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NUCLEAR
French Framatome rejects German nuclear fault claims
Germany presses ahead with cuts in arms spending
Putin brings offer of nuclear-tipped arms deal to India
Experts visit Iraqi nuclear site - US wants more
Inspectors find only mushrooms amid ruins of bombed reactor
Inspectors Rebuked By U.S. And Iraq
Persistent Or Pushover: Views of Blix's Record Vary
Bush scoffs at U.N. over 'cooperation'
U.N. team sets trap in Baghdad
Pyongyang rejects probes by IAEA
N. Korea Rejects Call for Inspections
U.S. Criticizes North Korea for Rejecting Inspections
Russia Arctic naval base seeks US oil mission
Chechen rebels phoned Gulf during siege
Pentagon Memo Raises Possibility of Nuclear Testing
73 Calvert Cliffs Employees Told They Must Find New Jobs
Unexpected Revenue Boost Cuts Calvert's Budget Deficit
Xcel Energy asks Minnesota to act on waste storage
Uranium Supplier USEC Picks Ohio Site for Test Plant
USEC plans uranium-enrichment facility
A RARE BREAK FOR A REGION IN NEED
The Kissinger Conundrum
Armey leaves House with call for freedom
U.S. set to cite Iraq for breach
Bush the Comedian: Poindexter, Abrams and Now Henry K.
MILITARY
A U.S. Beachhead On Horn of Africa
Bush Meets with Leaders of Kenya and Ethiopia
U.N. Approves More Congo Peacekeepers
U.S. Troops to Remain in S. Korea
Bioterrorism Defense Plan Takes Shape
Tapping your paycheck
Powell Pledges More Support For Colombia's Anti-Rebel War
Powell Says U.S. Will Increase Military Aid for Colombia
Hard-line unit vows war with reformers
Allies blitz Iraq in preparation for all-out war
U.N. Extends Iraq's Oil Rights
Islamic Militants Clash With Kurdish Forces in Northern Iraq
Iraq Official Says Nation Is Armed for War
Israelis kill woman, 95, as she sits in minibus
Five killed in Israeli helicopter strike in Gaza
Sharon Tentatively Backs Plan for Palestinian State
Aid Used as Lever With Pyongyang
Qatar Could Host Command Center For War in Iraq
U.S. Military Planning War Game in Qatar
U.S. eyes strengthened military bases
U.S. Asks NATO Nations to Offer Forces for an Iraq Campaign
Denmark Declines To Extradite Chechen
Truman Battle Group To Sail to Persian Gulf
Pentagon Is Set to Activate Thousands More Reservists
Battle Group Heads to Persian Gulf
World Image of U.S. Declines
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS
Justice Department can't give first-responders $3.5 billion
Court May Decide on Dirty - Bomb Suspect
Man Can Meet With Lawyer to Challenge Detention as Enemy Plotter
High Court Hears RICO
Justices Ponder the Reach Of Miranda Rights Ruling
Campaign Law Case Brings Debate, Crowds
Judge Grants 'Combatant' Access to an Attorney
Federal Panel Backs Lab Whistleblower
Powell vows aid against narco-terrorists
INS lacks proper checks on aliens
Total Poindexter Awareness: essential information
Port Security Drill Reveals Shortcomings
ENERGY AND OTHER
Dutch raise green energy subsidy after backlash
Ex-trader of energy charged in fraud
Environment likely not to blame for Marin County breast cancer rates
Similarities Found in Mouse Genes and Human's
ACTIVISTS
Anti-war protesters are flowing in from the mainstream
Canadians go to Baghdad as 'human shields'
Peace activists refuse to pay U.S. fines over trips to Iraq
Use of tear gas revives anti-Chavez protest
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- germany
French Framatome rejects German nuclear fault claims
REUTERS GERMANY:
December 5, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/18895/story.htm
FRANKFURT - French nuclear reactor maker Framatome ANP, facing a German enquiry into problems at the Unterweser power station, said yesterday it did not manufacture a faulty component which caused the closure of the plant.
Last week Germany's state prosecutor launched an enquiry into whether the problem at the Unterweser power station, owned by E.ON (EONG.DE), was caused by defective heat exchangers it said was made by the French company.
Framatome said the faulty equipment was made by one of its subcontractors.
"Framatome had these heat exchangers manufactured by a subcontractor whose qualification had been checked by Framatome prior to the start of production," a company spokesman said.
He said that Framatome had initiated legal action against the subcontractor who he refused to name.
Framatome said that the problem was a one-off and that it had not supplied any other components produced by this manufacturer to other nuclear power plants.
The Lower Saxony environment ministry, which oversees the Unterweser plant, in northern Germany, said last week that the fault involved the welded seams of the heat exchanger.
Unterweser went off line on August 10 for regular maintenance and was recommissioned on September 3. It was shut again the next day when more technical problems were discovered.
German power prices surged yesterday on talk of problems at another, undisclosed, nuclear plant in northern Germany.
--------
Germany presses ahead with cuts in arms spending
From Roger Boyes in Berlin
December 05, 2002
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-503004,00.html
GERMANY will today reject international pressure to increase its defence budget and announce big cuts in spending on key arms projects.
The saving, which is aimed at trimming about €6 billion (£3.8 billion) from an already overstrained defence budget, comes amid a heated national debate about economic management.
Gerhard Schröder, the Chancellor, yesterday defended his plans to scrap some tax breaks and to introduce more market elements in the state pension and health systems. However, November's unemployment figures again rose above four million, showing the fastest month-on-month rise since unification.
The emergency in defence spending highlights Germany's larger problem: the Government of Herr Schröder is committed to becoming a fully fledged alliance partner able and willing to participate in combat missions abroad (apart from possible war in Iraq). At the recent Nato summit, it pledged to narrow the gap between American and European defence efforts.
However, it cannot finance the changes, the equipment or training needed to turn its conscription army into a flexible, global force.
In spite of its promise, Peter Struck, the Defence Minister, is expected to announce today the reduction of the number of A400M transporter aircraft to be bought from 73 to 60. The price of the Airbus aircraft is likely to increase and Germany, which was contractually bound to 73, will have to compensate its partners. The shortage of a big transport aircraft has been so chronic that German troops have been chartering Antonovs or hitching lifts in allied aircraft to Afghanistan.
Only half of the 200 Tornados scheduled for modernisation will now be re-equipped. The procurement of the Eurofighter, much to the relief of Germany's partners, will stay at 180. According to some leaks, however, only 600, rather than 1,488, Meteor air-to-air missiles will be bought for those Eurofighters. If true, this will hit Britain, the lead nation in the Meteor project. The French are also unlikely to be pleased by the decision to buy 80 instead of 212 Tiger combat helicopters.
The planned defence cuts run deeper than this week's announcement. Various drafts are in circulation in the defence planning establishment, suggesting the scrapping of the navy's 50 Tornado fighter-bombers and its speedboat flotillas. Some strategic as well as housekeeping considerations lurk behind the blueprint. The Tiger helicopter, for example, will now be regarded not so much as an anti-tank weapon as an escort for ground troops. Fewer are therefore needed.
In general, Herr Struck is trying to shift the German Army away from the idea of tank battles. The original calculation was that Germany should be capable of fighting medium-sized operations. The emphasis is now on deployment in several small simultaneous operations. Army troop strength will be maintained at 282,000.
# The number of corporate bankruptcies in Germany is expected to reach a record next year. Creditreform, which collects information on economic research and debt collection, predicted that 40,000 to 42,000 companies would file for insolvency, with 650,000 to 680,000 jobs lost.
-------- india
Putin brings offer of nuclear-tipped arms deal to India
By Phil Reeves in Delhi
05 December 2002
UK Independent
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia_china/story.jsp?story=358588
Russia and India moved yesterday to forge a strategically important arms deal that could drastically alter the nuclear-tipped balance of power in the subcontinent.
As the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, ended a two-day visit to Delhi, both nations also used the occasion to fulminate about the need to contain terror and to issue a joint declaration against a unilateral US strike against Iraq.
But behind the posturing, efforts were under way to advance the multibillion-dollar arms deal, which could include the acquisition by India of at least one Russian-made Akula-11 class nuclear-powered submarine, capable of carrying a payload of nuclear Cruise missiles.
The deal hinges on a Soviet-built aircraft carrier, the 45,000-tonne Admiral Gorshkov, which has laid up in the Arctic port of Severodvinsk since 1988. India, eager to become the region's maritime heavyweight in the face of competition from China, and harbouring "great power" ambitions, wants to add a big aircraft carrier to its fleet.
The Russians have for years been offering to give the Gorshkov to Delhi as a gift, although with many costly strings attached. These include granting Moscow the contract for the ship's re-fit - estimates of the cost of this vary from $700m (£450m) to more than $1bn - and for the supply of about 40 MiG-29K aircraft which, after some extensive engineering adjustments to the vessel, would fly off its deck.
More than two thirds of the equipment in the hands of India's military, the third largest army in the world, is from Russia or the former Soviet Union. The relationship - which analysts expect to lead to another $8bn worth of military sales over the next decade - has continued in the aftermath of the collapse of the USSR, not least because Moscow is not among those who placed sanctions on India after its 1998 nuclear tests.
Russia has long been talking with Delhi about the lease of several Akula-11 class nuclear submarines, but made them conditional on an agreement over the Gorshkov. India has been eager to acquire the Russian submarines to add to its ageing underwater fleet, in line with its long-standing ambition to have a so-called nuclear "triad" - in other words, the capability to deliver nuclear bombs by air, ground-to-ground missile and from the sea.
Submarines offer a particular advantage, because they can be hidden beneath the waves from prying enemy eyes. One western observer said: "There is no doubt that India would like the nuclear subs to have nuclear-tipped warheads, cruise missiles."
Earlier this week, the head of India's navy, Admiral Madhvendra Singh, refused to confirm or deny reports about the possible submarine lease, which would give India a strategic edge in its nuclear rivalry with Islamabad - and is therefore likely to cause unease in Washington, especially given the hostilities between the two south Asian neighbours and the strident US stance against nuclear proliferation elsewhere.
But Admiral Singh made little secret of India's ambition to base nuclear missiles in the ocean, saying that the most powerful part of the "nuclear triad" should be "at sea, preferably under water". He added: "It doesn't make sense to keep nuclear weapons on land. If you keep them on land, they are going to be targeted."
Many of the aspects of the Gorshkov component of the deal appear to be settled, although not the price tag.
-------- inspections
Experts visit Iraqi nuclear site - US wants more
Story by Haitham Haddadin and Carol Giacomo
REUTERS IRAQ:
December 5, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/18916/story.htm
BAGHDAD/WASHINGTON - U.N. experts searched Iraq's main nuclear facility and a military base this week, but the United States called for a more aggressive hunt for any banned biological, chemical or nuclear weapons.
Starting a second week of inspections, experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) swooped on the al-Tuweitha plant run by Iraq's nuclear power authority in Salman Bak, 20 km (12 miles) south of the capital.
Tuweitha Nuclear Research Center, the main site for Iraq's nuclear programme, had been monitored by the IAEA over the past decade.
Its activities have included several research reactors, plutonium separation and waste processing, uranium metallurgy, neutron initiator development and work on a number of methods of uranium enrichment.
Tuwaitha is the location of the Osiraq reactor bombed by Israel in 1981. Several tonnes of uranium have been under seal by the agency at Tuweitha since 1998.
Inspectors from the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) drove 75 km (45 miles) north of Baghdad to Muthanna State Establishment military site.
The desert site is alleged to be a chemical agent facility and perhaps once a biological weapons facility, according to a British assessment of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
Iraqi soldiers with AK-47 assault rifles and pistols at the gate kept journalists from entering.
In Washington, a U.S. official said the United States had urged chief U.N. inspector Hans Blix to pursue a more intensive multi-pronged operation to "stress" the Iraqi system and make it harder for President Saddam Hussein to conceal his capabilities.
Using a "much bigger inspection force, going on multiple inspections day after day (would put) Iraq to the test around the country", the official told Reuters this week.
Blix had resisted the U.S. recommendations during a meeting at U.N. headquarters on Monday with national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, the official said. Blix was not immediately available for comment.
On a visit to Turkey, a U.S. ally neighbouring Iraq, U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said this week that Washington was ready to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in air bases that might be used in a war against Baghdad.
He said Washington would start talks on such investment with Turkey. Turkish Foreign Minister Yasar Yakis said the NATO ally would open its bases to the United States for military operations authorised by the United Nations.
Turkey's foreign ministry later said there was no final decision on opening up air bases.
The United States already uses Turkish air bases to patrol a so-called "no-fly" zone over northern Iraq that U.S. and British planes have enforced since the end of the 1991 Gulf War.
SEARCH OF SADDAM'S PALACE
This week, U.N. inspectors searched one of Saddam's lavish palaces in the biggest test of cooperation since the inspections resumed on November 27 after a four-year break.
The inspection of the al-Sojoud palace in Baghdad, with its statues, marble fountains and rose gardens, went smoothly. Palace visits were often scenes of friction between Iraq and U.N. inspectors in the 1990s.
Complying with a new U.N. Security Council resolution, Iraq said this week it would issue a statement on its arms programmes on Saturday - a day before a U.N. deadline - and dismissed Washington's accusations that it possessed weapons of mass destruction.
Hussam Mohammed Amin, head of the Iraqi National Monitoring Directorate, said: "Of course the declaration will have new elements but these new elements will not, shall we say, necessarily include a declaration of the presence of weapons of mass destruction.
"We are a country devoid of weapons of mass destruction."
U.S. President George W. Bush repeated this week that Iraq did have banned weapons and had to disarm peacefully or face force.
A White House spokesman said U.S. officials would take an "appropriate time" to respond to the Iraqi declaration, after studying what is likely to be a huge document in Arabic.
In new reminders that a low-intensity conflict is already being waged in the region, Iraq said it opened fire on Western warplanes and Kuwait said an Iraqi boat shot at its coastguards but there were no serious casualties.
A GOOD START?
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said this week that U.N. weapons inspections in Iraq had made a good start and that a final judgment on their effectiveness could take weeks.
"We will have to be cautious and see what happens in the days and weeks ahead but I think they're off to a good start," he said en route to Colombia.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Iraqi cooperation had been good so far and praised the inspectors for using their authority to visit the palace.
"There is a good indication that the Iraqis are cooperating but this is only the beginning," he said.
A day earlier, Bush gave a gloomier assessment, saying: "So far the signs are not encouraging."
This week, Bush told cheering supporters at a political rally: "(Saddam) says he doesn't have weapons of mass destruction. He's got 'em. He's not only got 'em he's used them.
"The choice is his. And if he does not disarm, the United States of America will lead a coalition and disarm him, in the name of peace."
----
Inspectors find only mushrooms amid ruins of bombed reactor
By Kim Sengupta in Tuwaitha
05 December 2002
UK Independent
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=358616
Twisted pieces of metal rise from the rubble, rainwater lies in craters gouged into the earth, a scorched chimney leans into a jagged wall - reminders of how Saddam Hussein's nuclear ambitions were destroyed.
United Nations inspectors revisited the old Osirak site yesterday to check whether Iraq has once again embarked on a nuclear programme, as Washington and London claim. Tony Blair recently made public satellite photographs which, he maintained showed that the Iraqis were engaged in secret new construction.
The remains of the three reactors destroyed in 1981 by the Israelis, and then a decade later in the Gulf War, by the Americans, have been left by the Iraqis. Around it is the vast, sprawling al-Tuwaitha complex, with dozens of buildings, artificial hills with foxholes for anti-aircraft guns, and cars and buses lined up to transport workers around the plant.
The Iraqis insist the site is now used for medical and pharmaceutical products. Officials were keen to show the supposedly clandestine construction which so alarmed Mr Blair. They appeared to be no more than a few sheds. Nor were there overt signs of the infrastructure needed to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons.
Monitors from the International Atomic Energy Agency arrived at 8.55am and spent four hours and 48 minutes at Iraq's biggest suspected nuclear site, poring over equipment and computers, before leaving with samples.
Faiz al-Barkhdar, the director of al-Tuwaitha and an adviser to President Saddam, professed to be bewildered by the visit. Nothing nuclear had been tested at the site since 1991, he insisted, and the gun emplacements were empty.
One of the new sheds was being used to grow mushrooms, Mr al-Barkhdar said. Observers comments about nuclear bombs and mushroom clouds were lost on him. "It is to help us produce better quality mushrooms, that is all," he insisted. "I know this is not strictly medical and pharmaceutical, but are Bush and Blair going to say this is a material breach?
"The truth is even the harmless work we do is very difficult, because of the UN sanctions. We cannot get spare parts, and around 70 per cent of the equipment cannot be used. We keep applying to the UN to get more supplies in, but we only get refusals."
For a plant running at a fraction of its capacity, there appeared to be a huge number of people present. Twenty-eight buses were lined up to take workers back to Baghdad in the afternoon as work finished early for Ramadan. Mr al-Barkhdar said about 2,500 people were employed, in a variety of jobs, "but none of them nuclear".
The inspectors had been particularly interested in a furnace in the physics laboratory, said Mr al-Barkhdar. It was made by the Degusse company of Germany and has been at the plant for over 10 years. "It does not even work, again because of lack of spare parts," he complained. "But the inspectors still took swabs from inside, I think to see whether we are using it for uranium. They will not find anything, I guarantee."
Osirak, is never far from the mind of the people working at the plant. Pointing at the wreckage, Mr al-Barkhdar recalled: "The Israelis hit with missiles early in the evening, a Frenchman and a number of Iraqis were killed, they hit the reactors. Then the Americans bombed the new facility during the war in the middle of the night, all that work was lost. Now they are just seeking an excuse to attack again."
Another group of UN inspectors visited al-Muthanna, 60 miles north west of Baghdad, once the nucleus of Iraq's chemicals production. But the facility was severely damaged in the Gulf War by more than 30 Tomahawk missiles and 2000lb laser-guided bombs
The inspectors discovered mustard gas shells in the derelict buildings of the complex. The Iraqis claimed they intended to destroy the shells - of the type used to gas to death 5,000 people in Halabjah - but were waiting for discussions with the UN first.
----
Inspectors Rebuked By U.S. And Iraq
U.N. Officials Defend First Week's Efforts
By Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, December 5, 2002; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A11132-2002Dec4?language=printer
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Dec. 4 -- A week after arriving to assess whether Iraq is hiding weapons of mass destruction, the small team of U.N. inspectors came under harsh criticism today from both Baghdad and Washington, with officials in each capital questioning the mission's motives, impartiality and determination.
Caught in the middle, a senior field inspector broke with protocol and launched into an impassioned defense of his team's progress, insisting that U.N. experts have been "getting results" in their first week on the job. "The Iraq side would have liked us to be very light and the U.S. side . . . would like us to be extremely severe," said Demetrius Perricos, who is responsible for uncovering chemical and biological weapons. "I think what we're doing is proper, proper work. We're still doing a good job."
The impatience in Washington and Baghdad over the pace and character of the inspections did not appear serious enough for the Bush administration or the government of President Saddam Hussein to walk away from the process. But it dramatized the intense political pressure facing the U.N. inspectors, whose work has become what amounts to a tripwire for possible U.S. military action to destroy Hussein's three-decade rule.
President Bush dismissed assessments that the inspections have started off well, including one from U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan on Tuesday. Bush told reporters at the White House that Hussein "is not somebody who looks like he's interested in complying" with the Nov. 8 Security Council resolution that calls for Iraq to relinquish any nuclear, chemical or biological weapons and authorizes unannounced searches of any site in the country.
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer urged the United Nations to conduct even more inspections. "Not just the United States, but the international community wants to make sure that they have a sufficient number [of inspectors], that they are able to do multiple inspections at the same time, that they can have a vigorous inspection regime," he said.
Fleischer said U.S. officials also are concerned whether the inspectors will be "aggressive enough to be able to ascertain the facts in the face of an adversary who in the past did everything in his power to hide the facts."
At the same time, Iraq's Foreign Ministry and a top presidential aide lashed out against an inspection Tuesday in one of Hussein's presidential palaces, saying it was carried out under U.S. and Israeli pressure to goad Iraq into a confrontation. He said that if the inspectors, who were dressed in ordinary clothes, were expecting to find banned weapons, they would have worn protective gear.
Gen. Hussam Mohammed Amin, Iraq's chief liaison with the inspectors, called the visit "unjustified and unnecessary." He added: "Their objective was only to do harm to Iraq's sovereignty and dignity. Their objective was political."
Amin's statements marked the first time Iraq has directly criticized the inspectors since they began their work last week. The government has, however, heaped contempt on previous inspection teams, calling them spies, political hacks and ill-trained opportunists.
Despite the display of official displeasure, Amin said Iraq plans to cooperate with the inspectors. "We are satisfied with the inspections and we hope that they will continue their professional work regardless of the pressures placed on them," he said.
Seventeen inspectors -- including nuclear, chemical and biological weapons specialists as well as missile experts -- began the U.N.-mandated inspections on Nov. 27 after a nearly four-year hiatus, and they have visited 16 sites, often searching two locations simultaneously.
The inspectors today visited two sprawling facilities near Baghdad that have long been associated with Iraq's efforts to build weapons of mass destruction. One group examined what used to be Iraq's primary nuclear complex while another scoured a government factory that played a key role in producing biological and chemical weapons, including mustard gas and the nerve agents sarin and VX.
A senior U.N. official said inspectors accounted for several artillery shells containing mustard gas that previous inspectors had uncovered but never destroyed.
Speaking to reporters, Perricos bristled at suggestions that the inspectors have not been sufficiently forceful. He said he would not alter the searches because of political pressure. "We're not serving the U.S. We're not serving the U.K. We're not serving any individual nation," he said. "We're here for the implementation of the resolution."
He suggested that if the U.S. government wants him to focus on other sites, it should provide him more detailed intelligence reports. "What we're getting and what President Bush may be getting is very different, to put it mildly," he said.
Although the inspectors have not provided the Iraqi government with advance warning, they have started by visiting places already searched by U.N. experts in the 1990s to determine whether any new weapons-related activities have occurred there since the previous inspectors left in 1998. U.N. officials said they will not be able to conduct more than two or three simultaneous inspections until next week, when 35 additional inspectors are scheduled to arrive in Iraq.
The special U.N. commission that is coordinating the inspections with the International Atomic Energy Agency plans to have about 100 experts in Iraq by the end of the year. The inspectors, drawn from governments and industry around the world, cannot arrive sooner, U.N. officials said, because they received word they would be dispatched to Iraq only after the Security Council resolution was passed, and they needed several weeks to prepare.
Under the U.N. resolution, Iraq must submit to the Security Council by Sunday a declaration detailing all its nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, programs to develop them and civilian facilities with the capacity to build them. Amin said Iraq will submit its report Saturday, but he did not explain how or where the report would be delivered.
U.N. officials said one copy may be given to inspectors here on Saturday and one copy flown to U.N. headquarters in New York for delivery Sunday afternoon.
"It will be a huge declaration," Amin said. He said it would include "new elements with regards to new sites and new activities which have been conducted during the absence of the inspectors."
In today's inspections, a team from the IAEA went to the vast Tuwaitha nuclear complex about 15 miles southeast of Baghdad. The site, regarded for years as Iraq's preeminent nuclear facility, has long been a subject of international concern.
Israeli warplanes bombed a reactor on the site in 1981. Airstrikes during the 1991 Persian Gulf War destroyed much of the rest of the complex. But in recent months, U.S. and British officials have voiced concern about construction of new buildings there.
U.N. chemical and biological weapons specialists went to the Muthanna State Establishment, a research plant about 50 miles northwest of Baghdad. In the late 1990s, inspectors demolished much of the facility after concluding that it played a central role in Iraq's biological and chemical arms programs.
Perricos called Muthanna "a very important place for the chemical warfare program they were building in the past." He said inspectors wanted to ensure damaged equipment had not been repaired and that the mustard gas artillery shells that had not been destroyed before the inspectors left in 1998 still were there.
They were, he said, "well stored." He said the inspectors hoped to "proceed with the destruction" of the shells soon.
----
Persistent Or Pushover: Views of Blix's Record Vary
By Michael Dobbs and Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, December 5, 2002; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A11266-2002Dec4?language=printer
Hans Blix, the man responsible for hunting down Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction, remembers an incident that occurred during his first visit to Iraq four months after the Persian Gulf War ended that sums up the challenges his inspectors face every day.
He was driving through the desert with the head of the Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission to search for materials that could be used to make an atomic bomb. At one point, the Iraqi looked the veteran Swedish diplomat in the eye and told him: "Mr. Blix, we do not have a uranium enrichment program."
It was a blatant lie, which became obvious when U.N. inspectors discovered secret Iraqi blueprints for a weapon equivalent in size to "Little Boy," the U.S. atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima in 1945. The question is how the man who has now become the chief United Nations weapons inspector on Iraq -- whose investigations could determine whether there will be war or peace in the Middle East -- reacted to that lie.
To hear Blix tell the story, he used the incident to push for a more stringent inspection regime -- including access to undeclared nuclear sites previously off-limits to inspectors -- that has made it much more difficult for countries such as Iraq and North Korea to build a nuclear weapon. To listen to his critics, he was far too timid about challenging the claims of sovereign governments whose cooperation he needed to do his job.
A little-known international bureaucrat thrust into the limelight by the Bush administration's war on terrorism, Blix, 74, has become a flashpoint in a heated debate about the effectiveness of U.N. weapons inspections. Much of the controversy revolves around his record between 1981 and 1997 when he was head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) with responsibility for combating the proliferation of nuclear weapons. It was the political springboard to his present post.
"Blix is the ideal man for the job," said John Ritch, who worked closely with the Swede as U.S. ambassador to the Vienna-based nuclear agency during the Clinton administration. "The Iraqis have to fear Blix precisely because he is very polite and very careful. If they hide anything, he will report it in a way that is accurate, judicious and ultimately very dangerous for the Iraqis."
Richard Perle, who is chairman of a Pentagon advisory body, said, "He was outwitted, outsmarted and outmaneuvered by Saddam Hussein." Perle voiced the the private criticisms of Defense Department hawks: "The relationship between the IAEA and countries like Iraq is far too cozy. . . . You have to be brain dead to assume that Saddam Hussein is not going to hide things."
There is another, competing version of Blix's journey into the Iraqi desert in May 1991 that encapsulates the views of critics who argue that he is too accommodating to stand up effectively to a ruthless and secretive regime bent on acquiring doomsday weapons. It comes from one of his former subordinates, an American nuclear inspector named David Kay, who was the third passenger in the car, sitting next to the driver.
All three men -- the Iraqi, the Swede and the American -- had taken a three-hour car ride to inspect a pile of garbage suspected of containing nuclear isotopes. The Iraqi expert said it was scientifically impossible to detect a uranium enrichment program by examining the trash. Kay disagreed, and they had an argument. By Kay's account, Blix later reprimanded him for contradicting "the government of a member state."
"I was flabbergasted," Kay said. "Blix has had a hard time learning that people who wear coats and ties can make baldfaced lies, and not be ashamed of doing it. The essence of dealing with the Iraqis is that they are perfectly happy to go from one lie to another. Blix has had a hard time accepting that."
Blix said Kay's version of the conversation is "totally ludicrous."
In a wide-ranging interview, Blix depicted himself as the servant of an international monitoring system that has been strengthened enormously over the past decade in response to violations by countries such as Iraq and North Korea. Until 1991, he said, it was politically infeasible to strengthen the inspection regime because of opposition from U.N. member states, including some Western countries. As a result of the Iraqi "debacle" -- the discovery that Hussein had a secret nuclear weapons program going back at least a decade -- everything changed.
Blix said that, after returning from Baghdad, he went to the IAEA's board of governors to demand much greater access to nuclear weapons sites and more intelligence sharing by member governments to back up the work of his inspectors. He was granted broader powers, which he was able to use effectively the following year, when the agency discovered that North Korea was separating plutonium in violation of international agreements. The North Korean plutonium program was subsequently frozen.
Blix's interest in nuclear issues dates to the 1970s when, as a leader of the small Swedish Liberal Party, he campaigned in favor of nuclear energy in a fiercely contested referendum. He served briefly as Swedish foreign minister. "He was obsessed with treaty law, the United Nations and laws governing . . . the use of weapons such as napalm," recalled Jan Eliasson, the current Swedish ambassador to Washington and a longtime colleague.
During the early part of Blix's tenure as head of the IAEA, Iraq was a member of the board of directors and, therefore, in a position to block an effective inspection regime. Inspectors were permitted to visit only declared nuclear sites, meaning that it was difficult to detect cheating by a country like Iraq, which took elaborate steps to hide its weapons program from international supervision.
"There were severe constraints" on what the atomic agency was allowed to inspect before 1991, Blix acknowledged. Even so, he noted, his agency was not the only organization that failed to detect signs of Iraq's secret nuclear weapons program. "Neither the CIA nor [the Israeli intelligence service] Mossad knew what was going on, and they were not as constrained as we were."
Blix's critics argue that he was too willing, on the basis of partial evidence, to give the Iraqis a clean bill of health. Indeed, throughout the 1980s, he went out of his way to praise the Baghdad government for its cooperation, and to emphasize that there was no evidence Iraq was trying to build a nuclear bomb.
By several accounts, Blix remained reluctant to criticize Iraq in the weeks immediately after the Persian Gulf War, when his inspectors began to suspect large-scale Iraqi cheating. According to Bill Nelson, an American scientist from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory who was a member of the first nuclear inspection team to visit Iraq after the war, the prevailing culture at the atomic agency was to assume that member governments were telling the truth until they were caught in a flagrant lie.
Blix had "a nonaggressive approach," said Rolf Ekeus, a fellow Swede who headed the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM), the first U.N. effort to find Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. According to Ekeus, Blix believed he was receiving "good cooperation" when the Iraqis permitted his inspectors to visit nuclear facilities and showed them documents. "For me, it is not cooperation if they have lied and haven't told you everything," Ekeus said. "We come from two different cultures."
Ekeus's former deputy, U.S. diplomat Robert Gallucci, recalls loud arguments in Swedish over how to deal with Hussein. Gallucci, who now heads the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, said he found Blix "entirely too sympathetic to the Iraqi position and Iraqi explanations" in the immediate aftermath of the war.
Nevertheless, Gallucci and others give Blix great credit for strengthening the mandate of the atomic energy agency once he received incontrovertible evidence that the Iraqis had been cheating. "It was a watershed moment," said Gallucci, referring to an IAEA board meeting in February 1992, when Blix argued persuasively for greater powers. "He brought the agency along with him."
Blix himself attributes his conflict with Ekeus mainly to bureaucratic turf issues. He says UNSCOM treated the nuclear agency like "a watchdog on a leash," telling it where it should go and inspect. At the same time, he concedes that he remains allergic to words such as "aggressive" in describing how his inspectors should operate in Iraq and prefers words such as "tough" and "dynamic."
"We can neither shoot nor should we need to shout. The power that we have at the present time is very considerable," he said. The Iraqis "know that we have a big stick. Everybody knows that."
As the former head of UNSCOM, Ekeus was the first choice of U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan to head the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, or UNMOVIC, as the successor agency is known. But both the Russians and the French vetoed Ekeus's candidacy, believing he is too tough to be acceptable to the Iraqis. The French proposed Blix, instead.
When Annan called him with the news, Blix was hiking in southern Patagonia with his wife. It was January 2000. His initial instinct was to turn down the job, a friend said. Blix, who was 72 and retired, felt there was little chance of getting back into Baghdad, as the Iraqis were adamantly opposed to allowing the inspectors to return. But after thinking over Annan's offer, he agreed to accept it.
Blix sees the latest round of inspections as a chance to prove the effectiveness of the international monitoring system. He says UNMOVIC has several advantages over its predecessor, including a tougher U.N. mandate and greater independence. UNSCOM experts were on the payroll of U.N. member governments, including the United States. Blix's inspectors, by contrast, receive their salaries directly from UNMOVIC, which is funded out of confiscated Iraqi oil revenue.
A key issue for Blix's Pentagon critics will be how effectively he uses a provision in the U.N. resolution setting up UNMOVIC that permits him to take Iraqi scientists and their families outside the country if they have vital information on Hussein's secret weapons programs. Blix has raised practical objections to a large-scale defector program, saying that the inspectors are not running "an abduction agency" and cannot force scientists to leave Iraq.
Pentagon officials, by contrast, believe that defectors are likely to provide the key to tracking down Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. The "reality" of inspections, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told reporters Tuesday, is that "things have been found [in Iraq] not by discovery, but through defectors."
White House officials, meanwhile, are still expressing confidence in Blix. "We believe Dr. Blix is a man of integrity with a very difficult job," said National Security Council spokesman Sean McCormack.
Blix said "it is vitally important that we do not overstate what can be achieved by inspections." He conceded it will be "very difficult" to find convincing evidence of Iraqi biological and chemical weapons programs in the absence of "extremely fresh intelligence." At the same time, he noted that the alternative to inspections is war and the deaths of thousands of people.
For the moment, even the harshest critics seem to be willing to allow Blix to continue with his inspections. "We are giving Saddam Hussein a last chance," said Perle, the unofficial spokesman for Pentagon hawks. "We should be willing to give Hans Blix a last chance as well."
----
Bush scoffs at U.N. over 'cooperation'
By Bill Sammon and Betsy Pisik
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
December 5, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20021205-65466320.htm
President Bush yesterday shrugged off U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan's assertion of Iraqi cooperation with weapons inspectors, saying Saddam Hussein appears uninterested in "complying with disarmament."
When a reporter pointed out that "Annan says Iraq is cooperating," Mr. Bush shot back: "Well, we've been at this - what? - five days. This is after 11 years of deceit and defiance."
Summing up the first days of inspections by U.N. weapons officials, Mr. Annan said Tuesday that Iraqi "cooperation seems to be good."
"There is a good indication that the Iraqis are cooperating, but this is only the beginning," he said.
But Mr. Bush sounded more pessimistic while talking about Saddam's true intentions.
"One of my concerns is that in the past, he has shot at our airplanes," the president told reporters at the White House. "Anybody shoots at U.S. airplanes or British airplanes is not somebody who looks like he's interested in complying with disarmament.
"He wrote letters, stinging rebukes to what the U.N. did; he was very critical of the U.S. and Britain," Mr. Bush added. "That doesn't appear to be somebody who is that anxious to comply."
Iraq continued to insist yesterday that it has no chemical, biological or nuclear weapons and that it would say so in a report to be delivered to the United Nations on Saturday, a day ahead of the world body's deadline.
"Soon he'll be making a declaration of whether he has any weapons," Mr. Bush said. "For years, he said he didn't have any weapons. And now we'll see whether or not he does.
"And if he does, we expect them to be completely destroyed and a full accounting," he added. "The world will determine soon whether or not Saddam Hussein is going to do what we've asked, which is, in the name of peace, fully disarm."
A few hours after Mr. Bush spoke, Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan accused U.N. inspectors of gathering intelligence for the United States and Israel.
"Their work is to spy to serve the CIA and Mossad," Mr. Ramadan said, using language that harkened back to animosities over the previous U.N. inspection effort that ended in 1998.
Although the president was more downbeat compared to Mr. Annan in assessing Iraqi compliance, he sought to minimize the disagreement. Mr. Bush emphasized that the U.N. Security Council unanimously supported a U.S.-sponsored resolution demanding that Saddam give up his weapons.
"I remind our citizens that the U.N. Security Council voted overwhelmingly, 15 to nothing, for this approach we've taken," he said. "Our NATO allies have joined us. And we all expect Saddam Hussein to disarm."
He added: "This is our attempt to work with the world community to create peace."
But diplomats at the United Nations privately fretted that ill will between Washington and Baghdad was undercutting the council's glow of unanimity over the Nov. 8 resolution that returned the weapons inspectors to Baghdad.
The disagreement between Mr. Bush and Mr. Annan reflected a fragile consensus within the council, where many of the other 14 members always have been queasy over U.S. threats to depose Saddam and disarm Iraq by force.
The resolution followed two months of painstaking negotiations that pitted the United States and Britain against France and Russia, with the latter seeking to send inspectors without threatening Iraq.
In the end, the resolution threatened Iraq with "serious consequences" - a diplomatic term of art meaning war - if it did not disarm. In exchange, the United States agreed to discuss any military action with the council.
"France welcomes the lack of 'automaticity' in the final resolution," said Jean-David Levitte, the country's former ambassador, who also praised a provision giving the council the right "to meet immediately to decide on a course of action."
Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a joint declaration, during a visit to India, urging Iraq to cooperate with the inspectors and adding a caveat directed at Washington.
"Both sides strongly oppose unilateral use or threat of use of force in violation of the U.N. Charter, as well as interference in the internal affairs of other states," said the declaration by Mr. Putin and Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee.
In their public remarks after the Nov. 8 vote, ambassadors from China, Russia, Mexico and Ireland said that their nations had accepted the resolution only because it takes the question of war back to the council for further discussion.
However, Richard Grenell, a spokesman for John Negroponte, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said that the consensus achieved Nov. 8 remained firm.
"The council was united in voting for Resolution 1441, which gives the Iraqis one final chance to comply," he said. "The council has been united in saying this is the final opportunity. We're all united, we're still united, no one has backed away from it."
Mr. Bush was not the only member of his administration with tough words about Saddam's reliability. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell scoffed at contentions by Iraqi officials that Baghdad has no weapons of mass destruction.
"The Iraqis are always making statements that contradict each other, day after day," Mr. Powell told reporters in Bogota, Colombia. "We're sure they have in their possession weapons of mass destruction.
"And the burden is on them to prove that they don't," he added. "And if they do have [weapons], they better acknowledge it and make those programs accessible to the U.N. inspections teams."
White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer was more blunt.
"We've heard Iraqi lies before," the spokesman said. "The last time the Iraqis said they had no weapons of mass destruction, they turned out to be liars."
He hinted that the administration would wait until Iraq presents its report Saturday and then check it against U.S. intelligence on weapons sites.
"Whether the inspectors ultimately will be able to disprove any lie by the Iraqis remains to be determined," Mr. Fleischer said. "The administration will review the information that we receive from the Iraqis. We have our own ways of determining whether something seems to be accurate or not."
Although Mr. Bush kept up his aggressive rhetoric against Iraq, he seemed to suggest that war was not imminent even if Baghdad fails to comply by this weekend.
"We've just started the process," he said. "The process is just beginning."
Mr. Fleischer cautioned that many more inspections must be done to gauge Iraqi compliance.
----
U.N. team sets trap in Baghdad
By Nicholas Kralev
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
December 5, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20021205-17714170.htm
The innocuous initial U.N. inspections in Iraq are part of a strategy designed to catch Baghdad if it is lying about its weapons stockpile, former inspectors and arms control analysts said yesterday.
The team currently in Iraq has been visiting known sites so far, to no surprise of President Saddam Hussein. As expected, the U.N. experts have found nothing that constitutes "material breach," the term used in Security Council Resolution 1441.
But after Baghdad declares its warfare capabilities this weekend, the inspectors will most likely target facilities that Western intelligence has detected without Iraq's knowledge, which would expose any omissions in Saddam's list.
"After the declaration, the inspectors will be comparing notes - from intelligence, from what they see on the ground and what they are hearing in interviews with Iraqi scientists who have been involved in the weapons programs - and look for discrepancies," said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association.
Iraq is required by Resolution 1441 to present a full account of its exotic arms capabilities by Sunday. It said this week it would do so a day earlier, but insisted again that it does not have weapons of mass destruction.
"The declaration will be critical, and if they really maintain that they have no weapons, it will not be credible," said Jonathan Tucker, a former inspector in Iraq, now a senior fellow at the U.S. Institute of Peace.
Raymond Zilinskas, another ex-inspector, said there is no point in visiting undeclared sites before the list is made available, because the Iraqis "will have time to put in the declaration." The "serious stage" of the inspections will begin after the list is analyzed, noted Mr. Zilinskas, who currently directs the Chemical and Biological Weapons Nonproliferation Program at the Monterey Institute of International Studies in California.
The Iraqi government yesterday began to sense the U.N. team's strategy, accusing its members of being U.S. and Israeli spies and helping Washington prepare for war.
"The inspectors have come to provide better circumstances and more precise information for a coming aggression," said Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan. "From Day One, their foremost work was spying. Their work was spying for the CIA and [Israel´s intelligence service] Mossad together."
But Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, echoing comments by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Tuesday, said the United States was absolutely sure Iraq does possess weapons of mass destruction and has continued to develop them.
"The burden is on them to prove that they don't have," he said during a visit to Colombia. "If they do have, they had better acknowledge it and make those programs accessible to the U.N. inspection teams."
The White House called on the United Nations yesterday to send more inspectors to Iraq so they can start multiple and more intensive searches at more than one site at a time.
While not disputing the need to increase the inspectors' number, Mr. Zilinskas said they have been remarkably productive in the week they have been on the ground. He pointed out that they have visited seven suspected nuclear sites and five missile sites, as well as two suspected biological and two chemical facilities. They also have been to a presidential palace and the sensitive headquarters of a defense unit, which were off limits during previous inspections.
Mr. Tucker conceded the team has done a good job and said he has been pleasantly surprised by the level of Iraq's cooperation. But he warned that the "real test" is yet to come, as the first several days have been "a training exercise," so the inspectors can adjust to the conditions in Iraq and the behavior of the locals they are dealing with.
"My experience was that the Iraqis were very polite and superficially cooperative when we were visiting sites they had nothing to hide in, but their behavior changed once we went to a sensitive site," he said.
Mr. Zilinskas said the team this time is different. Its members are U.N. employees rather than working for a national government, so their primary loyalty is to an international organization. They have no experience in Iraq, although he said they were trained by some of the toughest former inspectors there.
In terms of technical capabilities, the current team is still limited, Mr. Zilinskas said. Its predecessor had a U-2 spy aircraft that helped keep an eye on the ground, in case the Iraqis tried to move hardware from one facility to another.
"They don't have these capabilities yet, but they will when the serious inspections start," he said.
Mr. Tucker said another difference is that last time there were monitoring and visiting teams. The former would spend several months in Iraq, while the latter would go in for much shorter periods. In addition, separate groups of specialists in different fields would make inspections. "Now the teams are integrated with experts in different disciplines to create appearance of greater objectivity," he said.
In their search, Mr. Kimball said, the inspectors are "unlikely to find a smoking gun in the near term, but more likely a pattern of evidence that suggests Iraq is not in compliance."
-------- korea
Pyongyang rejects probes by IAEA
From combined dispatches
December 5, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20021205-4489243.htm
SEOUL - North Korea said yesterday it has rejected a call by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to open its nuclear weapons program to inspections, saying the United Nations nuclear watchdog was abetting U.S. policy toward the North.
The IAEA called on North Korea last week to open its atomic weapons program to inspections and said it "deplored" Pyongyang's assertion it had a right to possess the weapons.
Closing off an avenue North Korea's neighbors had hoped might pre-empt a crisis, Pyongyang's Communist government spurned the IAEA call as "an extremely unilateral resolution."
"The DPRK government cannot accept the November 29 resolution of the IAEA Board of Governors in any case and there is no change in its principled stand on the nuclear issue," Pyongyang's official Korea Central News Agency said.
The report - using North Korea's official title, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) - quoted a Dec. 2 letter from Foreign Minister Paek Nam-sun to IAEA Director Mohammed El Baradei.
"I was disappointed at the IAEA Board of Governors still acting under the manipulation of the United States while following its policy to isolate and stifle the DPRK," Mr. Paek wrote.
The White House denounced the North Korean decision and said it would work with other countries in the region to find a peaceful solution.
"The rejection of the IAEA resolution to open its facilities to inspections is another disappointing example of North Korea's isolation that will only hurt the people of North Korea," White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said yesterday.
"We will continue to apply this pressure to North Korea by working in partnership with Russia and China as well as Japan and South Korea. The region has a peaceful interest in working together so North Korea comes into compliance with international norms," he said.
China and Russia made a strong appeal to North Korea to drop its nuclear weapons program on Monday during a Beijing visit by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Mr. Paek's letter didn't respond to requests that North Korea "clarify reports of its having an undeclared uranium enrichment program," IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said.
North Korea also left unanswered the IAEA's request for high-level talks in Vienna, Austria, on Oct. 18, she said.
"Dr. El Baradei is reiterating his deep concern about the situation, his readiness to discuss all nuclear-related matters" with North Korea, Miss Fleming said.
U.S. diplomats say North Korea revealed in October it had a nuclear weapons program in violation of a 1994 agreement with the United States. The accord called for the country to freeze and eventually dismantle its nuclear weapons program in exchange for international aid to build two power plants.
The United States, with backing from Japan, South Korea and the European Union, decided to punish North Korea by suspending free fuel-oil shipments beginning in December.
Little is known about North Korea's nuclear program. The IAEA has inspectors in the country, but their activities are limited to monitoring an old nuclear complex north of Pyongyang and a reactor at another site.
----
N. Korea Rejects Call for Inspections
Nation Blames U.S. for 'Nuclear Crisis'
By Peter Slevin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 5, 2002; Page A18
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A10673-2002Dec4?language=printer
The North Korean government has refused a request by the International Atomic Energy Agency to halt its nuclear weapons program and admit inspectors, blaming the United States for a "nuclear crisis on the Korean peninsula."
Two months after North Korea revealed its secret uranium enrichment project, Foreign Minister Paek Nam Sun replied to the IAEA by saying the United States had "destroyed" a 1994 nuclear freeze agreement, in part by naming North Korea as a member of the "axis of evil."
The IAEA, which considers North Korea to be in violation of a wide array of international rules, countered that the Pyongyang government had refused the agency's proposal to discuss recent events. The agency's director reiterated his "deep concern" and said the organization would persevere in trying to apply atomic safeguards to the communist regime. White House press secretary Ari Fleischer called North Korea's defiance of the IAEA "another disappointing example of North Korea's isolationism, which will only hurt the people of North Korea."
The United States has halted shipments of fuel oil to the energy-poor country while searching for leverage among North Korea's neighbors to change the behavior of Kim Jong Il, North Korea's unpredictable president.
The dispute began in early October, when U.S. envoys confronted North Korean officials with evidence that the Pyongyang government was developing the ability to enrich uranium for use in a nuclear weapon. To the diplomats' astonishment, North Korean officials admitted the existence of a secret program.
The Bush administration quickly made clear that a political and economic opening sought by Kim would be impossible until he reveals everything about the nuclear program and permits international monitoring. But U.S. officials worked the wheels of diplomacy and did not impose sanctions.
Among the recent leaders to call on North Korea to give up its nuclear program were the presidents of China and Russia -- North Korea's closest allies -- who issued a joint statement Monday. They also urged further talks between the United States and North Korea. Paek, the North Korean foreign minister, criticized the Bush administration in his letter to the IAEA, whose 35-member governing board adopted a resolution Friday deploring North Korea's self-proclaimed right to have nuclear weapons. He said North Korea needs to reserve a nuclear option in self-defense, saying the United States considers North Korea a potential target for a preemptive strike.
The North Korean also cited the fuel oil cutoff and President Bush's "axis of evil" statement as evidence of "hostile" U.S. policy. Paek said the IAEA "unfairly" sided with the United States in adopting the resolution. Left unmentioned were two October letters from the IAEA seeking cooperation and clarification of the uranium enrichment project.
A State Department official said yesterday that any attempt by North Korea to win inducements for better behavior will fail. But that the door to cooperation remains open if North Korea addresses concerns over its military posture and other issues, the official said.
"We are waiting for action from them," the official said. "We have told them they need to visibly and verifiably dismantle their nuclear program."
--------
ASIAN ARENA
U.S. Criticizes North Korea for Rejecting Inspections
December 5, 2002
By DAVID E. SANGER
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/05/international/asia/05KORE.html
WASHINGTON, Dec. 4 - The White House issued a muted criticism of North Korea today, saying it was "disappointing" that North Korea had rejected a demand for inspections of its newly revealed program to develop nuclear weapons from highly enriched uranium.
The demand came from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the nuclear inspection and regulatory organization linked to the United Nations.
The White House comments appeared to be part of a strategy to defuse any sense of imminent confrontation with North Korea, which the Central Intelligence Agency believes is still a few years away from producing a nuclear weapon from its uranium program.
President Bush issued a statement last month assuring North Korea that the United States had no intention of invading it, and saying he was seeking a "diplomatic solution" to the situation caused by its nuclear revelations.
Nonetheless, the White House statement today was in sharp contrast to its responses about the inspection of Iraq's suspected weapons sites. At a briefing with reporters, Ari Fleischer, the president's press secretary, insisted that the United States did not employ a double standard in dealing with countries developing weapons of mass destruction.
"Not every policy needs to be put into a photocopier," Mr. Fleischer said today. He argued that Iraq had repeatedly defied United Nations Security Council resolutions, and said "that is not the case in North Korea."
In 1994, North Korea engaged in a lengthy struggle with the Security Council over a previous nuclear project, and the Council threatened to impose penalities on it. But the Council never formally voted on a resolution because the confrontation, which led President Bill Clinton to reinforce American troops in South Korea, was averted with an agreement that North Korea would freeze its nuclear activity.
North Korea's statement today was in response to a resolution passed last month by the atomic energy agency, urging the country to "give up any nuclear weapons programs expeditiously" and open "all relevant facilities to I.A.E.A. inspection and safeguards." American intelligence officials say they are still uncertain where those facilities are.
In a response today, North Korea's foreign minister, Paek Nam Sun, called the resolution "extremely unilateral," and added, that "the government cannot accept" it, according to the official Korean Central News Agency.
A spokesman for the atomic energy agency said agency officials felt "deep concern" about the North Korean refusal, which appeared to follow the script of the 1994 crisis, when North Korea declined to allow inspectors in until it had won some concessions from the West.
But the White House did not condemn the action, and issued no warnings of the consequences of refusing inspections. "Their rejection of the I.A.E.A. resolution to open its facilities," Mr. Fleischer said, "is another disappointing example of North Korea's isolationism, which will only hurt the people of North Korea."
When asked what steps the United States would take, he said "we are working with our regional partners to try to find a peaceful solution to this issue."
American officials, when speaking with the promise of anonymity, say they have little choice but to pursue a strategy markedly different from the one used with Iraq.
Iraq has little power to strike back at neighboring countries, they point out, while North Korea could cause great damage to Seoul, the capital of South Korea. Moreover, the White House appears convinced that North Korea's economic condition has weakened so much that it is vulnerable to economic pressures to a degree that Iraq is not.
Mr. Fleischer offered another reason today. "Iraq, of course, does have a history that North Korea does not have of engaging in war against its neighbors," he said, "in resorting to the deadly use of massive force, including weapons of mass destruction against its neighbors, including the invasion of sovereign nations."
Mr. Fleischer was presumably speaking about North Korea's history in recent decades; it invaded South Korea in 1950.
-------- russia
Russia Arctic naval base seeks US oil mission
Story by Natalia Andreassen
REUTERS RUSSIA:
December 5, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/18898/story.htm
MURMANSK, Russia - Russia's Arctic port of Murmansk, a Soviet-era bastion of the Cold War, is becoming a symbol of a new partnership with the U.S., in which oil is set to overshadow nuclear submarines.
Last week, Russia's largest private oil firms agreed to build here by 2007 a multi-billion dollar oil export terminal, designed to open up new markets for their booming oil output and help the United States cut its dependency on the Middle East.
And Murmansk, halfway between Moscow and the North Pole, a place where the sun does not rise for two months of the year, is welcoming the idea as a last hope to escape poverty and unemployment, endemic in this once thriving Red Army naval base since the collapse of the Soviet Union more than a decade ago.
"We are living in oblivion. Today no one wants to be a naval officer. And because so far there has been nothing else to do in Murmansk, oil is probably a solution. Not for us but for future generations," said Yelena, 46, the wife of a naval officer.
For many in Murmansk, where in Soviet times the city's residents received privileges for enduring a harsh climate to defend the motherland, pride is all they have left.
"Some people believe Russia's north has no chance of surviving and Arctic towns will simply gradually die. I think this is totally wrong," said Vyacheslav Popov, who represents Murmansk in Russia's upper chamber of parliament.
"This oil project will boost Russia's economic security and help to restore our previous glory."
Popov knows all about how quickly glory can turn to shame. A career admiral, he was comander of Russia's Northern Fleet when the nuclear-powered submarine Kursk crashed to the bottom of the Barents Sea with the loss of the entire 118 crew, the worst disaster in modern Russian naval history.
IDEAL LOCATION
Murmansk, near the frontier with Finland and Norway, is a unique port in Russia's north with a vast bay which never ices over even when temperatures plummet to minus 30 degrees Celsius (minus 22 Fahrenheit).
"I'm so pleased that our natural advantages are finally recognised", Murmansk's regional governor Yuri Yevdokimov told oil executives.
Four Russian majors LUKOIL (LKOH.RTS), YUKOS (YUKO.RTS), Tyumen oil Co (TNK) and Sibneft (SIBN.RTS), which together account for more than half of Russia's eight million barrels per day (bpd) output, promised their project would create more jobs.
It will also serve further the rapprochement of Russia and the United States. The two countries have cosied up to each other, particularly since last year's September 11 attacks on the U.S.
"It is extremely important that the Russia-U.S. relationship is developing in a constructive way. It convinces us that we will secure access to the U.S. oil market and U.S. oil firms will gradually join our production projects," Mikhail Khodorkovsky, CEO of Russia's second largest oil firm YUKOS told reporters.
Russia, the world's second largest oil exporter, ships the bulk of its crude to Europe and needs deep water ports to load supertankers and make trans-Atlantic shipments profitable.
Murmansk, the deepest northern port in Russia, is emerging just as the country's output is booming for the fourth straight year and Russia wants to supply more than 10 percent of U.S. crude oil imports, currently dominated by more traditional but politically turbulent Middle East suppliers.
Oil majors say the new port's advantages will be ideal as the sea route to U.S. east coast from Murmansk will be just 5,800 miles (9,334 km), compared to 12,800 miles from the Gulf.
ECOLOGICAL WORRIES
The exact location of the new terminal is to be announced.
"We don't want profiteers rushing to buy land near Murmansk. There is more that 60 km (37 miles) of coast, which perfectly meets our needs, so the terminal can be built anywhere," said the head of LUKOIL Vagit Alekperov.
Yevdokimov says the energy-starved region is eagerly awaiting just a tiny portion of fuel from the export pipeline.
"Unlike other Russia's European regions, Murmansk does not have natural gas supplies nor even a tiny refinery. So it could become a colossal project for us," he said.
The project's image is clouded only by the concerns of environmentalists, who say any leaks from a vast oil terminal or the tankers it serves could further damage the ecology of Murmansk.
The port is already home to an estimated two thirds of Russia's 122 decommissioned nuclear submarines, the reactors of which have never been removed, and radiation reports are frequently read out on the radio station along with the weather forecast.
"When you have an oil spill from a supertanker in the Arctic it takes you decades to restore nature as oil decomposes very slowly," said Oganes Targulyan from Greenpeace in Moscow.
----
Chechen rebels phoned Gulf during siege
Moscow says theatre hostage takers were funded from Saudi Arabia
Nick Paton Walsh in Moscow
Thursday December 5, 2002
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/chechnya/Story/0,2763,854004,00.html
Russian security officials suspect that the Chechens who seized a Moscow theatre in October had wealthy Arab sponsors in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states and have sought Washington's support in finding the financiers.
Senior officials say they have traced a series of telephone calls from the gunmen to their "sponsors" in the Gulf.
During one call made to an unspecified Gulf state a financier asked for a video of scenes inside the theatre, and was told it could be made for a $1m fee.
"Several long telephone conversations were intercepted to Saudi Arabia, to the Emirates, and to Qatar.
"We can say for sure that the hostage-taking was financed from abroad, and the terrorists maintained permanent contact with their sponsors."
He added that the leader of the hostage-takers, Mosvar Barayev, and several of his fellow Chechens had planned to flee to the Gulf once the crisis was over.
The Chechen rebels seized the theatre on October 23.
After a long siege by Russian troops, 129 hostages and 50 gunmen were killed.
The source declined to name the sponsors and the country from which the video was requested, because the general prosecutor's office is still investigating the event.
The revelation helps to explain the pointed comments President Vladimir Putin made after his recent meeting with George Bush in St Petersburg.
He pointed out that 16 of the 19 hijackers on September 11th were Saudi citizens, saying: "We will remember this," and adding:"We should not forget those who provide financing to terrorists."
Russian security officials have been issuing warnings about the threat posed by Islamist extremists funded by wealthy Gulf state benefactors since the mid-90s.
The security source said: "According to [security service] estimates, each month from the Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia, from £1.3m to £2.5m comes to support terrorism on the territory of the Russian Federation."
The Russian security services were constantly exchanging information on the funding organisations with their American and British counterparts, he said.
Sources in Washington and Moscow confirmed that there was cooperation.
A senior US state department official said that all Russia's concerns about links between the theatre siege and financiers in Gulf, and its fears about the "Saudi connection to international terrorism" would be "evaluated" by the commission on September 11 led by the former secretary of state Henry Kissinger.
The official said Washington had offered Russia help in its investigation of the theatre incident, but would not give details.
He added: "The Saudis have said they will look more closely at some charity organisations and we cannot help but believe that this is a direct response to [our] concerns.
"But we are not singling anyone out and are looking at all avenues."
The official would not confirm a report that the state department was considering adding groups linked to Chechen separatists to the treasury blacklist of terrorism financiers, but said they were "constantly evaluating groups".
Russian security officials say there are long-standing links between organisations in Saudi Arabia and "terrorist activity" in Russia.
The official added: "In Saudi Arabia there is a group of NGOs linked to al-Qaida that form an integral system feeding terrorism.
"We count about 20 such organisations there who have accounts and branches in other countries."
He added that the NGOs' purported purpose, international support for Muslims, was a front for funding terrorism.
"We are cooperating with the Saudi Arabian special services, and several Saudi delegations have come to Moscow to discuss this."
But Saudi officials are currently busy denying that their country has become a haven for financiers of terrorism.
On Monday the Saudi embassy in Washington released a report describing a series of measures the kingdom had taken since September 11 against terrorist financiers.
Adel al-Jubeir, a key aide to Crown Prince Abdullah, the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, conceded that some of the hundreds of millions of dollars sent abroad by Saudi charities each year might have gone to al-Qaida .
He added: "We cannot allow our money to be used to murder people."
He insisted that Saudi investigations had led to charity accounts being audited, 2,000 people being questioned and 100 jailed, and 33 accounts, worth £3.5m, being frozen.
He said accusations of terrorism sponsorship had generated unprecedented "anti-Saudi sentiment" in America.
-------- u.s. nuc weapons
Pentagon Memo Raises Possibility of Nuclear Testing
Christine Kucia
Arms Control Today
December 2002
http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2002_12/nuctesting_dec02.asp
A memorandum from a high-level Pentagon official recommending that the United States consider a low-yield nuclear testing program to help maintain the nuclear weapons stockpile surfaced November 15, just two days after Congress delayed an attempt to reduce the time required to prepare a nuclear test.
Edward Aldridge, undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, sent the memorandum October 21 to members of the Nuclear Weapons Council, a consultative body he chairs that is made up of officials from the Departments of Defense and Energy. In the letter, which was obtained by the Arms Control Association and made public in mid-November, he expressed concern about the ability of the Stockpile Stewardship Program to ensure a high level of safety and performance of the current nuclear arsenal. "New findings suggest that we may previously have been overconfident," Aldridge wrote. The Stockpile Stewardship Program combines subcritical testing with computer modeling based on data from previous nuclear weapons tests to verify the safety and reliability of the nuclear arsenal.
Among the suggestions offered by Aldridge for assessing the arsenal's safety and reliability is "for the laboratories to readdress the value of a low yield testing program." Aldridge pointed out the difficulty of fully understanding the stockpile's safety without testing and asked, "How might such a program [of low-yield nuclear testing] increase confidence now?"
Deliberations over the resumption of nuclear testing to maintain the U.S. nuclear stockpile have bubbled beneath the surface of Bush administration policy since January 2001, when the White House indicated that it would not ask the Senate to reconsider ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. The administration also hinted at nuclear testing resumption in its January 2002 Nuclear Posture Review, a leaked version of which stated, "While the United States is making every effort to maintain the stockpile without additional testing, this may not be possible for the indefinite future." Among other things, the review, as well as a later study by the National Nuclear Security Administration, expressed concern that the United States is losing important expertise as the number of laboratory personnel with nuclear testing experience dwindles.
Other experts within the U.S. government deny the need for resumed testing. Bruce Goodwin, associate director for defense and nuclear technologies at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, said, "I don't know of any reason why we can't" maintain the stockpile without testing, according to a November 15 San Jose Mercury News article. Energy Department spokesman Bryan Wilkes said November 22 that there are "no new movements or talk" in the agency about resuming testing, adding, "We see no need to deviate from the Stockpile Stewardship Program right now." In addition, a July 2002 report by the National Academy of Sciences noted, "Even in the absence of constraints on nuclear testing, no need was ever identified for a program that would periodically subject the stockpile weapons to nuclear tests."
Aldridge's memorandum was made public just two days after Congress finished the fiscal year 2003 Defense Authorization Act, passed by the House of Representatives November 12 and the Senate a day later. In the bill, Congress requests a report that will outline plans and costs calculations for nuclear testing readiness periods of 6, 12, 18, and 24 months. The bill also calls for a recommendation from the secretaries of energy and defense on the "optimal readiness posture."
The United States conducted its last nuclear test in 1992, and since 1993 the Energy Department has been required to be able to resume testing within 24-36 months. Whereas in previous years Congress simply authorized funds to maintain readiness without discussion, this year House Republicans unsuccessfully pushed for the adoption of a one-year readiness requirement. The Senate refused to reopen the issue of test readiness to deliberation. Conference committee members compromised by requesting the study, which will postpone congressional debate on whether to shorten the test readiness period.
Calling the House proposal for a one-year readiness posture "unnecessarily aggressive," Representative Ellen Tauscher (D-CA) described the result as an important compromise November 18. Asking the Energy Department to evaluate all of the possible options and propose a posture recommendation was an important achievement, according to Tauscher, who said, "I don't believe Congress should arbitrarily mandate a testing posture that would have significant national security consequences."
Arms Control Today encourages reprint of its articles with permission of the Editor.
Arms Control Association, 1726 M Street, NW; Washington, DC; 20036; Tel: (202) 463-8270; Fax: (202) 463-8273
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
-------- maryland
73 Calvert Cliffs Employees Told They Must Find New Jobs
By Raymond McCaffrey and Michael Amon
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, December 5, 2002; Page SM02
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A6001-2002Dec3?language=printer
The Constellation Energy Group revealed last week that it has eliminated 73 positions at the Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant, though affected employees were told they could apply for other positions within the company.
The move comes as part of an ongoing effort to increase "cost efficiency" as the plant competes in the deregulated utility market, according to Steve Unglesbee, a spokesman for the Constellation Energy Group, owner and operator of the plant near Lusby.
"Seventy-three individuals were told that they did not have jobs at the plant," Unglesbee said.
Unglesbee said the move "was not a job reduction," and that the "final number" of those workers who ultimately lose jobs "will depend on how many will choose to work through the company personnel process."
However, those workers are only assured that "they have employment through the end of this year," according to Unglesbee.
Unglesbee did not specify exactly what kinds of jobs were affected by the move. But he did say the effort would not compromise security or safety at the plant.
"Security and safety are off limits," he said.
In 2000, the Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant -- the home of two reactors -- became the first facility of its kind to win relicensing from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
The plant, which has employed roughly 1,285 workers, according to Unglesbee, is the county's top taxpayer. Recently, the plant announced plans to spend about $2 million upgrading emergency sirens within the facility's 10-mile fallout zone. Assistant Sheriff Is a Major
Calvert County Assistant Sheriff Thomas C. Hejl was officially sworn in Monday as a major, a new rank at the department that Sheriff Mike Evans said is his first step toward reorganizing the agency.
Hejl's predecessor as assistant sheriff, Capt. Tilden Garner, will retire early next year. Evans said Garner's captain position will remain unfilled until he can persuade Calvert County commissioners to give him funding for a new command staff position.
"Down the road, I foresee a reorganization of the department where I can get a captain position which can be filled from within," Evans said.
With officials facing a tight county budget, Evans said it may be difficult to get the new position right away.
Evans has spoken publicly of restructuring the sheriff's office to make it more efficient, but the creation of a major was the first concrete step he has taken.
As major, Hejl will be responsible for the day-to-day operations of the sheriff's office. Hejl is a former state trooper and investigator for Calvert State's Attorney Robert Riddle, and he played a prominent role in Evans's campaign for sheriff.
----
[Meanwhile....]
Unexpected Revenue Boost Cuts Calvert's Budget Deficit
By Raymond McCaffrey
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 5, 2002; Page SM15
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A5981-2002Dec3?language=printer
Calvert County's budget shortfall for the last fiscal year turned out to be $5.1 million less than projected, auditors told county commissioners on Tuesday.
Calvert had anticipated a $7.9 million budget deficit at the end of fiscal 2002, according to a report presented to the county commissioners. However, because of increased revenue that included taxes related to home sales, the county found itself with a $2.8 million revenue gap when the fiscal year ended June 30, according to Calvert's independent auditors, Wooden and Benson.
"We're in better shape than we thought," Commissioners President David F. Hale (R-Owings) said Tuesday.
However, Hale cautioned that the auditing report will not affect the commissioners' directive that county staff develop a fiscal 2004 operating budget with no spending increases in anticipation of slashed state funding because of Maryland's fiscal crisis. The bulk of the fiscal 2004 budget planning will be done by Dec. 17, when the new Board of Commissioners is sworn in to office. Still, county officials were heartened by the fiscal analysis at a time when projections about the state budget deficit are so grim.
"It is a bit of good news especially with what's being talked about state-wise," said Terry Shannon, the county's director of administration and finance.
Shannon said that "some revenue sources came in stronger than anticipated" in fiscal 2002 and that the county "did not spend 100 percent" of what the budget had projected.
A county memo reported that $2.5 million of the extra revenue was related to home sales. "Recordation taxes were extremely strong due to the continued strength in the housing market and the high volume of refinancing due to low interest rates," the memo said.
The county also realized about $700,000 from the purchase of the Cove Point liquefied natural gas plant by the Williams Co., which has since sold the facility to another energy firm. An additional $600,000 came from what was described as "various revenues." That increased revenue, plus $1.3 million in savings, accounted for the smaller revenue shortfall.
The 2003 budget ultimately was to be balanced through the use of about $7.9 million in reserves, mostly for one-time capital projects such as school renovations and major maintenance. The additional revenue means a boost to the county's "rainy day fund," according to Shannon. "As of the end of June of '02 . . . the rainy day fund is at $17.5 million," Shannon said.
The state budget crunch already is being felt in Calvert. State transportation officials have told the county commissioners that money woes had caused a halt to Calvert's top-priority road project -- improvements at the busy intersection of Routes 2/4 and 231 in Prince Frederick.
Another concern is whether state funding will be cut for building and expanding schools -- Calvert is hoping for help in constructing a new high school in Huntingtown.
And a major worry involves whether the state will continue to reimburse the county for revenues -- an estimated $6.1 million annually -- lost from its biggest taxpayer, Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant, because of deregulation.
Maryland State Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. (D-Prince George's and Calvert) has pledged to protect the county from funding cuts, adding that he plans to take "freshman legislators" on a bus tour of Southern Maryland this month -- one that will include a trip to the plant.
-------- minnesota
Xcel Energy asks Minnesota to act on waste storage
REUTERS USA:
December 5, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/18892/story.htm
MINNEAPOLIS - Xcel Energy (XEL.N) said it will need to close its two nuclear power plants in Minnesota if the state legislature continues to limit the storage of waste nuclear fuel at the plants.
In a report on future power supplies sent to the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission late Monday, the company said a state limit on nuclear fuel storage imposed in 1994 likely will force the closing of the 1,100-megawatt Prairie Island plant in 2007 and the 600-MW Monticello plant in 2010 if additional storage room is not approved.
Xcel Energy's report mapped out a five-year plan to get enough power supplies to meet rising demand in Minnesota, including 500 MW from Canada's Manitoba Hydro utility and purchases of up to 1,000 MW from other suppliers.
The company also proposed taking bids in 2005 for up to 450 MW of electricity and setting up a 500 MW hedge supply against risks.
One megawatt of electricity is roughly enough to power 1,000 homes.
Xcel said it will ask the Minnesota Legislature to take action on the 1994 waste storage limits in the session beginning in January.
In 1994, the company had promised it would not seek more on-site storage capacity, but its new report said continued operation of the nuclear plants is its "most effective resource option."
"If nuclear generation is to remain in the state's energy mix, we need to make decisions soon to keep our two nuclear plants operating in the future," said Dave Sparby, vice president of regulatory and government affairs for Xcel Energy.
"If nuclear generation is not in the mix, action may well be needed during the 2003 session to ensure replacement power is on line, on time," Sparby said in a statement.
State law limits waste-fuel storage at the Prairie Island plant to 17 casks, a limit that will be reached in 2007, according to a company spokeswoman.
The Monticello plant will run out of storage space in 2010 unless more storage is approved, and the plant must decide by 2005 if it wants to extend its operating license, the spokeswoman added.
Xcel Energy does not expect the planned federal Yucca Mountain waste fuel dump in Nevada or a private dump proposed on Indian land in Utah to be ready in time to avoid a closing of the Prairie Island plant in 2007.
Xcel shares were off 8 cents at $10.41 in afternoon trading on the New York Stock Exchange.
-------- ohio
Uranium Supplier USEC Picks Ohio Site for Test Plant
By Peter Behr
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 5, 2002; Page E04
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A11384-2002Dec4?language=printer
USEC Inc., the Bethesda-based supplier of uranium fuel for nuclear power plants, yesterday selected its Piketown, Ohio, site as the location of a $50 million test facility for a new uranium-enrichment process.
The pilot plant is a crucial step in USEC's goal of opening a full-scale enrichment facility by the end of the decade, a project slated to cost up to $1.5 billion. The company needs the new plant to replace an older-technology facility in Paducah, Ky., where higher costs have depressed USEC's earnings.
A site for the full-scale plant won't be selected for several years, but USEC's mothballed Portsmouth plant in Piketown is the front-runner, USEC President William H. Timbers indicated yesterday.
USEC is the exclusive U.S. agent for the Megatons to Megawatts agreement with Russia, which turns uranium reprocessed from nuclear missiles into power-plant fuel. Its announcement yesterday was hailed by Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham as an important step in ensuring domestic sources of fuel for both domestic energy needs and military requirements.
USEC is in a race with Louisiana Energy Services, an international consortium that wants to build a nuclear enrichment plant in Hartsville, Tenn. The LES partnership includes Urenco, a British-based enrichment firm, Canada's Cameco Corp., British-owned Westinghouse Electric, and three large U.S. utility companies.
Both USEC and LES must win approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for their projects. USEC said it will submit its application for the pilot plant early next year, and in the meantime, has raised the question of whether LES's significant foreign ownership creates security issues. "This is very sensitive technology," Timbers said yesterday.
Uranium market analysts question whether the market will support two separate billion-dollar enrichment plants in the United States.
The selection of Ohio as the pilot plant site was applauded by members of Ohio's congressional delegation and by Gov. Bob Taft (R), whose administration awarded an undisclosed package of incentives to USEC to nail down the project, beating out a competing offer from Kentucky officials.
"This will be the first new nuclear facility to begin operations in the United States in over 10 years," Taft said. In addition to the $50 million direct cost of the facility cited by Taft, other related costs will add $100 million to the project, USEC said. Timbers said the company will fund the project with cash from operations.
USEC's Paducah plant enriches uranium by a gas filtration method, requiring vast amounts of electric power, while the new project would use a far more energy-efficient centrifuge separation process, the company noted. The higher production costs in the current approach is a drain on USEC's earnings and a key reason that leading U.S. power plant operators are supporting the LES project, which also would use a centrifuge process, analysts said.
USEC has projected earnings of $2 million to $4 million this year, and $14 million to $16 million in 2003, after a more favorable contract with Russia begins. USEC's senior unsecured debt was downgraded one step last month by Moody's Investors Service, in part because of high production costs that Moody's said will contribute to weak earnings at USEC for another two years.
----
USEC plans uranium-enrichment facility
By Jeffrey Sparshott
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
December 5, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/business/20021205-7798925.htm
Bethesda-based USEC announced plans yesterday to open a uranium-enrichment test facility in Ohio by 2004.
The facility would be the second uranium-enrichment site in the United States and the first nuclear facility to go on line since 1996, according to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The facility will test new technology for producing uranium used as fuel in nuclear power plants.
State and federal officials from Kentucky, where USEC operates an enrichment facility at Paducah, and Ohio, where USEC controls a facility in Piketon that had been mothballed, lobbied for the investment. USEC chose to upgrade the old Piketon facility.
USEC President William H. Timbers said that the private company would invest about $150 million toward developing the Ohio site.
About 50 jobs would be created initially, he said.
Depending on results from the test facility and the world market for enriched uranium, company officials will decide in 2004 whether and where to put a commercial plant. The commercial facility would represent a $1 billion to $1.5 billion investment, Mr. Timbers said.
USEC operates the only uranium-enrichment facility in the United States at Paducah. Enrichment is a step in the production of uranium fuel, used by nuclear power plants to generate electricity.
USEC said it would submit an application for the test enrichment facility to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in early 2003. The facility should be fully on line by 2005, though portions will be operating in 2004, a company spokesman said.
The new USEC site would upgrade technology and keep the company a step ahead of competitors, Mr. Timbers said.
"We will have test equipment up and running prior to any other player," Mr. Timbers said.
Louisiana Energy Services, a private consortium of energy firms, plans to build a new plant that would be operational in 2006. It would be USEC's only domestic competitor.
USEC's announcement will not affect LES's plans, said Peter Lenny, president of Urenco Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of the U.K.'s Urenco Group and a member of the consortium.
The firm's plant, to be situated near Hartsville, Tenn., will cost about $1.1 billion and is modeled on a similar facility that is "substantially complete" in the Netherlands, he said.
"I don't see there is a race to get a facility up and running," Mr. Lenny said. "Our technology is proven" while USEC's is "anything but" proven for commercial use, he said.
USEC uses technology from the 1950s to produce enriched uranium at its Kentucky facility. The new USEC facility will use technology based on Department of Energy equipment from the 1980s.
The worldwide enriched-uranium market is worth about $3 billion, Mr. Timbers said. USEC supplies about one-third of the world market and 70 percent of the U.S. market.
USEC also is the executive agent for the U.S. government's "megatons to megawatts" program, an 8-year-old program to convert Russian nuclear weapons to nuclear fuel. USEC purchases the nuclear fuel from Russia and sells it to customers to power their electricity-generating stations.
The U.S. and Russian governments in June approved pricing terms for the remaining 12 years of the program.
Russian bomb-grade material capable of making more than 6,000 warheads has been converted to commercial nuclear reactor fuel since the program started in 1993, the company said. USEC has paid Russia nearly $3 billion for the fuel.
USEC was created in 1998 through the privatization of the United States Enrichment Corp., a government monopoly in charge of manufacturing nuclear fuel.
--------
[Unfortunate that this is seen as a boon. et]
A RARE BREAK FOR A REGION IN NEED
New uranium plant at Piketon to bring jobs, maybe more later
Thursday, December 5, 2002
By Jonathan Riskind and Alan Johnson
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH NEWS 01A
From: "Vina Colley" <vcolley@earthlink.net>
Buffeted by economic woes for years, southern Ohio received some good news yesterday with the announcement that a $50 million test enrichment plant will be built in Piketon instead of Kentucky.
Even better, winning the experimental plant means Piketon is the front-runner to land a planned $1.5 billion permanent advanced technology plant employing 500 to 600 people that USEC, the company in charge of the site, wants to be operational by about 2010.
At the existing uranium-enrichment facility in Piketon -- where a few hundred employees still perform cleanup operations and keep the plant on "cold standby'' -- workers clapped and cheered when general manager Patrick Musser announced the decision over the public address system around 9:30 a.m.
Nearby at Piketon Village Hall, Mayor Carl Irvine also cheered.
"It means a lot to the community,'' he said. "We've been hit hard.''
Gov. Bob Taft called the announcement "a true boost for an economy that certainly needs a shot in the arm. This decision . . . means jobs: construction jobs and permanent jobs.''
State and local financial and tax incentives played a significant role in the decision, said William H. Timbers, president and chief executive officer of USEC, the privatized federal corporation that last year ceased enrichment operations at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Piketon.
"This is an offer we couldn't refuse,'' Timbers said at a Statehouse news conference with Taft.
The package includes a state loan of up to $7 million for equipment purchases, a training grant of up to $1 million, a job-creation tax credit of about $755,000 and a research-and-development tax credit of less than $1 million. In addition, Ohio law permits a sales-tax exemption on research-and-development equipment purchases worth an estimated $1 million.
Local incentives would come from Pike County, two local school districts and Scioto Township, which have offered roughly 60 percent in real- and personal-property tax abatements for 10 years or longer if the full-scale project goes forward.
The Piketon package beat out a rival proposal to build the new facility at a sister enrichment plant in Paducah, Ky.
"Local leaders in Ohio just made a better offer than Kentucky's officials back in Frankfort as far as incentive packages are concerned,'' said U.S. Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky.
USEC will spend $150 million -- $50 million in Piketon -- to open the test plant by 2005 and employ 50 people to run it. It says a decision on where to build the permanent plant will be made in 2004.
USEC ceased enrichment operations at Piketon in favor of the Paducah plant, but both facilities are equipped with expensive, decades-old gaseous diffusion technology to manufacture the enriched uranium used as fuel for nuclear power plants.
The Paducah plant will continue to operate while USEC tests centrifuge technology.
In centrifuge processing, which is used in several other countries, uranium molecules are separated by gravity in tall, spinning cylinders, allowing technicians to extract enriched uranium and waste. The method uses 10 percent of the power needed for the 1940s-era gaseous diffusion process and produces much less waste.
Taft, Sens. George V. Voinovich and Mike DeWine, and Rep. Rob Portman, R-Cincinnati, were among the officials who lobbied USEC to locate the test plant in Ohio. Although the news is cause for optimism, some officials urged caution.
"This is the beginning of another long road,'' Voinovich said.
A potential roadblock is a consortium of U.S. nuclear power utilities and a European enrichment company called Urenco that plans its own advanced technology enrichment plant in Tennessee by 2007, three years ahead of USEC. Industry observers have said it could be tough for USEC to finance its $1.5 billion permanent plant if the Urenco consortium appears to be succeeding.
USEC officials have raised concerns about the consortium's plans, citing as one problem the consortium's partial foreign ownership. However, the U.S. Department of Energy stated in a recent letter to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission that it would regard the consortium's plant as a "means of maintaining a reliable and economical U.S. uranium enrichment industry.''
Rep. Ted Strickland, D-Lucasville, said if the competing enrichment consortium succeeds, that could prove another crippling blow to southern Ohio.
"It's maybe a race against time,'' Strickland said.
The southern Ohio site was selected in large part because the Piketon plant houses centrifuge facilities built and then abandoned in the 1980s by the federal government in favor of a laser-based technology that never bore fruit.
In addition to the incentives and plant site, Timbers cited other factors that tilted the decision to Piketon, including "less regulatory risk'' at the Ohio site and "greater seismic risk'' at Paducah.
Dan Minter, president of the local chapter of the Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers International Union representing 600 workers at the plant, said the announcement "gives us a foundation to move forward.''
Minter and Timbers hinted at revised labor agreements that might result from the project announcement, but no details were announced.
Irvine noted that as workers return to the plant in Piketon, so do their dollars. Money spent at local gas stations and businesses helps fill government coffers, he said.
The new project will create high-paying jobs that will benefit the community for years to come, said Blaine Beekman, executive director of the Pike County Chamber of Commerce.
"This is a chance for a generation of long-term jobs.''
Dispatch reporter Melissa Kossler and the Associated Press contributed to this story.
jriskind@dispatch.com
ajohnson@dispatch.com
-------- us politics
The Kissinger Conundrum
By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 4, 2002; 8:38 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A7518-2002Dec4?language=printer
The Kissinger wars have never really vanished, much like the wounds of Vietnam have never fully healed.
The sound and fury over the tapping of Dr. K for the 9/11 commission must seem somewhat puzzling for those who didn't live through the cultural upheavals of the Nixon era.
It was clear from the start that Kissinger would be a controversial choice - and an odd one, considering that one of the main goals of the Sept. 11 panel is to reassure a country shaken by the worst terrorist attack in history. Why, then, would the president pick someone who used to be one of the most divisive figures in public life? Wouldn't a younger, more vigorous Rudy type have been a better choice?
The continuing debate over Kissinger is another rerun of the clashes of the '60s, like the arguments over Great Society programs and the root causes of crime and social and sexual permissiveness. For boomers of a certain age, there's a knee-jerk reaction to hearing that guttural, German-accented voice.
How else to explain the impassioned debate over events of three decades ago? Kissinger is 79. In the view of many critics, he did some terrible things, from involvement in Watergate wiretapping to the secret bombing of Cambodia, and has no business being in such a high-profile position. Even his successes, such as the opening to China, were shrouded in his trademark secrecy.
On the surface, Kissinger is an elder statesman who writes long foreign policy op-eds that appear in The Washington Post and other papers. But the storm over his appointment is such that he felt compelled to go on CNN last weekend to deny any conflict over his corporate clients.
When Wolf Blitzer asked about the New York Times saying it is "tempting to wonder if the choice of Mr. Kissinger is not a clever maneuver by the White House to contain an investigation it long opposed," the former secretary of state said: "I think The New York Times will apologize for this editorial when our report is submitted."
Not too likely. And this is a can't-win situation. Anyone who's unhappy with the commission's findings can blame it on Henry.
One defense came from Kissinger's old Nixon White House colleague William Safire, who was careful to note that they've been at odds in the past, especially over the tapping of Safire's phone in those bygone days. From the New York Times:
"The hate-Henry industry within the aging liberal establishment is having a hissy fit over President Bush's appointment of Henry Kissinger. . . .
"He is neither an extinct volcano nor an erupting one; rather, he oozes a lava of foreign-policy judgment. Unlike John Poindexter, he has learned from his egregious mistakes and may even differentiate government secrecy from personal privacy. Approaching octogenarianhood, Kissinger has become a foreign-policy resource, capable of reassessing his earlier disdain for Wilsonian idealism.
"Does that qualify him for chief 9/11 inquisitor? If the main object is to find the sinners of commission, no; if to discover the sins of omission, probably; if to recommend strategic changes in our approach to the war on terror, certainly."
The Safire column drew a prickly response from the New Republic:
"Of all the idiotic thoughts William Safire cobbles together in his tortured defense of Henry Kissinger's selection to head the government's 9/11 commission, this one stands out: Just as F.D.R. appointed Joseph P. Kennedy as first chairman of the S.E.C. because that predator knew all the manipulative tricks, Bush chose Kissinger because the old operator can see through the secret obfuscations he mastered long ago.
"Ignore the fact that this is the point apologists always make when a conflict-of-interest-ridden candidate is asked to perform some function in the public interest. In this case it doesn't even make sense. That is, a shady financier like Joe Kennedy probably did know a lot about the shady financial practices the SEC was created to crack down on. Whether or not he was especially eager to blow the whistle on them is another matter. But in this case it's not 'secret obfuscations' that the 9/11 commission is supposed to be rooting out. (If it was, God knows Kissinger would be the right man for the job.) It's general incompetence on the part of the nation's intelligence apparatus. (Though there is the possibility of intentional oversights by the administration with respect to the Saudi government, which would be closer to Kissinger's area of expertise.) For getting to the bottom of these matters, Kissinger's record of obfuscation (some would say lies)--not to mention his desperate need to be liked by those in power--are, needless to say, the exact opposite of what you'd want."
Salon's Joe Conason faults journalists for not being more apoplectic:
"The mainstream press has performed poorly, as predicted, in the face of Henry Kissinger's outrageous appointment to chair the 'independent' commission on 9/11. Although a few mildly worded editorials have questioned Kissinger's past record and present conflicts of interest, notably in the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, the media's investigation of the investigator has been noticeably limp.
"In response to the very mildest questions about his private clients, the old reprobate spouts his usual non sequiturs: 'No law firm discloses its clients,' he declares in the New York Times today. Of course, that's false on two counts: His firm doesn't practice law, and law firms are required to disclose their lobbying clients on Capitol Hill, in every state capital and in most city halls. He also noted that he 'had no clients in the government of Saudi Arabia,' but he represents no governments at all - just corporations that want favors from governments. (I'm familiar with this phony routine because I investigated Kissinger's ties to the U.S. Iraq-Business Forum, a Washington lobby that fronted for Saddam, before the Gulf War. My editors at the New Republic received a furious letter from Henry that addressed none of the facts in the article.)"
Safire's New York Times colleague, Maureen Dowd, is also no Kissinger fan:
"It's an inspired choice. Bold, counterintuitive, edgy, outside the box.
"Who better to investigate an unwarranted attack on America than the man who used to instigate America's unwarranted attacks?
"Who better to ferret out government duplicity and manipulation than the man who engineered secret wars, secret bombings, secret wiretaps and secret coups, and still ended up as a Pillar of the Establishment and Nobel Peace Prize winner?
"It was Dick Cheney's brainstorm, naturally. Only someone as pathologically opaque as the vice president could appreciate the sublime translucency of Henry Kissinger."
The Wall Street Journal editorial page scoffs at the criticism:
"In yet another sign that American liberalism has lost its bearings, we are now being told that Henry Kissinger is unfit to be President Bush's choice to lead a probe into government actions prior to September 11, 2001. What did he do, lie under oath in a legal deposition?
"Well, no. Under recent liberal standards, that would be a qualification. The former Secretary of State instead stands accused of consulting for corporate clients and of being part of foreign-policy 'power circles.' These apparently are an incentive for him to cover up embarrassing details and protect the powers-that-be, maybe even Mr. Bush. Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, who wants to be president himself, has averred that Mr. Kissinger should sever all ties with his clients.
"Now, we remember when it was some conservatives who worried about the Trilateral Commission and other supposed establishment conspiracies. Liberals were the folks who defended experience in government and foreign-policy judgment, both of which Mr. Kissinger has in abundance and would seem to be useful for such an investigation. He has served six Presidents in one capacity or another, and while we've tangled with him on the merits more than once, we find it preposterous to suggest he'd sell out his country for a fee.
"As for protecting Republicans, Mr. Kissinger's vice chairman will be George Mitchell, the former Democratic Senate majority leader. The other eight commissioners, half to be appointed by Democrats, aren't likely to be conned into a coverup."
Speaking of voices from the past, Bill Clinton is back, and offering advice to his down-in-the-dumps party. From the New York Times:
"Former President Bill Clinton said yesterday that the Democratic Party had lost the midterm elections because its candidates had failed to offer a convincing case that the party could manage national security during dangerous times.
"In his most public and extensive analysis of the state of the Democratic Party since it lost control of the Senate last month, Mr. Clinton told Democrats in New York City that they could break through to the American public only if they directly confronted the issue of national security. He said the party should challenge Republicans on what he suggested was the administration's failure to spot signs of an impending attack before Sept. 11, and what he called a muddled response to the terrorism threat over the last year.
"Mr. Clinton said that his party's candidates were too often perceived as weak in the face of the continuing threat from abroad.
"The former president, in a speech to the Democratic Leadership Council, the organization of moderate Democrats that helped send him to the White House in 1992, brushed aside the argument by some Democrats that the party needed to return to its liberal roots to regain power. Several of Mr. Clinton's ideological allies have argued in recent days that such an approach was a recipe for electoral disaster in 2004.
"Sounding a bit like a cheerleader stepping out of retirement, Mr. Clinton cautioned Democrats about being too discouraged over the setback in November as he offered suggestions on how to proceed. 'We don't have to be more liberal,' he said. 'But we do have to be more relevant in a progressive way. We have to have a clear and strong national security stand.'"
Just when the party's consensus seems to be that it does have to be more liberal.
"Mr. Clinton, second-guessing the strategy employed by Congressional leaders, said that to many Democrats and independent voters, 'we were missing in action on national security and we had no positive plan for America's domestic future.'"
Which is pretty much what the critics have been saying for weeks now. But it carries extra weight coming from the only two-term Democratic president since FDR.
Here's the Philadelphia Inquirer's take:
"Bill Clinton played Knute Rockne yesterday, exhorting demoralized Democrats to storm the playing field and kick some Republican butt.
"The loquacious ex-president, looking fit and ruddy, told several hundred party colleagues in a meeting at New York University that the Bush administration and GOP humiliated Democrats in the Nov. 5 congressional elections for one big reason: Republicans had a coherent message, especially on national security, and Democrats did not"
Did you catch that rarest of events - a Saudi press conference - on the tube?
"Saudi Arabia yesterday intensified a public relations campaign to defend itself against charges of supporting terrorism," says USA Today, "listing steps it has taken to crack down on terrorist financing and accusing U.S. critics of engaging in a 'feeding frenzy' against a long-time ally.
"At a packed news conference at the Saudi embassy, Adel al-Jubeir, an adviser to the acting Saudi ruler, Crown Prince Abdullah, said the Saudis had frozen 33 bank accounts worth $5.5 million, begun auditing all its charities, questioned more than 2,000 Saudis and was still detaining more than 100. 'We will be vigilant, determined and merciless,' in combating the al-Qaeda terrorist network, al-Jubeir said. The full-scale media campaign demonstrated how worried Saudis are about the deterioration in U.S. attitudes toward a country many Americans regarded as an important ally before the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States."
As a follow-up to our column on John Kerry yesterday, Josh Marshall smells a conservative campaign to discredit him:
"Look how quickly the right-wing-agitprop take-down of John Kerry gets underway. It begins with an admittedly sophomoric routine by Matt Drudge about an over-priced haircut, with an assist from an anonymous source at Fox News. But soon enough this will all become a talking point for Matthews, Russert, et.al. Watch how it happens. . . . Which other normally reasonable commentators will get pulled in?"
Boston Globe columnist Alex Beam takes issue with Joe Klein's Kerry piece, discussed here last week:
"There was one curious gap in Joe Klein's earnest and worshipful profile of Senator John Kerry that appeared in last week's New Yorker. Although Klein published characterizations of Kerry's first wife, Julia Thorne, as a depressed, dysfunctional spouse and an unreliable mother, he never bothered to call her.
"The drive-by journalistic sliming is a source of much concern in Kerry's family, which is experiencing considerable emotional pressure as he prepares to run for president. Kerry's two daughters, for whom Thorne was the primary caregiver for many years, have written a letter of protest to The New Yorker.
"Kerry himself wrote an anguished letter to the magazine, contesting two of Klein's contentions about his first marriage. Kerry challenges the quoted assertion of his 'friend,' former Senator Tim Wirth, that Thorne 'was not reliable' as a mother during Kerry's early years in the Senate. Kerry also argues that, contrary to what is claimed in the article ('Julia's mental condition was precarious'), Thorne's battle with depression did not cause their breakup. By all accounts, including Kerry's, he and his first wife grew apart during the course of their 12-year marriage. It happens. . . .
"Klein sees nothing wrong with his treatment of Thorne. 'If there was any implication that she was less than a good person, it was entirely accidental,' he says. Although he quoted three people about Thorne, he says he didn't call her 'because it didn't seem like that big a deal. I doubt this quote will end up in your story, but I think you're making a tremendous mountain out of a molehill.'"
National Review's Robert George rips into New York's mayor over the budget crisis:
"It's very tough times in the Big Apple these days. The Big Apple faces a $1 billion gap in the current budget and another $6 billion deficit in next year's.
"Still, the largest property-tax hike in the history of New York City was passed last Monday - with phantom spending cuts, if any. At 18 percent, the tax hike was dropped on New Yorkers with no public debate. Mayor Michael Bloomberg simply cut a weekend deal with City Council Speaker Gifford Miller, which was then rubber-stamped it, 41-6.
"As a measure of the Politburo-like aspect of raw political muscle, the New York Times reported that the six council members voting against the deal - three Republicans and three Democrats - were likely to face retribution from Bloomberg and Miller, up to and including leaving them in more vulnerable districts during the next round of city redistricting.
"Meanwhile, a Manhattan Institute study estimates that the city will lose 68,000 private-sector jobs because of the tax increase. In a word, this is madness.
"Unfortunately, it is something that is becoming all-too-familiar in Michael Bloomberg's New York. It is a world where petty squabbles and personal tiffs seem to crowd out the very important questions of how to keep the world's greatest city from falling apart during a national recession exacerbated by the hangover of the 9/11 attacks.
"Conservatives can't truly be said to be disappointed by Michael Bloomberg considering he was never one of them to begin with. Bloomberg had been a lifelong Democrat until switching parties shortly before he announced his candidacy."
On the other hand, the city is broke and the money has to come from somewhere.
Finally, Al Gore's role model, says Slate, should be Andrew Jackson, who won a rematch in 1828 against a president's son (John Quincy Adams) who had narrowly defeated him four years earlier.
Hey, it could happen once every 176 years.
----
Armey leaves House with call for freedom
Conservative from Texas says Americans must not sacrifice liberty for security
Carolyn Lochhead, Washington Bureau
Thursday, December 5, 2002
San Francisco Chronicle. , Page A - 1
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2002/12/05/MN178933.DTL
Washington -- Departing House Majority Leader Dick Armey warned that the nation must guard against the "awful, dangerous seduction" of sacrificing freedom for safety in the fight against terrorism.
It is no small irony that this Republican conservative firebrand is ending his 18-year House career as Washington's premier defender of individual freedom against alleged incursions by the Bush administration.
And no less ironic, perhaps, is his praise for the San Francisco woman he battled in many a floor fight -- Rep. Nancy Pelosi -- who now assumes the leadership of House Democrats.
In a Capitol all but deserted on a cloudy and cold Wednesday, Armey reflected for The Chronicle on the trade-off between security and liberty, the rise of partisanship, and Pelosi's advantages and challenges as the prominent face of her party now that former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle has been temporarily eclipsed by the Democrats' loss of the Senate.
"Personal liberty is critically important, and it should be important to all of us, irrespective of party affiliation, or even philosophy," Armey said, explaining his battles with Bush over the USA Patriot Act, passed by Congress in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and the new Homeland Security department. "That's the essence of America to me, more than any other thing. What makes us unique in the history of the world is our devotion to personal liberty."
Armey said it was his belief that personal liberty must be protected -- even as the nation wages its fight against terrorists -- that caused him to insist that many of the surveillance provisions of the Patriot Act expire, unless Congress votes again to allow them. And that belief spurred him to fight -- often successfully -- Attorney General John Ashcroft's controversial efforts to increase domestic spying of American citizens.
ACLU JOB OFFER
Armey has a job offer from the American Civil Liberties Union but has had not yet decided to accept it.
Armey calls it the duty of Congress to protect Americans from government incursions into personal freedom, whether from red-light traffic cameras he has fought, or the Justice Department's Operation TIPS proposal, since withdrawn, which would have enlisted bus drivers, truckers and other workers as citizen spies.
"It falls under the category of, the price of liberty is eternal vigilance, " Armey said. "I am charged with the protection of the liberty of my constituents. Maybe the Justice Department doesn't have that charge that I have."
The Department of Justice, no less than the Environmental Protection Agency,
he said, has a natural inclination to "bureaucratic zealousness," and congressional oversight is the only way to keep them in check.
Noting his "long and colorful career" scrutinizing government agencies, Armey said the only way to keep them in line is to force them to come back to Congress for reauthorization. Hence his insistence on sunsetting the Patriot Act surveillance provisions, which will die unless Congress votes for them again in the future.
THOUGHTS ON PELOSI
Retiring as majority leader with his reputation as a combative ideologue firmly intact, Armey dismissed critics who call the equally ideological Pelosi too liberal to lead her party.
"Too liberal for whom?" he retorted. "My theory is a party leader must embrace the central, core values of the party. I believe Nancy does that for her party.
"Why did Nancy walk away with that election on her side of the aisle?" he asked. "Because a clear majority of the Democratic Party is liberal."
Armey noted that Pelosi's opponent, Texas Rep. Martin Frost, "spent an entire weekend pretending to be Dick Armey," instead of a Democrat.
Scorning efforts by Clintonian Democrats to move to the middle, Armey praised Pelosi as an unapologetic liberal, just as he is unapologetic conservative.
Pelosi makes clear, he said, that " 'This is who I am. These are my values. I fight for them. I make no pretense about that. I have no reservations about that.' And that allows her to be a leader."
That is not to say Armey agrees with Pelosi's philosophy.
"I have had the luxury in my life of living by the slogan, 'Good policy makes good politics.' " he said. "Nancy's problem is that she can't come up with the first part of the slogan."
LAMENTS PARTISANSHIP
Oddly enough for a partisan deeply identified with the rise of the vitriolic, take-no-prisoner battles that now characterize the House, Armey said that as majority leader, he has "been more partisan than I wanted to be, I felt of necessity. And Nancy will be, I believe, as minority leader more partisan than she'll want to be, of necessity."
Partisanship has increased over the past decade, he said, because Republicans are still a young majority who ended roughly four decades of Democratic reign in 1994. It has taken time for Republicans to learn how to be the majority, just as Democrats have needed time to learn the skills of the minority.
Armey said the Republican majority is so narrow, even after gaining six seats last month, that Democrats feel they are just one election away from the majority, and Republicans feel they are just one election away from the minority.
That, he said "has caused us to introduce higher levels of partisanship in daily life than if we had a comfortable majority and they had an inevitable minority."
On the Republican side, he said, members urge leaders to "draw a line on these guys, we've got to show a difference, we've got to maintain control, because they'll get the upper hand for the campaign. On their side, it's 'look,
we can't concede anything, . . . we've got to be the voice of resistance so we can gain some advantage for the campaign.' Now when the stakes are as high as switching from majority to minority, that is an ever-present consideration."
E-mail Carolyn Lochhead at clochhead@sfchronicle.com.
----
U.S. set to cite Iraq for breach
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
December 5, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20021205-94437619.htm
The Bush administration is set to declare Iraq in violation of the U.N. resolution requiring Baghdad to give up weapons of mass destruction, The Washington Times has learned.
"It is going to be 'material breach,' not as a casus belli [cause for war] but as a basis to begin hammering Unmovic to do more," said an administration official familiar with the internal debate. Unmovic, or the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, is the arms-inspection group for Iraq.
Administration officials said a material-breach declaration will depend on whether Iraq fails to mention in its U.N. report some banned weapons programs identified in U.S. intelligence reports.
Iraq's report detailing everything it possesses related to weapons of mass destruction, which is due by Sunday, is required under a U.N. Security Council resolution passed Nov. 8.
A meeting of the White House National Security Council (NSC) is scheduled for today, and the Iraqi arms declaration will be the key topic. The president will not attend the gathering of senior officials of national security agencies, known as the principals committee.
U.S. officials said the administration has been withholding detailed intelligence on hidden Iraqi arms programs from U.N. inspectors. The information deals mostly with Iraq's covert chemical and biological arms.
"We do not want to tip our hand," the official said.
One piece of intelligence includes details on a cache of more than 1,800 gallons of anthrax spores, the officials said. Even tiny amounts of anthrax can be lethal. Less detailed intelligence has been gathered on Iraq's efforts to build nuclear weapons, the officials said.
The intelligence on the hidden weapons is said to be reliable and will be used to verify whether information presented by Iraq in its declaration is accurate.
An Iraqi general told the Associated Press yesterday that Baghdad will hand over the list of chemical, biological and nuclear programs Saturday, a day ahead of the U.N. deadline.
Gen. Hossam Mohammed Amin said the report will not disclose any banned weapons, "because, really, we have no weapons of mass destruction."
The U.S. position on how to respond to the Iraqi weapons list is being debated because of Baghdad's history of using deception to hide its arms programs, the officials said.
A U.S. policy of material breach, however, will be a key step toward the use of military force to oust the regime of Saddam Hussein, said officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The issue of declaring a material breach was discussed earlier this week at the NSC principals committee meeting, which, one official said, ended in "chaos" over disagreements on how to respond to the Iraqi declaration.
The administration expects Baghdad to turn over documents related to civilian programs that could be used to make chemical or biological arms, but nothing about covert weapons programs, the officials said.
President Bush said Tuesday that "any act of delay, deception or defiance will prove that Saddam Hussein has not adopted the path of compliance and has rejected the path of peace."
State Department and Pentagon spokesmen had no comment on the internal debate. A White House National Security Council spokesman also declined to comment.
Today's principals meeting will include Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, who missed the first meeting because he was in South America.
U.N. weapons inspectors so far have not uncovered any chemical, biological or nuclear weapons programs or any illegal missile-development work.
Those in the administration who want to oust Saddam favor issuing a material-breach declaration soon after Iraq presents the list.
These officials include representatives of the Defense Department, including Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith, along with Vice President Richard B. Cheney and his key national security aides.
Officials from the State Department, including Mr. Powell and Deputy Secretary Richard Armitage, oppose that view and favor slowing the timetable for military action.
These officials want to study the documents provided by Iraq and then continue U.N. arms inspections as a way to hold off military action.
Officials said Mr. Powell and Mr. Armitage are the leading opponents of using military force to oust Saddam. Both favor using the threat of force to compel Iraq to disarm, however.
According to the officials, Mr. Powell disagrees with administration officials who view Iraq, as Mr. Bush put it in an October speech, as a unique and "grave threat" to the United States.
Mr. Powell also does not share the view of Mr. Bush's senior advisers who say Saddam is likely to use weapons of mass destruction or share them with terrorists, the officials said.
"Powell favors endless inspections," one official said.
Mr. Powell is the main advocate of the argument that if Iraq gives up all its chemical, biological and nuclear arms programs it would be tantamount to "regime change," even if Saddam remains in power.
Other officials say the secretary of state's position undermines efforts within the administration and among American allies for removing Saddam and setting up a democratic government in Baghdad.
--------
Bush the Comedian: Poindexter, Abrams and Now Henry K.
by SAUL LANDAU
December 5, 2002
CounterPunch
http://www.counterpunch.org/landau1205.html
I didn't think President Bush had a highly developed sense of humor. Then, earlier this year, he appointed retired Admiral John Poindexter President Reagan's National Security Adviser to head the Information Awareness Office, the ultra secret, Pentagon snooping expedition to look through your email and underwear to discover possible terrorist connections. In the late 1980s, Poindexter lied to Congress and secretly plotted to circumvent the law prohibiting the sale of missiles to the US-hating fanatics in Iran. Poindexter colluded with other officials to use the proceeds to buy weapons for the CIA's contra rebels. Congress had de-funded the Contras. Bush (41) absolved him.
Previously, W had tested the Washington insiders' sense of humor by naming Elliott Abrams to a high national security post. Abrams pled guilty to lying to Congress in the same scandal and wrote in his autobiography that he told his own kids that lying to Congress served the national interest.
But Bush's biggest laugh came from appointing the 79 year old Henry Kissinger to head the investigation into the actions -- or inactions -- of government agencies around the 9/11 events.
"Ha," I laughed aloud, "the man least likely to reveal the truth, the man least interested in honesty and disclosure, the man with a world class reputation for spreading and supporting terror in several continents now reigns as commish of a panel to investigate terrorism! Wow! Talk about irony!
Instead of investigating Kissinger for his own terrorist acts, Dubya named the sly old fox to investigate mass murder in the proverbial hen house. The public will certainly feel assured - that is, those without memory or the ability to read history.
"Maybe," a friend suggested as a reason for appointing Kissinger, "the cartoonists' association made a large contribution to W's 2004 campaign fund! They will have a field day portraying Kissinger the master liar as the man charged with ferreting out the truth. Indeed, if Bush wasn't kidding around how would one explain appointing an arch criminal to investigate a fiendish crime?"
Is Bush just a moron as a Canadian official recently said before being forced to resign, or is there something behind this bizarre appointment? In the December 1 New York Times, Maureen Dowd attributes the K gag to Dick Cheney "Only someone as pathologically opaque as the vice president could appreciate the sublime translucency of Henry Kissinger. And only someone intent on recreating the glory days of the Ford and Nixon White Houses could have hungered to add the 79-year-old Dr. Strange-- I mean, Dr. Kissinger to the Bush team."
Strange----- I mean Kissinger as a teammate? When Kissinger won the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize after slaughtering tens of thousands of Vietnamese civilians in his infamous Christmas bombing, a friend suggested he should have won the prize for Physics.
"What did he know about physics?" I asked, like a straight man.
"Ah ha!" sneered my friend.
Some relatives of the 9/11 victims didn't get the joke when they heard of Bush's decision to dub Henry the chief prober. Why, some asked, appoint a man who had proven his hatred for democracy and much of humanity! But, most of all, why place a man who despises truth, especially in its published form?
In the 1970s, the Washington media, living in a world of liars, informally dubbed Henry as an unequaled prevaricator. An apocryphal story from the early 1970s has a confounded Washington press corps hiring a shrink and giving him press credentials to observe Kissinger during his famed media background briefing sessions and provide clues as to when the architect of US foreign policy is lying. After several sessions the shrink tells the reporters: "It's simple. When Kissinger folds his hands like a German school boy or fiddles with his glasses, he's telling the truth. When he opens his mouth to speak, he's lying."
W's advisers surely knew that Kissinger stands for governmental honesty as Al Capone symbolizes civic virtue and Ariel Sharon represents peace with Palestinians. So the Bushies may well have a non humorous motive for appointing this mountebank among charlatans.
Remember, W had opposed any investigation into 9/11. However, the media revealed that US agencies had foreknowledge of the horrid events and the families of the victims' exerted heavy pressure on Bush to probe. So, he had to investigate, but didn't want truth to emerge, that is, actual facts to appear in print.
So, Kissinger is the logical choice to insure that the public receives a contemporary Warren Commission report. When he wasn't actually carrying out campaigns of terror and murder, he spent much of his time lying and covering up his dirty deeds.
In 1968 Republican Party heavies choose him to fly to Paris to help sabotage President Johnson's peace talks with the Vietnamese. In his campaign, Nixon had promised to end the war and if the Vietnamese held out, Kissinger assured them secretly, Nixon would make a better peace with them. Nixon rewarded Kissinger for his nefarious behavior by naming him national security adviser. Kissinger rewarded the Vietnamese by prolonging the war, although he knew the United States could not win it. His "peace with honor" nonsense cost more than a million Vietnamese lives and scores of thousands of US soldiers dead and wounded.
In 1970, Kissinger had helped persuade Nixon to widen the war to include Cambodia. Without congressional authorization or even knowledge, Kissinger presided over the secret bombing and invasion of Cambodia, in an attempt to "cut off the Ho Chi Minh trail" and deprive the Vietnamese enemy of supplies. No one has yet accurately calculated how many hundreds of thousands of civilians died in this futile terrorist operation. Kissinger and Nixon secretly declared war against Cambodia without telling even the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Indeed, the pilots of the bomber planes kept false logs indicating that the Cambodia missions were flown over North Vietnam so as to deceive the Joint Chiefs.
Also in 1970, Kissinger conspired to alter the destiny of Chile. Dr. Salvador Allende, a socialist, won the election to head a popular unity government. With Nixon's approval, Kissinger directed a CIA covert operation to "destabilize" the government. In October 1970, with Kissinger's knowledge and approval, the CIA tried to assassinate Allende and did assassinate Chilean Army Chief, General Rene Schneider who stood as an obstacle to removing Allende, with the help of hired fascist thugs from "Patria y Libertad". (Currently, poor Henry is facing legal problems in connection with that murder). The Schneider family has sued K for wrongful death, claiming that documents prove "that [Kissinger] was involved in great detail in supporting the people who killed General Schneider, and then paid them off."
In another Chile-related case, Kissinger was asked by Chile's Supreme Court to answer official questions about the murder of an American reporter in Chile shortly after the September 1973 coup. It appears that very high officials in the State Department refused to help Charles Horman (See Costa Gavras' film Missing) when Pinochet's Gestapo were torturing and then murdering him.
K denied involvement in the coup from day one, although he chastised the Chilean people for being irresponsible in electing Allende as President. In 1972, Kissinger arranged to meet Orlando Letelier, Chile's Ambassador to Washington, at a dinner party. "With no trace of a smile," Letelier recounted to me, "Kissinger wanted me to assure Allende that the US government was not destabilizing the Chilean government."
Letelier laughed. He knew what was going on in Chile even if Kissinger was covering up his approval of CIA plans to commit violent acts to disrupt Chilean society. When the press corps pushed Kissinger as to why an elected socialist government threatened US security, Kissinger jokingly retorted: "Chile is like a dagger pointed at the heart of Antarctica."
After three years of dirty tricks against the government and people of Chile, including routine acts of violence, the Chilean military with CIA urging finally launched the coup that overthrew the elected government. In its place, a pro-US military junta led by General Augusto Pinochet carried out a long reign of terror, murdering, torturing and exiling its political opponents.
After the coup, Kissinger ordered immediate recognition and aid for the illegal government. In June, 1976, he graced Pinochet with a personal visit while most of the world was condemning him for its gross violations of human rights. Before delivering a speech at an OAS meeting in Chile, K met privately with Pinochet and assured the mass murderer that his forthcoming speech on human rights was not "directed against your government."
A State Department transcribed memo of the conversation shows that Kissinger flattered the man who he knew had murdered thousands including "enemies" abroad that "we are sympathetic to what you are trying to do here." Pinochet twice mentioned Orlando Letelier's name as being the man responsible for his bad "image" throughout the world. Kissinger assured Pinochet of Washington's support for his methods. I think he meant economic methods and the means he used for established "order." I don't think K meant to give Pinochet the green light to assassinate Letelier in Washington.
But in September 1976, three months later, Pinochet sent his assassins to Washington to car bomb Letelier. Ronni Moffitt, a US colleague at the Institute for Policy Studies where they both worked, also died in the terrorist attack. The FBI discovered that the Letelier car bombing was part of Operation Condor, a network of Latin American intelligence agencies headquartered in Chile that carried out surveillance on each other's dissidents and sometimes "disappeared" and assassinated them in each other's countries. Pinochet had extended his murderous reach beyond the friendly military dictatorships of South America, however. The FBI discovered that he had set up assassination plots in Rome, London, Paris and Madrid as well. Kissinger knew all about them before he gave Pinochet his Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.
Like Stanley Kubrick's film character Dr. Strangelove, K possesses an eccentric sense of humor. After having initially backed a Kurdish uprising against Saddam Hussein the mid 1970s, he abruptly pulled the rug from under the rebelling Kurds. When a subordinate responded in shock to K's lightning desertion of an ally since he had heard the Secretary promise the Kurds undying loyalty and aid, K quoted the old adage: "Promise them anything, give them what they get and f. them if they can't take a joke."
In recent years, however, Kissinger himself has become the butt of a few jokes. In 2001, a Chilean judge investigating Condor has tried to include Kissinger in his witness list. (Letelier was killed in a Condor operation.) Baltazar Garzon, the Spanish judge who requested the English to arrest Pinochet in 1998 also wants to question Kissinger about his knowledge of Pinochet's crimes. A French judge presiding over a case involving the kidnapping of French citizens in Chile wants Kissinger to answer questions. Last May, he sent police to Paris' Ritz Hotel, where Kissinger was staying, to serve him questions. In February, Kissinger canceled a trip to Brazil when he heard that human rights groups would picket him.
In December 1975, the jocular Kissinger tacitly accepted Indonesian President Suharto's "understanding if we deem it necessary to take rapid or drastic action" in East Timor. Ford replied: "We will understand and will not press you on the issue. We understand the problem you have and the intentions you have." Suharto quickly carried out his "intentions" on East Timor. Kissinger denied knowledge and wrote the lie, like the one on Chile, into his memoirs.
K preferred dealing with "authoritarian" regimes (dictatorships) because he found them less troublesome than democracies. So, in 1976 the Argentine foreign minister representing the military dictatorship described Kissinger as "euphoric" over their plans for repression. Kissinger's advice was to make the killing quick. This was early in what came to be known as the "dirty war," in which with tacit US backing as many as 30,000 died at the hands of the military government.
The man who once loved terrorists as long as they occupied state power in Chile, Argentina and Indonesia and behaved obediently to him will now investigate terrorism used against the master state itself. The Democrats have accepted this farce without a smile and agreed to work with K. Will they co-author with Kissinger the equivalent of the Warren Commission Report on 9/11? Or will Dr. Strangelove undergo basic character change and redeem himself by forcing an honest search? On December 3, Kissinger announced that taking the top investigative job did not entail his revealing the names of his business clients. Reporters suspect that Kissinger has had a long and profitable relationship with Saudi Arabian royal family members. If Vice President Cheney doesn't have to tell Congress whom he met with on the energy plan, why should Kissinger. So, more than ever we look forward to full disclosure and an open investigation. Did someone say bookies are giving 100 to 1 against it?
Saul Landau teaches at Cal Poly Pomona University and is a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies. Landau's new film, IRAQ: VOICES FROM THE STREETS is distributed by The Cinema Guild in New York City.
-------- MILITARY
-------- africa
A U.S. Beachhead On Horn of Africa
Region's Importance in War on Terror Grows With Use of Strategic Djibouti
By Emily Wax
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, December 5, 2002; Page A28
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A11044-2002Dec4?language=printer
KHOR ANGAR, Djibouti -- Just an hour's ride in a fast boat from Yemen, Osama bin Laden's ancestral homeland, the United States is building an extensive military task force in Djibouti to combat al Qaeda, highlighting Africa's crucial role in the war on terrorism.
In the middle of Djibouti's desert and around its strategically situated port, 3,200 U.S. Marines, Special Forces troops and Air Force pilots have come together in this former French colony on the Horn of Africa. They are part of a U.S. joint task force for the region, a special military command to track down suspected terrorists in neighboring African countries as well as in Yemen, 30 miles across the Bab al-Mandab strait.
Since ancient times, Djibouti has been prime real estate, with a military importance that belies its size. The Muslim country, which gained independence from France in 1977, covers just under 9,000 square miles, much of it wasteland. But it is surrounded by Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia, it looks across the Bab al-Mandab toward the oil-rich Arabian Peninsula, and it opens to the Red Sea northward and the Indian Ocean southward.
In addition, 500 miles to the south lies Kenya, where a suicide bombing claimed 16 lives on Nov. 28 near the port city of Mombasa. Though it has not been solved, foreign intelligence sources have suggested the bombing and an almost simultaneous missile attack on an airliner leaving Mombasa's airport may have been the work of al Qaeda or al-Ittihad al-Islamiya, a Somali group with reported links to bin Laden's network. The Americans' presence here is partly because of concern about al-Ittihad's activities in Somalia, a largely lawless nation that shares a porous border with Djibouti.
Charging into sand caves and belching dust balls as they perform live-ammunition exercises, 2,400 Marines from the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit have landed their beige tents and helicopter gunships here, simulating war and practicing how to capture terrorist suspects. Their training also takes into account the fact that they could be called into service if there is a war with Iraq.
"This is a very important environment and terrain for the troops to learn and understand," said Capt. Dan McSweeney, standing in the sprawling camp at Khor Angar, 40 miles north of Djibouti city, the capital, as a camel lumbered across the sand. "We want to be prepared for anything."
Meanwhile, 800 Special Forces troops trained to conduct clandestine attacks have taken over Camp Lemonier, a French air base near the airport that serves Djibouti city. U.S. contractors there are building showers, bathrooms and a swimming pool, indicating that the U.S. forces plan to stay awhile. The amphibious command ship USS Mount Whitney, with 600 Marines aboard, is scheduled to arrive here from Norfolk this month.
Some of the Marines said they are being trained in biological and chemical warfare and in techniques to fight bomb attacks.
"We learned what to do if there was chemical war," said Cpl. Sambo Tithe, 22, from Silver Spring. "We were also trained in how to fight in caves and how to spot terrorist attacks on sea and land. It's like a slide show for fighting terrorism."
The Horn of Africa's impoverished nations yearn to cooperate with and receive aid from powerful Western countries. But they also retain strong cultural and religious ties to the Muslim world.
Djibouti is a member of the Arab League. Five times a day, the call to prayer rings out. During the month-long observation of Ramadan, daily life in this already sleepy nation -- with its four-hour workdays and eight hours that many people spend chewing the intoxicating leaves known as qat -- has slowed even more.
Djibouti has a population of about 473,000,. divided mainly between the Issa tribe, which is ethnically Somali, and the Afar tribe, a nomadic group linked to Ethiopia. The only cinema in the capital was recently showing "Black Hawk Down" on its outdoor screen, a movie depicting a battle that claimed 18 American lives in Mogadishu, the Somali capital, in 1993 and may have involved al-Ittihad, according to intelligence assessments. U.S. intelligence agents said they are monitoring Djibouti's large Somali immigrant population.
Djiboutian officials said they want to help the United States fight terrorism, asserting they were the first country to contact the United States after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and offer use of the country's ports.
"We have a strategic position, and we want to use it to ensure peace," said Prime Minister Dileita Mohamed Dileita. "With the Americans and the Europeans, we will try to do our best to fight terrorism in Djibouti and the region."
Since the Sept. 11 attacks, a multinational unit called Task Force 150, now commanded by Spanish officers, has been patrolling sea lanes used to transport U.S. war materials to the Persian Gulf. The lanes are potential danger zones since al Qaeda attackers use the seas to hide and transport their materials, said Rear Adm. Javier Romero, chief of staff of Task Force 150.
Along with the American troops, the Spanish navy is closely watching Yemen, a known hiding place for al Qaeda followers and the site of the October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole that killed 17 U.S. sailors.
"The threat is very serious in my opinion," Romero said. "Our job here is to deny terrorists the use of these very important waterways."
The CIA is also in Djibouti, where its operatives directed a Predator drone equipped with Hellfire missiles into Yemen on Nov. 3 to kill an al Qaeda activist, according to diplomatic sources.
Dileita, in an interview, denied reports that the drone was dispatched from Djibouti. He said his country does not support launching attacks into Yemen. Djibouti, he added, is in a risky position with its Muslim neighbors.
"We don't want an amalgam of Islam and terrorists," Dileita said. "If today there was an attack from here into Yemen, American authorities would have to know that they would need U.N. permission."
Although the government has pledged its cooperation, U.S. forces gathering here have found themselves in a country that Arthur Rimbaud, the French poet, called "this awful colony and filthy country."
Djibouti, a country of sweltering heat and arid desert stretches where scratchy plants occasionally sprout, produces almost nothing and imports almost everything it needs. Although unemployment exceeds 50 percent, prices are shockingly high. Beverages such as sodas and fruit juices cost the equivalent of $6. Thirty-minute taxi rides can cost $60.
Some Djiboutians see the arrival of U.S. troops -- with the dollars they would spend in food shops, hotels and the souvenir markets that line the town -- as a chance to boost the economy and create jobs. The supplemental U.S. defense budget passed March 21 includes $373 million for counterterrorist financing in Djibouti, Ethiopia and Kenya. U.S. officials declined to say how big Djibouti's slice will be.
Djiboutians say they want it to be used for aid projects, such as improving water and roads. Some foreign and local relief workers are upset that funds from the U.S. Agency for International Development, which were slated to help herders vaccinate their cattle, are being diverted to sprucing up the airport with computerized equipment and air traffic controls. Djibouti has the highest infant mortality rate in Africa.
"It's like this in a lot of African countries," said Mohamed Abwais, director of tourism for Djibouti. "They come, they take and they go. But we can't say no to America. You say no to President Bush and then, poof, no Djibouti. The thing we need is more of a bridge between the two people."
Some Djiboutians complained that U.S. troops are not seen around town and are not spending money in the shops. The Spanish and German troops here with Task Force 150, they pointed out, are often seen eating at outdoor fish stands.
In Obock, north of the capital across the Gulf of Tadjoura, protests broke out when U.S. troops wanted to use the port and Djiboutian traders feared that the Americans would interrupt distribution of qat imported from neighboring Ethiopia. U.S. military officials countered that they have already moved their dock at Obock and that they do not go out much because of a security threat.
To ease tensions, Marines in Obock repaired a school, building new desks and chairs in a one-day humanitarian gesture. During the rebuilding, some Marines handed out packets of chocolate to children in the town. Most Marines did not realize it was Ramadan and that many children were fasting or at least abstaining from eating sweets from sunup to sundown.
One mother chuckled wearily as her children ripped open the packet and shoved the chocolate into their mouths. "We will have to get used to each other," said Jocylen Ibrahim Omaha, 27, whose home sits a few steps from where the Marines were working. "I think they might be here a long time."
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Bush Meets with Leaders of Kenya and Ethiopia
December 5, 2002
New York Times
By DAVID STOUT
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/05/politics/05CND-PREXY.html
WASHINGTON, Dec. 5 - President Bush and the leaders of two nations in the Horn of Africa, a region that intelligence experts have described as a possible haven for terrorists, pledged mutual support today in what Mr. Bush called a worldwide war against terror.
"We welcome two strong friends of America here, two leaders of countries which have joined us to fight the global war," Mr. Bush said at a White House appearance with President Daniel arap Moi of Kenya and Prime Minister Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia.
Mr. Bush, accompanied by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, called the leaders "two steadfast allies, two people that the American people can count on when it comes to winning the first war of the 21st century."
The president's meeting with the leaders, planned some time ago, took on extra meaning because of the terror attacks last week on Kenya's Indian Ocean coast. Kenya is a possible stop for Mr. Bush when he travels to Africa next month. Mr. Bush may visit the rebuilt American Embassy in Nairobi, where more than 200 people were killed in a terrorist bombing in 1998.
Referring to last week's attacks, which seemed to be aimed at least partly at vacationing Israelis, Mr. Bush said, "Our country mourns the loss of life in Kenya, the tragedy that befell your country as a result of killers trying to terrorize freedom-loving people."
Mr. Bush said on Wednesday that he suspected Al Qaeda terrorists in the attacks, which included a bombing at a hotel where Israelis were staying and an unsuccessful missile attack on a chartered Israeli airliner.
Today's visit to Washington was the last for Mr. Moi, who is soon to retire from office. He said he planned to discuss many issues with Mr. Bush, the most important being "security within the whole of Africa and particularly my own country, Kenya."
Kenya is bordered by Somalia and Sudan, two countries that have long been unstable and thus, in the opinion of many intelligence analysts, fertile spawning ground for extremists.
Prime Minister Zenawi of Ethiopia acknowledged Mr. Bush's description of the campaign against terrorism as "the first war of the 21st Century."
"We believe that the war against terrorism is a war against people who have not caught up with the 21st century, who have values and ideas that are contrary to the values of the 21st century," Mr. Zenawi said. "It's the fight between those who want to catch up with the 21st century and those who want to remain where they are."
As he has before, Mr. Bush described the campaign against terror as a global one and said people must remember that "if the terrorists could strike in Kenya, they could strike in Ethiopia, they could strike in Europe."
"We must continue this war to hunt these killers down one at a time to bring them to justice, which means information-sharing," Mr. Bush said. "We're pleased with the information-sharing we're getting from our allies here. It means cutting off the money. And it means bringing to justice, like the Kenyan authorities will be doing to those who kill, and take innocent life."
Inevitably, Mr. Bush was asked whether he thought war with Iraq was likely, and what would trigger it.
"That's the question that you should ask of Saddam Hussein," Mr. Bush replied. "It's his choice to make."
--------
U.N. Approves More Congo Peacekeepers
December 5, 2002
New York Times
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/05/international/africa/05CONG.html
UNITED NATIONS, Dec. 4 - The United Nations Security Council cleared the way today for nearly 3,200 more peacekeepers to be sent into the eastern part of Congo as the central African country's long civil war grinds down.
A resolution approved unanimously by the 15-nation Council raised the peacekeeper troop limit in the vast nation to 8,700 from 5,537 to try to advance the often halting peace process into its final phase. There are 4,200 peacekeepers in Congo now.
The vote on the resolution was delayed by a day when the United States tried to add language to the text that would have kept American peacekeepers in Congo from the reach of the International Criminal Court. There are currently no American peacekeeping soldiers in Congo, and Washington dropped the effort after other Council members refused to go along.
The new court was set up to pursue atrocities like genocide, war crimes and gross human rights abuses. But the Bush administration has rejected it, arguing it could be used by a malicious prosecutor to ensnare American peacekeepers or other officials through politically motivated lawsuits.
-------- asia
U.S. Troops to Remain in S. Korea
December 5, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-US-SKorea.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- There will be no change to the agreement covering the status of 37,000 U.S. troops in South Korea despite the deaths of two girls hit by an American military vehicle, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Thursday.
In a news conference with South Korean Defense Minister Lee Jun, Rumsfeld said the United States ``deeply regrets'' the deaths and the military is taking steps to make sure similar accidents do not happen.
Rumsfeld noted that the status agreement was revised two years ago. ``We did not see any way that any change in it would have avoided the accident,'' Rumsfeld said.
Hundreds of Koreans continued protests Thursday against the acquittals in U.S. military courts of two soldiers in the June deaths of two 13-year-old girls hit by a mine-clearing vehicle.
South Korean officials have said they could use the incident to discuss possible changes to the Status of Forces Agreement covering the U.S. troops in South Korea.
Lee said he and Rumsfeld agreed that the United States and South Korea need to coordinate their responses to the nuclear threat posed by North Korea.
Military tensions in the region have escalated since North Korea disclosed in October that it had a secret program to develop nuclear weapons. North Korea had agreed to end its nuclear weapons programs in 1994 in exchange for two civilian nuclear power reactors and fuel oil help.
That agreement collapsed, and the shipments of fuel oil to North Korea have halted.
Lee said he told Rumsfeld that South Korea would continue several cooperative projects with North Korea.
``They allow us to maintain a dialogue channel with North Korea,'' Lee said.
But the South Korean minister said his government would continue to coordinate with the United States and Japan in talks with China, Russia and the European Union aimed at trying to find a ``harmonious resolution'' to the problem.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Il ``must take full responsibility to solving this problem,'' Lee said. Rumsfeld warned that North Korea had ``embarked on a very dangerous course'' by violating international nuclear weapons agreements.
Rumsfeld has said he believes North Korea already has one or two nuclear weapons made from plutonium before the 1994 agreement.
Rumsfeld said he and Lee discussed contingency plans for a renewed military conflict in Korea, but would not say what those plans entailed.
-------- biological weapons
Bioterrorism Defense Plan Takes Shape
Progress Made In Preparations
By Chris L. Jenkins
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 5, 2002; Page VA03
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A8541-2002Dec4?language=printer
The Alexandria Health Department has hired an epidemiologist and a staff member to oversee anti-bioterrorism programs. In Loudoun, health workers have developed a plan for communicating with neighboring counties and cities in case of a smallpox outbreak, and the county is waiting for more experts to come on board this month.
In Arlington County, public health officials have developed a detailed plan for responding to a bioterrorism threat, with specific responsibilities for staff members.
Across Northern Virginia, cities and counties have beefed up their health departments in preparing for a possible biological weapon attack that could infect residents with anything from smallpox to dangerous influenza.
Under state supervision, some health departments have developed ways to identify pathogens more quickly. Others have written action plans.
Everything has been financed by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, which allotted Virginia $22 million last month to continue planning and preparation.
In Arlington, officials are going a step further and participating in a federal test of how quickly hundreds of civilians could be vaccinated in case of attack.
Next month, the county plans to host a Department of Health and Human Services mock vaccination exercise with 500 people at Washington-Lee High School. Each will be given an orange to be injected with water as everyone moves through a line. Then, to approximate a crowd of 1,000, the group will repeat the process.
Officials said it's a way to see how the federal government responds to a large crowd that may need to be immunized quickly.
Arlington officials were quick to note, however, that the county was not singled out because it faces a special risk but only because it volunteered to participate in the federal exercise.
Overall, state officials cite progress in preparing for possible attack.
"I think we have made great strides in improving our ability to respond quickly," said Lisa Kaplowitz, Virginia's deputy commissioner for emergency preparedness and response. "What we're trying to do is develop an infrastructure, so that staff is in place, trained and equipped with a tested system."
Some of the most significant progress has been in hiring specialists. In recent months, each Northern Virginia health department has hired an epidemiologist or bioterrorism event coordinator. Statewide, all 138 new positions are expected to be filled by next month.
In addition, health departments have sent smallpox response plans to the CDC. Because funding comes from Uncle Sam, the state's budget troubles are not affecting local health departments' ability to hire and train extra staff. Some have found better ways to communicate with state labs. Others have developed procedures to cooperate with nearby military bases.
"One of the most important things we've been able to do is get our epidemiologist and bioterrorism director hired," said Charles Konigsberg, director of the Alexandria Department of Public Health. "Once we are able to hire staff, we're better able to complete our preparedness plans."
In Fairfax County, officials of 25 government departments, including schools, hospitals and the water authority, meet monthly for updates on how to respond to bioterrorism.
In addition, the county's hazardous materials team is on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week -- a procedure that started Sept. 11, 2001 -- and emergency procedures for all county staff members have been updated. The county has improved its communications system to contact county employees via e-mail immediately in an emergency, and it has reassigned personnel to focus exclusively on informing the public if bioterrorism occurs.
"We heard from the public that they wanted to make sure they were properly informed at all times," said Merni Fitzgerald, Fairfax's director of public information.
Throughout the region, plans have been developed to respond to potential diseases. Guidelines have been established for anthrax, plagues and viral fevers. Preparations include development of fact sheets for doctors, diagnoses for health care providers and directions on how to treat and control infection quickly.
For instance, in its report to the CDC on smallpox preparation, Virginia has recommended that several locations be available as inoculation sites if the federal government decides to vaccinate Americans in anticipation of an attack. President Bush has not decided whether to offer a smallpox vaccine, given concerns about potential side effects.
State officials have also identified sites that might be used after a smallpox attack and how public health staff members would relay information to doctors, emergency workers and the public.
Several local officials also said that recent public health scares, including anthrax-related incidents, have helped them develop better-coordinated and detailed plans.
"I think we've learned a lot from last year and our recent cases of malaria," said David Goodfriend, director of public health for Loudoun.
Last year, a 59-year-old contract worker at a State Department mail facility in Sterling contracted inhalation anthrax. Goodfriend said such events forced the county to communicate across jurisdictions, even across state lines with Maryland in the case of the malaria outbreak, to attack a public health problem jointly.
"We've been able to learn from those experiences and develop some good strategies," he said.
Regional and state officials acknowledge that preparing for bioterrorism means constantly retooling procedures to keep up with new information.
"It continues to be a work in progress," said Mark Penn, deputy coordinator for emergency services in Arlington, who said the county is constantly reviewing its plans to ensure that they are timely. "When you think you're done, you're really not done."
-------- business
Tapping your paycheck
By Chris Baker
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
December 5, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/business/20021205-80773326.htm
Get ready to add another piece of plastic to your wallet. Employers are signing up to offer their workers the Clear card, which allows employees to borrow money - interest-free - from future paychecks.
For example, if a worker uses the card to buy a $100 pair of shoes, his next four weekly paychecks will be $25 lighter. Using the Clear card instead of a credit card allows the worker to avoid interest payments and late fees.
Executives at E-Duction, a Blue Bell, Pa., company that created the card, were unavailable for comment. In published reports, executives said the card is useful in cash emergencies, but its real advantage is convenience.
"Now you just payroll-deduct and throw the bills away," Kirk Watkins, E-Duction's founder and chief executive, told the New York Times in September.
Twelve employers, including First Data Corp., the parent company of money-transfer powerhouse Western Union, offer the Clear card, according to reports. In all, 2,000 cards have been issued.
E-Duction is reportedly talking to another 150 to 200 companies with 4 million workers.
At least 10 percent of First Data's employees have signed up to use the Clear card.
"We feel we have a comprehensive benefits package, and this seemed like it would be a unique addition. The cost to us has been incremental," said Wendy Carver-Herbert, a First Data spokeswoman.
The company has not researched how its employees use the card. Mrs. Carver-Herbert said she knows at least one worker used it to buy a set of tires for her daughter's car.
"Essentially, it allowed her to buy all four tires at once, but pay for each tire one at a time," she said.
Payroll deduction is not a new idea. Many workers already have arrangements with their employers to deduct money each month for retirement plans, life insurance policies, transit vouchers and their children's education.
Some employers offer their workers flexible savings accounts, which also allow employees to set aside money from each paycheck.
The accounts have not caught on because employees are required to complete a lot of paperwork to access the money, according to David Albertson, editorial director of Employee Benefits News, a magazine for personnel directors.
"A product like the Clear card streamlines the flexible savings-account process. Employees can access the funds whenever they like," Mr. Albertson said.
Workers pay an annual $29 fee for a Clear card, which can be used at any of the 28 million merchants who accept MasterCard. The worker receives a spending limit of 2.5 percent of their salary if they earn $75,000 a year or less, and as much as 4 percent if they earn more, the reports said.
Any amount an employee borrows is automatically paid back over two months. For workers paid every two weeks or twice a month, each transaction will be paid off in four equal payments, the reports say.
According to the company's Web site, if a worker makes a purchase through one of E-Duction's "preferred merchants," payments can be spread over six months.
What happens if a worker charges a purchase but is fired or quits? The reports say the card's annual percentage rate will go from zero to 14.99 percent if a worker voluntarily closes the account, his minimum payment exceeds his net pay for all payments due in a month or he is no longer a full-time employee at the company or does not maintain a minimum $20,000 annual salary.
Some critics say the Clear card could be more trouble than its worth.
"I wouldn't call it the Clear Conscience card," said Steve Rhode, president and co-founder of MyVesta.org Inc., a credit-counseling center in Rockville.
Most consumers are "poor mental accountants," Mr. Rhode said, making it easy for them to use the Clear card to overspend.
E-Duction executives said the card could help consumers build good credit.
"It's not targeted at the disenfranchised," John Gregitis, the company's chief operating officer, told Investor's Business Daily in July. Clear card users have an average salary of $58,000, he said.
The Clear card is an example of the kind of voluntary benefits employers are increasingly offering.
In recent years, many companies have introduced long-term care insurance and 529 plans, which allow employees to save for their children's education via payroll deduction.
"So many employers have had to cut back on health benefits. Offering these voluntary benefits helps ease the pain," said Mr. Albertson of Employee Benefits News magazine.
-------- colombia
Powell Pledges More Support For Colombia's Anti-Rebel War
New President Is Praised for Tough Stance on Guerrillas
By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 5, 2002; Page A22
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A11038-2002Dec4?language=printer
BOGOTA, Colombia, Dec. 4 -- Secretary of State Colin L. Powell strongly backed the Colombian government's stepped-up war against rebel forces and drug traffickers today, pledging to seek more funding from Congress to aid the United States' deepening commitment to a four-decade-old civil war.
The Bush administration, breaking from past U.S. hesitation to become more directly involved, has argued that the Colombian conflict is part of the broader worldwide war on terrorism. It won temporary permission from Congress earlier this year to use hundreds of millions of dollars in anti-drug aid directly against the anti-government guerrillas and other paramilitary forces, not just the drug crops and labs they protect and profit from.
Powell argued the policy shift was necessary because "these kinds of organizations are committed to destroying democracy in our hemisphere." He said the administration next year will seek permanent authority -- and additional money -- to directly aid the Colombian government's counterinsurgency war. Colombia already is the third-largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid and is expected to receive $537 million in 2003, bringing total U.S. aid to Colombia to more than $1.8 billion since 2000.
"Our commitment has grown even stronger as we stand together against the threats of terrorism both our countries face," Powell said as he lavished praise on Colombia's new president, Alvaro Uribe, and his political, economic and security agenda.
The State Department lists the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, as the 18,000-member Marxist-oriented insurgency is known, and the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, or AUC, a right-wing paramilitary group, as "foreign terrorist organizations," along with a smaller leftist guerrilla group. All are financed principally by proceeds from kidnappings and the illegal drug business that supplies 90 percent of the cocaine that enters the United States, and much of the heroin.
Powell's 22-hour trip here had been canceled twice in the past year but was put back on his schedule as Colombia assumed the presidency of the U.N. Security Council this month. By Sunday, Iraq is required to submit a declaration detailing the status of its chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs, which will likely prompt critical debates within the council on how to respond.
"We would expect [Colombia] to administer the council in a responsible way," Powell said, permitting an "an open, full and comprehensive debate" on whether Iraq has met the terms of a Nov. 8 Security Council resolution strengthening the mandate of U.N. weapons inspectors and warning of "serious consequences" if Iraq fails to cooperate with them.
With 2,000 police maintaining heavy security throughout Bogota, Powell swept through a series of meetings with Uribe and senior Colombian officials, as well as representatives of human rights groups. He aimed to deliver a balanced message of praising the government while stressing that U.S. backing did not give the government license to abuse civil rights.
Powell praised Uribe as "a leader who's taking charge and is dealing with the problems that have faced Colombia for such a long period of time." But Powell said he made clear to Uribe that "there can be no tolerance for abuse of human rights of the kind that has been seen in the past."
A recent report by Human Rights Watch said Colombia's attorney general had undermined investigations of the paramilitary groups, which fight the guerrillas in tandem with the military. The United States has provided about $25 million to the attorney general's office and trained prosecutors, some of whom were fired by Luis Camilo Osorio, the attorney general.
Powell also toured a new anti-narcotics facility that houses helicopters and other equipment provided by the United States. He told reporters he was gathering information so he can make a better case for enhanced aid when he testifies before Congress next year.
In fiscal 2002, Colombia received $411 million in U.S. aid. That would grow more than 25 percent, to $537 million, under a fiscal 2003 proposal pending in Congress. Powell told Colombian officials he would seek even more money in the fiscal 2004 budget now being assembled by the administration.
"We are searching for ways to give support to Uribe across the board," said U.S. Ambassador Anne W. Patterson, citing enhanced intelligence as a key area under discussion.
Under the first phase of a new $129 million program approved by Congress this year, 23 U.S. military advisers arrived this week to train Colombian army troops to protect a 500-mile pipeline, operated by Occidental Petroleum Corp. of Los Angeles, that is a frequent guerrilla target, Patterson said. The total will grow to 60, most of them Special Forces, by the end of the year.
The United States has also provided 71 helicopters to the army and 61 to the police. Powell rejected suggestions that the growing U.S. involvement in Colombia is similar to the buildup that led to the Vietnam War. "I don't see a parallel, though the helicopters are remarkably familiar," said Powell, a veteran of two tours in Vietnam.
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Powell Says U.S. Will Increase Military Aid for Colombia
December 5, 2002
New York Times
By STEVEN R. WEISMAN
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/05/international/americas/05COLO.html
BOGOTÁ, Colombia, Dec. 4 - Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said today that the United States would increase military assistance to Colombia, asserting that its war on leftist guerrillas and rightist paramilitary groups - and on their narcotics trafficking - was part of the Bush administration's campaign against terrorism.
The aid, more than $500 million a year, would be used for drug eradication, support for military and police forces and renewal of support for Colombian narcotics-interception flights that rely on intelligence from American spy planes. Such flights were suspended last year after a plane carrying missionaries was shot down over Peru.
The new aid will put Colombia roughly on a par with Afghanistan and Pakistan as a recipient of American military and antidrug assistance, administration officials said.
In a one-day trip to this Andean capital city, Secretary Powell met with Colombia's new president, Álvaro Uribe Vélez, who was elected last summer after pledging a crackdown on violent groups that rely on drug money for support. Mr. Uribe is also pressing for a more aggressive campaign of eradicating coca fields than his predecessors.
After more than three decades of civil war, various antigovernment groups engaged in the drug trade control most of Colombia's vast expanse of mountains and farm valleys. But rights groups have accused the Colombian military of fighting those forces with too much reliance on rightist military squads organized by landlords.
"We are firmly committed to President Uribe and his new national security strategy," Secretary Powell said. "We are going to work with our Congress to provide additional funding for Colombia."
In all, the United States has spent $1.8 billion on antinarcotics measures and military and law enforcement aid to Colombia since 2000.
The administration is asking Congress for $537 million in the current fiscal year, up from $411 million last year, according to the ambassador to Colombia, Anne W. Patterson.
In a reflection of the American economic interests here, the requested sum includes nearly $100 million to help secure a 500-mile oil pipeline in eastern Colombia that transports 100,000 barrels a day for Occidental Petroleum of Los Angeles. Guerrilla groups have repeatedly attacked the pipeline.
Next year, the United States will have 60 of its own Special Operations forces and intelligence operatives to help train Colombian forces to guard the pipeline, Ambassador Patterson said.
Secretary Powell, saying he would seek even more money in the next fiscal year, expressed satisfaction with his visit, which included a tour of narcotics eradication equipment at a military airport here. He said it had given him "ammunition" to persuade skeptics not only in Congress but also within the administration's budget office. "I am very impressed by what I have seen," he said after his tour.
Addressing the issue of terrorism within Colombia, the secretary said it no longer made sense to insist on separating it from the battle against narcotics, because they were linked as threats to democracy. Asked if he worried that America's involvement in Colombia might lead to a Vietnam-like quagmire, the secretary, who fought in Vietnam, said there was no comparison.
"I don't see this in Vietnam terms," he said, adding that Colombia's antigovernment groups should not be "romanticized" as "some sort of charming freedom fighters." He did add, however, that the helicopters being supplied by the United States were "remarkably familiar."
The secretary's visit, though brief, carried symbolism for a region increasingly beset by instability and eager for attention from the United States, which is seen here as preoccupied by its efforts against terrorism elsewhere. Indeed, Secretary Powell was supposed to have visited Colombia last year, but his visit was canceled because of the Sept. 11 attacks. Another visit was canceled earlier this year.
Colombia's importance for the administration is underscored by its holding of the presidency of the United Nations Security Council, where Washington has sought its support for the campaign against Iraq.
Secretary Powell said, however, that he had been unable to persuade Mr. Uribe to exempt Americans serving in Colombia from any human rights prosecutions by the International Criminal Court. The Bush administration, which has refused to join the court, has sought such exemptions from countries where Americans are serving.
-------- iran
Hard-line unit vows war with reformers
By Ali Akbar Dareini
ASSOCIATED PRESS
December 5, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20021205-75555008.htm
TEHRAN - A hard-line group best known for disrupting reformist gatherings and beating up students declared a "holy war" yesterday to rid Iran of reformers who promote Western democracy and challenge the country's supreme leader.
The declaration by Ansar-e-Hezbollah, the chief organization of the so-called vigilante movement, appeared to be a direct challenge to reformist President Mohammed Khatami.
Masoud Dehnamaki, an ideologue with the group, also said yesterday that Iranians who try to appease Iran's enemies such as the United States "should be stopped."
The declaration, which appeared as an article in the weekly newspaper Ya Lesarat, the usual vehicle for announcing Ansar-e-Hezbollah decisions, warned that the time has come for a "revolutionary jihad," or holy war, to remove reformers from power and replace them with "idealist and religious" officials.
The declaration follows some of the largest demonstrations in years by students protesting a death sentence imposed on a reformist leader, Hashem Aghajari, for making statements questioning the rule of the clergy over Iranian society.
Also yesterday, Mohammed Reza Khatami, leader of the reformist Islamic Iran Participation Front, made a statement suggesting further confrontations were likely between the country's reformers and hard-liners.
Mr. Khatami, the younger brother of the president, was quoted by the official Islamic Republic News Agency as saying the behavior of hard-liners may bring Iran to a "situation that no one would be able to control." He had earlier warned that moderates would walk out of government if hard-liners continued to thwart efforts toward reform.
The toughly worded article in Ya Lesarat also comes after a statement last month by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei saying he may "appeal to the people" to resolve the country's problems if Mr. Khatami's government and the hard-line judiciary could not narrow their differences.
The supreme leader usually stays out of factional politics although he is mainly known for siding with hard-liners.
Ya Lesarat described the Khatami government as a "paralyzed executive branch" and threatened to take action against it and against the "unfaithful [reformist] lawmakers who have penetrated into the parliament."
The paper added that the "revolutionary cleanup" entails a "comprehensive attack on the cultural invasion bases of liberal and secular intellectuals."
Mr. Dehnamaki said people who have taken posts in the Islamic establishment but do not carry out Ayatollah Khamenei's orders need to be punished.
"Those who seek changes to appease enemies including the U.S. should be stopped. People will come to act if they [reformists] go beyond their limits," he said.
Enemies of Iran such as the United States should not think clashes between the country's reformers and hard-liners would bring the collapse of the Islamic establishment, he said.
"Vigilantes and so-called reformers will join hands to target the heart of American soldiers if they decide to attack us," he said.
-------- iraq
Allies blitz Iraq in preparation for all-out war
By Richard Norton-Taylor in London
December 5 2002
Sydney Morning Herald, The Guardian, The Washington Post
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/12/04/1038950095864.html
The total amount of bombs dropped by British and American aircraft on targets in southern Iraq has increased dramatically over the past few months, in a clear indication that the no-fly zone is being used to destroy the country's air defence systems in anticipation of an all-out attack.
Ordnance dropped on Iraq in response to threats has increased by 300per cent since March this year, according to figures released by Britain's Ministry of Defence in response to an MP's questions.
Ordnance released over Iraq from March1 to November13 this year totalled 126.4 tonnes. This is an average of nearly 15 tonnes a month - a 60per cent increase over last year.
For every threat detected in April and May 2002, about one third of a tonne of bombs was dropped on Iraq; between September and November, every threat was met with an average of 1.3tonnes. Ordnance weighing 0.3tonnes was dropped in April, a figure that soared to more than 54 tonnes in September.
British officials have admitted privately that the "no-fly" patrols, conducted by Royal Air Force and United States aircraft from bases in Kuwait, are designed to weaken Iraq's air defence systems and have nothing to do with their stated original humanitarian purpose of defending the marsh Arabs and the Sh'ite population of southern Iraq.
"The figures require further explanation," Menzies Campbell, the MP who asked the questions, said on Tuesday. "It appears that there has been a marked increase in the destructive power of the bombs dropped while the number of recorded threats has remained about the same."
The Liberal Democrat spokesman on foreign affairs added: "The inference is that these operations have little to do with humanitarian purposes but are being carried out to soften up Iraq air defence systems. There must be a risk that escalation of this kind could provoke wider military action at a time when the inspectors still appear to be able to carry out their work."
Washington has said that the Iraqi response to the patrols - for example, by locking radar on to the aircraft - could be a "material breach" of the United Nations resolution mandating the weapons inspectors now in Iraq. The southern no-fly zone patrols are not covered by a UN resolution.
In recent weeks British and US pilots have been aiming at a wider range of targets, including communications systems, covering a larger area.
Last month Britain and America stepped up the hidden air war over Iraq, with RAF fighters based in Saudi Arabia supporting US Navy attack aircraft in practice bombing runs on Iraqi targets.
The New York Times quoted American commanders as saying the aircraft were "acquainting themselves" with targets they may be called on to attack and were being supported by RAF aircraft.
This week, Iraqi officials said four people had been killed by Western warplanes.
The UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, has challenged the Bush Administration's assertion that Iraq is not co-operating with the weapons inspections. He said on Tuesday that he
was pleased the inspectors had had no trouble gaining access to the sites they wished to see, including a presidential palace compound.
----
U.N. Extends Iraq's Oil Rights
Thursday, December 5, 2002
Washington Post; Page A24
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A11080-2002Dec4?language=printer
UNITED NATIONS, Dec. 4 -- The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously tonight to extend Iraq's authority to sell oil for another six months under the terms of the U.N.-supervised humanitarian assistance program.
The United States had delayed passage of the resolution for nine days in an attempt to compel the 15-nation council to place new restrictions on the import of about 40 items that have potential military applications.
The Bush administration relented in the face of stiff resistance in the council, where governments opposed a U.S. proposal for a further two-week delay because of concerns that it could disrupt the flow of Iraqi oil and the food and humanitarian goods it purchases. The administration, which was unwilling to use its veto to force the issue, settled for a commitment from the council to "consider necessary adjustments" within 30 days to a 302-page list of import items with both civilian and military applications that require council approval.
Under the terms of the oil-for-food deal, Iraq is permitted to sell as much oil as it pleases to purchase food, medicine and rebuild the country's infrastructure.
-- Colum Lynch
----
GUERRILLA WAR
Islamic Militants Clash With Kurdish Forces in Northern Iraq
December 5, 2002
New York Times
By C. J. CHIVERS
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/05/international/middleeast/05IRAQ.html
SULAIMANIYA, Iraq, Dec. 4 - Renewed fighting broke out today between Kurdish forces and Islamic guerrillas in the mountains along the Iran-Iraq border when a surprise attack by the guerrillas, reported to have links to Al Qaeda, briefly overran Kurdish positions, Kurdish officials said.
Casualty reports varied during the day, but late tonight the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, whose forces have been battling the guerrillas in the area, said 42 Kurdish combatants had been killed. An earlier estimate said only six of the Kurdish fighters, known as pesh merga, had been wounded.
"They were advancing against us, and they attacked posts in two different locations and overran the posts," said Nizar Said, a spokesman for Barham Salih, the prime minister of the Patriotic Union's government in the eastern part of the Kurdish enclave in northern Iraq, an area out of the control of the central government in Baghdad. By afternoon, Mr. Said added, the Kurds pushed the guerrillas back to their original location.
The casualty reports could not be independently confirmed. It is also unclear whether the guerrillas, members of a militant group known as Ansar al-Islam, or Supporters of Islam, suffered casualties or simply withdrew when counterattacked. The Associated Press reported a pesh merga officer saying he believed that 10 Ansar militants had been killed.
The fighting occurred in the hills near the village of Khurmal, where the ridges rise to the Iranian border.
The area is part of a sliver of the Kurdish autonomous zone controlled by the Ansar militants, who have enforced a severe brand of Islamic order in the villages, imposing codes of behavior similar to those once required by the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Kurdish officials say that this is not a coincidence, that Ansar al-Islam has connections to Al Qaeda and that its ranks include Arab fighters who trained in Afghanistan and fled here as the Taliban were routed last year.
Faraidoon Abdulkader, the Patriotic Union's interior minister, estimated that the group had about 650 gunmen and said they had spent months digging trenches and caves along the Iranian border. He said the group's weaponry ranged from small arms to heavy 120-millimeter mortars, and that its ammunition caches were surprisingly large.
The Kurds and the Islamists have been intermittently exchanging small-arms and mortar fire, and sometimes ambushing each other's forces. Ansar al-Islam nearly assassinated Mr. Salih in the spring, when three men sprayed his entourage with gunfire. Five of the prime minister's guards and two militants were killed in that exchange.
--------
Iraq Official Says Nation Is Armed for War
December 5, 2002
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/05/international/middleeast/05AZIZ.html
Iraq is preparing for war and has distributed "hundreds of thousands, if not millions" of guns to its people to fend off an American-led attack, the country's deputy prime minister said today.
Tariq Aziz, who is one of Saddam Hussein's closest advisers, said that while Baghdad hopes to avoid a war, "we are taking all necessary precautions to defend our country."
In an interview with Ted Koppel broadcast on the ABC News program "Nightline," Mr. Aziz asserted that virtually every Iraqi household had weapons to use against an invading force. The government's decision to arm ordinary citizens, he said, demonstrated its popular support.
"We are the only country in the world, the only government in the world, who gives weapons to its people," Mr. Aziz said. "And that's because we are sure of the attitude of our people. You can find a gun in every house in Iraq."
Mr. Aziz, who served as his country's chief diplomat during the Persian Gulf war in 1991, asserted that American officials were mistaken if they thought Iraqis would welcome an invasion.
"All these guns will be used against any invasion of Iraq - not against the leadership and the government of Iraq," he said.
Asked whether war was inevitable, Mr. Aziz said it would take a "miracle" to avert an attack.
-------- israel / palestine
Israelis kill woman, 95, as she sits in minibus
By Molly Moore in Jerusalem
December 5 2002
Sydney Morning Herald, The Washington Post, AP
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/12/04/1038950095889.html
A 95-year-old Palestinian woman returning to her village after buying sweets and nuts for family festivities to mark the end of Ramadan was killed by Israeli soldiers who smashed windows of the minibus in which she was sitting and then fired into the vehicle, family members say.
Fatima Hassan Abeida, who relatives said was born in 1907, is believed to be the oldest Palestinian victim of the more than two-year-long uprising against Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
On Tuesday, Ms Abeida had taken a taxi from the West Bank city of Ramallah, climbed over a pile of dirt at a roadblock erected by the Israeli military and boarded one of the minivans that ferry travellers to her village, Atara, when "Israeli soldiers came and destroyed the windows of the van with the butts of their guns, then sprayed the minibus with bullets," her grandson Izzat Ahmad, 28, said.
"My grandmother was hit with two bullets, one in the kidney and the other in the heart," he said.
Mr Ahmad said the family received its account from the van driver, who along with all the passengers except Ms Abeida and another woman fled from the soldiers and hid nearby. The woman in the van with Ms Abeida was injured in the thigh, local medical authorities said.
A spokeswoman for the Israeli military said the shooting was being investigated, but declined to comment further. Israeli military officials said the minivan was on a road that the military had declared off limits to Palestinians. Soldiers ordered the vehicle to stop, and when it failed to comply, shot their guns into the air, officials said. The soldiers "then fired a shot in the car".
Many main roads and junctions in the West Bank are closed to Palestinian traffic, forcing villagers to walk kilometres or try to dodge patrols on roads to reach jobs, medical appointments or markets.
Meanwhile, one of the most popular leaders of the Palestinian uprising, Marwan Barghouti, has issued a prison-cell appeal for high-level change in the Palestinian Authority - the first time he has openly challenged the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat.
Barghouti did not mention Mr Arafat by name in his written response to questions from The Associated Press, passed to him in an Israeli jail by his lawyer.
"It is time for many of the Palestinian leaders and officials to leave their positions after failing in their roles and responsibilities in this decisive battle," Barghouti said, referring to the Palestinian uprising. "This should be done in a democratic and legal way as soon as possible."
In another development, the left-wing challenger in Israel's prime ministerial election on January28, Amram Mitzna, has been invited to Downing Street by the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair.
The meeting is expected to take place this month.
--------
Five killed in Israeli helicopter strike in Gaza
12/5/2002 9:48 PM
Associated Press
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2002-12-05-gaza-strike_x.htm
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) - An Israeli army tank fired a shell into a two-story building in Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, killing five people and wounding at least 10, witnesses and hospital officials said Friday.
Israeli troops moved into the camp early Friday with tanks backed by helicopters. The army said it was conducting a targeted operation.
Inside the camp an intense gunbattle broke out between Israeli troops and Palestinian gunmen, spurred on by calls through mosque loudspeakers urging people to come out and fight the troops.
Kamal Baghdadi, the mayor of Bureij refugee camp, said a tank shell was fired at a building.
Hassan Safi, 49, said he was 300 yards away in his home when the shell hit.
"I rushed with my sons to the place, which was all destroyed. I myself took out two people, the helicopter was firing with machine guns at us, making it difficult to move," Safi said.
The army had knocked out the electricity source for the camp and ambulances were having difficulty reaching the area.
The bodies of five people reached Al Aqsa hospital in nearby Deir el Balah, according to Ahmed Rabah, a doctor at the hospital, and Baghdadi, who was still at the site of the destroyed building.
--------
Sharon Tentatively Backs Plan for Palestinian State
December 5, 2002
New York Times
By JUDITH MILLER and MICHAEL WINES
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/05/international/middleeast/05ISRA.html
TEL AVIV, Dec. 4 - Prime Minister Ariel Sharon offered tentative backing tonight for a United States "road map" to an Israeli-Palestinian peace, including creating a Palestinian state that would cover part of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
But the Israeli leader couched that support in a series of strict conditions, including the removal of the Palestinian leader, Yasir Arafat, and strict limits on Palestinian security forces, which could prove impossible to implement soon.
Mr. Sharon reiterated his insistence that all attacks on Israelis have to end before any concessions would be made.
Speaking in a suburb of Tel Aviv at a conference on Israeli security, the prime minister said the government had agreed "in principle" to endorse a so-called road map that the Bush administration offered in late October to create an independent Palestinian state by 2005.
The proposal, which has been supported by the United Nations, Europe and Russia, calls for a three-step process that would start with a mutual cooling of Israeli and Palestinian clashes and move toward forming a Palestinian government.
The plan would end further Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and, at its peak in 2005, lay out clear borders for a Palestinian homeland and define the status of Jerusalem, a holy city for three major religions.
Mr. Sharon called the American proposal "a reasonable, realistic and, I believe, attainable plan which will create a real chance to reach an agreement." He promised to put the plan before any government that he would lead after national elections on Jan. 28. Mr. Sharon's Likud Party is widely expected to be victorious.
Mr. Sharon's remarks were his most direct statement on the conditions that he would accept as part of a permanent settlement of the Palestinian conflict. He endorsed creating a homeland for the estimated three million Palestinians on territory that would cover 40 percent of the West Bank and three-quarters of the Gaza Strip.
A senior adviser to Mr. Arafat, Saeb Erekat, dismissed Mr. Sharon's statements, telling Reuters:
"Sharon is repeating his ideas of a long-term interim solution. The only road to peace is when Israel withdraws to the June 1967 borders."
Mr. Sharon effectively ruled out a permanent Israeli presence in all the areas that its military has occupied since a Palestinian uprising began in September 2000. Israeli forces have clamped down on major towns and roads in the West Bank and Gaza in an effort to stop the infiltration of suicide bombers who have killed hundreds of Israelis in the 16-month conflict. In some areas, Israeli forces have reinvaded after previously withdrawing.
Mr. Sharon said occupation was a temporary response to what he called "security demands, and does not represent a political change of status."
"Israel will not return to rule in territories from which it has previously withdrawn," he added.
That outline nevertheless differed in some respects from the published versions of the plan backed by the White House, the European Union, the United Nations and Russia.
Although the American plan calls for a provisional Palestinian state by next year and a final agreement by 2005, the staged plan that Mr. Sharon described would have no set schedule, relying instead on evidence of Palestinians' concessions.
"The American plan defines the parties' progress according to phases," he said. "The transition from one phase to the next will not be on the basis of a predetermined timetable. It is clear to all that Israel can no longer be expected to make political concessions until there is proven calm and Palestinian governmental reforms."
On Mr. Arafat's status, Mr. Sharon stuck to his position that the Palestinian leader should cede real power to a new and freely elected prime minister.
"This man is not and never will be a partner to peace. He does not want peace," Mr. Sharon said.
At the same time, he added, the Palestinian Authority would have to reform its security forces as well, eliminating existing offices that, he said, "are involved in terror, essentially corrupt and responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Israelis."
He said the offices should be replaced by two or three organizations that would police the new state. The current system, which he described as a "complex web of militias and armed gangs," would have to be dismantled.
Mr. Sharon also insisted, as he has in the past, that any new Palestinian state be "completely demilitarized," so as not to threaten Israel in the future, and that Israel control both airspace over the new state and access to and from its territory.
-------- korea
Aid Used as Lever With Pyongyang
Foreign Food Donations Drop Sharply As N. Korea Again Faces Severe Crisis
By Doug Struck
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, December 5, 2002; Page A18
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A11043-2002Dec4?language=printer
TOKYO, Dec. 4 -- North Korea faces acute food shortages as countries have slowed or stopped food aid, making hunger a new -- if unacknowledged -- tactic to pressure the government, according to aid officials and diplomats.
Since September, the U.N. World Food Program has stopped giving food to 3 million of 6.4 million North Koreans it had been feeding. The agency has ended cooked lunches for kindergartners, stopped sending meals to the homes of the elderly, widows and disabled people, and slashed rations for pregnant women in western areas of the country.
"From our point of view, things have not been this grim for quite a while," said Gerald Bourke, a World Food Program spokesman in Beijing. "The needs are huge. And the danger of a major food crisis, if we don't get what we asked for, is considerable."
Even with its best harvest in seven years, North Korea is expected to produce only about three-fourths of the food it needs this year, and to fall 1.1 million tons short. The World Food Program sought to provide about half of that. But of the 610,000 tons of food it set as a goal, the agency was able to get only 430,000 tons from donors, Bourke said.
Anger with North Korea over issues ranging from the kidnapping of Japanese citizens to its restrictions on aid workers has made international donors reluctant to give. Most critically, these disputes are threatening assistance from North Korea's three major donors -- the United States, Japan and South Korea.
Japan has stopped shipping food. The disclosure in October that North Korea is trying to build nuclear bombs heightened the political debate over aid in South Korea. And the United States -- while denying any political motive -- is laying down tough new requirements for further assistance.
"We are going to insist on the same standards used for monitoring and distribution [of food] that we use everywhere else in the world," Andrew S. Natsios, the administrator for the U.S. Agency for International Development, said in a telephone interview from Washington. "We have not been following those in North Korea, and that really is not acceptable."
For the first time since international charity helped rescue North Korea from famine in the mid-1990s, food aid contributions have fallen far short of the World Food Program's request this year. And the agency will begin 2003 with a one-month supply of food that must be stretched over three months.
"Hundreds of thousands more people face ration cuts in early 2003," warned Rick Corsino, the program's director for North Korea.
The Japanese government, which sent large shiploads of food to North Korea in 2000 and 2001, now openly refuses to contribute any food aid without receiving concessions from Pyongyang in the standoff over Japanese citizens kidnapped two decades ago.
"Every grain of rice in Japan is politicized," a Japanese diplomat said.
The United States, the largest single donor to North Korea, has long insisted that U.S. food given to feed the hungry is not affected by politics. This year, the United States contributed about one-third of the 430,000 tons of food distributed by the World Food Program. The U.S. contribution this year was half of what it was in 2001, according to the program.
While declaring that the U.S. humanitarian policy is unchanged, officials have begun to suggest a link between American generosity and North Korea's cooperation.
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell has repeatedly made the connection between food and politics, recently complaining that North Korea's spending on a nuclear program "will not feed one North Korean child." And Natsios, whose agency channels the U.S. contributions to the World Food Program, criticized North Korea's failure to allow independent monitoring of food distribution and access to the 13 percent of the country still closed to aid and inspectors.
"We're drawing the line now with the North Koreans," he told a congressional committee in June.
In an interview today, Natsios suggested that aid could be diverted from North Korea to other needy countries that accept unfettered inspections.
"There are other needs in other areas of the world," he said. "If I have a choice to make, it's going to provide the food aid where we can assure that it's going to those at risk."
The United States has not declared how much it will contribute in 2003 to the World Food Program, which appealed Tuesday for 512,000 tons of food for North Korea.
South Korea, also a major donor to North Korea, is in the midst of a presidential campaign that could set the country on a much tougher course toward Pyongyang. The opposition political party, the largest in South Korea, has protested a lack of reciprocity from North Korea for Seoul's "sunshine policy," which included regular food donations to its northern neighbor.
Some critics in Asia and the United States have long proposed that the world cut off all assistance to North Korea to try to bring the collapse of the Stalinist dictatorship. That has remained a minority view, as most governments have opted not to risk starvation of North Korea's 23 million people and the chaos in the region that might ensue.
But in Japan, the issue is rarely debated. The disclosure this week that a private organization with links to the Foreign Ministry had shipped a modest 45 tons of reprocessed rice and dried bread to North Korea was treated as a scandal, and the head of the organization resigned Tuesday. "What nerve do they have sending [food] while the people are really angry" at North Korea, railed Tokyo's governor, Shintaro Ishihara, a vociferous nationalist who seemed to have captured the public mood on this issue.
A receptionist at the organization, an unofficial arm of the Foreign Ministry called the Society for Promotion of Japanese Diplomacy, said the group had been subject to threatening phone calls and harassing demonstrations following the news of its contributions.
"North Korean people are suffering," said a society spokesman, Kyoko Terada. "Koreans in Japan asked us to send food donations, and we agreed to cooperate."
But at a recent town meeting in Nagoya, a crowd of about 400 was asked whether Japan should send food to starving Koreans. Only three hands were raised in favor, according to a participant.
"It's necessary to give food aid to many suffering people in North Korea," said Minoru Nakamura, an assemblyman for the city of Funabashi. But Japan should not "give aid in exchange for nothing," he said.
North Korea is a mountainous, hardscrabble country that has always needed to import food to feed its people. In the mid-1990s, a series of floods and droughts led to a famine that killed hundreds of thousands of North Koreans. According to some estimates, as many as 2 million died.
Bourke, the World Food Program spokesman, said that unless Japan resumes its food shipments or other major donors are found, the organization will be hard-pressed to meet its reduced goal of 512,000 tons for 2003.
James Morris, the executive director of the World Food Program, warned in Japan last month that "our program [in North Korea] is very much at risk." But he did not press the reluctant Japanese government to contribute its large surplus of rice, the organization acknowledged.
"We did not want to upset the Japanese government," a program official in Japan said.
Some advisers to President Bush have urged isolating North Korea to force it to give up its uranium-enrichment program, which is aimed at producing a nuclear weapon. Bush has rallied other countries to stop dealing with North Korea until it does so.
Special correspondent Sachiko Sakamaki contributed to this report.
-------- mideast
Qatar Could Host Command Center For War in Iraq
Military Tests Outpost in Persian Gulf
By Daniel Williams
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, December 5, 2002; Page A28
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A11045-2002Dec4?language=printer
DOHA, Qatar, Dec. 4 -- Qatar may not sound like a good place to locate the U.S. nerve center for a war on Iraq. It is a Persian Gulf monarchy populated by members of the strait-laced Wahhabi branch of Islam and home to a satellite television station that beams anti-American commentary across the Arab world almost every day.
Nonetheless, this mitten-shaped spit of sand and gravel attached to the Arabian Peninsula is about to take its turn as one of the most sophisticated U.S. military outposts in the world. The U.S. Central Command plans to test a modular command-and-control complex that was shipped in by container recently from St. Petersburg, Fla. The facilities, called the Central Command Deployable Headquarters, were set up for an exercise called Internal Look scheduled to begin Monday.
The buildings are stocked with computers that can flash images of fleets and troop movements and targets all over the Middle East and let commanders talk to each other by e-mail and video telephone. Although they are portable constructions, they will remain in place "for the time being" in case they are needed to oversee a war against Iraq, U.S. military officials said . The idea is that officers here would coordinate military action among all participating forces.
The exercise will encompass forces at the U.S. Fifth Fleet base in Bahrain, U.S. forward bases in Kuwait and an air control center at Prince Sultan air base in Saudi Arabia.
About 600 Central Command personnel are in place for the exercises. They have been joined by about 400 British troops, with another 400 expected to take part from other locations, a British Embassy official told reporters. Gen. Tommy R. Franks of the Army, the Central Command's top officer, is scheduled to arrive Friday, although his trip has been delayed before. The exercise is scheduled to end Dec. 16.
Central Command officials said they are awaiting an administration decision on whether troops will continue to man the headquarters beyond that date. On Sunday, Baghdad is supposed to detail its stores of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons and programs. President Bush suspects they are substantial and has pledged to take military action and destroy President Saddam Hussein's government unless Iraq completely disarms.
"We could be here for war, or be home for Christmas," said a U.S. Army officer.
In any event, the command center in Qatar has become another jewel in a necklace of U.S. and allied bases that stretches from the Iraqi border to Oman at the other end of the peninsula.
The arrival of computers, videoconferencing and communications equipment, meeting rooms and living quarters for Internal Look completed a long-range buildup of key facilities concentrated here.
The biggest is the billion-dollar Al Udeid air base, which contains the longest runway in the Persian Gulf, giant hangars for U.S. aircraft, an 18-acre parking lot for KC-135 and KC-10 aerial refueling tankers and C-17 transport aircraft, hardened shelters for two dozen bombers, fuel tanks, underground bunkers and eight miles of roadway.
About 3,300 troops are based at Al Udeid, which sits among sand dunes in southern Qatar. Since January, the base has housed an air operations command-and-control center that reduces U.S. dependence on the Prince Sultan base in Saudi Arabia.
Like Al Udeid, Prince Sultan is equipped as an air command center. But with relations with the United States strained, Saudi Arabia has wavered on whether it could be used in a war with Iraq. Early this year, Franks, the commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, said he harbored no plans to move the center from Prince Sultan but added: "That does not mean I don't have plans to replicate it."
Smaller numbers of soldiers work at a tank and armored vehicle storage base known as al-Sayliyah, which is also the home of the new deployable headquarters. About 900 troops are stationed at a logistics base at the civilian airport in Doha, Qatar's capital.
On the surface, it would seem that Qatar has a lot in common with its big, skittish neighbor, Saudi Arabia. Qataris exhibit the Arab-wide distaste for U.S. backing of Israel's continued occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The prospect of Qatar as a base for war with Iraq is also unsettling.
"People have qualms," said Mohamed Musfir, a political scientist at Qatar University. "We like to go along with others. If the rest of the Arab world opposes the war, it will be hard for Qatar to go it alone."
Saudi Arabia and Qatar share the same religion, the same clan-based form of authoritarian government and the same dependence on fossil fuel for livelihood. But they differ in several respects, Qatari and foreign observers said. There is no visible threat to the rule of Sheik Hamad Bin Khalifa al-Thani over the U.S. alliance.
A local view of geopolitics favors the United States. In Qatar, Saudi Arabia is regarded as a threat, along with Iran, which sits across the Persian Gulf. By Qatari reckoning, the United States is a useful counterweight to both, local and foreign observers said.
"We are a small country and this is how small countries act," Musfir said.
"The buildup here has not been a secret," a Western diplomat said. "Qatar regards it as a sign of prestige. The Americans are welcome here. Qatar sees the American presence as a stabilizing factor. They have hungry neighbors."
Qatar, although conservative, is far less rigid than Saudi Arabia and is open to outside influences. Wahhabism here has not spilled into the fanatical brand that gave rise to Osama bin Laden, a Saudi native. In a few days, a reggae singer named Shaggy is scheduled to play here, for instance, and hotels serve alcohol -- although not during Ramadan, the Muslim holy month now nearing an end.
Women wear scarves, but not veils, and they drive cars. The government funds al-Jazeera, the pan-Arab 24-hour news station that televises news critical of Arab governments as well as the United States. Several Arab leaders, including Saudi Arabia's rulers, have pressed Qatar to close it down.
"We are on the sea and have always been in contact with other peoples, so we can't be rigid," said Abdul Hamid Ansari, a professor in Islamic law. "We try to educate ourselves to allow a diversity of opinions. Wahhabism does not have to be extreme. It is only the way it is practiced in a part of Saudi Arabia. Not here."
About 700,000 people live in Qatar, but fewer than a third are Qataris. The rest are foreign workers. Foreigners here who have experience as workers in other Gulf nations said Qataris are friendlier to them than are their neighbors.
"There is not much bullying here," said George, a waiter from Lebanon who did not give his last name. "People are kinder. They try to make you feel at home."
The other day, Mohamed Shamri, a university student, visited a friend's house where other young men, all dressed in traditional white robes, were gathered for a night of playing cards and sucking on water pipes. The fragrance of apple-flavored tobacco filled the room.
The men discussed politics gingerly and asked an American visitor why the United States does not occupy the West Bank and Gaza Strip and end strife there. But none criticized the Qatari government for the U.S. alliance.
Shamri attributed the tolerance for U.S. war plans to a combination of hypocrisy and easy-going ways. He said that Qataris ease their worries about the U.S. alliance by employing an out-of-sight, out-of-mind attitude.
"Men here, when they have a mistress, they put her in a second house. We call it the church -- it's kind of an insult to Christians, but also a way of saying when we are with the mistress, we are outside our moral Muslim and Qatari world."
His friends laughed.
"It's the same with the Americans," Shamri continued. "They are over there at Al Udeid, everyone knows it, but no one sees. It's off our planet. We'd rather stare at the sea."
----
U.S. Military Planning War Game in Qatar
December 5, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Qatar-US-Exercise.html
DOHA, Qatar (AP) -- A U.S. war game next week features top-level planners armed with computers, maps and their imaginations -- not the usual men and women in desert camouflage firing rifles alongside roaring tanks.
The U.S. Central Command's top battle planners -- including Gen. Tommy Franks, who would lead any U.S. war on Iraq -- and their staff will spend up to 10 days at Qatar's As Sayliyah army base testing their ability to communicate, coordinate and react to a realistic but fictitious battle scenario with other players around the world, a senior Central Command official said.
Such exercises normally don't attract much attention. But the timing and Qatar's proximity to Iraq have sparked intense speculation that the exercise is practice for a war with Iraq. The details of the war game, codenamed Internal Look, are classified.
A similar exercise played by senior officers attending the U.S. Army War College forces students to deal with a major war, a regional crisis and a natural disaster all at the same time in a global exercise. If the students fail to deal with the problems adequately, the computer -- and the human controllers tweaking the computers behind the scenes -- can make the situation deteriorate to further challenge the players.
``If you have good controllers, they can throw in situations that aren't anticipated and force commanders to think about the situation along whole new lines that can affect how they do their jobs for the next one or two years,'' said Bruce Bennett, a defense strategist for Rand Corp. who has developed war games for the army. For example, controllers in Internal Look could simulate a chemical weapons attack and test how the officers react, he said.
The games are not comparable to those for civilians, which are more oriented to individual players and have far more exciting graphics, Bennett said.
``You're are at a relatively abstract level ... you're trying to give the commander an appreciation for where his units are and what they're doing,'' he said.
The Qatar game will test Franks' ability to direct Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine forces in the Gulf using a recently built, high-tech, mobile command post, Central Command officials said. The buildings, constructed by Raytheon, can handle extreme heat and cold to cope with any climate found in Central Command's area of responsibility, which includes 25 countries in central and southwest Asia and East Africa, officials said.
The exercise kicks off shortly after Sunday's deadline for the Iraqis to provide the United Nations with a comprehensive report on their chemical, biological and nuclear programs.
Iraq, which plans to submit the report on Saturday, insists it no longer holds any weapons of mass destruction, despite claims to the contrary by the United States and Britain. President Bush has warned that if the Iraqis do not give up their weapons of mass destruction, the United States will lead an international coalition to disarm them.
The Qatar exercises can use intelligence data to test the U.S. forces against an existing military, such as Iraq's, Rand's Bennett said.
Computer-generated maps, tables and graphs let players know the location of enemy and friendly troops, how successful they've been, how many people have been killed and what supplies each unit needs, he said.
Internal Look players are senior commanders and will not include combat units, though commanders at the division and corps level will observe the exercise via computer links, Army officials said. Several thousand people worldwide will play.
Internal Look has been held periodically since 1990, but this is the first time Central Command has set up the new portable headquarters -- consisting of prefabricated buildings, tents and communications equipment -- for the exercise. It is also the first time Internal Look has been held outside the United States.
On the Net:
U.S. Central Command: http://www.centcom.mil
http://www.rand.org
-------
U.S. eyes strengthened military bases
By Louis Meixler
ASSOCIATED PRESS
December 5, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20021205-10551458.htm
ANKARA, Turkey - U.S. officials are looking at investing hundreds of millions of dollars to upgrade Turkish military bases that could be used in case of war, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said yesterday.
Mr. Wolfowitz cautioned that no formal agreement has been reached to position U.S. troops in Turkey, addressing conflicting comments Tuesday by Turkish officials on whether American forces could use the bases. Turkish officials also expressed reluctance to host large numbers of U.S. troops.
"We have an agreement to move forward with concrete measures of military planning and preparations," Mr. Wolfowitz told reporters in Ankara.
U.S. and Turkish officials were working out which bases could be used and which U.S. forces might be sent to Turkey if there were a conflict, he said.
Turkey, NATO's only Muslim member, borders Iraq and is already home to some 50 U.S. aircraft that patrol a no-fly zone over Iraq. Its support is seen as crucial to any U.S. move against Baghdad.
Mr. Wolfowitz said President Bush has invited Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the leader of Turkey's governing Justice and Development Party, which has Islamic roots, to Washington for talks on a possible U.S. military operation against Iraq.
Mr. Wolfowitz said he was "quite confident that we will in fact have a significant level of Turkish participation. Exactly how much is something that we are working on these days."
"We are talking potentially about tens of millions, probably several hundred million dollars of investment in several facilities that we might use," he said.
Mr. Wolfowitz's statement comes a day after Foreign Minister Yasar Yakis said his country would allow the United States to use military bases. But a few hours after Mr. Yakis spoke, the Foreign Ministry clarified that he was speaking of "possibilities," not promises.
"Let me make clear," Mr. Wolfowitz said when asked about the Turkish statements. "There isn't a firm American request."
He said that discussions on which bases would be needed "will bring us, hopefully, fairly quickly to the next level of discussions and decisions. Until we are at that point we are still talking very theoretically."
"It was said at all levels of the government that we spoke to that Turkey has been with us always in the past. They will be with us now," Mr. Wolfowitz said. "Turkish support is assured, and I think that it is a very strong message to Saddam Hussein and the regime in Baghdad that Iraq is surrounded by the international community."
Mr. Yakis said Tuesday that Turkey would have trouble supporting a large presence of U.S. ground troops in the country.
When asked about the use of troops based in Turkey, Mr. Wolfowitz said it would be in Turkey's interest if the United States had forces in northern Iraq during a conflict. Turkey fears that Kurds in northern Iraq could declare independence if the Iraqi government collapses. That could encourage autonomy-seeking Turkish Kurds in Turkey's own southeast.
-------- nato
THE ALLIES
U.S. Asks NATO Nations to Offer Forces for an Iraq Campaign
December 5, 2002
New York Times
By MICHAEL R. GORDON
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/05/international/05NATO.html
BRUSSELS, Dec. 4 - The United States asked NATO nations today to contribute forces to a potential military campaign to topple Saddam Hussein.
The request, which was made by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz at NATO headquarters here, is part of the Bush administration's strategy to build a broad international coalition for a possible Iraq campaign. It coincided with a White House invitation today to Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the leader of the largest party in Turkey's new governing coalition, a party with Islamic roots, to meet with President Bush. American officials expect him to visit next week.
Long a vital United States ally, Turkey has emerged as a key participant in a potential military campaign, and Mr. Erdogan - who was jailed by the Turkish authorities in 1998 for reading an Islamic poem and is still barred by law from serving in the government he oversees from the sidelines - has become a cherished, if unlikely partner.
Washington's standing in the Muslim world could benefit it it is seen as working closely and effectively with a popular Muslim leader like Mr. Erdogan. Moreover, United States officials appear to be counting on Mr. Erdogan to overrule aides within the government who are worried about forging too close an alignment with Washington in its fight with Mr. Hussein.
The American request for military assistance seemed to mark a shift from the position taken by President Bush in a speech to NATO leaders in Prague just two weeks ago. Then, Mr. Bush emphasized the need for NATO to transform itself from a lumbering cold-war force into a structure better suited to the war on terror. But he did not ask NATO nations for contributions of materiel or manpower to a war on Iraq.
The evolving strategy on Iraq also differs considerably from the early days of the United States intervention in Afghanistan, when the Pentagon argued that it was easier for the United States and a few key allies to handle the operation than to try to coordinate a diverse alliance. For the Afghan campaign, NATO contributed some airborne warning and control (Awacs) reconaissance aircraft to patrol the skies over the United States. NATO had no formal role in the Persian Gulf war.
In a possible Iraq campaign, however, the Bush administration has decided to seek broad international support in the United Nations and elsewhere. One reason is that the United States is seeking access to Turkey and the Persian Gulf states for help in a military campaign. Those nations will go along, provided they are seen as contributing to a broad international effort to disarm Iraq and not just to a unilateral American effort.
After his presentation at NATO headquarters today, Mr. Wolfowitz said a number of nations appeared to be interested in sending forces. Western officials said they were Britain, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Poland and Hungary. Many of them might not be cast in a direct combat role, however. Mr. Wolfowitz said it was too soon to tell how the organization as a whole might respond.
A NATO role in a campaign against Iraq would extend the organization's reach well beyond its traditional region. American officials have suggested that the NATO role might be justified as an effort to defend Turkey, which is a NATO ally and a major focus of the administration's current diplomatic efforts.
The administration has a good deal of diplomatic ground to cover in its efforts to gain full cooperation from Turkey in the event of an Iraq conflict.
On Tuesday, for example, Turkey's foreign minister, Yasir Yakis, said the deployment of a significant number of American troops in Turkey would be politically unsustainable. He also said a new United Nations Security Council resolution must be passed authorizing force before an American attack could be mounted from Turkish soil.
Both positions seriously complicate the Pentagon's planning. Washington insists that United Nations Resolution 1441, which outlines the Security Council's demands for determining that Iraq has abandoned its programs to develop weapons of mass destruction, provides all the authority needed for military action, if Baghdad fails to comply.
"It is an important question, and it is one that we need to clarify within the highest levels of both governments," Mr. Wolfowitz said, speaking about the question of whether a new resolution would be needed. "It is one reason why we hope that Mr. Erdogan can come to Washington."
Since coming to power, Mr. Erdogan's Muslim-based party has installed moderates in key positions, and Mr. Erdogan has courted European leaders in an effort to gain entry into the European Union. Still, there seems to be some lingering European suspicion of Mr. Erdogan, the former mayor of Istanbul.
"During his term as mayor, Erdogan had overseen major improvements in municipal services and infrastructure," according to a recent paper by the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. "But he had shunned Istanbul's large Western diplomatic and journalist community, forbidden alcohol at all facilities owned by the municipality, cited the Koran as his sole reference and once famously described democracy as a vehicle which one rides as far as one's destination before alighting."
Seeking to counter that image, Mr. Wolfowitz, in a speech in London on Monday, described Mr. Erdogan and his followers as the harbingers of a new kind of Muslim party. It is a party, he said, that respected democratic principles, favored economic reforms and had support from the voters because of demands for competent and honest government.
"Most informed observers agree that in this election Turks were casting their votes for the concept of responsible and accountable representation," he said. "It has repeatedly expressed its support for the separation of religion and the state, which is the basis of Turkish democracy."
Certainly, Washington is looking to Mr. Erdogan to close ranks on Iraq. The conversation will dwell heavily on how much economic assistance the United States might provide as well as Washington's efforts to persuade the European Union to set a date for negotiations on Turkey's eventual membership. Both items will be on the agenda if Mr. Erdogran meets Mr. Bush, along with prospects for a settlement of the Cyprus conflict.
Mr. Wolfowitz indicated that the NATO alliance could help in Iraq in several ways. First, he said, the alliance could contribute "NATO assets," like Awacs planes or minesweepers. NATO nations, he said, could also provide access to airfields and airspace.
-------- russia / chechnya
Denmark Declines To Extradite Chechen
Officials Reject Russia's Charges of Terrorism
By Sharon LaFraniere
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, December 4, 2002; Page A10
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A5498-2002Dec3?language=printer
MOSCOW, Dec. 3 -- In a rebuff to Russia's efforts to cast the Chechen conflict as a war on terrorism, Denmark today rejected Moscow's request to extradite Akhmed Zakayev, a leading representative of Chechnya's government in exile.
Danish officials said Russia's month-long effort to link Zakayev to terrorist acts did not produce enough evidence to justify his return.
Zakayev, a 43-year-old emissary of Chechen rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov, had been held since Oct. 30 at Russia's request on charges of armed insurrection, kidnapping and execution of civilians in Chechnya. Russia also initially accused him of involvement in the rebel seizure of a Moscow theater that left 128 hostages dead.
In a statement, the Danish Justice Ministry said Russia's case against Zakayev was imprecise and might have been based on secondhand accounts.
Zakayev's release was a blow to President Vladimir Putin, who had vowed to hunt down Chechen rebels wherever they were harbored.
Although Zakayev's supporters described him as a statesman who advocated a peaceful solution to the long-running Chechen conflict, Russian prosecutors said he once headed a rebel gang that killed civilians. The prosecutors denounced Denmark's decision.
"It seems Denmark has its own interpretation over how one fights international terrorism, which differs from that shared by the rest of the world," said Leonid Troshin, a spokesman for the prosecutor's office.
Meanwhile, controversy mounted over Russia's treatment of tens of thousands of Chechen refugees living in the neighboring Russian republic of Ingushetia. The refugees have been sitting out the three-year-old conflict in tent camps near the Chechen border, either too impoverished or too afraid of Russian soldiers to return home.
Russian officials have long said the refugee camps provide cover for Chechen rebels and over the past six months have steadily stepped up the pressure on refugees to depart.
Officials working for the Moscow-appointed Chechen government said Russia has set an unofficial deadline of the end of December to dismantle the camps.
A camp that closed today formerly housed more than 1,500 Chechens near the village of Aki-Yurt, less than two miles from the Chechen border. Russian officials declared that the refugees had all agreed to resettle, but human rights advocates said the refugees were forced to pack up and leave.
Kris Janowski, a spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, said his organization was extremely concerned. "We urged the Russian authorities not to close the camp," he said. "Unfortunately, our pleas have been ignored."
-------- us
Truman Battle Group To Sail to Persian Gulf
WASHINGTON IN BRIEF
Thursday, December 5, 2002
Washington Post; Page A04
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A11370-2002Dec4?language=printer
The aircraft carrier Harry S. Truman and its battle group were set to depart the East Coast today, packing warplanes and missiles that could be part of an opening salvo in any U.S.-led attack on Iraq, Navy officials said.
The newest operational U.S. carrier, the Truman was leaving Norfolk on a six-month deployment to take it to the Mediterranean in the next week or so, then to waters nearer the Persian Gulf.
--------
Pentagon Is Set to Activate Thousands More Reservists
December 5, 2002
New York Times
By ERIC SCHMITT
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/05/politics/05RESE.html
WASHINGTON, Dec. 4 - The Pentagon is preparing for a major call-up of National Guard and Reserve troops, a move that would fill military jobs that would be critical if the United States goes to war against Iraq, Defense Department officials said today.
The size and timing of the mobilizations hinges heavily on Iraq's response to the United Nations resolution requiring Baghdad to disarm, and the pace of the international arms inspections.
In what is likely to be only the first wave of new call-ups, the Pentagon is expected in the next several days to activate as many as 10,000 reservists, mainly military police units, for security duty here and abroad, officials said. They would join the 50,755 reservists now mobilized for the defense of the United States after Sept. 11 and for the war in Afghanistan.
But if President Bush orders an attack against Iraq, the Pentagon has plans to summon to active duty roughly as many reservists as it did during the Persian Gulf war in 1991, when about 265,000 members of the National Guard and Reserves were called up. No final decisions have been made on these larger mobilizations, officials said.
"Activating reserves is significant because it will affect every community in America, and it sends a signal that the president is serious," a senior military official said.
As Pentagon officials considered the Reserve issue, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz asked NATO nations in Brussels to contribute forces to an American-led military campaign to oust President Saddam Hussein. In another effort to build a broad international coalition, the White House today invited the leader of the largest party in Turkey's new governing coalition to meet with President Bush next week.
Asked by reporters today to assess the progress of weapons inspections in Iraq, Mr. Bush said it was too early to tell whether Mr. Hussein would comply. But he expressed deep skepticism, saying Mr. Hussein was "not somebody who looks like he's interested in complying with disarmament." The Pentagon and the White House are handling the Reserve issue with great care. When and whom to mobilize are tricky, officials said. Defense officials want to mobilize reservists early enough to allow commanders to move quickly if President Bush orders an attack against Iraq. They also want to honor as best they can the Pentagon's policy of giving reservists 30 days' notice before mobilizing, to allow them to get their affairs in order and for their employers to find replacements.
"What we try to do is always give a 30-day notification, if we can," Thomas F. Hall, the assistant secretary of defense for Reserve affairs, told reporters last month. "Naturally, if we had a crisis, we could go below that."
But activating reservists too early could backfire. Pentagon officials said they want to avoid calling up tens of thousands of reservists during the holiday season, disrupting their families, jobs and schooling, especially if the international arms inspections in Iraq delay any offensive for weeks or months, and leave mobilized reservists with little to do.
"You don't want to jerk the reservists around," a senior military official said. "If you call them up before Christmas and don't give them something meaningful to do, that's dumb."
The issue is important enough that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Gen. Richard B. Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and their top aides meet about twice a week to discuss the Reserve call-ups, a senior military official said.
Gen. Tommy R. Franks, the commander of American forces in the gulf, is also keenly aware of the important role that reservists would play, and how the timing of their call-up would affect other parts of the war planning, another top military official said.
Mr. Rumsfeld is so concerned about the impact of any call-up that he recently ordered aides to review all potential mobilizations to ensure they are truly needed. One defense official said today that if the Pentagon does not announce its expected call-up of 10,000 reservists in the next few days, Mr. Rumsfeld will probably postpone it until after Jan. 1.
"We're trying to balance this," a third senior military official said. "If the choice is calling up tens of thousands of people on Dec. 20 or on Jan. 10, and it's militarily insignificant when you do it, we're going to try not to disrupt people's lives."
If the United States attacks Iraq, large numbers of Guard and Reserve troops will be needed to protect military bases overseas and at home because of a heightened fear of terrorism. The troops, especially those in the National Guard, would also be expected to play an important role in protecting potential terrorist targets in the United States, including power plants and transportation hubs.
In addition to Army National Guard and Reserve forces, Navy and Coast Guard Reserves would patrol the nation's maritime borders, and putting more fighter jets over American cities would require large numbers of Air Force and Navy pilots, ground crews and aircraft, most of them reservists. No specific units have been publicly identified.
Reservists are typically summoned for 90 days to one year, but about 4,000 men and women called up after Sept. 11, 2001, are now entering their second year of service.
Officials who specialize in Reserve affairs say the decision on a major call-up could come at any time. "I'm expecting it any day," said Bob Hollingsworth, executive director of the Pentagon's office of Employer Support of Guard and Reserves.
For that reason, many National Guard and Reserve unit commanders nationwide say they have already taken steps to ensure that their reservists have filled out as much paperwork in advance as possible, and have had their inoculations updated.
But many other reservists - as well as their families and employers - are watching the news out of Iraq, and waiting nervously. "Our concern is with employers who've just had guys demobilized, and now may have them remobilized if this goes down," Mr. Hollingsworth said. "How will employers react to this?"
As Pentagon officials continued to weigh a Reserve call-up, White House officials today pressed for more vigorous and fast-paced inspections of Iraq but carefully avoided questioning the performance of the small inspection team that has been in Iraq for a week.
In private, the United States appears to be pressing the inspectors to act more vigorously, and to extract Iraqi scientists from the country - with their families - so that they can be questioned outside Mr. Hussein's reach. Hans Blix, the head of the United Nations inspections team, has not said publicly whether he thinks it would be wise or helpful to conduct such interviews, which are authorized under the Security Council resolution passed last month.
The issue will probably not be decided until after Iraq makes its declaration this weekend of all its weapons stores and "dual use" facilities that might be converted to making weapons of mass destruction.
But Iraq said today that its declaration would state that it has no banned weapons. The White House cited those statements as evidence that Mr. Hussein was not taking the United Nations demands seriously.
"We believe, and we have said it publicly, they continue to have weapons of mass destruction - biological weapons and chemical weapons," the White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said. Iraq's denials in the 1990's, he said, were proven false.
But he expressed concern that the new inspections may not uncover any banned weapons. "Whether inspectors ultimately will be able to disprove any lie by the Iraqis remains to be determined," he said.
"We want to make certain that they are aggressive enough to be able to ascertain the facts in the face of an adversary who in the past did everything in his power to hide the facts," Mr. Fleischer said.
--------
Battle Group Heads to Persian Gulf
December 5, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Carrier-Deploys.html
NORFOLK, Va. (AP) -- More than 8,000 sailors and Marines left the East Coast on Thursday as part of the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman battle group, its first deployment since last year's terrorist attacks.
The group was making a scheduled move to the Mediterranean Sea and Persian Gulf.
Sailors dressed in pea coats stood on the Truman's deck as it pulled away from Norfolk Naval Station, and about 100 people waved from the pier. A voice on the loudspeaker said, ``Peace on Earth to men of good will. All others stand by.''
The carrier was one of nine ships to depart from Norfolk, with a 10th ship leaving from Earle Naval Weapons Station in New Jersey.
``There is an air of excitement, and there is an air of anxiety to some degree,'' Rear Adm. John D. Stufflebeem told reporters in the hangar bay aboard the Truman. ``I think where most people are right now is in a comfort zone. We've worked hard. We've trained well.''
Petty Officer Third Class Rob Anzidei said the training leading up to departure was more intense than the last time the Truman deployed, about two years ago.
``It's all because of 9/11,'' said Anzidei, 21, of Maple Shade, N.J. ``Whenever you go to the Persian Gulf, you're going to face dangers, but this time it's kind of personal.''
Besides the Truman, the battle group's ships are the guided missile cruiser USS San Jacinto; the guided missile destroyers USS Oscar Austin, USS Mitscher and USS Donald Cook; the destroyers USS Briscoe and USS Deyo; the guided missile frigate USS Hawes; the oiler USS Kanawha; and the ammunition ship USS Mount Baker, based at Earle. The battle group also includes Air Wing Three, made up of about 80 aircraft from Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Jacksonville, Fla., Whidbey Island, Wash., and Beaufort, S.C.
The Truman is to relieve the Norfolk-based aircraft carrier USS George Washington, whose return date has not been announced. A deployment usually lasts six months, meaning the Washington's battle group, which left June 20, would be expected to return around Dec. 20.
On the Net:
USS Harry S. Truman: http://www.navy.mil/homepages/cvn75
-------- propaganda wars
World Image of U.S. Declines
Poll Says Countries Suspicious of Iraq Motives, Global Role
By Richard Morin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 5, 2002; Page A26
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A11089-2002Dec4?language=printer
Suspicion about U.S. motives in Iraq coupled with the widely held beliefs that the United States routinely ignores the interests of other nations and doesn't do enough to help solve global problems have battered the nation's image around the world, according to a survey of attitudes in 44 countries by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press.
While majorities in most countries still have a favorable view of America and Americans, the poll found that discontent with the United States has grown in the past two years, said Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center, who headed the Global Attitudes Project.
Moreover, Kohut reported that "images of the U.S. have been tarnished in all types of nations: among longtime NATO allies, in developing countries, in Eastern Europe and, most dramatically, in Muslim societies."
A separate follow-up survey conducted last month in the United States and in five allied nations revealed deep and conflicting views on Iraq. Majorities in Britain, France, Germany and Russia agreed that Saddam Hussein represented a threat to stability in the Middle East and a danger to world peace. Nearly as many said that regime change in Iraq is necessary -- that disarming Hussein isn't enough to eliminate the threat.
But this consensus collapses into contradiction on other critical issues. Overwhelming majorities in France, Germany and Russia oppose the use of force to end Saddam's rule. Even in Britain, America's staunchest ally on Iraq, opinion is sharply divided: Fewer than half -- 47 percent -- favor using force to oust Hussein while an equal proportion disagree.
And in Turkey, eight in 10 opposed allowing the United States and its allies to use bases in their country to launch strikes against Iraq. On Tuesday, Foreign Minister Yasar Yakis said Turkey might give the United States approval to bomb Iraq from bases in Turkey but only if United Nations inspections fail.
Such views suggest British Prime Minister Tony Blair and other allies face a challenge as they attempt to balance their pledges of support for U.S. efforts in Iraq with broad suspicion from citizens back home, Kohut said.
There is even sharp disagreement on whether Iraq or the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians poses the greater domestic danger. In no countries except the United States and Britain was Hussein's continued rule seen by a plurality as "the greater international threat to our country."
This uneasiness over Iraq arises, in large part, from suspicions of U.S. motives for using military force to remove Hussein, the survey found.
When asked whether the United States was more interested in achieving stability in the region or more interested in controlling Iraqi oil reserves, majorities in Russia (76 percent), France (75 percent), and Germany (54 percent) said "the U.S. wants to control Iraqi oil." In Britain, the public was evenly divided, while Americans rejected the idea that oil motivated U.S. policy toward Iraq, just one of many findings in the poll suggesting that Americans "are strikingly at odds" with much of the world on a number of key issues, Kohut said.
In Turkey, more than half -- 53 percent -- viewed threats by the United States to use force to remove Hussein as part of a "war against Muslim countries that it sees as unfriendly" and not a means to bring peace to the Middle East.
A total of 38,263 randomly selected adults in 44 countries were interviewed between June and October for the survey, which was translated into 63 languages. In some countries, interviewing was restricted to a few major cities. An additional 6,056 adults were interviewed in the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and Turkey for the separate Iraq survey. Former secretary of state Madeleine K. Albright chaired the committee that oversaw the project.
The poll found that majorities in most nations surveyed believe that the United States acts without giving proper consideration to the interests of other countries, contributes to the growing worldwide gap between the rich and the poor, and has failed to do its part to address world problems.
At the same time, relatively few were bothered by the role of the United States as the world's only superpower. American technology and popular culture were widely admired, with substantial majorities in most non-Muslim countries embracing American music, movies and television.
According to the poll, the United States is rated favorably by majorities in 35 of the 42 countries where government officials allowed the question to be asked. But, cautioned Kohut, "the U.S. is viewed only somewhat favorably in virtually all of these countries. And negative opinions of this country have increased in most of the nations where trend benchmarks are available."
The image of the United States has taken a particularly hard beating in predominantly Muslim countries, the poll found. Three in four residents of Jordan, the fourth-largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid, have a negative image of the United States. In Pakistan and Egypt, seven in 10 expressed an unfavorable view. "In Jordan, Pakistan and Egypt, the intensity of this dislike is strong -- more than 50 percent in each country have a very unfavorable view," Kohut and his research team reported.
Even more troublesome, Kohut and Albright agreed, were the rapidly eroding views of the United States expressed in Turkey, a NATO ally. Two years ago, a majority of residents had a favorable view of the United States; today, three in 10 do. At the same time, more than half -- 55 percent -- now say they had a negative view of the United States and more than four in 10 felt that way strongly.
President Bush was questioned yesterday about the anti-American findings reported in the Pew survey.
"I hope the message that we fight not a religion, but a group of fanatics which have hijacked a religion is getting through," replied Bush, who said he had not read the poll results. "I understand the propaganda machines are cranked up in the international community that paints our country in a bad light. We'll do everything we can to remind people that we've never been a nation of conquerors; we're a nation of liberators."
There are two exceptions to the rising tide of anti-Americanism: Russia and "our new friend and ally, Uzbekistan," Kohut said. Uzbekistan has been a major beneficiary of U.S. assistance since the war in Afghanistan was launched.
The survey also found that majorities of Muslims in Lebanon and the Ivory Coast believed suicide bombing in defense of Islam was justified, and "more than a quarter of Muslims in another nine nations subscribe to this view," Kohut said.
The survey also found broad dissatisfaction with the way things are going among citizens in most countries of the world.
Staff writer Karen DeYoung contributed to this report.
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS
Justice Department can't give first-responders $3.5 billion
By Audrey Hudson
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
December 5, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20021205-92283032.htm
The Justice Department cannot deliver $3.5 billion to assist local first-responders in future terrorist attacks because Congress failed to provide funding, according to an internal memo.
President Bush asked Congress to fund grants for police, fire and other emergency services in his budget, but the Senate failed to pass his or its own version of the budget.
Gridlock over spending bills forced the House and Senate to pass a continuing resolution that caps spending at its current level until they return next year.
"At this point, we can only speculate on the availability of resources for the balance of the fiscal year," said Deborah J. Daniels, assistant attorney general, in a memo to staff.
"We regret the inconvenience these restrictions on our ability to award funds may cause some of our grantees during this interim period," Miss Daniels said.
Republicans said funding was snagged by Democrats, who controlled the Senate, but the problem will be solved when Republicans take back control in January.
"The Senate Democratic leadership failed to fund first-responders through our appropriations process," said Ron Bonjean, spokesman for Incoming Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, Mississippi Republican.
"When Congress returns with a new Republican Senate majority, we will pass funding for first-responders by the president's State of the Union address," Mr. Bonjean said. The historic speeches are given at the end of January.
Cities wanted the money for planing, training, equipment and first-response exercises as part of a state-by-state coordinated response plan.
"Cities have really risen to the occasion and stretched their financial and human resources," said Cameron Whitman, director for policy and federal relations for the National League of Cities.
The league is holding its annual convention in Salt Lake City, where city officials are grappling with increased responsibilities since the September 11 attacks.
"What they are saying to me is that they are already so stretched, when police officers retire they can't afford to fill positions. They are letting personnel go, and some cities are having to consider increasing taxes to deliver services," she said.
"Homeland security was a great surprise to everyone, but we got a commitment from the president the federal government was going to help us to the tune of $3.5 billion. It's been 14 months and nothing has happened," she said.
A Justice Department official said Mr. Bush is committed to funding emergency first-responders.
"He showed this commitment by requesting $3.5 billion to assist the first-responder community in the fiscal year 2003 budget," the official said.
"In the past 12 months, the Office of Justice Programs have provided almost $1 billion for first-responders," the official said.
The office of Rep. David Obey, Wisconsin Democrat, released a statement criticizing the Bush administration for not making the money available.
The statement said the "revelation follows a pattern of Bush holding highly trumpeted photo-ops with first-responders and then consequently rejecting money for them."
The Justice Department official called the statement "disingenuous."
"They should know better than others the effect continuing resolutions, instead of passing a full-term funding bill, has on the ability of government to function properly," he said.
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Court May Decide on Dirty - Bomb Suspect
December 5, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Terror-Suspect.html
NEW YORK (AP) -- Overriding government objections, a judge ruled Wednesday that a former Chicago gang member accused of plotting with al-Qaida to detonate a radioactive ``dirty'' bomb can argue he was improperly detained as an enemy combatant.
Although U.S. District Judge Michael Mukasey upheld President Bush's authority to detain enemy combatants, even if they are U.S. citizens, he also carved a role for the judiciary to make sure the executive branch was doing so properly.
The 102-page ruling opened an avenue for Jose Padilla, 31, to challenge the president's decision to designate him an enemy combatant in June, transfer him from New York to a Navy brig in Charleston, S.C., and ban him from meeting with lawyers.
Noting that the Supreme Court has ``stressed repeatedly'' the importance of counsel to a defendant, the judge gave Padilla a limited opportunity to fight his detention.
``Padilla's statutorily granted right to present facts to the court in connection with this petition will be destroyed utterly if he is not allowed to consult with counsel,'' the judge wrote.
Mukasey said he would resolve the issue of whether Padilla was lawfully detained and whether Bush has evidence to support his finding that Padilla was an enemy combatant at a later date.
Bush's spokesman, Ari Fleischer, said White House lawyers were studying the voluminous ruling to determine the administration's position.
``I do note the court did uphold the president's constitutional authority to direct the military to detain unlawful enemy combatants in order to protect the American people in this war on terrorism,'' Fleischer said.
The Defense Department reacted in a similar vein.
``The Department of Defense is pleased that the court has recognized the president's authority to detain enemy combatants during the war on terrorism,'' Pentagon spokesman Maj. Ted Wadsworth said. ``We are continuing to analyze the court's opinion.''
Padilla, returning from a trip to Pakistan, was arrested May 8 in Chicago as a material witness in a grand jury probe of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. On June 9, he was designated an enemy combatant.
Padilla is alleged to have approached Abu Zubaydah, al-Qaida's top terrorism coordinator, in Afghanistan in 2001 and proposed stealing radioactive material to detonate a dirty bomb in the United States.
The government has said he twice met with senior al-Qaida operatives in Pakistan in March and discussed the dirty-bomb plot.
A dirty bomb uses conventional explosives to disperse radioactive materials. Most nuclear experts say such an attack would cause radiation contamination over several city blocks but probably no deaths.
The government has maintained that Padilla has no rights as an enemy combatant. It also said he could use contact with his lawyers to pass messages to co-conspirators, but the judge said rules could be crafted to avoid that possibility.
Padilla's lawyers, Donna Newman and Andrew Patel, said they were pleased with the ruling and look forward to meeting with their client.
Amnesty International spokesman Alistair Hodgett called the ruling a ``repudiation of the administration's sweeping assertion that it can hold individuals incommunicado.''
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THE COURTS
Judge Says Man Can Meet With Lawyer to Challenge Detention as Enemy Plotter
December 5, 2002
New York Times
By BENJAMIN WEISER
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/05/nyregion/05BOMB.html
A federal judge in Manhattan ruled yesterday that he had the authority to review President Bush's decision to detain a man accused of plotting to explode a radioactive bomb in the United States. The man, Jose Padilla, has been held since June in a Navy brig in Charleston, S.C., without charges or access to a lawyer.
The judge also said Mr. Padilla had the right to meet with a lawyer, and to offer evidence to contest the government's allegations that he was associated with Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden's terrorist network, and that he posed a continuing danger to the nation's security.
But the judge, Michael B. Mukasey of Federal District Court, also affirmed that the president has "the power to detain unlawful combatants, and it matters not that Padilla is a United States citizen captured on United States soil."
The judge added that their detention for the duration of hostilities was supportable, "logically and legally, on the same ground that the detention of prisoners of war is supportable: to prevent them from rejoining the enemy."
Judge Mukasey did not decide the specific question of whether there was enough evidence to detain Mr. Padilla as an enemy combatant. But in finding that he was entitled to some sort of adversarial process to test the allegations in court, the judge said that the government needed only to meet a minimal standard of proof to justify his detention.
That standard, the judge said, was merely whether there was "some evidence" to support the president's conclusion that he was engaged in a mission against the United States "on behalf of an enemy with whom the United States is at war."
The government has filed a document with the judge laying out what it says is the evidence establishing Mr. Padilla's connection to Al Qaeda. It argued that he was not entitled to the full set of due process rights, like access to a lawyer, that he would be if he faced a traditional criminal proceeding. The government also contended that Judge Mukasey lacked jurisdiction to hear the case in New York, and that he should either dismiss it or transfer it to South Carolina.
Mr. Padilla, who is also known as Abdullah al-Muhajir, was arrested in May in Chicago as a material witness in the Sept. 11 investigation, and was brought to New York. No criminal charges were lodged against him, and on June 9, he was transferred into military custody after President Bush signed an order that designated him as an enemy combatant.
In its court filing, the government contends that Mr. Padilla met last year with senior Qaeda officials in Afghanistan and later received explosives training in Pakistan. Then, it says, he came to the United States to advance plans to detonate explosive devices, including a radioactive or "dirty" bomb.
Although the opinion did not say that Mr. Padilla would be invited to appear in court himself, it said he could respond to the government's allegations through his lawyers. "Padilla does have the right to present facts," Judge Mukasey said. "The most convenient way for him to go about that, and the way most useful to the court, is to present them through counsel."
The parties to the case were each able to find aspects of the ruling that they liked. A Justice Department spokeswoman, Barbara Comstock, praised "the court's decision supporting the president's long-established authority to detain enemy combatants." She added,: "In times of war, the president must be able to protect our nation from those who join with our enemies to harm innocent Americans."
She did not say whether the government would appeal parts of the ruling, but she seemed to leave the door open, adding, "The department will review today's opinion in light of our duty to take all steps possible within the law to protect the American people."
Donna R. Newman, a lawyer for Mr. Padilla who has been unable to meet with him since June, said the court's recognition of the right to counsel is "significant for Mr. Padilla, and it's significant for all citizens."
Lucas Guttentag, a senior lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed a brief in support of Mr. Padilla, called the ruling "a crucial rejection of the Bush administration's claim of almost unbridled power to unilaterally detain an American citizen and hold him indefinitely and incommunicado."
Laurence H. Tribe, a constitutional law professor at Harvard University, said the ruling was "an intelligent compromise of extraordinarily difficult and almost irreconcilable competing principles" - the need for deference to the executive as commander in chief, and for some check on the arbitrary exercise of government power.
While the standard of proof for the government "is quite low," Professor Tribe said, "at the same time, it sends a signal to the executive that should discourage the sort of careless or profligate use of the detention power."
Judge Mukasey said that he was allowing Mr. Padilla access to his lawyers, Ms. Newman and Andrew G. Patel, only in connection with the proceeding before him, and was not granting a more general right to cover any interrogation of Mr. Padilla that might be taking place. The judge said monitoring and other steps could be taken to ensure Mr. Padilla does not seek to use his lawyers to unwittingly transmit messages to others, a concern the government raised.
The Padilla ruling was widely anticipated, as he is one of only two Americans who are being detained as enemy combatants in the United States after Sept. 11. The other, Yasser Esam Hamdi, was captured on the battlefield in Afghanistan, and is being held in solitary confinement in Norfolk, Va. Mr. Hamdi has not been given access to counsel.
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High Court Hears RICO
Racketeering Law Chills Protest, Abortion Foes Say
By Charles Lane
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 5, 2002; Page A03
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A11182-2002Dec4?language=printer
Civil disobedience, including methods such as those used by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and his followers, is threatened by the government's application of organized-crime laws to antiabortion protesters who staged aggressive blockades and sit-ins at women's health centers in the 1980s and '90s, attorneys for the protesters told the Supreme Court yesterday.
"Classic protest actions venerated in American history would be crimes," Roy Englert, who represents leaders of the Pro-Life Action League, told the court. Englert's clients, along with Operation Rescue, were found liable in 1998 by a Chicago jury for acts of coercion and violence that violated federal racketeering and extortion laws. The jury awarded more than $250,000 in damages to clinics in Milwaukee and Delaware, and a federal judge later ordered a permanent nationwide halt to the protests.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit in Chicago upheld the verdict and the injunction in 2001, and the antiabortion activists appealed to the Supreme Court.
An attorney for abortion rights supporters told the court that upholding the verdict and the injunction would not chill nonviolent protest, but would prevent the authors of a violent campaign of intimidation from escaping unpunished.
"We ask the court not to turn the clock back on 50 years of [anti-racketeering] law," Fay Clayton, an attorney for the National Organization for Women (NOW), told the court.
As it comes to the court, the case turns on issues of federal statutory law; the court rejected the protesters' appeal based on the First Amendment to the Constitution. Englert argued yesterday that the 7th Circuit misread extortion law when it ruled that denying doctors and patients access to the clinics was equivalent to forcing them to hand over their property. And Englert said the lower court misread racketeering law by giving private parties such as the clinics a right to ask a federal judge for an order barring further protests.
But with demonstrators from both sides of the abortion debate pacing near the imposing white steps of the Supreme Court, and with issues of political speech clearly, if indirectly, implicated, all the elements of an emotional confrontation were in place.
The Supreme Court upheld the use of anti-racketeering laws against the antiabortion activists in 1994, ruling that the statutes could be applied even to groups that act out of non-economic motives. The laws were particularly potent because they permit plaintiffs to sue for treble damages.
That year, however, Congress passed a law that makes a repeat of the most aggressive antiabortion demonstrations unlikely. The Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE) specifically bans the use of force, threats or blockades to interfere with access to reproductive health care, including abortions.
Looking ahead, a victory for NOW could empower institutions facing aggressive protests by advocates of non-abortion-related causes, such as animal rights groups or anti-globalization activists, to deal with the protesters essentially as gangsters.
They could sue in federal court under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), alleging that the protesters committed extortion under the Hobbs Act, which makes it a federal crime to coerce someone into giving up his or her property if that obstructs interstate commerce. They could also ask a federal judge to order the protesters to cease operating nationwide.
Representing the federal government, Solicitor General Theodore B. Olson told the court that it should uphold the 7th Circuit's broad interpretation of extortion, saying the protesters had disrupted the clinics' right to control their businesses, which, he said, "is a well-recognized and longstanding right of property."
He agreed with the protesters, however, that the clinics, as private parties, could not seek a court order against them; RICO reserves that power for the attorney general, Olson said.
Several justices seemed troubled that defining the antiabortion protesters' conduct in this case -- which even the protesters concede violated various state laws -- as federal extortion might place too powerful a legal club in the hands of those who may want to eliminate controversial but sincere civil disobedience.
"I'm rather concerned about this problem," Justice Stephen G. Breyer said.
"This threatens to bring us constantly into the difficult situation where we have to figure out whether the definition sails too close to the wind for First Amendment purposes," Justice Antonin Scalia said.
Clayton said the key distinction was whether protesters used violence -- which, she said, the antiabortion protesters did, but the civil rights protesters of the 1960s did not.
"If NOW went down to the Augusta National Golf Club to tear up the greens and said they wouldn't stop until the club admitted a woman, they'd be violating the Hobbs Act," Clayton argued.
Clayton seemed to win a measure of sympathy from Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who interrupted Englert to remind him that "in some cases there were assaults," so "to paint a picture that what we're talking about is pure speech . . . that is not the case."
Englert insisted throughout the argument that his clients could not deny having broken laws against trespassing and other offenses, but that their actions did not rise to the level of extortion because they had not actually taken property.
Englert noted that "activists of all stripes" were supporting his clients in friend-of-the-court briefs, including such groups as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, which has staged aggressive protests at fast-food restaurants, and School of the Americas Watch, which has been involved in demonstrations against U.S. foreign policy.
A decision in the cases, Scheidler v. NOW, No. 01-1118, and Operation Rescue v. NOW, No. 01-1119, which have been consolidated, is expected by the end of June.
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Justices Ponder the Reach Of Miranda Rights Ruling
Rehnquist's Absence Felt in Proceedings
By Charles Lane
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 5, 2002; Page A03
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A11416-2002Dec4?language=printer
Yesterday, for the third straight day, there was an emptiness at the center of the Supreme Court.
In the middle of the bench, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist's chair stood empty, as Rehnquist remained absent from oral argument while recovering from surgery on his damaged right knee.
It is believed to be the first time the chief has been out since a three-day stretch in October 1995, when he was recovering from back surgery, court officials said.
He is still voting on each case, based on the briefs and the argument transcript. But things in the courtroom aren't the same.
From the high-pitched whistle that heralds the arrival of the nine justices to the final gavel that signals their exit, court ritual bears the stamp of the jurist who has been in charge for the last 16 years.
Brevity and punctuality are the hallmarks of Rehnquist's style. A lawyer had better be ready to start the instant the chief calls his name, followed by the cue: "We'll hear from you." Lawyers may make no flowery introductions of themselves and their clients, as they sometimes do in lower courts; a simple "Mr. Chief Justice, and may it please the court" will do.
Without Rehnquist, though, all the actors seem to be ad-libbing.
As the most senior associate justice, John Paul Stevens presides.
Under his mild-mannered stewardship, things move along normally. But yesterday he forgot to say, "The case is submitted" at the conclusion of the first of two oral arguments, leaving audience members and lawyers to figure out for themselves that they were free to stand and stretch during the changeover. Calling a lawyer to the podium, Stevens made a most un-Rehnquistian offer: "Mr. Robbins, whenever you're prepared you may proceed."
And, of course, without Rehnquist's staunchly conservative views reflected in the questions from the bench, it is more perilous than usual to guess how the court will rule based on what the justices say.
Certainly, the second case argued yesterday, Chavez v. Martinez, No. 01-1444, which deals with the scope of an individual's right not to answer police questions, would have provoked inquiries from Rehnquist, given the implications for law enforcement.
In 1997, farmworker Oliverio Martinez was shot and seriously wounded in a struggle with Oxnard, Calif., police. As he lay racked with pain on a hospital gurney, police Sgt. Ben Chavez, investigating the police shooting, questioned him for 45 minutes despite Martinez's insistence that he didn't want to talk.
Martinez later sued, alleging among other things that Chavez's questioning, which did not include reading Martinez his rights, amounted to an attempt at coerced self-incrimination -- even though Martinez was not eventually charged with a crime.
Lower courts upheld Martinez's claim, but Chavez has appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing, in part, that there was no violation of Martinez's constitutional rights since they apply only if statements are used against a suspect at trial.
Civil libertarians say a ruling for Chavez could permit police to abuse people they may not want to charge with a crime, but do want to extract information from.
The Bush administration, however, supports Chavez, suggesting that a ruling against him could tie officers' hands when they may need information quickly.
Justice Antonin Scalia wondered about the case's implications for fighting terrorism. "Let's assume you think someone is going to blow up the World Trade Center. Could the police beat him with a rubber hose?" Scalia asked.
"I understand the terrorism situation is a difficult one, but that's not our case," Martinez's attorney, R. Samuel Paz, replied.
Stevens demanded to know from Deputy Solicitor General Paul Clement whether there is "any protection against the police just grabbing someone off the street and beating him up to get information when they have no intention of using it at trial."
Clement responded that general prohibitions against police conduct that "shocks the conscience," rooted in the constitutional guarantee of due process of law, are already in place, so an additional one based on the Fifth Amendment would be excessive.
A decision in the case is expected by the end of June.
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Campaign Law Case Brings Debate, Crowds
McCain-Feingold Bill Called Threat to Free Speech -- and Key to Honest Elections
By Neely Tucker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 5, 2002; Page A04
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A11183-2002Dec4?language=printer
In a majestic courtroom at the foot of Capitol Hill, a team of prominent lawyers yesterday told three federal judges that the nation's new campaign finance law tramples First Amendment rights and gives special-interest groups undue sway over federal elections.
They were countered by an equally high-profile group that said the new law is fair and necessary to salvage the funding of federal campaigns from a tidal wave of "soft money" that has "thoroughly debilitated the people's faith in the political system."
The legal showdown in U.S. District Court over the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 -- better known as the McCain-Feingold bill -- could result in the most important ruling in campaign financing since the 1976 Supreme Court decision in Buckley v. Valeo, which has shaped fundraising for the past quarter century. The Supreme Court eventually may decide McCain-Feingold's fate, because the District Court's decision -- regardless where it falls -- is virtually certain to be appealed, said lawyers on both sides.
The ultimate decision to uphold, overturn or modify the law will affect everything from TV ads in the days before elections to how national parties raise and spend hundreds of millions of dollars for congressional and presidential campaigns.
The first day of oral arguments in the packed courtroom began with former solicitor general Kenneth W. Starr urging the judges to declare the law unconstitutional. It ended, nine hours later, with another former solicitor general, Seth P. Waxman, assuring the judges that the statute violates no constitutional protections.
"In addition to federalism and freedom of speech . . . this case is also about equality," said Starr, in remarks that harked back to the Philadelphia convention that shaped the U.S. Constitution. "It anoints winners and declares losers."
He was countered by Roger M. Witten, a lawyer for Senate sponsors John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Russell Feingold (D-Wis.), who said the bill was long overdue.
"This law is designed to repair a thoroughly broken campaign finance system that has been brought to its knees by massive cheating," Witten said. He listed former Republican and Democratic party chairmen and longtime members of Congress who submitted written depositions about the problems caused by unlimited donations to political parties.
"They're all telling this court that money corrupts," Witten said. "That unions, corporations and wealthy individuals . . . pay to play."
The law, which took effect Nov. 6, strictly limits the number of "issue ads" -- which often are thinly veiled political ads -- that corporations, unions, interest groups and individuals can run on television or radio within 30 days of a primary or 60 days of a general election. It also bars the national parties from raising and spending "soft money," the unlimited donations that amounted to hundreds of millions of dollars in recent presidential and congressional campaigns.
Critics say these measures abridge First Amendment protections of free speech. Running TV or radio ads about important issues or campaigns, they contend, is a form of speech that should be protected. They also say the new law divorces national political parties from their state affiliates, which remain free to collect soft-money donations. Moreover, critics say, the law increases the influence of special-interest groups, because they are not bound by the same campaign spending restrictions that apply to the national political parties.
"Even if there is a problem, this law doesn't fix it," said Marc Racicot, chairman of the Republican National Committee, in a break from the hearing.
There will be another half-day of hearings today before the special panel of one federal appellate judge -- Karen L. Henderson of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit -- and two U.S. District judges in Washington, Colleen Kollar-Kotelly and Richard J. Leon. Henderson said the panel would likely render a decision by late January.
Yesterday's arguments took place in a high-ceiling courtroom filled with oil paintings of former judges. More than 225 spectators, including members of Congress and big-name attorneys, packed the wooden pews. The well of the court and the jury box overflowed with lawyers taking part in the oral arguments. The three judges looked down from the judicial podium, often interrupting with pointed questions.
As the two sides painted starkly different pictures of the new law, Henderson said: "It's like two ships passing in the night. The plaintiffs talk about the First Amendment, and the defense talks about the problems" with campaign fundraising.
The Justice Department is defending the case. Those filing briefs supporting the law including 19 states, two U.S. territories, several congressional sponsors and self-described good-government interest groups. They say the new law's overarching goal is to plug loopholes that corporations, unions and political parties have exploited for 20 years to evade the intent of campaign finance laws.
Richard B. Bader, assistant general counsel for the Federal Election Commission, told the court that soft money started with "a trickle" of $18 million in 1980, but had grown to "a river" of $458 million raised in the 2000 election cycle. "Large contributions are intended to, and do, influence votes" in Congress, he said.
The political parties filing suit to overturn the law include the Republican National Committee, the Libertarian National Committee and the California Democratic Party. Private groups challenging the law include the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Rifle Association, the National Right to Life Committee and the AFL-CIO.
The new law "makes it a crime for us to broadcast an ad critical of the president of the United States during an election year," Joel M. Gora, a lawyer for the ACLU, told the court. "It's hard to imagine a more blatant violation of the First Amendment."
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Judge Grants 'Combatant' Access to an Attorney
By Steve Fainaru and Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, December 5, 2002; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A7833-2002Dec4?language=printer
A U.S. citizen accused of plotting to explode a radiological "dirty bomb" in the United States must be granted access to an attorney to challenge his detention as an enemy combatant, a federal judge in New York ruled yesterday.
The ruling, part of a broad, 102-page decision by Michael B. Mukasey, chief judge for New York's Southern District, rejected the Bush administration's assertion that allowing Jose Padilla access to his attorney would impede intelligence gathering and jeopardize national security.
Mukasey upheld the president's right to designate enemy combatants -- including U.S. citizens -- in the war on terrorism. However, he dismissed as "gossamer speculation" the government's concerns that Padilla could pass messages to terrorists through his lawyer, and said his ability to defend himself would be "destroyed utterly" if he is denied counsel.
"Padilla's need to consult with a lawyer is obvious," Mukasey wrote. "He is held incommunicado at a military facility. His lawyer has been told that there is no guarantee that even her correspondence to him would get through."
Administration officials took heart in Mukasey's support of President Bush's authority to identify and apprehend enemy combatants within the United States, with relatively little judicial review. Such authority is critical, they say, for stopping potentially dangerous terrorists who have not carried out attacks or been formally charged with crimes.
Mukasey said he would deal later with whether Bush has sufficient evidence to support his designation of Padilla as an enemy combatant, and whether that evidence has since "been mooted by events."
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said administration lawyers were studying the ruling in order to determine a course of action. "I do note the court did uphold the president's constitutional authority to direct the military to detain unlawful enemy combatants in order to protect the American people in this war on terrorism," Fleischer said.
But Justice Department officials conceded privately that the ruling was a blow to the government's argument that Padilla and other enemy combatants should have no access to an attorney, and that the order seemed to leave open the possibility of detailed review of the case by a federal court.
"Obviously, there are things in here that we are not pleased with," one official said.
Lucas Guttentag, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed a brief on Padilla's behalf, called the decision "a critical repudiation of the Bush administration's claim of virtually unbridled power to unilaterally detain an American citizen and to hold him incommunicado indefinitely."
The Padilla case is one of several working their way through the legal system to test the Bush administration's claim of broad powers to wage a war on terrorism. Yesterday, the full federal appeals court in Philadelphia, reaffirming the position of a three-judge panel, upheld the legality of closed-door immigration hearings for terror suspects.
Padilla has been held without charges in a naval brig in Charleston, S.C., since Bush declared him an enemy combatant seven months ago. His attorney, Donna R. Newman, has been unable to see him and said Pentagon officials told her that they could not guarantee he would receive any of her correspondence.
Padilla was taken into custody May 8 after arriving at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport. U.S. officials allege that Padilla, while traveling in Afghanistan and Pakistan over the past two years, met with senior al Qaeda operatives and discussed his involvement in terrorist operations in the United States, including the detonation of a "radiological dispersal device," also known as a dirty bomb.
Padilla was flown to New York as a potential "material witness" to testify before a grand jury on terrorism. However, after Newman challenged the detention, Bush declared him an enemy combatant June 9, and Padilla was flown to Charleston.
The principal evidence cited by the government to hold Padilla is a declaration by Michael H. Mobbs, a Defense Department special adviser. Newman has complained that her inability to meet with Padilla makes it impossible to present evidence in response to the allegations contained in the declaration.
Yesterday, Newman described the decision as "very significant" because Mukasey "recognized Padilla's right to counsel."
A similar issue has been raised by Yaser Esam Hamdi, who was captured with Taliban forces in Afghanistan last year. Based on a separate declaration by Mobbs, Hamdi also has been designated an "enemy combatant" and held in a military jail without charges or access to a lawyer. The Justice Department has argued against allowing the federal public defender, Frank W. Dunham Jr., a visit with Hamdi, and the case is now before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit.
Mukasey, a Reagan appointee, has been publicly supportive of the government's prosecution of the war on terrorism. He has personally signed several arrest warrants to detain terrorism suspects as material witnesses for grand jury proceedings.
Mukasey ordered prosecutors to negotiate with the defense on ground rules for Padilla's access to counsel, and to report the results Dec. 30.
In his decision, Mukasey said "the central issue" in the case was whether "the president has the authority to designate as an unlawful combatant an American citizen, captured on American soil, and detain him without trial."
The president did have that right, Mukasey wrote, rejecting Padilla's argument that the Constitution prohibits the indefinite detention of a U.S. citizen. The president, in his role as commander in chief, can designate Americans as enemy combatants, Mukasey ruled, adding that it was not necessary to address concerns that Padilla's detention, like the war on terrorism, could go on indefinitely.
"At some point in the future, when operations against al Qaeda fighters end, or the operational capacity of al Qaeda is effectively destroyed, there may be occasion to debate the legality of continuing to hold prisoners based on their connection to al Qaeda," Mukasey wrote.
The government has not contested Padilla's right to challenge his detention, only that he be denied access to an attorney. However, Mukasey wrote that without counsel he would be unable to mount an adequate challenge.
Neal Sonnett, a Miami defense attorney who heads an American Bar Association task force on enemy combatants, called the ruling a "mixed bag" because it upholds the government's contention that the president has the clear authority to designate enemy combatants regardless of where they are captured.
Yet Sonnett and others said granting Padilla access to an attorney, and the judge's assertion of his authority to conduct a limited review of the detention, mark an important limitation of the government's position.
"Nobody is arguing that enemy combatants or people who want to damage this country should be free to walk the streets," Sonnett said. "But they also shouldn't be held incommunicado indefinitely without access to a lawyer and a chance to say, 'It's not me, I'm the wrong guy.' "
Staff writer Tom Jackman contributed to this report.
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Federal Panel Backs Lab Whistleblower
December 5, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Los-Alamos-Lab.html
LOS ALAMOS, N.M. (AP) -- A federal panel found that Los Alamos National Laboratory retaliated against a whistleblower and ordered the lab to raise his salary retroactively and pay him $49,000 in legal fees.
Los Alamos also must remove negative comments from a performance evaluation for auditor Joe Gutierrez, the Labor Department panel said.
Gutierrez filed a complaint against the lab in 1997, a year after he went public with documents showing that the lab lied about emissions of airborne radioactive materials in the mid-1990s, in violation of the Clean Air Act.
Gutierrez said he had learned of the violations while working on an internal assessment, but said his bosses would not acknowledge or act on the information. He went public, he said, in the interests of public health.
The evidence later helped convince a federal judge that the lab had violated air-emission regulations.
The lab had appealed two previous decisions in Gutierrez's favor.
Jim Danneskiold, a spokesman for the lab, declined Thursday to discuss the latest ruling, issued Nov. 13, or any further appeal ``because the case has not run its entire course yet.''
``There are still several issues to be resolved,'' Danneskiold said. He said he did not know when that would happen, and could not specify what those issues are.
``Hopefully the lab won't appeal this so we can get this behind us, and we can all move forward,'' said Gutierrez, who now works on technology-transfer issues at the lab.
On the Net:
Lab: http://www.lanl.gov
-------- drug war
Powell vows aid against narco-terrorists
By Rachel Van Dongen
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
December 5, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20021205-84230272.htm
BOGOTA, Colombia - Secretary of State Colin L. Powell yesterday pledged additional resources for the Colombian government in its fight against "narco-terrorists," while standing firm on U.S. extradition requests for top rebel leaders.
"I intend to make the case before Congress for full funding of Colombia programs," Mr. Powell said at a press conference at the heavily guarded Hotel Radisson in northern Bogota.
"This is a partnership that works," he said.
Colombia is the third-largest recipient of U.S. aid, and Washington has already spent nearly $2 billion in mostly military assets to support "Plan Colombia," a comprehensive anti-narcotics strategy.
The Bush administration is expected to ask Congress for $573 million in additional money for fiscal 2003. "I would like to be able to get a lot more funding for Plan Colombia," Mr. Powell said. "But there are practical limitations."
After meetings with President Alvaro Uribe, Defense Minister Martha Lucia Ramirez and other top Colombian officials, Mr. Powell placed his stamp of approval on Mr. Uribe's national security strategy to combat three main rebel groups, including the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and right-wing paramilitaries.
Mr. Uribe invoked a semipermanent state of emergency upon taking office in August and has created security zones where military commanders rule.
"Today, Colombia is engaged in its own war against terrorism and the narco-trafficking that funds it," Mr. Powell said.
"The U.S. stands with the people of Colombia in this struggle."
He praised Uribe for "taking the difficult steps needed to provide security throughout Colombia."
But Mr. Powell's first visit to the country may have as much to do with events in the Middle East as with Colombia's internal conflict. Colombia assumed the role of head of the U.N. Security Council for December, a crucial time in the Bush administration's drive against Iraq.
Mr. Powell pointedly praised Colombia for playing a "responsible" role as a non-permanent member of the council and said he hoped that it would allow an "open, full and comprehensive" debate on the Iraqi issue.
He also addressed the recent peace overtures made by a paramilitary group to the Colombian government. Known by the Spanish initials AUC, the group declared a cease-fire beginning last Sunday in what it hopes will be the start of peace talks with the Uribe administration. But in September, Washington indicted AUC head Carlos Castano on charges of exporting 17 tons of cocaine to the U.S. and Europe.
Mr. Powell said the indictments and extradition requests for Mr. Castano, Salvatore Mancuso, another AUC leader, and Jorge Briceno, a top FARC commander known as "Mono Jojoy," remain in place.
"There was no discussion today of removing such requirements," Mr. Powell said. "These gentlemen have much to answer for, not only under U.S. law but Colombian law."
Mr. Powell said he had "very useful" discussions with Mr. Uribe about how the United States could share more intelligence with the Colombian police and army, and added that drug-interdiction efforts, stopped after a Peruvian missionary plane was mistakenly shot down last year, would begin again early next year.
On Tuesday, Mr. Powell met with nongovernmental organizations concerned about human rights in Colombia.
-------- immigration
INS lacks proper checks on aliens
By Jerry Seper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
December 5, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20021205-4571356.htm
Millions of illegal aliens armed with bogus documents enter the United States each year through the nation's 300 ports of entry because of inadequate screening methods by federal immigration officials at the country's airports and border checkpoints, a little-publicized study says.
Commissioned by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, the study concluded that between 2.95 million and 5.45 million illegal aliens cross undetected every year into the country through guarded ports of entry - with about one in every nine illegal aliens being detained.
The total does not include an estimated 3 million to 5 million illegal aliens who annually cross into the United States through unguarded areas along the border.
"A fair number of people are crossing into the United States each year, much higher than anyone expected," said Palmer Morrel-Samuels, a former University of Michigan research psychologist who conducted the four-month study for the INS. "The problem is dramatic and will continue, since the priority on stopping illegal immigration has been low.
"The solution will require a fair amount of time and resources," he said, adding that the study also put to rest a common perception that terrorists sneak into the United States through unguarded border areas with only what they can carry.
"This study suggests they did neither," he said. "It suggests they came into the country carrying all the bags they wanted and presented documents to INS inspectors, who looked them over for about a minute and then said, 'Welcome to the United States.'"
The study said INS inspectors typically spent "a minute or two" examining passports, visas or border-crossing cards before granting admission to a noncitizen traveler during an initial review process. It said random backup checks by the agency to evaluate the inspectors' accuracy showed that the inspectors had a "very low" rate of success.
Mr. Morrel-Samuels said the study involved a check of individuals who already had been approved by INS inspectors for entry. He said they had presented passports or border-crossing cards and had been welcomed into the United States. After the individuals presented their documentation, Mr. Morrel-Samuels and others who worked with him asked for a "secondary, far-more-rigorous interview that lasted 20 to 30 minutes."
Although the study made no specific recommendations, Mr. Morrel-Samuels said INS personnel have to be moved from inspection lanes to desks where they can have immediate access to computers with databases to check those people seeking to enter the United States. He said his secondary inspections found several people with forged documents and criminal records.
"Today's problems and today's solutions call for more modern methods," he said. "The decision to allow someone entry into the United States should not be a judgment made in a minute or two and based largely on intuition."
While the study concluded that a relatively small percent of travelers were improperly granted entry at each of the ports of entry, it said that when compared with the "actual number of travelers, rather than the proportion, the picture is more sobering."
It said the INS "missed several million inadmissible travelers" because of existing screening procedures and, as a result, between 2.95 million and 5.45 million illegal aliens who should have been denied entry were allowed into the United States.
INS spokesman Russ Bergeron referred inquiries about the study to other agency officials, who did not return calls for comment. He said only that the lengthy study concluded that if the INS had more time to spend with those people trying to enter the United States, more illegal aliens could be identified.
Mr. Bergeron said the study had been shared with some news outlets, although he did not elaborate.
But Mr. Morrel-Samuels, president of Employee Motivation & Performance Assessment Inc., said the study found its way only into an obscure trade journal and was never released to other news outlets despite several requests he made of the agency to do so. He said, however, that the INS should not have been "embarrassed" by the findings, because "immigration control has never been a high priority and INS has never had the necessary resources to do the job."
David Ray, spokesman for the Federation of American Immigration Reform, said the group obtained a copy of the study after being told by Mr. Morrel-Samuels of its "shocking findings." He said the INS had refused to make the document public.
"INS sought to hush the study because the agency didn't want the public to know how vulnerable we are," Mr. Ray said. "The report highlights the need for strong entry controls and real interior enforcement so that illegal aliens in the United States can be found and deported.
"The study shows that millions of illegal aliens are walking through our front door every year, whether at a port of entry or illegally jumping a fence," he said.
More than 500 million travelers enter the United States yearly at the country's established ports of entry after a brief interview with an INS inspector, the study said. It found that 47 of every 5,614 travelers were erroneously granted entry and that the INS intercepted between 9.3 percent and 16 percent of those attempting illegal entry.
"Research suggests that illegal immigrants constitute a surprisingly large portion of the current U.S. population, a trend with important political, legal, clinical, cultural and occupational ramifications," the study said. "But despite considerable interest, no one has a precise measurement of how many illegal immigrants enter the United States annually by evading detection at an airport or traffic checkpoint."
The study included random checks at 20 ports of entry. High-volume ports were sampled five times a day, low-volume ports once a day, and intermediate-volume ports were sampled three times a day. Every inspection lane at every minute of every hour when the port of entry had sufficient staff and a sufficient volume of travelers was included in the sampling frame, it said.
"Although there is much the current work cannot tell us, there is a good deal it does allow us to specify with a fair degree of precision," the study said, adding that the information collected showed that "enhanced vigilance" at the country's established ports of entry was associated with "better training, stronger organizational commitment and higher levels of employee motivation."
-------- spying
Total Poindexter Awareness: essential information
By Andrew Orlowski in San Francisco
05/12/2002
UK Register
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/28432.html
John Gilmore has picked up a call to give the government's snoopers and window-peepers a taste of their own medicine. His suggestion is at the top of MIT's Blogdex today, so it looks like it's already gaining some traction.
To illustrate the potential loss of privacy SF Weekly columnist Matt Smith called Admiral John Poindexter at home, and helpfully provided us with his address and telephone number, in a piece published here. The disgraced Iran Contra felon - who was convicted of conspiracy, obstruction, and lying to Congress and escaped a custodial sentence on a technicality - has been given the job of creating the largest dragnet of personal information ever devised. DARPA will forage for details of every American's email, phone communications and financial transactions.
The extent of Total Information Awareness was disclosed by the New York Times last month. When reporter John Markoff rang the Homeland Defense department, they hadn't heard of the plan. That's because Poindexter's "Information Awareness Office" - with the unfortunate choice of an all-seeing eye in a pyramid as its logo - reports to the Department of Defense.
"The database envisioned is of an unprecedented scale," the Information Awareness Office itself notes in its description of TIA.
DARPA created the Internet, and recently tried to destroy it - as this humdinger of a follow-up by Markoff explains.
Smith promised to"publish anything that readers can convincingly claim to have obtained legally".
Gilmore agrees:-
" Employees at various businesses and organizations such as airlines, credit card authorizers, rental-car agencies, shops, gyms, schools, tollbooths, garbage services, banks, taxis, honest civil servants and police officers, and restaurants could demonstrate denial of service to such targeted people.
"A simple "We won't serve YOUR KIND OF PEOPLE" would do, as was practiced on black people for many decades. More subtle forms of denial of service are possible, such as "You've been 'randomly' selected as a security risk, I'll have to insist that [some degrading thing happen to you]". Or merely, "I can't seem to get this credit card to work, sir, and those twenties certainly look counterfeit to me."
" People who associated closely with such a targeted individual, such as their families, relatives, friends, neighbors, protective secret service agents, and business associates, might find themselves swept up in the information dragnet.
"Such a demonstration would graphically reveal the societal dangers of deploying such systems on a wide scale against a large number of citizens -- preferably early enough that such a deployment could be prevented, rather than reversed after major harm was caused."
In Gilmore's view, that the real menace is that such a Panopticon works on the principle of GIGO: garbage in, garbage out. False information could be used to harass innocent citizens.
But the Panopticon - a prison in which the observers are concealed - derives its power from the asymmetry of knowledge, as Foucalt described it. They know much more about you than you know about them.
Perhaps that's what DARPA means when it refers to "asymmetric" technology.
-------- terrorism
Port Security Drill Reveals Shortcomings
December 5, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Port-Security.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- A port security drill showed that closing ports and borders is hard, reopening them is harder and the cost of shipping interruptions due to terrorism is potentially huge.
About 70 people from the federal government, several port authorities and private companies participated in the exercise developed with former CIA Director James Woolsey and Dale Watson, former director of counterterrorism for the FBI.
``The bottom line is that we're not totally prepared,'' Peter Scrobe, vice president of the American International Marine Agency insurance company, said Wednesday.
Participants were given three fictional scenarios to which they were supposed to react. All the scenarios occurred on the same day, meaning participants needed to formulate broad responses.
In one made-up case, a radioactive ``dirty'' bomb is smuggled into the Port of Los Angeles. In another, a dirty bomb is unpacked in Minneapolis from a freight container that had been shipped through Canada. And in the third, the Georgia Ports Authority arrests three men -- one on the FBI's terrorist watch list -- in Savannah for trying to steal cargo.
Participants in the exercise -- including representatives from the Transportation Security Administration, the Office of Homeland Security, the Customs Service and the port authorities of New York, New Jersey and Georgia -- decided to close ports and border crossings. Foreign trade was halted and a search for bombs began.
The drill revealed a lack of crisis coordination and communication among government and the private sector, said Marc Gerencser, vice president of Booz Allen Hamilton, a management consulting firm that sponsored the drill.
Companies that move freight strongly opposed the decision to close the ports, Gerencser said. ``The supply chain people said, 'You can't do this, it will kill us,''' he said,
The teams decided that after eight days ports and borders could be reopened, but with the National Guard helping to inspect cargo. However, they also discovered it isn't easy to reopen a port.
``You have jurisdictions with competing interests,'' said Gerencser. ``The FBI wants to do crime scene inspections and Customs wants to bring in revenue. Nothing forces them to work together.''
The consequences of the port closings were dramatic. Participants found it would take 92 days to work through the backlog of cargo, costing the U.S. economy $58 billion. Ships were stranded, importers and exporters lost money due to spoilage and lost sales, and manufacturers began to close plants.
The businesspeople who took part in the drill agreed they wanted the new Homeland Security Department to handle port security -- something that will fall under its jurisdiction as it takes oversight of the Coast Guard, the Transportation Security Administration, Border Patrol and Customs.
The Transportation Security Administration canceled a telephone interview to discuss the drill. Spokespeople for the Office of Homeland Security, the Coast Guard, the Border Patrol and Customs did not immediately return telephone calls seeking comment.
President Bush signed a bill last month requiring the nation's 361 seaports to develop security plans. The law also creates a sea marshal program, marine anti-terrorism teams and new standards to make container seals tamper proof.
Congress left funding for port security to the Bush administration, which under the new law is required to submit a proposal within the next six months.
On the Net:
Transportation Security Administration: http://www.tsa.dot.gov
-------- ENERGY AND OTHER
-------- alternative energy
Dutch raise green energy subsidy after backlash
REUTERS NETHERLANDS:
December 5, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/18897/story.htm
AMSTERDAM - The Dutch caretaker government said yesterday it would increase subsidies for clean energy, a month after its earlier proposals triggered a storm of criticism from power firms and green groups as being too modest.
The centre-right government, which collapsed after less than 100 days in office, has proposed shifting the subsidies from consumers to producers, and slashed levels to help alleviate a deficit that is expected to reach 2.2 billion euros (dollars) in 2003.
But consumer groups, energy companies and environmental activisits said the support levels that had been previously proposed were too low to stimulate development of new green power production for the 1.3 million Dutch households currently using electricty from clean sources.
The government said in September it would lower the 450 million euros in subsidies in place since the beginning of the year by reducing the exemptions for households which choose green energy and close loopholes that sent up to 200 million euros to foreign biomass generation companies.
The new proposals raised the amount of state spending for each kilowatt hour (kWh) of power, but did not alter the 140 million euros the government had said in November it would spend in 2003 to make green energy more competitive with power from oil, coal or gas-fired plants.
The government said it did not expect to spend the full 140 million euros in 2003 because there were not yet enough projects to qualify for it. As a result, the extra money saved in the early years would be used to compensate for shortfalls in later years.
The proposals call for 190 million euros in subsidies in 2006, although that amount will probably fall short of the money needed, a spokesman for the economics ministry said. Money saved in 2003 will go toward meeting that shortfall.
The government said it would raise the subsidy for sea-based wind farms, photovoltaic solar power, small-scale biomass and tidal and wave power to 6.8 euro cents per kWh from the previously proposed 5.0 cents.
Land-based wind farms will receive a subsidy of 4.9 cents per kwh, up from 2.4 cents under the previous plan, while partial biomass plants will get 2.9 cents versus 2.4 cents earlier.
-------- energy
Ex-trader of energy charged in fraud
December 5, 2002
AP
http://www.washtimes.com/business/20021205-22331542.htm
HOUSTON - A former energy trader was indicted yesterday on charges he reported bogus transactions to an industry publication that calculates the price of natural gas.
Todd Geiger, a 38-year-old former vice president of El Paso Corp., was arrested Tuesday and charged with wire fraud and reporting false trade information. He was scheduled to appear in federal court yesterday.
U.S. Attorney Michael Shelby said his corporate fraud task force is further investigating Mr. Geiger and possibly traders at other companies.
Mr. Geiger is accused of reporting 48 fake natural-gas trades in November 2001 to a monthly publication called Inside FERC Gas Market Report. The fake trades reputedly affected the gas market the following month.
Inaccurate reports can make a big difference in gas prices, Mr. Shelby said.
The charges carry up to 10 years in prison, though the penalty would probably be far less under federal sentencing guidelines.
Mr. Geiger resigned Nov. 12. El Paso said in a statement that it has been cooperating fully with federal authorities.
The energy company announced Nov. 8 that it is getting out of the trading business.
-------- environment
Environment likely not to blame for Marin County breast cancer rates, scientists say
Thursday, December 05, 2002
By Margie Mason,
Associated Press
http://enn.com/news/wire-stories/2002/12/12052002/ap_49126.asp
SAN FRANCISCO - Suspicions that something in the environment is causing Marin County's high rate of breast cancer have led to a big fund drive and public awareness campaign. But some scientists say the people, not the place, are the reason for the cancer levels.
Some community activists have pronounced well-to-do Marin County "the breast cancer capital of the world" and are worried the air or the water is to blame. But some researchers who have studied the county doubt it.
"It's not the geography; it's the demography," said Tina Clarke, an epidemiologist at the Northern California Cancer Center in Union City, which monitors cancer rates in Marin and eight other San Francisco Bay area counties. "It's the type of person living in Marin County."
Many studies have suggested that breast cancer more often strikes highly educated, middle-class women, in part because they have children late in life or not at all, have greater access to hormone supplements, and are more likely to regularly drink alcohol.
And Marin County, where incomes are twice the national average and the median single-family home costs $530,000, has an unusually high percentage of highly educated, middle-aged white women with these and other risk factors among its population of 250,000.
Marin's cancer rate leaps out among other California counties, but researchers find similar rates in other relatively homogenous pockets of upper middle-class white women, said Clarke, whose research has been funded by the National Cancer Institute.
The average number of new breast cancer cases reported in Marin County each year was 199 out of every 100,000 white females from 1995 to 1999, compared with 143 per 100,000 white females in the rest of urban California, a number that is on track with the rest of the nation, Clarke said.
Breast cancer rates rose 37 percent in Marin County in the 1990s, while climbing only 3 percent in other urban California counties. The high rates have sparked a vigorous response from community groups seeking to raise awareness. One, the Marin Cancer Project, put out television shock ads showing women obliviously stepping over corpses in the supermarket aisles.
The project mobilized 2,000 volunteers last month to go door-to-door throughout the county, gathering anecdotal information about cancer. The project has raised more than $140,000 so far.
Meanwhile, Rep. Lynn Woolsey and Sen. Barbara Boxer, both of Marin County, last month helped secure $900,000 in federal grants to look at environmental risk factors for cancer. The money will be administered by the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences.
Members of the Marin Cancer Project want to investigate as possible sources such things as a San Rafael quarry, a plastic foam cup factory in Corte Madera, and the power lines that serve Marin County's many cul-de-sacs.
"Science is science, but grass-roots groups have an opportunity to work faster and gather anecdotal data that's profound and powerful," said Judi Shils, the group's founder.
Clarke agreed that more research is needed but said work focusing on socio-economic backgrounds and lifestyle choices would shed more light on Marin County's problems.
-------- genetics
Similarities Found in Mouse Genes and Human's
December 5, 2002
New York Times
By NICHOLAS WADE
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/05/science/05MOUS.html
An analysis of the mouse genome by an international consortium of scientists, a landmark event in biology, shows it is so similar to that of people that it should speed efforts to understand the human genome and the genetic roots of disease.
This is the first time that the reasonably complete genomes of two mammals, mouse and man, have become available for comparison. While the genome of a mammal even closer to the human, like the chimpanzee, may someday be decoded, the mouse is both genetically close and also an ideal laboratory animal.
Man and mouse are cousins, each descended from a small mammal that split into two species toward the end of the dinosaur era. Despite 75 million years of separate evolution, only about 300 genes - 1 percent of the 30,000 possessed by the mouse - have no obvious counterpart in the human genome, according to the new analysis published in today's issue of Nature.
This similarity makes the mouse genome an excellent surrogate for studying the human genome, especially for tests that would be ethically impossible in people. To understand the role of any newly found human gene, researchers can identify the counterpart gene in mice, genetically engineer a strain of mouse that lacks the gene, and figure out from the mouse's defects what the missing gene is meant to do.
The analysis has also yielded new insight into the workings of evolution and brought to light the existence of a large class of novel genes that produce a substance related to DNA.
Dr. Robert Winston, a human fertility expert at the Imperial College London, called the analysis a "landmark announcement" that "will undoubtedly further our understanding of the molecular basis for human diseases and the treatment of the widest range of human disorders."
The analysis accompanies the official release of the consortium's version of the mouse genome, which has been available online since May and is considered an essential component of the human genome project.
The international consortium's mouse genome was prepared by the Whitehead Institute in Cambridge, Mass., the Genome Sequencing Center at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, and the Sanger Institute near Cambridge, England. The leading authors of the consortium's report are Dr. Robert Waterston of Washington University, Dr. Eric Lander and Dr. Kerstin Lindblad-Toh of the Whitehead Institute, Dr. Jane Rogers of the Sanger Institute and Dr. Ewan Birney of the European Bioinformatics Institute, which is housed next to the Sanger. The mouse genome project was financed largely by the National Institutes of Health and the Wellcome Trust of London.
The new analysis, based largely on comparing the mouse's genome - DNA unit by DNA unit - with that of the human genome, has turned up new insights into how evolution shapes a species.
The mouse, for instance, to serve its acuter sense of smell, has developed many more genes related to odor detection than people have. The consortium's genome-scanning computers have identified 25 of these gene groups that are expanded in the mouse, compared with people. Besides smell, the expanded groups underlie such roles as pheromones, hormones that are involved in sexual attraction; degradation of toxins in the diet; and immune defense.
The analysis also suggests that more of the genome is useful than scientists had realized. Genomes are shaped by mutation - random changes in the chemical units of DNA caused by radiation or copying errors - or by the force Darwin called natural selection, preserving the fittest organisms and discarding the rest.
Using a test that compares mutations on the human and mouse genomes, and that takes into account those which cause changes in a protein, the authors of the analysis found that some 5 percent of each genome is under selective pressure.
The figure is provocative because less than 3 percent of the DNA is thought to be occupied by genes that code for proteins, the working parts of the living cell. So another 2 percent of the genome must be doing something of such importance for each organism's survival that it has been conserved for many millennia.
This other 2 percent may include control regions - stretches of DNA upstream of a gene that serve as its on-off switch - as well as a novel class of genes called RNA genes.
RNA, a more ancient chemical version of DNA, performs many basic tasks in a cell, one of which is to form a copy or transcript of a gene and direct the synthesis of the gene's protein. Recently, some of these RNA transcripts have been found to have executive roles all their own, without making any protein. An RNA gene is responsible for the vital task of shutting all the genes on one of the two X chromosomes in each female cell, ensuring that women get the same dose of X-based genes as men, who have just one X chromosome.
The new analysis suggests that a large family of such RNA genes may exist, a point confirmed by a Japanese team under Dr. Yoshihide Hayashizaki of the Riken Genomic Sciences in Yokohama. Dr. Hayashizaki, whose report also appears in today's Nature, has collected almost all the RNA transcripts made by mouse cells taken from every tissue of the mouse's body.
Though most of the transcripts code for mouse proteins, he found as many as 4,280 he could not match to any known mouse protein, suggesting that a large part of the genome consists of nonprotein coding genes. The roles of almost all these RNA genes have yet to be understood.
The mouse genome has been decoded separately by both the international consortium and the Celera Genomics Corporation of Rockville, Md., the same rivals who vied in decoding the human genome. Celera, then directed by Dr. J. Craig Venter, decoded the mouse genome two years ago but made it available by subscription only.
The consortium, which makes all its data public, has also prepared a reasonably complete draft of the mouse genome, which is the basis for the analysis released today. But to do so, it switched to Dr. Venter's method for decoding genomes, known as a whole genome shotgun, which consortium members criticized when he used it on the human genome.
"I feel wonderfully vindicated that they have seen the power of a whole genome shotgun," Dr. Venter said today. Dr. Venter published a study of one mouse chromosome in May, but did not complete a study of the full genome before he left Celera.
The mouse genomes decoded by the consortium and Celera are complete enough to be highly useful to researchers yet are still far from finished. They differ with each other in about 10 percent of the genome, according to a comparison by Dr. Michael Q. Zhang of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island. In a study published today in the online journal Genome Biology, Dr. Zhang matched Celera's second version of the mouse genome with the consortium's third version, both of which were released online in May.
He found that Celera's had "higher accuracy in base pairs and overall coverage of the genome," but that the consortium's was better in certain regions where it had more recent data. Base pairs are the units of which the DNA molecule is composed. Because of these different strengths, Dr. Zhang advises researchers to use both genomes.
The mouse genome is 2,510 million units of DNA in length, according to Celera, and 2,475 million units according to the consortium. The human genome, by comparison, is 2,900 million units. But since both species seem to possess around 30,000 protein-coding genes, the extra DNA in the human genome is probably of no direct importance.
The availability of two reasonably complete mammalian genomes is of great help to gene finders. The decoded genome is a string of A's, G's, C's and T's, the four units of DNA, with no annotation as to which regions are genes and which are junk. Because humans and mice have inherited much the same overall set of genes from their common ancestor, finding a new gene on one species now often leads to the discovery of its counterpart gene on the other.
-------- ACTIVISTS
Anti-war protesters are flowing in from the mainstream
By Marjie Lundstrom --
Sacramento Bee Columnist
Thursday, December 5, 2002
http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/story/5471271p-6455237c.html
In Chico, a shy, 83-year-old World War II veteran and former naval officer surprises his son by attending an anti-war protest outside Rep. Wally Herger's office, where 21 are arrested.
In Sacramento, a land surveyor for the state rounds up his book group to attend three peace rallies in Sacramento and San Francisco.
UCDavis Health In the Bay Area, a former Silicon Valley entrepreneur creates a Web site whose current anti-war agenda has attracted nearly 600,000 Internet followers.
It has been four weeks since I wrote about the burgeoning anti-war movement and the flawed media coverage around it. The stories have been pouring in since, among them:
The Rocklin schoolteacher who worries about his students' futures. The 68-year-old "stay-at-home protester" who e-mails and writes his elected officials. The 64-year-old semiretired carpenter who proudly stages a war protest in Auburn.
There is the Sacramento attorney who sees her peace activism as a "matter of logic." And a father who drives his 12-year-old son to the Oct. 26 peace rally in San Francisco. A 51-year-old writer takes a ferry to the rally, too, because she is alarmed by President Bush's "frightening drive to war."
This is what the anti-war movement looks like -- not just the collection of fringe characters and political oddballs some news outlets portray.
Yet media coverage seems stuck in a 1960s and 1970s Vietnam War-era frame, with journalists confining themselves to protest stories and visual images reminiscent of those times.
Problem? The times are most definitely changing.
"This is a much more mainstream movement than the anti-Vietnam War movement was at a comparable stage," said Stephen Zunes, chairman of the Peace and Justice Studies Program at the University of San Francisco. Zunes, who specializes in U.S. policy in the Middle East and nonviolent social movements, recently published the book "Tinderbox: U.S. Middle East Policy and the Roots of Terrorism."
It is true that the Oct. 26 anti-war demonstrations in Washington, D.C., and San Francisco were organized by the Workers World Party, not the least bit mainstream.
But that's logistics. Then you have to ask: Who attended? And who else is stepping forward to publicly oppose the war?
Say hello to your friends and neighbors.
Unlike the early days of the Vietnam anti-war movement, says Zunes, churches and labor unions have edged into this movement much sooner. Those speaking out against attacking Iraq already include the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, the National Council of Churches, the United Methodist Church and, in this state, the California Federation of Teachers. AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney has expressed reservations to both houses of Congress.
There are many pacifists, says Zunes, but there are also pragmatists this go-round. These are the people who question from a practical, utilitarian standpoint whether war would be good for American interests. They worry about an international backlash against America and the loss of American lives. They wonder what would happen after a war.
"Afghanistan showed it's easier to throw one government out than it is to put one together," he said.
While much of the news coverage focuses on noisy protests -- it fits the '60s frame, after all -- a less visible element carries considerable clout: those "stay-at-home" protesters.
Joan Blades, a Berkeley entrepreneur who co-founded MoveOn.org, an Internet-based group, posted a petition Wednesday urging Bush to let the U.N. weapons inspections process work. She expects to get 20,000 to 30,000 signatures in 24 hours -- not unrealistic for a group that raised $1 million in a few days for four anti-war candidates.
Luke Wilson, a 55-year-old land surveyor for the state Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, attended recent protests with his First Friday Book Club. As a young student, Wilson protested the Vietnam War, too.
But this is different. And if the media can't see that, Wilson can.
"Back then, it was a long struggle to get mainstream people on board with that movement.
Now," says the father of two, "we've already got them."
The Bee's Marjie Lundstrom can be reached at (916) 321-1055 or mlundstrom@sacbee.com.
----
Canadians go to Baghdad as 'human shields'
Martin O'Malley,
CBC News Online
Dec. 5, 2002
http://www.cbc.ca/news/features/iraq/anti_war_iraq.html
Opposition to a war on Iraq has a long way to go before it rivals the draft-card burnings and demonstrations against the war in Vietnam in the 1960s, but a new anti-war movement is growing muscle. Some Canadians already have left for Iraq to serve as human shields against bomb attacks on Baghdad. More will follow before Christmas.
Irene Vandas and Jennifer Ziemann of Vancouver are heading to Iraq on Friday. Vandas, a 32-year-old registered nurse, and Ziemann, a 30-year-old home-care worker, will fly to Amsterdam, board a plane to Amman, Jordan, then drive into Iraq all the way to Baghdad where they will live with Iraqi civilians. There, they will join friends Linda Morgan and Irene MacInnes, two Canadians who travelled to Iraq in mid-November.
The four Canadians, sponsored by an anti-war organization called Voices in the Wilderness, have volunteered to be human shields in an effort to dissuade American-led forces from attacking Iraq. "I'm not too scared," Vandas told CBC News Online the day before she left. "I think it will be a powerful experience."
The last time human shields were in the news was during the 1999 war in Kosovo, when NATO accused Yugoslavia President President Slobodan Milosevic of using civilians as human shields at strategic targets, such as bridges and power plants.
Vandas and Ziemann have agreed to stay in Baghdad until the end of December. They will work with two Canadian doctors, Amir Khadir and David Swann, both anti-war activists who have taken up residence in Iraq to protest against U.S. attacks. Vandas said another group of Canadians will go to Iraq later this month, joining some 30-40 young protesters from the U.S. and Britain.
Recent developments:
- On Sept. 28, 2002, a crowd of over 150,000 in London marched to Hyde Park to protest against attacks on Iraq. The demonstration was sponsored by the Muslim Association of Britain and Stop the War Coalition.
- Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch criticized the British government for a report on Saddam's use of torture and summary executions. The two groups usually welcome such documentation of human rights violations, but they criticized the British government for using the report as propaganda to justify an attack on Iraq.
- Opposition to an attack on Iraq extends to Yukon, where a rally will be held on Dec. 6, 2002 in front of the Elijah Smith Building in Whitehorse. Protesters intend to march to Yukon MP Larry Bagnell's office to deliver a message that Canada should stay out of any war in Iraq. "Why is the United States so unwilling to try diplomacy?" asked rally organizer Rohan Quinby.
- On Dec. 4, 2002, The Washington Post reported on a poll of 44 countries that suggested "overwhelming majorities" in France, Germany and Russia oppose military force to end Saddam Hussein's rule.
It isn't a matter of groundswell support or sympathy for Saddam Hussein. Rather, the new anti-war movement zeroes in on the fear that any campaign against Iraq - especially the expected urban warfare on the streets of Baghdad - would imperil the lives of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians.
The Washington Post story on "public attitudes" of other countries regarding the U.S. says large majorities in Britain, France, Germany and Russia believe Saddam is a threat to stability in the Middle East and a danger to world peace. But this consensus collapses when it comes to a military attack on Iraq.
"Overwhelming majorities in France, Germany and Russia oppose the use of military force to end Saddam's rule," the newspaper says. "Even in Great Britain, America's staunchest ally on Iraq, opinion is sharply divided: fewer than half - 47 per cent - favor using force to oust Hussein, while an equal proportion disagree."
Jo Wood, a psychology professor at Carleton University, says groups across Canada are raising money to fund a "national peace coalition" against a war on Iraq. As for the Canadians going to Baghdad, Wood says, "...they are prepared to risk their own lives by standing with the Iraqi people and positioning themselves at important public facilities, such as water plants and hospitals, in an effort to protect these against the bombs."
As for those who condemn Saddam but profess support for the Iraqi people, Wood told CBC News Online that the Iraqi people get hurt either way. "All efforts to hurt Saddam hurt the Iraqi people much more and weaken them so that they cannot find their own resources to make a better world for themselves," she said.
Mainstream media so far haven't made much of the anti-war movement building against an attack on Iraq.
Stephen O'Leary, a contributing scholar to Online Journalism Review, wrote a story on Oct. 17, 2002, titled The Antiwar Movement on the Web. "If you get your news by reading newspapers and watching television, you won't find much coverage of the antiwar movement," O'Leary said. "But on the Web, there's plenty of evidence of a global grassroots sentiment opposing the war."
O'Leary mentioned the anti-war rally in London, when police estimated the crowd at 150,000 but organizers of the demonstration estimated the crowd to be 400,000. "In any case," he said in his OJR article, "the demonstrations were mostly ignored by the American press."
Most of the American press chose to write about public support for fox-hunting in England.
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Peace activists refuse to pay U.S. fines over trips to Iraq
JEFF MAPES
12/05/02
Oregonion
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/xml/story.ssf/html_standard.xsl?/base/news/1039093076284100.xml
Two peace activists, including one from Portland, are refusing to pay $30,000 in federal fines for traveling to Iraq to provide medicine there in violation of U.S. sanctions.
"We don't believe it's a crime" to give medicine to needy people, said Kathy Kelly, founder of the Chicago-based Voices in the Wilderness, in a telephone interview Wednesday from Baghdad. "Giving money to the U.S. government is pretty repugnant to us right now."
Kelly and her group were fined $20,000, and Dan Handelman, a longtime Portland peace activist associated with the group, was fined $10,000 in connection with their travels to Iraq.
Handelman said he would refuse to pay the fine as part of his continuing protest against the U.S. sanctions, which he charged violate international law because of the harm he said they're inflicting on Iraqi civilians.
U.S. law prohibits exports and other transactions with Iraq as well as travel to that country by Americans unless they are journalists or on official government business. On Nov. 4, the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control, part of the Treasury Department, issued orders to Handelman, Kelly and the Voices group to pay the fines within 30 days.
The fine against Handelman stemmed from a November 1997 trip he made with the group to Iraq to distribute about 500 pounds of medicine. Customs officials seized photographs and videotapes he made there, and he was later fined for travel-related expenses prohibited by the U.S. sanctions.
Kelly, a former schoolteacher, said she founded the group after concluding that U.S. and United Nations sanctions were causing widespread suffering in Iraq by wreaking havoc on the country's economy, health care and education.
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Use of tear gas revives anti-Chavez protest
By Scott Wilson in Caracas
December 5 2002
Sydney Morning Herald
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/12/04/1038950095940.html
Protest ... an opponent of President Hugo Chavez waves the Venezuelan flag during a protest on Tuesday, the second day of a general strike. Photo: AFP/Juan Barreto Mr Chavez ... his opponents want his resignation or early elections.
A general strike escalated into street clashes between opposition forces and the National Guard as Venezuela's vital oil industry became the epicentre of a political crisis.
During a rally at an executive office building of the state-owned oil company Petroleos de Venezuela on Tuesday afternoon, National Guard troops fired tear gas at hundreds of employees and opposition supporters without warning the crowd to disperse.
The action scattered the group in fear, giving new life to a national anti-government protest that earlier in the day had showed signs of waning into an opposition defeat.
On Tuesday night, as thousands of Venezuelans poured into the streets and blocked highways with burning barricades, opposition leaders announced that the fourth general strike in the past year would extend for at least another day.
At the same time, the national elections board opened the door again for a non-binding referendum on President Hugo Chavez's four-year-old administration, which diplomats hoped would refocus the struggle and remove it from the streets.
The oil company protest was in support of Juan Fernandez, an opposition leader at the company who was robbed at gunpoint in his home the previous night in a crime the opposition interpreted as political intimidation. Whether or not that was the motive, the swift National Guard sweep through the peaceful crowd recalled the street violence that preceded Mr Chavez's brief ouster in April by a military-led coup.
Mr Fernandez, the oil company's planning director who organised protests in April, said 90per cent of the company's management was striking to force Mr Chavez's resignation or early elections. He said the managers planned to remain on strike at least through yesterday and warned that Venezuela, the third-largest supplier of oil to the United States, could soon be forced to reduce shipments.
The general strike is the most prolonged push in months by a broad opposition movement hoping to force Mr Chavez from office or bring forward presidential elections due in 2006.
Many poor Venezuelans view the president as a hero. But Mr Chavez, a former army colonel who led a failed coup 10 years ago, has enraged many others with fierce class-based rhetoric, a populist political program and an ideological turn away from the US and toward Cuba.
The Organisation of American States is mediating talks between the Government and the opposition, hoping an agreement on early elections might defuse the growing crisis.
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