner that can be used as a counterweight to reduce what it sees as an excessive dependence on the United States.
"There is no preference on the part of President Lula for any specific company," Antônio Palocci, head of Mr. da Silva's transition team, said at a new conference today. "There is a preference for a process" in which "the transfer of technology is always a criterion."
Brazil must make its decision at a time when feelings are running high over what is perceived here as Pentagon meddling to prevent Embraer, the country's largest exporter, from selling planes to Colombia. Last month, the Colombian Defense Ministry invited Embraer to tender an offer for the purchase of 40 of its Super Tucano light attack aircraft, a $234 million deal.
Almost immediately, however, Gen. James T. Hill, head of the United States Southern Command, sent a letter to the Colombian authorities warning that if they went ahead with that plan it might "negatively influence" Congressional approval of future military aid to Colombia. "I recommend the Colombian Air Force spend this money on more pressing requirements, such as modernizing its C-130 fleet," General Hill wrote. The C-130 is of American manufacture.
Col. David McWilliams, a Southern Command spokesman in Miami, acknowledged that General Hill sent "an advisory letter" to the Colombian military command because "part of his responsibility is to provide his assessment." But he said the letter contained "no reference to buying one nationality over another," and was merely a technical evaluation of Colombia's military needs and priorities.
The incident, however, has left Brazilians bruised and irritated, with the congressional foreign affairs committees accusing the United States of ham-handed power politics and urging retaliation.
-------- china
War games missed
November 29, 2002
Washington Times
Inside the Ring
Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20021129-7413878.htm
U.S. intelligence agencies missed a key part of the ongoing Chinese war games on Hainan island in the South China Sea.
For the second year in a row, Chinese military forces succeeded in hiding their war games by conducting beach-landing exercises in bad weather, so that U.S. spy satellites and aircraft were unable to monitor them.
The exercises were expected to provide the latest intelligence on the Chinese military's advances in conducting combined arms warfare.
Beijing's generals picked a heavily overcast day to conduct the key amphibious-landing exercise involving at least a brigade of Chinese marines, along with naval and air forces. The bad weather was the latest effort at "denial and deception" by the Chinese military, intelligence officials said.
The intelligence failure is compounded by a U.S. government policy that limits conducting human spying operations in China to avoid upsetting Beijing.
In a related development, U.S. intelligence officials said the Chinese conducted a warhead test of a medium-range missile on Tuesday.
"It was a re-entry vehicle test" of a medium-range missile, said one official.
-------- iraq
Allied Planes Bomb Facility in Northern Iraq
U.S. Says Aircraft Had Been Fired Upon
Associated Press
Friday, November 29, 2002; Page A16
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A51827-2002Nov28?language=printer
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Nov. 28 -- U.S. and British warplanes attacked a "civilian and services" installation in northern Iraq today, killing one civilian, the official Iraqi News Agency reported.
A statement from the U.S.-run Operation Northern Watch headquarters in Turkey said the planes dropped precision-guided bombs after being fired on by antiaircraft artillery from sites south of Tall Afar, a town in Nineveh province.
The statement provided no damage details or time of the attacks. It said that all aircraft left the airspace safely.
The Iraqi agency, citing an unnamed military spokesman, said the attack in Nineveh province, 250 miles north of Baghdad, occurred at 11:05 a.m. local time. Iraqi air defense units fired at the attacking planes, forcing them to return to their bases in Turkey, the agency said.
Two "no-fly" zones were set up after the 1991 Persian Gulf War to protect Kurds in the north and Shiite Muslims in the south from Iraqi government forces. Iraq does not recognize the zones and routinely challenges the U.S. and British aircraft patrolling them.
----
Leaflets, Bombs Dropped on Iraq
U.S. Warns Against Rebuilding Site; Civilian Reported Killed
From News Services
Friday, November 29, 2002
Washington Post; Page A16
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A52609-2002Nov29?language=printer
Western planes dropped leaflets on a previously attacked communications site in southern Iraq yesterday, warning Iraqis to stop repairing the facility, the U.S. military said.
The drop, about 4 a.m. EST, combined three different leaflets, two of which urged the Iraqi military not to repair the facility that is used for tracking and engaging Western planes, Reuters reported.
A third leaflet said Western aircraft were enforcing the "no-fly" zone for the protection of the Iraqi people, and cautioned that threatening the planes could draw another airstrike.
The unmanned communication facilities between Al Kut and Basra, in the southern no-fly zone, were attacked Nov. 22. U.S. officials have repeatedly warned that continued firing by Iraqi defenses at U.S. and British jets patrolling the no-fly zones was a direct violation of the Nov. 8 U.N. resolution on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
The White House has stopped short of saying that firing at the planes would be a trigger for launching a war against Iraq or that Washington has any plans to lodge a formal complaint with the Security Council.
U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and most of the international community disagree that Iraqi attacks on U.S. and British planes in the no-fly zone constitute a "material breach" of the U.N. resolution that sent weapons inspectors back into Iraq this week.
Meanwhile, the Associated Press reported from Baghdad that U.S. and British warplanes attacked a "civilian and services" installation in northern Iraq yesterday, killing one civilian, the official Iraqi News Agency said.
A coalition statement said planes dropped precision-guided bombs after being fired on by antiaircraft artillery. The statement from the U.S.-led Operation Northern Watch headquarters in Turkey said the artillery fire came from sites south of Tall Afar, a town in Nineveh province.
The statement provided no damage details or time of the attacks. It said all aircraft left the airspace safely.
The Iraqi agency, citing an unnamed military spokesman, said the attack in Nineveh province, 250 miles north of Baghdad, occurred at 11:05 a.m. local time.
Iraqi air defense units fired at the attacking planes, forcing them to return to their bases in Turkey, the agency said.
U.S. and British warplanes taking off from bases in Kuwait conducted 55 sorties over southern Iraq, it said.
The no-fly zones were set up in the past decade to protect Kurds in the north and Shiites Muslims in the south from Iraqi government forces. Iraq does not recognize the zones and routinely challenges the U.S. and British aircraft patrolling them.
Since Nov. 8, Iraqi air defenses have fired on Western planes on at least 11 days in the south and twice in the north, according to a Pentagon count.
--------
Iraq Says U.S. Will Try to Stoke Inspection Row
November 29, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-iraq.html
BAGHDAD, Iraq (Reuters) - Iraq said Friday the United States was bent on interfering in U.N. weapons inspections to create a pretext for unleashing a new Gulf war despite a smooth start to the arms checks.
``The United States is the only one which interprets the (Security Council) resolution in a way that suits its hostile intentions against Iraq and the Arab nation,'' said al-Thawra newspaper, organ of Iraq's ruling Baath Party.
``Thus it will continue to make threats and poke its nose into the work of the inspectors and will fabricate any event or issue to confuse their work or obstruct it, especially when the inspectors and the world realize that Iraq does not have weapons of mass destruction.''
Iraq has pledged full cooperation with the inspectors, who returned to Iraq this week to search for chemical, biological and nuclear arms under a tough U.N. resolution that gives Baghdad one last chance to disarm.
On Friday, the Iraqi foreign ministry poured scorn on British Prime Minister Tony Blair's recently published dossier listing Iraq's alleged possession of banned arms, saying the U.N. inspectors had visited two of the named sites and found nothing.
But British newspapers, citing unidentified intelligence sources, said Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had ordered hundreds of his staff to hide components of weapons of mass destruction in their homes to avoid detection.
The United States accuses Iraq of developing the banned weapons of mass destruction and has threatened military action to topple Saddam.
Iraq denies the charge, insisting all its chemical, biological and nuclear weapons have already been destroyed.
International Atomic Energy Agency head Mohamed ElBaradei said the first two days of the inspectors' work were unhindered.
``I think it's going smoothly and we have no reason to complain,'' ElBaradei told reporters in Vienna Friday.
``We have been able to do what we set out to do in the first days and we hope that this will continue to be the pattern.''
But al-Thawra said Iraqi cooperation did not matter to President Bush.
``No one in the Bush administration will give a fig for optimism expressed by many countries after the start of the inspection process in Iraq,'' it said.
``The reason is that Washington has become a hostage of its arrogance, ambitions and Zionists' pressure.''
The 17 inspectors stayed at their headquarters in Baghdad on the Muslim weekend and were evaluating two days of work since they resumed inspections Wednesday after a four-year gap, U.N. sources said. All Iraqi facilities close on Fridays.
SEVERE PENALTIES
In London, The Times and the Independent dailies, citing unnamed British government sources and intelligence reports, said Saddam had ordered scientists, civil servants and even farmers to hide key weapons components and chemicals -- or face severe penalties if they refuse.
In the mid-1990s U.N. inspectors had found weapons-related evidence concealed in private and public buildings. They found missile parts in a police station, chemical papers in a chicken farm and other evidence under the garage floor on a private ranch of a senior army officer.
The Times said Blair and Bush took the concealment claims so seriously that they were considering making personal appeals to Iraqi officials to tell the inspectors what was going on.
A spokesman for Blair's Downing Street office told Reuters he would not comment on speculation about such appeals.
``Our support for the weapons inspection teams and the work they are doing and the need for Iraqi cooperation and compliance is already well known,'' he said.
When asked if Blair was aware of any claims that Saddam was ordering staff to conceal weapons at home, he said: ``We have nothing to add at this stage to the information in the dossier we published a few months ago chronicling past experiences.''
That 50-page dossier, produced by Blair in September to boost public support for action against Iraq, said Saddam was building up stocks of chemical and biological weapons and could launch an attack with 45 minutes notice.
But the Iraqi foreign ministry said the inspectors had visited on Thursday two of the sites cited in the dossier -- a defunct vaccine lab and Nasr heavy machinery factory -- where banned weapons were allegedly being developed.
``The results reached by the inspectors reveals Tony Blair's lies and his mistaken accusations against Iraq,'' it said in a statement.
The inspectors will get electronic equipment later this week to make sure that their operations center in Baghdad has not been bugged during their four-year absence.
In London, an Iraqi opposition figure said six Iraqi opposition groups recognized by Washington would hold a conference in the British capital next month to prepare for taking power if Saddam was removed.
``We will gather on December 13-15 if the British government meets our visa requirements. We are in the process of agreeing on the final agenda and list of participants,'' Nabil al-Mousawi, a member of the organizing committee, told Reuters.
-------- israel / palestine
Sharon wins re-election as head of Likud Party
By Joshua Mitnick
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
November 29, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20021129-88178800.htm
TEL AVIV - Prime Minister Ariel Sharon won the top post of the Likud Party yesterday in a landslide vote that was marred by deadly attacks on Israeli voters at home and on tourists abroad.
Television exit polls showed Mr. Sharon trouncing Foreign Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by more than 20 points. Mr. Sharon's re-election as the Likud leader comes ahead of general elections in January, in which he is expected to win a new term as prime minister.
Hours before the polls closed, Palestinian gunmen attacked a Likud Party polling station in the northern Israeli city of Beit She'an, killing six and wounding dozens.
The election violence and twin attacks in Kenya in which 12 were killed at an Israeli-owned tourist hotel and missiles narrowly missed a passenger jet bound for Tel Aviv made Mr. Sharon's victory seem like an afterthought by the end of the day.
Mr. Sharon told supporters in Tel Aviv that his victory was no cause for celebration, and he vowed to seek justice against those who killed Israelis and tried to influence the country's election.
Mr. Sharon said the attacks "were part of the campaign of murder and culture of murder of the Arabs against Jews, an attempt by the terrorists to influence the democratic elections and democratic process in Israel."
He added: "Our long arm will get those who carried out the terror attacks. No one will be forgiven."
When a pair of Palestinian gunmen slipped into Beit She'an yesterday afternoon, the country was still absorbing the shock of news from Kenya.
To attack the polling station, the Palestinians drove a white sedan through the blue-collar town, a Likud stronghold, ignoring the crowded public areas that have been a common target of militants in the past two years.
This was a different sort of mission, and when they arrived at the brick-house polling station they made several passes waiting for ballot-box lines to grow, witnesses said.
The shooting left the polling station in chaos with bloodied election workers strewn outside in the parking lot and police tear gas sifting inside the building.
By the time an off-duty border policeman killed the two gunmen, the nationwide primary of 300,000 registered party voters had been thrown into disarray.
The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, a militia linked to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, claimed responsibility for the shooting attack, saying it was a response to the killing of two militants earlier this week in the West Bank town of Jenin.
Mr. Sharon had 61 percent of the vote among Likud members, compared with 37 percent for Mr. Netanyahu, according to projections on Israeli television. A lesser-known challenger, Moshe Feiglin, had the rest. Two other television projections showed similar results.
Mr. Sharon will face the Labor Party's Amram Mitzna, a former general, in Jan. 28 general elections that polls predict Likud will win because of the Israeli public's shift to the right after two years of Israeli-Palestinian fighting.
Daily bloodshed with the Palestinians has tipped voter sentiment heavily in favor of the Likud Party, which is considered less forgiving toward Palestinians compared with the dovish Labor Party.
Political analysts said that a low voter turnout would help the underdog and that the sudden violence would generate sympathy for Mr. Netanyahu's hawkish stance toward the Palestinians. Ultimately, not even the last-second scare could alter the outcome.
"This is the voter's verdict," Mr. Netanyahu said, conceding defeat. "Now we must work together, all of us, to bring a huge victory for the Likud. We must unite around the principles of our movement and the person chosen to lead our movement, Ariel Sharon."
The prime minister conquered the center of the Israeli consensus during the first 20 months in office by arguing that his partnership with rival Labor has been the source of the country's resilience in the face of the Palestinian uprising. Even so, Mr. Netanyahu's telegenic appeal and promise to expel Mr. Arafat were considered a viable threat through the final days of a campaign that exposed the bitter rivalry between the two.
However, on the morning of election day, a headline in the daily Ha'aretz quoted Netanyahu aides who said the foreign minister had given up victory and was struggling not to be disgraced. About 3:20 p.m., as the attack began, Likud election workers carrying placards were seen sitting behind information tables, in a last-ditch attempt to sway votes.
The first of the Palestinian gunmen emerged from the car and opened fire on the Israelis outside the polling station, taking cover among the vehicles parked outside the Likud headquarters. Election workers and voters prevented the gunmen from entering the voting station.
A second gunman also shot from behind parked cars, according to witness accounts. Three sons of David Levy, a veteran Likud politician from Beit She'an and a former Israeli foreign minister, were injured in the shootout.
Schools kept children from leaving even after news that two Palestinian gunmen had been killed, for fear of a third.
"When I got near the front door of the Likud headquarters, I saw a terrorist standing in front of me. He was shooting in all directions. I aimed and fired a few shots near his head," said Eran David, who was near the polling station when he heard the shots.
"I didn't know there was another, second terrorist. After I saw him shoot one bullet, I got around him, aimed and fired. He also fell. I am only sorry I couldn't have gotten there sooner."
--------
Israel Faces New Row with U.N., Arrests Militant
November 29, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-mideast.html
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel faced a new row with the United Nations over its demand for Israeli troops to be punished for killing a U.N. employee, while the country picked up the pieces of attacks on Israelis at home and abroad.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan wrote to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon over the killing, saying he ``expected Israel to carry out a rigorous investigation of the incident, share its results with the United Nations and hold accountable those responsible,'' a U.N. spokesman said Friday.
Israeli officials were not immediately available for comment late Friday, but they have said an inquiry was under way into last week's killing of British aid worker Iain Hook during a clash with Palestinian gunmen in the West Bank city of Jenin.
Israel has said a preliminary inquiry showed that Hook was killed by mistake, when troops took aim at gunmen shooting from inside the compound of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). U.N. officials said there were no gunmen inside the building.
Elsewhere in the West Bank, Israeli forces arrested a commander of a militant offshoot of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction which claimed a shooting attack in northern Israel which killed six people this week.
The attack by two gunmen in the town of Beit Shean on Thursday struck a country already reeling from a suicide car bombing which killed 12 people, including three Israelis, at a hotel and a failed attempt to down an Israeli passenger plane, both in Kenya on the same day. Three suicide bombers also died.
Palestinian sources said Israeli troops caught Majid al-Masri, the commander of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in the northern West Bank city of Nablus, and his assistant in a safe house during a search of the nearby town of Rafidiyeh Friday.
``He told me by telephone that the Israelis were breaking down his door and then the line went dead,'' a source from the group told Reuters. The army was checking the report.
The Al-Aqsa Brigades said it carried out the shooting at a Beit Shean polling station Thursday where Israelis had lined up to choose the leader of the right-wing Likud party ahead of a January 28 election. The gunmen were killed in the attack.
MOSSAD CHARGED WITH FINDING KENYA ATTACKERS
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who was re-elected Likud leader in the party race, charged Palestinian and Arab militants with trying to undermine Israeli democracy with the attacks at home and abroad. He vowed Israel would hunt down those responsible.
Israel has arrested or killed dozens of Palestinian militant leaders it says planned shootings and bombings in a two-year-old uprising against Israeli occupation. Al-Masri's predecessor was arrested by Israeli forces nearly nine months ago.
But the country's Mossad spy agency, charged with finding those responsible for the attacks in Kenya's coastal resort of Mombasa faces a tougher task.
With Israeli intelligence experts blaming Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network for Thursday's attacks, the Mossad will have to track an enemy with many faces and cells in numerous countries.
``They will have to work hard -- it won't be easy -- but they definitely can do it,'' Yossi Melman, an Israeli expert on the Mossad, told Reuters.
SHAKEN AND BRUISED ISRAELIS RETURN FROM KENYA
Israelis wounded and shaken when three assailants drove a bomb-laden vehicle into the Paradise Hotel in Mombasa arrived home on Israeli air force jets Friday to tearful reunions on the runway with family and friends.
An amateur family video chronicling the moments of the hotel blast was aired by Israeli television Friday night. It showed dozens of tourists lining up at the reception desk and Kenyan dancers performing to welcome them.
The footage, shot by the Israeli Shapira family, filmed its members entering their hotel room. A bone-shaking blast interrupted their conversation, sending them running outside the building into the brush outside.
``God help me, where am I? I don't believe it! I left my kids in there!'' yelled an Israeli man in Hebrew, staring in despair as orange flames engulfed the hotel lobby.
Near Tel Aviv, an Israeli airlift brought home 250 tourists and the bodies of the two boys and a 61-year-old man killed in the attack. Some 20 wounded Israelis were immediately ferried to local hospitals.
Most of the first arrivals were outwardly unscathed but many cried in relief as they disembarked, draped in blankets and clutching each other before falling into the arms of loved ones.
At least 1,686 Palestinians and 668 Israelis have been killed since the uprising began in September 2000.
At the United Nations in New York, diplomats Friday marked the annual International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People with an appeal to Israel to end its occupation of Palestinian lands.
-------- landmines
Australia trials new landmine detection system
REUTERS AUSTRALIA:
November 29, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/18835/story.htm
CANBERRA - Australia's defence force began trials yesterday of radar and sensor technology designed to detect landmines more accurately and quickly.
In a statement, Defence Minister Robert Hill said the prototype Rapid Route and Area Mine Neutralisation System would significantly improve the army's ability to clear anti-vehicle landmines from unsealed roads and airstrips.
Landmines are a major threat worldwide with tens of millions of them littered across dozens of countries, including Afghanistan and parts of Southeast Asia. Clearing mine fields is often a painstaking task as mine hunters search metre by metre to clear the ordnance.
A leading scientist involved with the Defence Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO) project said the system was unlikely to be used in the field until 2007 at the earliest.
"We need to demonstrate the capabilities of this technology so industry can then take it and incorporate it into a proper military system," Alan Rye, head of DSTO's countermine technology unit, told Reuters.
The trial of the detection system, developed in a two-year programme by DSTO, involves installing sensor equipment on the front of a truck to locate mines with an accuracy of under half a metre (1.5 feet).
The system is capable of safely searching a three metre (10 ft) wide lane for mines at speeds of up to five km (three miles) per hour and can detect metallic and non-metallic mines.
The present manual method used by deminers only allows armies to disable mines at a rate of about 50 square metres an hour.
The detection system consists of an Australian-designed metal detector, a ground probing radar from the United States, and an Australian-developed imaging system.
-------- russia / chechnya
U.N Agency Urges Russia Not to Close Chechen Camps
November 29, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-russia-chechnya-refugees.html
GENEVA (Reuters) - The U.N. refugee agency urged Russia Friday to postpone plans to close tent camps housing tens of thousands of Chechens, saying the refugees must not be forced to return to their homes.
Russia wants to send home some 70,000 Chechen refugees who have been living in the Ingushetia region since 1999, when the Kremlin sent troops into neighboring Chechnya to crush a separatist revolt.
Officials have for months said that they wanted to send the refugees back, but stepped up efforts to vacate the camps after Chechen guerrillas seized a packed Moscow theater last month.
``UNHCR is asking Russian authorities to postpone their announced closure of tent camps in Ingushetia,'' United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) spokesman Ron Redmond told journalists.
Russia says it is safe to return and that adequate housing has been built. But many refugees say they are afraid to go home.
The agency was particularly concerned about the 1,500 people in the Aki-Yurt camp in northern Ingushetia, which the Russians say will be shut Sunday, Redmond said.
``Return can only be considered voluntary if displaced persons are fully informed about conditions for return and if they have a genuine alternative available to allow them to remain,'' Redmond said.
He said it was not clear what alternative arrangements could be made for those who did not want to return to Chechnya.
UNHCR estimates that 20,000 refugees live in six camps and the rest are housed with families. UNHCR can provide shelter for about 900 refugees but only if they were allowed to go to other camps already equipped with gas, water and electricity, he said.
The Moscow hostage siege ended after three days when Russian special forces stormed the building. A total of 129 hostages died.
-------- spy agencies
Briton Admits Spying on Defense Firm
November 29, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-crime-britain-spy.html
LONDON (Reuters) - A British engineer pleaded guilty on Friday to espionage charges after trying to sell military secrets from the country's largest defense company to Russia.
Ian Parr, 45, faces 14 years in jail after admitting attempts to pass on details of top secret projects at his firm BAE Systems .
The bespectacled father-of-two, from Essex, southeast England, pleaded guilty to two charges under Britain's Official Secrets Act and seven more of theft.
Judge Michael Hyam at London's Old Bailey court remanded Parr to the top security Belmarsh prison in east London for sentencing on January 20.
Parr was caught in March after an operation involving agents from Britain's Security Service, known as MI-5, and police acting on a tip-off.
An undercover agent pretending to be a Russian called ``Aleksei'' began talks to buy military secrets from Parr, who gave himself the codename ``Piglet.''
A former soldier, Parr was arrested after taking 130,000 pounds from ``Aleksei'' for a bag of 56 floppy discs and 14 documents relating to project HALO, an anti-artillery system.
Police later said Parr's motivation ``was purely financial.''
Prosecutor Aftab Jafferjee said Parr ``abused his position of trust.''
Parr, a keen rambler, began work with BAE Systems Avionics in October 1986 and signed a document under the Official Secrets Act, which protects confidential government information.
He specialized in printed circuit boards, earning 25,000 pounds ($38,810) a year.
Parr served in the British Army as a gunner in the 1970s and earned the nickname ``Hazard'' because he was so accident prone.
Outside court, Detective Superintendent Gareth Wilson, of Essex police, said: ``As a former soldier he was more than aware of the potential consequences of his actions.
``This was a very prompt investigation and its success can only be measured by the fact that his attempts to pass information were thwarted.''
--------
U.K. Engineer Admits to Spying for Russia
November 29, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Britain-Spy-Charge.html
LONDON (AP) -- A former aircraft engineer for a British defense company admitted in court Friday that he tried to sell secrets about the country's stealth cruise missile program to Russia.
Ian Parr, 45, was arrested at a pub in March while trying to sell secret documents for $200,000 to a man he believed was Russian. The contact was actually an agent for Britain's domestic intelligence service, MI5.
The engineer was arrested as he finished his pint of lager.
He pleaded guilty Friday to two counts of espionage under Britain's Official Secrets Act. His sentencing is set for Jan. 20.
The maximum penalty for a violation of the secrecy act is 14 years in prison.
Parr, a father of two, had worked at BAE Systems' avionics division for 15 years when his employer told him he might be laid off.
Prosecutor Aftab Jafferjee told London's Old Bailey criminal court Friday that Parr ``abused his position of trust by embarking on an enterprise to sell information about seven separate defense projects to a foreign power ... the Russians.''
The confidential information Parr obtained from his employer and tried to sell was in the lowest classification of secrecy, Jafferjee said.
But the Official Secrets Act makes it a crime to disclose without permission any defense- or intelligence-related information affecting national security.
Parr pleaded guilty to obtaining and communicating secret information from British Aerospace Ltd. about the ``Storm Shadow'' project to develop stealth cruise missiles.
Colleagues and friends were shocked by Parr's arrest.
``Ian is the last person you would expect to have anything to do with spying,'' said the chairman of his local walking club, Richard Pasternoster. ``He's just a family man who enjoys getting out and about in the countryside.''
BAE Systems Avionics is one of the largest companies of its kind in Europe. The firm produces civil and military electronic systems, including radar for fighter jets like the Tornado and Sea Harrier.
-------- us
U.S. Jets Respond to Indication of Approaching Craft
Associated Press
Friday, November 29, 2002; Page A31
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A51751-2002Nov28?language=printer
The military command responsible for the defense of North American airspace scrambled fighter jets in response to unverified reports of an airborne condensation trail, or contrail, moving from the Caribbean to the United States, defense officials said yesterday.
Lt. Col. Michael Humm, a Pentagon spokesman, said the incident happened Wednesday and that the North American Aerospace Defense Command in Colorado Springs was continuing to investigate.
The reported contrail stirred concern because of the possibility that it could have indicated the presence of an unauthorized jet aircraft in or approaching U.S. airspace.
In the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, the Pentagon has taken greater precautions to monitor U.S. airspace.
A contrail is created by vapor from a jet engine in the presence of cold air.
The jets that were scrambled to attempt to intercept and identify the source of the contrail found nothing, said Lt. Cmdr. Curtis Jenkins, a NORAD spokesman.
He said NORAD had developed no new information since the initial report at 4 p.m. EST on Wednesday.
NORAD is reviewing data from its tracking radars in search of evidence, he said.
A Pentagon statement said NORAD received unverified reports of "what appeared to be a contrail of unknown origin," originally in the vicinity of the Turks and Caicos Islands near the Bahamas.
"Initially, it was reported to be heading northwestward toward the United States," the statement said. "Commercial airline pilots later reported the contrail over Florida and later over Indiana. Thereafter, no other sightings were reported."
The reported contrail was never verified by visual or radar contact, the Pentagon statement said.
-------- propaganda wars
Right Wing Gets Gored
By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 29, 2002; 9:00 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A53154-2002Nov29?language=printer
Al Gore has become a true believer in the vast right-wing conspiracy.
Not since Hillary Clinton has a prominent Democrat so publicly ripped the conservatives for making people with D after their names look bad. (Although in Hillary's case, what the VRWC was charging - that her husband was carrying on with the intern - turned out to be true.)
Unlike the former first lady, Gore specifically indicts elements of the media for carrying the right's political water. And he names names - unlike most pols who want to avoid ticking off those who buy ink by the barrel.
So you could depict this as a profile in courage. Or a profile in self-destructiveness. What, after all, does the ex-veep gain by denouncing the likes of Fox News and the Washington Times?
Maybe he's just frustrated that his book isn't selling better, despite a zillion media appearances with Tipper.
Let's say Gore is right, that conservative news outlets are trying to blacken the reputations of people like him. Doesn't complaining about it just sound like whining? Or is he playing to his base, the way conservatives have done all these years by moaning about the liberal media?
After all, if you're going to take on Saddam and Osama, you'd better be able to deal with the likes of the Washington Times. The conservative media aren't going anywhere. Deal with it.
Here's what Gore had to say to the New York Observer:
"Mr. Gore may have little reason to hide his views about the media, for his re-emergence, while generating a massive amount of attention, has also inspired ridicule from commentators of all ideological persuasions. Conservatives seemed delighted by his return, remembering his awkward candidacy in 2000, and many liberals have been quite frank in wishing that he would simply disappear.
"But Mr. Gore has a bone to pick with his critics: namely, he says, that a systematically orchestrated bias in the media makes it impossible for him and his fellow Democrats to get a fair shake.
"'Something will start at the Republican National Committee, inside the building, and it will explode the next day on the right-wing talk-show network and on Fox News and in the newspapers that play this game, The Washington Times and the others. And then they'll create a little echo chamber, and pretty soon they'll start baiting the mainstream media for allegedly ignoring the story they've pushed into the zeitgeist. And then pretty soon the mainstream media goes out and disingenuously takes a so-called objective sampling, and lo and behold, these R.N.C. talking points are woven into the fabric of the zeitgeist.'
"And during a lengthy discourse on the history of political journalism in America, Mr. Gore said he believed that evolving technologies and market forces have combined to lower the media's standards of objectivity.
"'The introduction of cable-television news and Internet news made news a commodity, available from an unlimited number of sellers at a steadily decreasing cost, so the established news organizations became the high-cost producers of a low-cost commodity,' said Mr. Gore. 'They're selling a hybrid product now that's news plus news-helper; whether it's entertainment or attitude or news that's marbled with opinion, it's different.
"Now, especially in the cable-TV market, it has become good economics once again to go back to a party-oriented approach to attract a hard-core following that appreciates the predictability of a right-wing point of view, but then to make aggressive and constant efforts to deny that's what they're doing in order to avoid offending the broader audience that mass advertisers want. Thus the Fox slogan "We Report, You Decide," or whatever the current version of their ritual denial is.'"
The American Prospect says right on:
"Is Al Gore the first well-known politician to say what anybody who watches Fox, reads The Washington Times or listens to Rush Limbaugh knows to be true? Quite possibly. Will he get pummeled for it by all three? Almost certainly. But that doesn't make him any less right. . . .
"The 'fifth column' part is a little much, although the basic point - that Tony Snow is not a journalist - is true. All in all: well said, Al.
Talk show host Hugh Hewitt wades into the debate on WorldNet Daily be reprising the recent attack on Rush Limbaugh by Tom Daschle:
"What was disappointing about the Daschle tantrum was the counterattack. The defense of the talk shows was every bit as lame as Daschle's opening move. Daschle attacked the entire medium. Media covered it as a spitting contest between the outgoing Majority Leader and Rush. It ought to have been an examination of the entire spectrum of the talkers, and their combined influence, which is huge.
"If all the Democrats had to worry about was Rush, they could at least figure out a response. But their problem is much bigger and it is growing worse every day. To Rush must be added Hannity, Medved, Boortz, Reagan, Imus, Prager, Ingraham, Gallagher, Elder, O'Reilly, North, Savage and, of course, me. . . .
"Daschle labels us shrill. My weekly guests include Fred Barnes and Morton Kondracke from Fox News, Peter Beinart of The New Republic, Michael Kelly of the Atlantic Monthly and the Washington Post, Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy, Claudia Rosett of the Wall Street Journal, John McIntyre of RealClearPolitics.com, law professors Erwin Chemerinsky and John Eastman and Congressman David Dreier, chair of the House Rules Committee. Frequent visitors include Michael Ledeen, Victor Davis Hanson, Michael Barone, and various nationally recognized reporters like the Post's Thomas Ricks. All told, hardly a gang of bomb-throwers and threat-inciters. The show does tend to get shrill now and then, but only because I play a lot of tape of Patrick Leahy and Robert Byrd.
"The show tilts center-right, but nowhere with the degree of list that NPR tips left. . . .
"Daschle liked the old world of journalism, where graduates of the Harvard Crimson got to mediate many stories, and dinners in Georgetown with senior writers for the weeklies mattered. That world is gone now, and the audience for a single hour of my broadcast is much larger and more influential than the entire readership of a Mary McGrory column."
On another issue, the New Republic's Jonathan Cohn finds no reason to question Gore's sanity:
"Is Gore nuts? Not on policy grounds. In a single-payer system, the government becomes the nation's health insurance company. Instead of paying premiums to an insurer (either directly or through an employer), each American would pay that money to the government; in turn, the government would pay the providers of medical care--i.e., mostly private doctors and hospitals--in the same way insurance companies now do.
"Make no mistake: It's a radical overhaul. But single-payer also has clear virtues: As a general rule, the more people who belong to an insurance pool, the more thinly you spread the financial burden of illness, which can be devastating if you face it alone or within a small group. By definition, single-payer spreads the risk pool across the largest number of people possible--namely, everyone in the country. In addition, while people may associate government with excessive bureaucracy, single-payer systems devote far less money to administrative overhead than private insurance. (Among other things, insurance companies spend a ton of money on advertising.)
"Typically, opponents of single-payer insist it's better to have a private insurance system that promotes more 'choice.' But one of the chief advantages of single-payer is that it gives patients the kind of choice that matters--not choice of insurance plan, but choice of doctor. For example, if you switch plans today, you may discover your favorite physician doesn't take your new insurance. But in a single-payer system, virtually every physician would take government insurance, so that would no longer be an issue. . . .
"Among the proposals out there, single-payer has compelling political advantages. Al Gore may turn out be wrong. But he isn't nuts."
In Slate, Christopher Hitchens is appalled at Henry Kissinger's comeback as head of the 9/11 commission (yet another nod to the septuagenarians, like the recently tapped Frank Lautenberg, Walter Mondale and William Webster):
"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.
"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.
"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. . . .
"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."
Eric Alterman shares Hitchens's disdain:
"Say it ain't so: Henry Kissinger to head up the 9/11 probe? Just one of another slew of bad jokes being played on the nation by this un-elected administration. Hello. The man is famous, for, more than anything, being a near-pathological liar.
"As Todd Gitlin wrote during the Joseph Ellis flap, 'If you're a college professor who tells students that you saw combat in Vietnam when you were actually teaching history at West Point, your lie will land on the front page of The New York Times and provide debate fodder in the letters columns, on National Public Radio and wherever else serious people reason together. On the other hand, if you're a serial liar who claims to have brought peace to Vietnam while presiding over pointless deaths in the hundreds of thousands (over 22,000 Americans, the rest Vietnamese, Laotians and Cambodians), you'll never dine alone or lack for honors.'
"Everyone can forget about this commission doing any good whatever. (And I would like to hear a few 'I'm sorry's' from all the liberals who wasted so much energy agitating for it.) Any commission headed by Kissinger is far more likely to deliberately obscure the truth, than to uncover it. Ronald Reagan used Henry the same way to bolster his Central America policies, when he was lying to the nation about the murderous thugs he supported in El Salvador (and later, the illegal aid being offered to the contras in Nicaragua). Kissinger helped dress up the pig and put a bit of lipstick on it, in order to get Congress to agree with Reagan that black was really white, freedom was slavery, and ignorance, strength. It worked then and no doubt, it will work again today."
We have to pay attention to divisions among the Republicans, since they now run everything:
"Even as President Bush hones plans to stimulate the economy with $150 billion or more in new tax cuts, business groups and many Republicans are split about where the money should go," the New York Times says.
"Many business lobbyists insist that a top priority must be tax breaks aimed directly at corporations, because business spending is the weakest segment of the economy.
"But a growing number of business and political leaders, including at least one influential industry group, want to funnel more money to lower- and middle-income taxpayers in an effort to generate more demand for goods and services. . . . 'I am genuinely concerned that Republicans not be chastised for only helping business and the wealthy,' said Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, who will become chairman of the Senate Finance Committee in January."
In the Weekly Standard, Fred Barnes suggests that the Dems - make sure you're sitting down - move right:
"Democrats are having a nervous breakdown--needlessly. Sure, they lost the 2002 election badly, but it wasn't a catastrophic defeat. They lost for a simple reason: Voters caught on that they weren't serious about the war on terrorism, including regime change in Iraq. So the one thing Democrats need to do is adopt a tough position on fighting terrorists. Then they'll be competitive again. And this, oddly enough, will allow them to play up the domestic issues that favor them over Republicans.
"Sad to say, since the November 5 election, Democrats have been going in the wrong direction, trivializing or otherwise dissing the security issue. They've accused Bush of putting Iraq and its weapons of mass destruction on the national agenda solely to help Republicans in the election. They've insisted the homeland security issue was exploited unfairly, chiefly to question the patriotism of Democratic candidates such as Sen. Max Cleland of Georgia. And ex-vice president Al Gore has attacked President Bush for supposed massive violations of civil liberties by jailing suspected terrorists without formal charges. . . .
"What should Democrats do? The first thing is to stop treating issues such as extending unemployment benefits and raising the minimum wage as more significant than protecting the American people from terrorism. Next, they need to develop a security agenda that could offer a critique from the right. Some Democrats have already done this on the issue of Saudi Arabia, criticizing the Bush administration for coddling a country that funds terrorists.
"True, attacking Bush from the right would be difficult for many Democrats who feel more comfortable in the peace camp. But the longer Democrats act as if Bush is going overboard in the war on terrorism, the worse it will get for them politically.
"It makes sense that Democrats want to talk up the health care, education, and income security issues on which the public thinks they are most trustworthy. But so long as Democrats fail to neutralize the security issue, the public will have minimal interest in their stands on domestic matters."
Does one of the key women's political groups always support Democratic women? Apparently not, American Prowler's Sean Higgins discovers:
"The Senate seat of Democrat Mary Landrieu is hanging by a thread. Unable to win an outright majority on November 5, Louisiana's Southern-fried election laws have forced her into a December 7 runoff with the top Republican vote getter, Suzanne Haik Terrell.
"It's a close race and nobody's taking it for granted. Right after the election, planeloads of Republican and Democratic activists parachuted into Louisiana to duke it out. But one major left-wing group isn't weighing in: Emily's List.
"The 17-year-old feminist PAC devoted to electing pro-choice Democratic women once supported Landrieu. No longer. Landrieu, you see, once voted to ban partial birth abortions. As far as Emily's List is concerned, that is unforgivable.
"The fact that Landrieu's record is otherwise pro-choice and Terrell is pro-life doesn't move it. Nor does the fact that Terrell could add one more vote to the new GOP Senate majority. 'I don't think we are interested in electing anybody who is going to weaken abortion laws,' said Janet Harris, the PAC's communications director. They wrote off Landrieu a long time ago, she adds."
The phrase "litmus test" somehow comes to mind.
And apparently that Canadian official isn't the only one who thinks Bush is a moron:
"A British advertising watchdog said Wednesday it was banning a commercial for an animated comedy series because it pokes fun at President Bush," the AP reports.
"The Broadcast Advertising Clearance Center said the ad, which depicts a cartoon Bush inserting a DVD into a toaster, could only be shown if the makers sought the president's permission first. The commercial promotes a video and DVD of highlights from '2DTV,' an animated series that mocks celebrities and politicians."
--------
Commandos Specialize in Secret Missions
November 29, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Air-Commandos.html
HURLBURT FIELD, Fla. (AP) -- They don't wear green berets. Hollywood hasn't glamorized their exploits in exotic lands. Even within their own service they are a sometimes overlooked and underappreciated bunch.
They are air commandos of the 6th Special Operations Squadron, possibly the least well-known Air Force special operations unit, whose main expertise -- teaching the finer points of air power to less developed foreign forces -- happens to fit neatly with the U.S. goal of building coalitions for the war on terror.
Whether the 6th SOS would become involved if war should come to Iraq, no one here will discuss. But its specialists already have had a hand in anti-terror campaigns in Afghanistan, the Philippines and the former Soviet republic Georgia.
They train foreign air forces in flying, aircraft maintenance, aviation command and control, combat search and rescue, air assault operations. They keep regional U.S. commander apprised of these countries' capabilities and in time of war can integrate them into a multinational coalition force.
Lt. Col. Eric Huppert, the squadron's commander, calls this an ``inside-out'' approach to the war on terrorism. The idea is to help a country, through training and advice, defeat homegrown rebels or terrorists without having to bring in U.S. combat power, as happened in Afghanistan, where no such relationship had existed.
Maj. Tim, a 6th SOS member who agreed to speak on condition his last name not be revealed, recently spent 52 days in the former Soviet republic of Georgia as part of a team providing advanced training in the UH-1H Huey for a commando battalion.
Georgia's lawless Pankisi Gorge, which borders Russia's breakaway republic of Chechnya, has become an alleged hide-out for Chechen rebels and possibly terrorists with links to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network.
In Maj. Tim's view, the training with such nontraditional allies will benefit the United States for years to come.
``You can really say you are doing nation building,'' Maj. Tim said.
The military prefers to call it ``foreign internal defense.'' It's exactly the kind of work the Army's Special Forces, renowned as the Green Berets, have done for decades with foreign ground forces. Not until 1994 did the Air Force establish the 6th SOS as the air equivalent of the Green Berets.
The roots of the 6th SOS go back to the ``Jungle Jim'' program that was started in 1961 to focus on counterinsurgency air operations in Vietnam.
Then, as now, the American government's approach was to help unstable nations fight their own battles.
``The idea is to get people in that country understanding that it is their government helping them, not being puppets of the American government,'' Huppert said in an interview at his Hurlburt Field office, where he can look onto the tarmac and see a Soviet-built An-32 transport plane that the 6th SOS leases to keep its pilots up-to-speed with the kind of older aircraft they encounter in many lesser developed countries.
They also have an An-2 Colt, a piston-engine biplane used in such countries as Albania and Ethiopia as a general utility aircraft. In a unique arrangement, mechanics from the former Soviet republic Moldova help maintain the two old planes.
The 6th SOS is organized into six flights, or groups. Each is designated for work in particular regions -- one for Latin America, another for the Pacific and two for the Middle East and Central Asia and two for Europe.
They are, in a sense, air ambassadors. They are not the kick-down-the-door warriors normally associated with the term ``special operations.'' Rather they are quiet professionals -- multilingual, culturally adroit, often with advanced degrees -- whose task is to train and advise foreign air forces, usually in total secrecy.
The 6th SOS was in Uzbekistan, for example, a number of times before the Sept. 11 attacks, and when Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld pushed for access to Uzbek air bases in the weeks before initiating the war in neighboring Afghanistan, the relationships built by the 6th SOS paid off. The Uzbeks quietly gave permission for AC-130 special operations gunships to use their Khanabad air base.
The 6th SOS also has operated in such far-flung places as Oman and Jordan in the Middle East, Eritrea in the Horn of Africa, Sri Lanka, Ecuador, Venezuela, South Korea, Indonesia and new NATO allies Poland and Slovenia.
The 6th SOS's motto is ``Any time, any place,'' but it lacks the resources to back that up. It is authorized 105 people in the squadron but currently has 93, a shortfall that squadron officers said reflects the difficulty of finding qualified candidates. It also reflects the obscurity in which they work.
Huppert said he and his men have an ``ingrained aversion'' to talking publicly about their work, much of which is classified. Because of the possibility that terrorists might target them, no one in the 6th SOS would agree to have his photograph taken for this story. Only Huppert would allow his last name to be used.
``I've got parents and brothers and sisters that want to know what I'm doing when I'm gone, and to say `I can't tell you' leaves them nothing,'' he said. This veil of secrecy is meant to protect them, but Huppert admitted it also prevents the 6th SOS from attracting the attention, even within the Air Force, that could lead to a bigger budget and expanded role.
On the Net:
Air Force Special Operations Command: http://www.afsoc.af.mil
Hurlburt Field: http://www.hurlburt.af.mil
Khanabad air base with maps: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/khanabad.htm
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS
-------- drug war
Medical Marijuana Laws Surveyed
November 29, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Medical-Marijuana.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Law enforcement officials in four of the states that allow medical use of marijuana say the laws have had minimal impact on crimefighting, although they at times complicate prosecution of drug cases, a congressional report said Friday.
The report by the General Accounting Office said that only a small fraction of the people in Oregon, Hawaii and Alaska used marijuana for medical purposes. The results in California, the fourth state studied, were limited to only four counties and no statewide data was available.
Some law enforcement officials said that while crimefighting was not harmed, the laws allowing doctors to prescribe marijuana at times has complicated efforts to seize illegal marijuana or to prosecute some cases, according to the GAO report.
In some cases, law enforcement officials said the marijuana laws resulted in ``a general softening'' in attitudes among the public toward marijuana, the report said, and some were concerned about conflicts that arise with federal law enforcement, which still bans the drug.
The GAO examined only four of the eight states that have allowed medical uses for marijuana. The other states are Nevada, Colorado, Washington and Maine.
The GAO found that a total of about 2,450 people in Oregon, Hawaii and Alaska use marijuana for medical purposes -- accounting for no more than .05 percent of the population in any of the states.
The report provided no statewide data for California. That state's law does not require medicinal marijuana users to register, although about 4,500 people have done so voluntarily in four of the state's 58 counties, according to the GAO.
In Northern California, Humboldt County officials said marijuana growers are allowed to grow hundreds of plants while claiming to be a medical caregiver to multiple patients, and no documentation is required.
Some local law enforcement officials in California questioned how effectively they could prosecute criminal marijuana cases since the state has no limit on the amount of marijuana that can be held by a patient or a caregiver.
While the other three states have established limits, some law enforcement officials said they too were less likely to pursue cases that could be shielded by the provisions.
The Bush administration disagreed with some of the report's findings.
The state marijuana laws have resulted in a ``worsening of relations between federal, state and local law enforcement,'' Acting Assistant Attorney General Robert F. Diegelman wrote the review of the report.
The laws create ``legal loopholes for drug dealers and marijuana cultivators to avoid arrest and prosecution,'' he said.
Data from the three states that require registries -- Oregon, Hawaii and Alaska -- showed that over 70 percent of medicinal marijuana users from each state were at least 40 years old.
In Hawaii and Oregon, where information on gender was kept, about 70 percent of users in each state were male, according to the report.
Both states also showed most of their patients were taking marijuana to treat severe pain and persistent muscle spasms. Such information was not available for Alaska or California.
The GAO conducted its study from September 2001 to June 2002.
On the Net:
General Accounting Office: http://www.gao.gov
-------- spying
Domestic Spying Pressed
Big-City Police Seek to Ease Limits Imposed After Abuses Decades Ago
By Michael Powell
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 29, 2002; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A51934-2002Nov28?language=printer
NEW YORK -- Arguing that this city faces a far more perilous world than once imagined, New York's police commissioner wants to toss aside a decades-old federal court decree governing the limits on police spying and surveillance of its own citizenry.
City officials argue that officers need more elbow room to photograph, tape and infiltrate political and social organizations to uproot terror networks. But civil libertarians warn of a return to the unsavory days of old, when New York's police department acquired a reputation for police "black bag" break-ins and spying on political dissidents.
It's a battle with echoes in other cities. In Chicago, officials have already weakened a court decree limiting police spying. In San Francisco, officials have reversed their own 1997 decision and have now joined an FBI terrorism task force, even though FBI surveillance of mosques and peaceful protests could violate the California constitution.
Taken together, these steps suggest a cultural and legal shift driven by fear of terrorism in cities where a civil libertarian impulse once was widely shared. Nowhere is that more noticeable than here.
"The New York Police Department had no conception of the challenge it would face in protecting the city and its people from international terrorism" when it signed the consent decree, city attorneys argue in a federal legal brief. "Clearly, the public interest in law enforcement's ability to protect it from terrorist violence is the most vital priority."
A federal trial court is expected to begin reviewing the New York case in December.
Civil libertarians argue that the fear of police abuses in a war on terror is neither speculative nor paranoid. In New York, Chicago and San Francisco, police spying and surveillance has a long and ignoble history.
"We are seeing a national phenomenon where, in the name of protecting national security against a new and subtle danger, there is a massive effort to eliminate protections for political protest," said Donna Lieberman, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union. "These safeguards were put in place in the aftermath of a documented history of systematic spying, infiltration and dirty tricks by police agencies and the FBI."
The New York case involves a consent decree signed in 1985, settling a federal class-action lawsuit originally brought by criminal defense lawyers in 1971. The decree prohibits police from photographing and carrying out surveillance of political demonstrations. To infiltrate lawful political and social organizations, police must establish a suspicion of criminal activity and gain the permission of a special three-person authority.
This three-person authority consists of two high-ranking police officials and a civilian appointed by the mayor. Civil libertarians argue this is hardly an onerous burden for law enforcement.
"We're trying to figure out what the police are so upset about," said Paul Chevigny, a law professor at New York University Law School who helped bring the class-action lawsuit 30 years ago. "It doesn't require much of an intrusion. It's hard to imagine what they have in mind."
That argument, say critics of the consent order, can as easily be stood on its head. If the decree is so innocuous, they ask, why keep it on the books? What undercover officer would risk reprimand and attempt to infiltrate a mosque without the approval of his bosses?
Civil libertarians here note that Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly has declined to cite a single specific case in which the consent decree hindered a police investigation. In many cases, the U.S. Patriot Act allows the FBI leeway to carry out the same surveillance without federal court oversight.
Critics note that the decree could intrude on basic police work. After the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon last year, routine airport videos helped police quickly identify the terrorists. And seemingly neutral leads provided links to planned terrorist actions.
"The concerns about revoking this decree seems almost irrelevant in light of the terror activity we can imagine might be going on," said Jerome Skolnick, a New York University law professor specializing in criminal law and police procedure. "We're in a different world, where the enemy isn't some civil liberties lawyer. That argument and worry doesn't compute any more."
Nevertheless, there are many who remember abuses: In the 1950s, the New York Police Department's Red Squad compiled voluminous files on political meetings of left-leaning organizations, and passed to Congress and the FBI lists naming people the Red Squad believed were communist sympathizers. This squad's lineal descendant was the NYPD's Bureau of Strategic Services (BOSS), which during the 1960s tracked, photographed and pored through the personal and business affairs of prominent liberals and others.
Then came the Black Panther Party trials in New York of the early 1970s, in which the black radicals stood accused of conspiring to blow up five department stores, a precinct house, the New Haven Railroad and the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx. It turned out that Manhattan District Attorney Frank Hogan had ordered undercover police officers to infiltrate the Black Panthers, to the point that jurors could no longer distinguish between the felonious impulses of the Panthers and the undercover cops. (In one case, a police undercover agent handed the Panthers a map and a rented car, and urged them to carry out an armed robbery.)
The jury acquitted the Panthers in three hours. Weeks later, defense attorneys filed the class-action lawsuit that eventually resulted in the 1985 consent decree.
"There was an awful lot of police entrapment," recalled Chevigny. "Of course, there was also a danger from the Panthers, I won't deny that. Those were different times."
New York's police department now cites the example of Chicago, where a federal court recently agreed to weaken a similar legal decree that constrained the police. That city's history of civil liberties abuses was, in many respects, worse than that of New York. Over the course of two decades, the FBI in Chicago carried out more than 500 "black-bag"{ndash}which is to say illegal -- jobs in Chicago. And police routinely investigated political opponents of the mayor.
"Police went to our fundraisers and recorded license plate numbers," said Harvey Grossman, director of the ACLU's Illinois office. "They kept voluminous files on the NAACP and the League of Women Voters. This is a history we ought not to forget."
In Grossman's view, the decrees serve as a brake on police behavior and help to educate new generations of police officers. "The decrees are seen as therapeutic," he said. "The hope was that you'd eradicate a culture."
Not all cities want to loosen restraints on police surveillance, even after Sept. 11, 2001. In Portland, Ore., the police department drew national attention last year when it refused to participate in FBI interviews of Middle Eastern men living in the United States on student, tourist or work visas. The city attorney said the interviews were too broad and violated state law.
In Denver, police officials recently pledged to destroy secret police-surveillance files kept on 10,000 law-abiding people.
"Of course, our history is different," said Mark Silverstein, legal director of Colorado's ACLU. "We watched the World Trade Center on television; we didn't directly experience it."
The New York Police Department's point man on matters of terror is David Cohen, a former deputy director of operations for the Central Intelligence Agency. Cohen declines interviews and refuses to divulge even his age for what he says are security reasons. In the face of the latest terrorism threats, the police department said that Cohen and his officers must be granted wide leeway.
"The people of this city are entitled to the benefit of his professional judgment," the city argues in a legal brief, "in how the ongoing threat to our nation, our lives, and our property is best addressed."
Norman Siegal, former NYCLU director, recoils at such arguments. To simply leave such judgments in the hands of a top cop, he said, runs against the grain of this congenitally argumentative metropolis.
"New York is a town of big mouths," he said. "If we chill dissent and stop being the city of big mouths, the nation loses something vital, even if it doesn't realize that now."
-------- terrorism
NEWS ANALYSIS
Fight Against Terror: Two Conflicts or One?
November 29, 2002
New York Times
By JAMES BENNET
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/29/international/middleeast/29ASSE.html
TEL AVIV, Nov. 28 - Terrorists hunted Israelis on two continents today, killing voters as they went to the polls in Israel and tourists as they prepared to go to the beach in Kenya.
The dead were almost surely the victims of at least two different organizations. But whether they were victims in the same war - a worldwide campaign of terror - is a question that goes to the heart of the Bush administration's widening fight against terrorism, and Israel's focused conflict with the Palestinians.
Since the Sept. 11 attacks, the United States and Israel have drawn ever closer, but they have continued, quietly, to differ over a basic question: whether treating the two conflicts as one and the same would help or hinder in resolving either fight.
When Israel argued that Yasir Arafat was protecting Palestinian terrorists in the same way that the Taliban protected Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda, the Bush administration objected and blocked Mr. Arafat's expulsion from the Palestinian territories.
For most Israelis, today's violence starkly backlit what they regard as the fallacy, if not hypocrisy, in the Bush administration's stance.
They already believed that the American war in Afghanistan undermined any Bush administration criticism of Israel's military offensive in the West Bank, which is intended, they say, to stop the same kind of terrorism. Already, the recent American missile strike on a Qaeda leader in Yemen made them wonder how the administration, however gingerly, could criticize Israel's killings of wanted Palestinians, often with missiles fired from helicopters.
Now, whether or not Al Qaeda was behind today's twin attacks in Kenya, Israelis have clearly fallen victim to terrorism "with a global reach," the scourge that President Bush has pledged to eradicate. Further, why would the fact that Israelis shot dead in Israel were killed locally, rather than globally, make their attackers any less wicked, any less deserving of a declaration of war?
Indeed, after today, some diplomats in Israel wondered if the Bush administration would find it harder to make distinctions between the conflicts and restrain Prime Minister Sharon.
Speaking to reporters here tonight, Mr. Sharon made no distinctions between the attacks, which he described as part of a continuum of terrorism against not Israelis but Jews - "young and old, women and children, only because they are Jews." Since the Sept. 11 attacks, he has not veered from his argument that Israel is standing shoulder to shoulder with the United States against the same enemy.
"The world war against terror must become a practical, realistic and uncompromising war against all the terror organizations and those who harbor them - anywhere and at any time," he said.
For Palestinians, and for some Israelis, the distinctions remain painfully obvious, if harder to explain overseas. Ghassan Khatib, a minister in Mr. Arafat's cabinet, rejected any link between the day's attacks, or between Al Qaeda and Palestinian militancy. "Linking the terrorism of Al Qaeda and bin Laden, which is not legitimate in our view, to the Palestinian resistance to this illegitimate occupation, is a big mistake that many people in the world are buying from Israel," he said.
While saying violence against civilians should stop, he added, "What Sharon fails to notice is that the Israelis have been killing Palestinians every day, every day."
"We cannot buy the Sharon argument that his attacks are a reaction to the Palestinian violence," Mr. Khatib said. "And I don't blame the Israelis if they also don't accept our arguments, that our violence is a reaction to the Israeli violence."
In a statement issued tonight, Mr. Bush appeared to find real equivalence in the two conflicts as he condemned the attacks in Israel and Kenya. "Those who seek peace must do everything in their power to dismantle the infrastructure of terror that makes such actions possible," he said. "The United States remains firmly committed, with its partners around the world, to the fight against terror and those who commit these heinous acts."
Yet while the day's violence may produce some rhetorical blurring, it is unlikely to produce a sharp change in policy for the Bush administration, Israeli experts said. The reason is that its distinction between the two conflicts has been an important weapon in the fight the administration cares most about, the campaign against terrorism.
Yoni Fighel, a colonel in the Israeli Army reserves and an expert on terrorism here, said, "In the global war on terrorism, Israel and the United States share the same goals." But when it comes to the conflict here, he said, "America is still trying to play the honest broker, and not go all out against Arafat and the Palestinian Authority."
Partly by distinguishing between the two conflicts, by maintaining some diplomatic space between itself and Israel, the Bush administration has tried to win Arab support for, or at least acquiescence in, a possible war on Iraq, a keystone of its campaign against terror. It used the same distinction in fighting the war in Afghanistan.
Even as his administration tilted toward Israel, Mr. Bush has suggested that Israel bears some blame for the fighting here, saying its occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, seized in the 1967 war, should end.
That distinction is not merely rhetorical. It has already had policy consequences, leading Mr. Bush to take positions that in the long term could create tension in a relationship that Israeli leaders feel is as close as it has ever been.
"He has made a commitment on the Palestinian issue that is not quite what Sharon wanted to hear," said Yossi Alpher, an Israeli security analyst.
With the United Nations, the European Union and Russia, Mr. Bush has proposed a "road map" for ending the conflict here that calls for more than just destroying the infrastructure of terror. It also calls for uprooting some Israeli settlements and creating a Palestinian state in 2005.
--------
SECURITY CONCERNS
Ideal Terror Weapons: Portable, Deadly, Plentiful Missiles
November 29, 2002
New York Times
By THOM SHANKER
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/29/international/29MISS.html
WASHINGTON, Nov. 28 - The missile attack on an Israeli passenger plane flying from Kenya today was a stark warning that another long-feared threat may be on the rise: terrorists shooting down commercial aircraft with shoulder-fired missiles designed for battlefield attacks on swift combat jets.
Hundreds if not thousands of the relatively cheap but highly lethal missiles are believed to be circulating on the black market, and they already have been used with deadly accuracy against civilian planes in a number of overseas war zones.
The fact that the Arkia airlines plane escaped what witnesses described as a pair of missiles did not diminish the worry. The 261 passengers aboard the Boeing 757-300 were saved, experts said, either by the inexperience of the attackers or a missile technical failure - or by luck.
"This has been a major concern for a number of years," said Daniel Benjamin, who was a senior counterterrorism adviser to President Clinton. "Recognizing that there are so many of this type of missile out there, and with today's attack as a manifestation that there are terrorists who would truly like to shoot down civilian airliners, we have to understand that the threat has now gone up."
Although published statistics on the number of shoulder-fired missile attacks against commercial aircraft vary, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said there have been at least 29 instances in which civilian planes have been hit by these weapons, mostly in war zones, causing at least 550 deaths.
The United States government has studied the threat to commercial airline traffic from light, portable missiles and has discussed its concerns with airline executives, administration officials said today.
Just this past summer, American officials elevated warnings of terrorist attack from shoulder-launched missiles.
American military officials announced in June that a Sudanese man with possible ties to Al Qaeda was arrested in Sudan, and that he had admitted launching a Soviet-designed SA-7 shoulder-fired missile at an American warplane in Saudi Arabia late last year. The missile did not strike the jet.
But the discovery of the empty missile canister prompted an F.B.I. alert that terrorists might try to shoot down a commercial aircraft with shoulder-fired missiles.
In Israel today, investigators said the attackers in Kenya apparently used a version of the SA-7, originally designed in the 1970's and later copied for manufacture by China, Yugoslavia, Egypt and Pakistan, administration officials said today.
It is similar to an early portable missile developed for the American military, the Redeye, which zeroes in on the heat from an aircraft's engines, according to a Pentagon official.
Missiles like the SA-7 can overtake planes traveling at the speed of sound and up to an altitude of 10,000 to 15,000 feet, the official said. Compared with the high-performance combat jets or dizzyingly maneuverable attack helicopters the missile was designed to down, a lumbering passenger plane taking off is considered an easy target.
The SA-7 is not as capable as the newer American Stinger, which proved devastating against Soviet aircraft during Moscow's failed occupation of Afghanistan. In fact, the threat of leftover Stingers in Afghanistan was so great that the Central Intelligence Agency offered to pay hefty bounties to anyone who would return one of the missiles during the American-led campaign to topple the Taliban and rout Al Qaeda there.
American military officials said their forces in Afghanistan found many caches of Chinese- and Russian-made SA-7 missiles during sweeps throughout the country. One Pentagon official said today that the administration has evidence that Al Qaeda trained with shoulder-fired missiles; the official also said the government had indications that the terrorist network planned to position those weapons around the globe.
Military aircraft and passenger planes used by countries' leaders - and wealthy executives - often are outfitted with flares, metallic confetti or chemical powders to draw missiles away from their targets. But the cost to commercial airlines to arm every plane with such countermeasures would be high, and possibly prohibitive given the struggle for profits since the Sept. 11 hijacking attacks.
The threat of possible missile or jet attack also was noted today by the North American Aerospace Defense Command, or Norad, which said it had received "unverified reports of what appeared to be a contrail of unknown origin in the vicinity of the Turks and Caicos Islands in the Caribbean" on Wednesday.
In a statement, the command said commercial airline pilots reported seeing the contrail, a vapor trail left by high-flying objects, heading northwest toward the United States, with subsequent sightings over Florida and later over Indiana.
"Norad scrambled fighter aircraft from several bases in an attempt to intercept and identify the source of the contrail," the statement said. "No visual or confirmed radar contact was made with the source of the contrail."
-------- ENERGY AND OTHER
-------- environment
Bulk of Vast Oil Slick Is Closing in on Spanish Coast
November 29, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/news-transport-spain-ship.html
MADRID (Reuters) - A monster oil slick from a sunken tanker is bearing down on the northwest coast of Spain, officials said on Friday, threatening to pile on misery for a fishing industry already devastated by the disaster.
``The really big slick, the main one, is closing in on the coast right now because of weather conditions and is now 17 nautical miles from the coast,'' Deputy Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy told a news conference.
The oil tanker Prestige, loaded with 77,000 tons of toxic fuel oil, broke in two and sank on November 19, six days after its hull cracked during an Atlantic storm off the Spanish coast.
Oil has already fouled more than 100 beaches, immobilized sea birds and forced a ban on fishing along 250 miles of coast. Thousands of fishermen have been temporarily thrown out of work.
Officials in the northwest region Galicia estimated the oil slick at 11,000 tons -- Rajoy refused to estimate its size -- and said it was expected to hit the coast this weekend.
``The slick is close...Everything is really working against us: the winds, the currents, the course it is taking toward the coast,'' Galicia's fisheries councilor, Enrique Lopez Veiga, told state radio.
In the meantime seven suction ships attempted to mitigate the damage, having collected 2,314 tons of fuel oil at sea. Another 2,000 tons have been scraped up on land.
Spain's Green Party sued the government on Friday, asking the country's chief prosecutor to assign criminal responsibility over the disaster and alleging a comedy of errors turned a controllable situation into one of the world's worst oil spills.
The Greens, who have one member of parliament, assailed the Spanish government for tugging the stricken tanker out into choppy seas rather than containing the slick and bringing the vessel to port, where its fuel could have been unloaded.
The government said it ordered the tanker out to sea for fear it would break up near shore and cause even more damage.
``The management of this crisis was straight out of a manual. A manual of what not to do, of how to deceive the public, of how to avoid making decisions,'' Green party chief Jose Maria Mendiluce told reporters after filing his suit and meeting with the chief state prosecutor, Jesus Cardenal.
Cardenal's office must decide whether to forward the case to the Supreme Court. A spokesman for the prosecutor said he was under no time restraints to act.
Mendiluce said the disaster revealed the ``incompetence of arrogant know-it-alls ... who have placed this country at the back of the pack of the third world in crisis prevention.''
-------- homeless
N.Y. Faces Record Number of Homeless
November 29, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-NYC-Record-Homeless.html
NEW YORK (AP) -- In the nation's largest city, a record number of people are homeless, sleeping each night in shelters and streets, on subway platforms and cathedral steps -- and there are no easy solutions in sight.
The slowing economy has led to jumps in homelessness across the nation, in places as disparate as Rhode Island and South Dakota. But in New York, struggling with the aftermath of terrorism, the effect has been particularly acute.
On average, more than 37,000 people spend their nights in New York city shelters, the highest level on record. In 1998, city statistics show, the average was about 21,000. The number of homeless families sleeping in shelters has more than doubled over the same period, from 4,429 at the beginning of 1998 to 8,925 last month. And there are uncounted numbers of people who sleep outside.
``It's getting steadily worse out there,'' said James Inman, 54, as he finished Thanksgiving dinner at a Manhattan mission. ``All the shelters are full. It's tighter than it's ever been.''
The sluggish economy and rising rents have combined to produce higher homeless rates across the country, said Nan Roman, president of the National Alliance to End Homelessness. The group puts the number of homeless people nationwide at 1 million.
In Los Angeles, police made about 200 arrests on ``Skid Row'' this month after business people called for steps to combat homelessness. In Rhode Island, rising rents were blamed for a 45 percent increase in homeless children over the past three years. Sioux Falls, S.D., is estimated to have more homeless people than the populations of three-fourths of the towns in the state.
In New York, dealing with Sept. 11 has aggravated the homeless situation in unexpected ways. Anti-terror patrols have sealed off out-of-the-way places -- nooks in tunnels, bridge underpinnings, downtown alleys -- where homeless people once sought shelter.
``The places where homeless folks have gone for cover are starting to be walled off,'' said Linda Gibbs, city commissioner of homeless services. ``It limits their options, and it forces them into the open.''
The situation is causing tension. An advocacy group sued the city this week, alleging police are sweeping the homeless off the streets by arresting them. Police acknowledge a jump in arrests, but say that is because officers simply have more contact with the homeless lately.
Solutions are elusive.
The city is pegging its hopes on a strategy adopted in June that focuses on making sure enough shelter space is available and aiming to get people into permanent housing.
This winter, city social workers will conduct a homeless ``population survey'' to get a handle on how many people are sleeping on streets and where.
Since taking office Jan. 1, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has boosted the number of permanent housing subsidies available to those in the city shelter system to 9,250 -- an increase of 110 percent.
The city has also explored unusual options for shelter space, some of which homeless advocates have derided. This summer, a judge blocked the mayor's plan to use a former Bronx jail as a shelter. The city, bound by law to provide shelter, has also considered converting empty convents and community centers.
In perhaps the most unusual idea, city officials traveled to the Bahamas to inspect three cruise ships, beginning a study of whether docked ships could be used to house the homeless.
``We won't and we can't reject any idea,'' Gibbs said.
Homeless supporters want the city to commit to building 100,000 new housing units and renovate 85,000 more over the next 10 years -- at a cost of about $10 billion.
Bloomberg, facing massive city budget deficits, said the problem is more complicated than writing a check. The city claims it is trying to provide short-term solutions -- guaranteeing food and shelter -- while it explores a long-term fix.
Meanwhile, no one expects the numbers to drop soon.
``We're hustling to get food,'' said Larry Gile, who runs St. John's Bread and Life, the largest soup kitchen in Brooklyn, which served a record 19,500 meals last month. ``We just get the feeling the demand is infinite.''
On the Net:
NYC Department of Homeless Services: http://www.nyc.gov/html/dhs/home.html
National Alliance to End Homelessness: http://www.naeh.org
-------- hunger
U.N.: 40 Nations Face Food Shortages
November 29, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-UN-Food-Supply.html
ROME (AP) -- Nearly 40 countries, most of them in Africa, are facing serious food problems, a U.N. agency said Friday.
Twenty-five of the 39 countries facing food shortages are in Africa, the Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organization said in its November issue of ``Foodcrops and Shortages,'' which is published five times a year.
Zimbabwe, Ethiopia and Eritrea are particularly affected, the agency said.
Southern Africa has suffered two consecutive bad harvests and Zimbabwe's economic and political problems have worsened the situation in that country.
``Food assistance to the neediest is inadequate and slow in coming, while commercial imports are hampered by the worsening economic crisis,'' the report said.
Acute shortages of corn, the staple food for Zimbabwe's 12.5 million people, have been blamed on drought and the government's chaotic program to seize thousands of white-owned commercial farms for redistribution to black settlers.
Economic turmoil over the past two years has left more than 60 percent of Zimbabwe's population jobless. Tens of thousands of black farm workers have lost their livelihood in farm seizures.
On Thursday, the U.N. World Food Program said 6.7 million Zimbabweans could need food aid, and the WFP's resources fall far short of meeting that need.
In Mozambique, almost 600,000 people need food aid because their crops were wiped out by drought, the country's agriculture minister, Helder Muteia, said Friday. About 207,564 acres of land that normally yielded crops had produced nothing this year, he said.
Massive flooding during the past two years that wiped out large swaths of cropland has compounded Mozambique's food shortage.
The government was trying to address the problem by distributing seed and agricultural implements and rebuilding damaged irrigation systems, but Mozambique still desperately needed more aid, Muteia said.
In East Africa, drought also has caused serious shortages. Ethiopia has asked for food aid for about 6 million people, while neighboring Eritrea has asked for aid for about 1.4 million people.
In Asia, North Korea was among the hardest-hit countries.
``Donor pledges are urgently needed to cover the WFP emergency operation for the remainder of 2002 and the first quarter of 2003,'' the Rome-based agency said.
Afghanistan has enjoyed a recovery in agricultural production, but the return of refugees could lead to a funding shortage, it said.
The supply of food in the West Bank and Gaza Strip also is suffering from curfews and military operations, the report said.
On the Net:
FAO report -- http://www.fao.org/WAICENT/faoinfo/economic/giews/english/fs/fstoc.h tm
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[Activists, send us your memories of the dawning peace and disarmament age - <A HREF="mailto:prop1@prop1.org (nucnews)">mailto:prop1@prop1.org (NucNews)</A>]
Storytellers Pass On Lore Of Space Age Mentors and Their Memories
By Christopher Lee
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 29, 2002; Page A41
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A51482-2002Nov28?language=printer
Faced with a wave of retirements, federal agencies are struggling to preserve years of institutional memory that officials fear could walk out the door when senior managers call it a career.
At the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, however, they've got it down to a science.
For the last two years the agency has rounded up senior managers to share their war stories with up-and-comers at biannual national conferences. Management stories, lessons and interviews also are collected in an online and print publication called Ask Magazine.
It's all part of what has been termed the "knowledge sharing initiative" within NASA's Academy of Program and Project Leadership, the agency's internal training and career development organ.
"We have an organization that people love to stay with," said Edward Hoffman, the academy director. "Once you start working at NASA, you don't really want to leave. The good side is that we have a lot of experienced people we can learn from. The downside is we do probably have about half our technical, engineering, scientific and project workforce eligible to retire over the next five years. So it makes it more important that we're establishing a culture of learning."
Holding on to years of know-how in the heads of departing managers is not a challenge for the space agency alone. About one-third of the federal civilian workforce of 1.8 million will be eligible for retirement by 2004. And 20 percent could seek early retirement by then.
"Some turnover is certainly good, so that you keep fresh ideas coming into the organization," said N. Joseph Cayer, a professor at Arizona State University's School of Public Affairs in Phoenix. "But the problem is that organizations are really facing a human resource crisis. In many places, they are looking at 50 percent of their senior management or more retiring within the next five to 10 years. You can always replace them, but the question is how much do you lose? . . . The major risk is that there are just some things that wouldn't be done as well."
Technology is helping to stem the knowledge loss. Many government agencies are replacing clunky paper files with searchable electronic databases, said Myra Howze Shiplett, director of the Center for Human Resources Management at the National Academy of Public Administration. But better files aren't enough, she said.
"It's very important for organizations to not only have preservation of the facts, but to have preservation of how the issues were handled, what kind of techniques worked," said Shiplett, who spent 30 years as a manager in various federal agencies.
The Office of Personnel Management does not direct agencies to find ways to preserve the institutional memory of retiring managers, said Michael Orenstein, an OPM spokesman. But the OPM does operate centers to help groom managers for leadership.
"They don't necessarily deal with 'institutional memory,' but they are there to help prepare the next generation of leaders in government," Orenstein said.
And some agencies have developed their own programs, he said, noting that seasoned managers are mentors to greener ones at the Department of Labor and the Defense Commissary Agency.
At the State Department, officials have recently begun a mentoring program "to sort of guide people as to how the State Department works," said Linda Swartz Taglialatela, deputy assistant secretary for human resources. Additionally, hundreds of former diplomats have given oral histories as part of an effort to document the evolution of American foreign policy in a world that has changed considerably in the last half-century.
At NASA, officials are training their knowledge preservation efforts on people like Martin Davis.
The engineer runs the weather satellite programs at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt. In his 40-year career at the agency, he has also designed power systems for scientific satellites, overseen the development of scientific instruments for satellite missions and helped create a large scientific observatory that rode aboard a space shuttle in 1991. He's won a slew of agency awards including NASA's highest honor, the Distinguished Service Medal, in 1995.
In short, Davis, 63, has been around, but he won't be there forever.
Davis has been to four of the NASA-sponsored storytelling sessions, known as the Master's Forum for Project Managers. About 60 people -- a mixture of old hands and young guns plus a dozen or so people from outside the agency -- attend the two-day gatherings, held in two cities each year. It's not about Powerpoint presentations or intense preparation. Participants just swap stories.
"We don't have enough people coming up through the pipeline with the right expertise to take over the jobs that need to be filled," Davis said. "One of the remedies is to try to pass on the knowledge that some of us have gained through the years in some fashion that's more likely to get across than just writing out a bunch of 'lessons learned.' We do that, too, but who the hell reads them?"
Davis has found a fan and protégé in Susan Motil, 39, a project manager at NASA's John H. Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, who helps design payloads of scientific experiments to be conducted aboard the shuttle and the International Space Station.
Motil, a past participant in the storytelling seminars, read a July 2001 Ask Magazine article Davis had written based on one of his stories. Davis described how he had restructured the many NASA-required reviews of one of his projects so that they were both less time-consuming and more informative. Motil called him about it.
"I was trying to find a better way to do this review so that it wasn't as long and arduous of a process. I found that I could apply what he did, and it made my review process go much more smoothly," said the 13-year NASA veteran.
Davis, who had never met Motil, said the experience "was kind of neat. That's exactly why we do this."
The national master's forums have been so successful that NASA is replicating the model on a smaller scale through workshops at its regional centers.
"What we wanted to do was gravitate towards identifying people with passion, competence and experience," Hoffman said. "If we can get those folks excited and working with us, in a sense taking the lead, then it would slowly be able to impact the culture over a period of years."
The seminars may even help keep the experienced talent around a little longer. Davis, for one, says he has no plans to retire soon.
"I really like what I'm doing, and so I'll work until I feel like the crap that gets thrown on us is overwhelming or I'm too tired to do it," he said. "But it's things like this master's forum that keep you invigorated."
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Iranian Student Protesters Call Referendum on Hard-Line Rulers
November 29, 2002
New York Times
By NAZILA FATHI
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/29/international/middleeast/29IRAN.html
TEHRAN, Nov. 28 - Iranian student protesters responded defiantly today to the government's arrest of four of their leaders, announcing that they would hold a referendum in at least 14 universities in Tehran as early as next week. If it is carried out, the referendum will measure the popularity of the clerical government among students at the universities, according to a statement released by an umbrella student organization, the Office for Consolidating Unity.
The crackdown against the students has intensified since Iran's supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said last week that the protests were the work of the enemy and would be suppressed. His call was heeded by thousands of hard-line militia forces, who staged rallies this week and clashed with pro-democracy protesters.
The four leading student activists were released less than 24 hours after their arrest, but were ordered to appear before a revolutionary court on Saturday on charges of acting against national security and insulting the country's leaders.
Nationwide student protests erupted two weeks ago in support of a history lecturer, Hashem Aghajari, who had been sentenced to death for criticizing the government in a speech. The demonstrations emerged at a particularly delicate moment, just days after Iran's pro-reform Parliament passed two bills aimed at limiting the power of hard-line clerics. But both bills - presented by the country's reformist president, Mohammad Khatami - need to be approved by the hard-line Guardian Council before they can be enacted. Reformist supporters of President Khatami have threatened to put the bills up for public vote if the council rejects them.
Meanwhile, the judiciary, which is also controlled by hard-line opponents of President Khatami, closed two polling institutes and arrested a researcher and two directors, one of whom, Akbar Abdi, was a leading reformist politician. They will be tried on Sunday on charges of espionage.
"We believe that the death sentence against Mr. Aghajari was a test to see if people would react or not," said Mehdi Habibi, a student activist. "The conservatives wanted to use all their power and eradicate the reform movement if society had not reacted to the recent events."
The death sentence for Mr. Aghajari, who had called for the separation of state and religion, is still pending, although Mr. Khamenei ordered a review of the case and implied that the court should dismiss the sentence. However, the chief prosecutor, Abdolnabi Namazi, said this week that the sentence would be carried out unless Mr. Aghajari appealed by Monday. Mr. Aghajari has so far refused to appeal.
A lawyer for Mr. Aghajari, Saleh Nikhbakht, said today that he would file an appeal to the Supreme Court "even if my client refuses to do so," Agence France-Presse reported.
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After Freeing Dissident, Burmese Rulers Move Slowly on Reform
November 29, 2002
New York Times
By SETH MYDANS
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/29/international/asia/29BURM.html
BANGKOK, Thailand, Nov. 28 - Six months after releasing the pro-democracy leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest amid a fanfare of promises, Myanmar's military rulers seem to have lost interest in political compromise.
They have released only a trickle of political prisoners from among more than 1,000 who are behind bars. And they have dragged their feet on a pledge to open substantive talks with Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi and her political party, the National League for Democracy.
In place of the upbeat words that accompanied the announcement of her release on May 5, government officials have settled back into a familiar refrain: give us time.
"The process is moving forward," said Lt. Gen. Khin Nyunt, one of the country's top generals. "But such movement can only occur at a pace with which we are comfortable."
He added, "Much has been achieved already this year, and people have to understand the process may be slow because it is complicated."
There is no question about that achievement. After 19 months under house arrest, Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi was granted the most freedom of movement and political activity she has had in more than a decade.
She has made four trips outside the capital, Yangon, to rally supporters and has reopened more than 65 party offices, reviving a network that had almost been eliminated by the government.
But this has not been accompanied by the sort of cooperation and political accommodation she said the government promised her.
"We are prepared for dialogue with the government, and we have not set any preconditions," a spokesman for the party, U Lwin, said this month. But he has begun to sound a bit less upbeat than he did immediately after the release of Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi.
"Since the beginning, we have been reading too much into her release," said Aung Zaw, the editor of Irrawaddy magazine and a leading figure among Burmese exiles.
"I think it was just part of their regular routine practices, to release her into a larger cage," he said. "But I think it was very premature to call it a political milestone."
In a sign that foreign nations are losing patience, the American deputy secretary of state for Asia and the Pacific, James A. Kelly, this week offered the strongest warning yet by the Bush administration.
"We are at the point where, absent further progress, the process that has begun may well falter," he said on Sunday. "If progress remains elusive, Burma must consider the possibility that other countries may join in measures with us, such as a ban on new investment."
The United States has led international economic and political sanctions against the military junta, which took power in 1988 and then nullified the results of a parliamentary election in 1990 that was won overwhelmingly by the National League for Democracy.
Although it may resist cooperating with the opposition, Myanmar's military government badly needs international aid to revive its mismanaged economy and to address severe public health problems, including the rapid spread of AIDS.
"It is by no means certain that attempts to work with the government to avoid a health disaster will succeed," wrote Robert Templer in a recent report for the International Crisis group, a policy institute. "What is certain is that the country cannot stem the tide without immediate, substantial and sustained financial and technical support."
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Eco - Warriors Block Elderly Oil Tanker in Estonia
November 29, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-environment-estonia-tanker.html
LONDON (Reuters) - Activists from the environment group Greenpeace stopped an elderly oil tanker from leaving an Estonian port on Friday, saying they feared an oil spill like that which hit northwest Spain when a tanker sank 10 days ago.
``The ship can't move and we are determined to stay as long as it takes...we are not letting it go. It poses such a big threat to the Baltic environment,'' Greenpeace spokesman Mikael Sjovall told Reuters by telephone from Tallinn.
He said about 20 'eco-warriors' in dinghies had surrounded the 26-year-old Byzantio, carrying 53,000 tons of fuel oil, and two of the team had chained themselves to the vessel.
He said the ship was Greek-owned, flies a Maltese flag and was detained in Ireland for failing a port inspection earlier this year. Its destination is Rotterdam.
The Byzantio's cargo is similar to that of the Bahamas-registered tanker Prestige, which broke up and sank in the Atlantic on November 19, spilling an estimated 11,000 tons of fuel oil which has polluted northwest Spain's fisheries and beaches.
Like the Prestige, the Byzantio is chartered by Swiss-based Russian oil trader Crown Resources, Greenpeace said.
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Iran Judge Says to Review Dissident's Death Verdict
November 29, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-iran-protest.html
TEHRAN, Iran (Reuters) - Tehran's top judge said Friday that Iran's conservative judiciary would carry out a review of a death sentence on a dissident academic that had sparked the country's biggest pro-reform protests for three years.
The death sentence on history lecturer Hashem Aghajari has heightened political tension in the Islamic Republic at a time when moderate President Mohammad Khatami is gearing up to take on powerful hard-liners who have blocked his attempts at reform.
Such was the momentum of the two weeks of student rallies that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's most powerful figure, stepped in to order a review of the case two weeks ago after Aghajari had steadfastly refused to appeal himself.
But the hard-line judiciary, till now, had failed to heed the order leading reformists to charge them with trying to maintain a high level of tension and impose a crackdown in dissent.
``What the leader said is correct and, based on law, the judiciary is going to implement the leader's order,'' the ISNA student news agency quoted Tehran judiciary chief Abbasali Alizadeh as saying.
The statement came as tens of thousands of Iranian hard-liners staged a show of strength marching through the capital swearing their loyalty to Khamenei and denouncing Israel at the annual official ``Jerusalem Day'' rally.
Basij militiamen burned U.S. and Israeli flags and chanted the customary ``Death to America'' and ``Death to Israel'' slogans.
INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL ENEMIES
But the Basijis -- a volunteer band of irregulars answerable only to Khamenei -- also declared their readiness to combat internal as well as external enemies.
While the student protests have been largely peaceful, sporadic clashes only broke out when Basijis tried to break up the meetings. Khamenei threatened to summon ``popular forces'' -- seen as a reference to the Basij -- to quell any unrest.
``I feel the same people who back Zionism ... are also trying to sow discord between the universities and the seminaries,'' influential conservative former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani told worshipers at prayers after the rally.
``They want to keep the youth away from the revolution, but experience shows they are doomed to defeat,'' he said. ``I would advise the people, especially the youth, to be more vigilant.''
After 23 years of Islamic rule, many young Iranians -- some 65 percent are under 30 -- are disenchanted by the lack of freedom and opportunity in Iran.
It was with the overwhelming support of the youth and women that Khatami won two huge election victories in 1997 and 2001 promising to overhaul the system and create a more open society.
But powerful hard-liners have blocked almost his every move leading him to threaten to resign if his reforms lose their way.
Now Khatami appears heading for a fresh confrontation with conservative rivals with two bills designed to limit their power. Analysts say Iran's political deadlock may soon be broken, but hesitate to predict which side will come out on top.
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Mideast Protests Mark Jerusalem Day
November 29, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Mideast-Jerusalem-Day.html
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- Tens of thousands of people demonstrated Friday across the Middle East in a day of solidarity with Palestinians, with some calling for trying Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon as a war criminal and punishing the United States for supporting Israel.
Iranian President Mohammad Khatami joined the estimated 10,000 people who converged on Tehran's Enqelab Square in the annual protest for Jerusalem Day. Accompanied by a squad of bodyguards, Khatami walked with the crowd to the nearby Tehran University where he took part in Friday prayers.
The protesters called for Sharon to stand trial for ``crimes against humanity.''
``Sharon is a war criminal and must be punished!'' the demonstrators shouted.
Similar demonstrations took place in Bahrein, Egypt, Syria and southern Lebanon. The demonstrations occurred on the anniversary of the 1947 decision by the United Nations to partition Palestine and allow creation of a Jewish state.
In Nabatiyeh, Lebanon, thousands of Hezbollah supporters turned out in heavy rain to hear Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah vow ongoing support for the Palestinian uprising and suicide attacks against Israel.
``On Al-Quds Day, we affirm that our choice is clear: Resistance which will regain (Arab) rights and holy sites (in Jerusalem),'' Nasrallah told the crowd from a bulletproof glass podium.
Al-Quds, meaning ``the holy,'' is the Arabic name for Jerusalem.
Al-Quds Day is held on the last Friday of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. The annual protest was created by the late Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to honor Jerusalem as an Islamic city.
The Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem is the third holiest site in Islam, after Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia.
In Tehran, former Iranian president Hashemi Rafsanjani delivered a Friday prayers sermon accusing the West of indifference toward the suffering of Palestinians in the ongoing fighting with Israel ``despite pictures and (television) films showing Israeli brutality.''
He also warned Israel, ``Don't think the war will be over if you expel Palestinians from their homes in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.''
``We saw an example of that in Kenya on Thursday,'' Rafsanjani said, referring to the suicide bomb attack outside Mombasa that killed 16 people, including three bombers, at an Israeli-owned hotel.
Elsewhere, some 3,000 people in Damascus, Syria, marched in the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp, walking behind posters showing Khomeini and Syrian President Bashar Assad.
In Bahrain, about 9,000 people marched through a town outside the capital, Manama, behind a black truck bearing a huge painting of the Dome of the Rock, the Islamic shrine in east Jerusalem that Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast War.
Many demonstrators had wrapped scarves around their heads bearing the slogan.
In Egypt, demonstrators at the Al-Azhar Mosque in Cairo called on their government to cut ties with Israel and the United States. Many carried posters of late Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, an icon of pan-Arab nationalism, with the caption, ``The symbol of dignity.''
The Arab League, an umbrella group of 21 Arab nations and the Palestinian Authority, said, ``It is time for the painful misery the Palestinian people has been enduring for decades to end.''
The Cairo-based league said the world should force Israel to comply with U.N. Security Council resolutions requiring it to withdraw from the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which were captured in the 1967 Arab-Israel war.
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