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NUCLEAR
Arms Control Racing Time and Technology
U.S. threatening nuke treaty?
Taiwan to Vote on China Missile Threat
Schröder suffers political fallout from plutonium plant deal
U.S., South Korea, Japan agree on nuke proposal for N. Korea
Australia Assures China on Missile Defense Program
Building mini nuclear bombs
Pentagon Adviser Faulted Over Boeing Role
Conservatives Criticize Bush on Spending
MILITARY
Bomb Explodes in Center of Kandahar
9 Children Dead After U.S. Attack in Afghanistan
Afghan Elections Threatened by Violence
Iran woos New Zealand DIY missile builder
Air Force urged Boeing deal despite ethical concerns
Ministers flout arms sales code
N. Korea to Respond to Japan Spy Satellite
South Korea Awaits First Dead From Iraq
Air Force urged Boeing deal despite ethical concerns
Air Force Pursued Boeing Deal Despite Concerns of Rumsfeld
Taiwanese To Hold Ballot on China Arms
Running for Re-Election, Taiwan Leader Takes on China
Austrian rejects EU mutual assistance defence commitment
Trail of Anti-U.S. Fighters Said to Cross Europe to Iraq
Iraqis call for return of secret police
Rumsfeld Makes Unannounced Visit to Iraq
Baker Is Named to Restructure Iraq's Huge Debt
Bomb Kills U.S. Soldier, at Least 3 Iraqis
Powell Hears Shadow Plan for Peace in Middle East
An Ally of Sharon Foresees a Palestinian State
Palestinians Divided Over Cease - Fire Offer
Nepal lays 10,000 landmines to counter insurgents
Suicide Bombing on Russian Train Near Chechnya Kills 42
Spy Satellites Used to Look for Damage on Space Station
Hundreds of U.S. Troops Infected by Parasite
Army Will Face Dip in Readiness 4 Divisions Need to Regroup After Iraq
Army Force Stretched After War in Iraq
General Gets 20 Years for Sarajevo Atrocities
AP: Iraq Set to Form War Crimes Tribunal
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
Socks Prompt Warning About Al Qaeda and Planes
Deals Reported Afoot for Detainees
Terrorism Warning for Airlines Focuses on Shoes and Clothing
OTHER
Effort to Ban Human Cloning Will Resume
With Flu Cases Spreading, Demand for Vaccine Grows
ACTIVISTS
Mom Vainly Tries to See U.S. Iraq Soldier Daughter
Burma Says 16 Prisoners Released
'America's Hangar': Air and Space Museum's new wing
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- arms control
Arms Control Racing Time and Technology
December 6, 2003
New York Times
By JUDITH MILLER
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/06/arts/06ARMS.html?pagewanted=all&position=
The intricate web of treaties and international agreements to limit the spread of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons is under siege, influential arms control experts say, and may be unable to deter hostile states or terrorists from acquiring the most lethal weapons.
"We are facing a daunting array of new threats, some of which our existing treaties and agreements probably can't solve," said Michael L. Moodie, president of the Chemical and Biological Arms Control Institute, a nonpartisan research center that sponsored a conference in Washington last month.
Complaints about the three so-called pillars of nonproliferation - the 1968 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention and the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention - are not new. But the cascade of challenges has vastly increased concern.
Experts who attended the meeting in Washington and one in Monterey, Calif., last month warned of the growing sophistication of terrorist groups like Al Qaeda and their persistent efforts to acquire nuclear, chemical and biological weapons for what Bruce Hoffman, the head of the Washington office of the RAND Corporation, called "mass casualty" or "megaterrorism."
W. Seth Carus, deputy director of the Center for Counterproliferation Research at the Pentagon's National Defense University, warned that "terrorists cannot be deterred by existing treaties or emerging tools."
Of equal concern is the weakening of the arms control treaties themselves. For the first time, a member of the nuclear treaty group, North Korea, has withdrawn from the accord, openly renouncing its pledge not to develop nuclear weapons. India, Pakistan and Israel, none of which signed the treaty, have also suffered few consequences as a result of their decision to acquire nuclear weapons. That could encourage other nations to pursue atomic bombs, experts said.
The Bush administration's policies have also come under attack. Critics like Joseph Cirincione, senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, argued that the administration was undermining nonproliferation norms and alliances by its policies: its determination to develop an antiballistic missile shield and a new class of nuclear weapons; its abandonment of an international, six-year effort to strengthen the bioweapons treaty; and its attack on Iraq as part of its doctrine of preventive war. Administration officials adamantly dispute such claims, arguing that the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and the anthrax letters that followed underline the limitations of current agreements and the need to propose creative supplements and alternatives.
Don A. Mahley, the State Department's special negotiator for chemical and biological arms control, called other nations' unwillingness to take action against treaty violators like Iraq the "greatest threat to the arms control regime and the rule of law."
"We need an international community that won't play Pontius Pilate whenever there are obstacles to taking action," he said at the Washington meeting.
Others say developments in technology - biotechnology, in particular - threaten to render current treaties unenforceable. "Advances in technology are moving too fast for international treaties, or even domestic legislation, to catch up," said Jean P. du Preez, a former South African diplomat who directs a nonproliferation program at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute, which sponsored the California meeting last month. "And the germ weapons treaty has no enforcement mechanism at all."
Could thousands of new, small, mobile germ production facilities throughout the world ever be monitored to ensure that terrorists don't use them? And if nations do not need to stockpile vast quantities of microorganisms and chemicals for weapons, relying instead on fast new production techniques, could treaties stop them? Probably not, many experts agreed, including some of the staunchest defenders of the current arms control system.
Indeed, many criticized loopholes in the treaties, noting that Iran and North Korea used the antinuclear treaty - which was supposed to deter states from acquiring nuclear weapons - to secure that very atomic technology and expertise. Analysts say arms control is also being undermined by "secondary proliferation," the sale or trading of goods and expertise by states like Pakistan to would-be possessors of unconventional arms.
While Washington suspects nearly a dozen countries of violating the treaties banning chemical and biological weapons, officials concede that they usually lack "smoking gun" evidence of such cheating.
Still, most experts agree that the existing arms control regime, for all its faults, is vital to stop the most dangerous states and groups from getting the most dangerous weapons. But there is less agreement on how to respond to the new challenges.
Ashton B. Carter, a former assistant secretary of defense under President Clinton who is now co-director of the Harvard-Stanford Preventive Defense Project, argues for a major renovation of arms control arrangements. "Our entire tool box of counterproliferation measures needs overhaul," he said.
Some scholars have focused on how to fix flaws in the treaties, especially the germ weapons treaty. Jonathan B. Tucker, a senior researcher at the Monterey center, said the biological weapons treaty arrived with a "serious birth defect": the lack of a system for verifying that states are abiding by their treaty commitments and for punishing cheaters.
The administration has maintained that talks to repair this defect are not working. Instead, it has proposed a list of nine voluntary measures. These include approaches like stricter national control of germ stockpiles, scientific codes of conduct, extradition agreements and the criminalization of germ theft.
While Mr. Tucker applauds such steps, he says they do not go far enough. Both he and other germ weapons experts want Washington to concentrate more on increasing disease control in the United States and abroad, and to do more to secure stockpiles of dangerous pathogens.
Weak security at biological, chemical and nuclear sites in the former Soviet Union and elsewhere worries William C. Potter, director of the Monterey Institute. In a recent paper, he warned that terrorists could use such unsecured stockpiles of highly enriched uranium to make an "improvised nuclear device."
In the early 1990's, Congress approved groundbreaking legislation to secure such sites and stockpiles in the former Soviet Union. Yet despite the success of their Cooperative Threat Reduction program, too little money and effort have been spent on this task, said Senator Richard G. Lugar, Republican of Indiana, one of the law's original sponsors. Moreover, despite 9/11, Congress only last month approved $50 million to help secure stockpiles of such dangerous materials beyond the former Soviet Union. "The mindset hasn't sunk in," Senator Lugar said.
Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Vienna-based group that inspects nuclear programs, has been pressing nations to submit to tougher spot inspections when international suspicions are aroused. He has also revived an older proposal to internationalize uranium enrichment facilities so that countries like Iran cannot justify producing their own fuel for atomic reactors, an idea that intrigues both Russia and the United States.
Some analysts call for more sweeping revisions in the nuclear treaty and other major pacts. At the Monterey meeting, Rebecca Johnson, director of the Acronym Institute for Disarmament Diplomacy, a London-based center, argued for reexamining one of the grand bargains at the heart of the nonproliferation treaty: an offer of technical assistance to nonnuclear countries that seek to establish peaceful nuclear energy programs while renouncing nuclear weapons.
She noted that Iran and North Korea used the treaty's technical assistance to acquire a nuclear option. "Such a deal on nuclear technological assistance may have made sense in 1968," Ms. Johnson said. "But does it today?"
Mr. Potter and others are pessimistic about changing the nuclear treaty ground rules this late in the game. He argued that nonnuclear states can correctly point to another lapse in the treaty: the failure of the United States and Russia to move more rapidly toward disarmament.
One of the Bush administration's responses to the growing proliferation threat that has won praise from many defenders of current arms control measures is the Proliferation Security Initiative, which recruits nations to interdict the international transport of illicit nuclear supplies.
No matter what their political affiliation, defense experts say these sorts of creative supplements are needed.
As George Perkovich, a scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said, "Diplomats from Kofi Annan to Henry Kissinger agree that we need new guidelines for the pre-emptive and preventive use of military force to stop proliferation."
----
U.S. threatening nuke treaty?
December 6, 2003
WorldNetDaily.com
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=35980
During the Cold War, we were understandably concerned that the Soviets might nuke 50 or 60 million of us in our jammies. Post-Cold War, there remains the concern that a terrorist group might somehow nuke a few thousand of us.
So, when President Bush needed a rationale for imposing regime-change on Iraq, he told Congress that Saddam Hussein posed "a continuing threat to the national security of the United States" by "actively seeking a nuclear-weapons capability, and supporting and harboring terrorist organizations."
Never mind that on March 7, 2003, International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Mohamed ElBaradei had reported to the Security Council that "after three months of intrusive inspections, we have to date found no evidence or plausible indication of the revival of a nuclear-weapons program in Iraq."
The IAEA is an agency of the United Nations whose original mission was to facilitate the international transfer of nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.
Since 1972, the IAEA has also been responsible to the Security Council for verifying that those peaceful applications - once transferred - are not misused.
Article IV, Section (1) of the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty says "Nothing in this Treaty shall be interpreted as affecting the inalienable right of all the Parties to the Treaty to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination."
So, the IAEA requires every NPT signatory to "declare" certain facilities and activities and subject them to the IAEA-NPT Safeguards regime.
In the immediate aftermath of the Gulf War, the IAEA discovered that Iraq had "failed" to declare uranium-enrichment facilities and activities. Such "failures" are not necessarily violations of the NPT. But the IAEA eventually discovered that Iraq did have an illicit nuke-development program and that was an NPT "violation."
Iraq had gotten most items that it failed to declare from individuals and private-sector firms located in nation-states that didn't even have nukes. Only five of the 40-member Nuclear Suppliers Group are have-nuke states. All NSG members are supposed to closely scrutinize their exports. However, prior to post-war discoveries in Iraq, if NSG exporters said the importer's intentions were peaceful, NSG members usually took the exporters at their word.
No longer. Since the Gulf War, NSG members have criminally prosecuted and imprisoned deceitful exporters. Furthermore, they now require the importing nation-state to subject most items to a full-scope IAEA Safeguards Agreement, whether they are NPT signatories or not.
The additional "full-scope" authority is provided the IAEA by an Additional Protocol to the NPT, which more than a hundred NPT signatories - including Iran and the United States - do not yet have in force.
In agreeing to sign the Additional Protocol, Iran recently admitted to the IAEA that it has also "failed" to "declare" numerous facilities and activities. The IAEA has confirmed the failures, but after months of searching, has yet to find any "evidence" of an illicit nuke program.
Nevertheless, Under Secretary of State John Bolton has characterized Iran's "failures" to be NPT "violations" - which they are not - and has demanded that Iran be hauled before the U.N. Security Council for disciplinary action.
"The United States believes that the long-standing, massive and covert Iranian effort to acquire sensitive nuclear capabilities makes sense only as part of a nuclear-weapons program."
So, what does the United States intend to do if the Security Council does nothing?
"Properly planned and executed, the interception of critical technologies can prevent hostile states and terrorists from acquiring these dangerous capabilities," Bolton said. "At a minimum, interdiction can lengthen the time that proliferators will need to acquire new weapons capabilities."
Well, there's a problem with Bolton's approach. It - like the invasion of Iraq on the pretense of enforcing the NPT - is a violation of international law. Not only does the NPT grant Iran the "inalienable right' to acquire the peaceful "nuclear capabilities" that so frightens Bolton, but it also imposes on us and the French, Brits and Russians the responsibility of helping Iran acquire them.
Perhaps Bolton never read Secretary Powell's statement to the PrepCom session held this spring for the 2005 NPT Review Conference.
"The NPT can only be as strong as our will to enforce it, in spirit and in deed. We share a collective responsibility to be ever vigilant and to take concerted action when the Treaty - our treaty - is threatened."
The French, Brits and Russians believe they are strengthening the NPT by cooperating with Iran, keeping Iran subject to full-scope IAEA Safeguards. So who's threatening the NPT?
Physicist James Gordon Prather has served as a policy implementing official for national security-related technical matters in the Federal Energy Agency, the Energy Research and Development Administration, the Department of Energy, the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Department of the Army. Dr. Prather also served as legislative assistant for national security affairs to U.S. Sen. Henry Bellmon, R-Okla. -- ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee and member of the Senate Energy Committee and Appropriations Committee. Dr. Prather had earlier worked as a nuclear weapons physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and Sandia National Laboratory in New Mexico.
-------- china
Taiwan to Vote on China Missile Threat
By WILLIAM FOREMAN
Associated Press Writer
Dec 6, 2003
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/T/TAIWAN_CHINA?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) -- Taiwan's leader has decided to hold a referendum on March 20 asking voters to demand that China stop threatening the island and remove hundreds of missiles aimed at the island, Taiwanese, a presidential spokesman said Saturday.
But the territory is willing to cancel the vote if China redeploys the missiles and renounces using force against the island, officials said.
For the past week, President Chen Shui-bian has kept voters guessing about what question would be on the ballot in Taiwan's first islandwide referendum. Chen had dropped several hints that the vote could deal with China's missile threat.
Presidential spokesman James Huang confirmed for The Associated Press on Saturday that "the missile issue will be on the referendum. That's for sure."
Chen surprised the public last week by announcing that he planned to use a new law that gives him the power to hold a "defensive referendum" when the island's sovereignty faces imminent threat. The opposition interpreted the vaguely worded law as allowing the president to call such a referendum only when facing an attack from China. Chen's opponents in the presidential election - also to be held March 20 - have accused the president of using the referendum as a dangerous campaign ploy that could needlessly provoke China.
"The missiles deployed by the Chinese Communists pose a serious threat, but they don't put Taiwan's sovereignty and the status quo in immediate danger," said opposition candidate Lien Chan of the Nationalist Party.
China's state-run media have issued a stream of bellicose rhetoric accusing Chen of flirting with disaster. But on Saturday, Beijing did not immediately react to Chen's choice of referendum issue.
Beijing is highly sensitive to the issue because it insists that self-ruled Taiwan - 100 miles off the mainland's coast - is an inseparable part of China. Since taking power in 1949, the Communists have never governed Taiwan, but one of their sacred goals is to get the Taiwanese to join the motherland. Taiwanese independence won't be tolerated, they have said.
Chen, a former attorney, has argued that he has the right to hold a defensive referendum because China is pointing more than 400 missiles at Taiwan. The vote would be symbolic, but Chen has said the missiles constitute a threat to the island's sovereignty and a referendum is needed to raise the voters' awareness of the danger.
On Saturday, the presidential spokesman said Chen was adding a new twist to the missile referendum. Huang said the president would "consider calling off the March 20 referendum" if China redeployed the missiles and renounced the use of force against Taiwan.
China is considered unlikely to agree to the demand. Many analysts believe that China fears that if it drops the war threats, the Taiwanese will be encouraged to seek a permanent split with China.
Several polls have reported that a large number of Taiwanese don't want to unify with China, but they oppose seeking formal independence because they fear it could start a war.
Chen's referendum call also has made some nervous in America, which would likely be called to defend Taiwan if war breaks out. State Department officials have been warning Taiwan not to hold a referendum that would unilaterally change the status quo.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao heads on Sunday to Washington, where he is expected to discuss the Taiwan independence issue.
On Friday in Washington, Secretary of State Colin Powell told reporters not to be alarmed about signs of increased Taiwan-China tension.
Powell said he was confident that both sides will realize "where their interests lie and will be careful about what they say."
Tai Wan-chin, an American studies professor Tamkang University outside of Taipei, said the Taiwanese president knows that it would be extremely unwise to push for an independence vote because it would cost him crucial U.S. support.
"Chen Shui-bian definitely knows what the ceiling is on the defensive referendum," Tai said.
-------- europe
Schröder suffers political fallout from plutonium plant deal
Luke Harding in Berlin
Saturday December 6, 2003
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1101092,00.html
The German chancellor was involved in a bitter dispute last night with several members of his government after agreeing to sell a plutonium factory to the Chinese.
Several leading members of the Green party, the junior partner in Gerhard Schröder's coalition government, lambasted him after he gave his blessing to the deal during a visit this week to Beijing.
Mr Schröder has insisted that he only approved the sale of the second-hand plutonium factory in Hanau, near Frankfurt, western Germany, after receiving cast-iron reassurances from Beijing that the plant would not be used to make nuclear weapons.
But in a humiliating rebuff to the chancellor, the Green environment minister Jürgen Trittin, said there was little doubt that the plant was "weapons-capable".
"Mr Trittin is wrong," an irritated Mr Schröder said yesterday on his way back to Germany via Kazakhstan.
Other Greens said they would do all they could to block the sale.
"Nobody understands what the chancellor is up to," said Winfried Hermann, a leading environmentalist. The decision was the subject of universal criticism within the Green party, he added.
Before the Greens agreed to go into government with Mr Schröder's Social Democrats in 1998, they insisted that Germany abandon nuclear energy. Last month Mr Trittin celebrated with a large cake after the government decommissioned the first of 18 nuclear power stations. Green MPs yesterday said it was hypocritical for the government to renounce its nuclear energy programme and then export its facilities elsewhere.
The row has proved most excruciating for Joschka Fischer, the Green foreign minister and Germany's most popular politician. The long-time opponent of nuclear energy yesterday gave his half-hearted endorsement to the sale of the factory, which is owned by Siemens and is apparently being sold for the bargain price of €50m.
"There are sometimes situations where you have to make bitter decisions," he admitted.
The Chinese insist that the plant will not be used to make nuclear weapons. "This is completely a question of civil purposes and has no military goal," a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, Liu Jianchao, said on Thursday. "This has nothing to do with non-proliferation issues."
The row is an extra headache for Mr Schröder, who faces a growing popular revolt over his plans to reform the welfare state, and who has seen his opinion poll ratings plummet.
He is also under pressure from the opposition Christian Democrats, meeting this week in Leipzig, who have vowed to block his plans for tax cuts next year.
Several members of Mr Schröder's own party have also criticised his decision to sell the plutonium factory. Michael Müller, the deputy leader of the SPD's parliamentary party, said there was little that could be done to block the deal - adding that he was fed up that MPs had not been told about the proposed deal earlier. "MPs are always being surprised by things like this," he grumbled.
After the factory's completion in 1991, it was touted as Europe's biggest plant producing fuel for atomic power stations, but it never went into operation. It was finally abandoned in 1995, largely because of pressure from the Greens. They also scuppered a proposal two years ago to export the factory's technical equipment to Russia.
Last night a spokesman for the chancellor admitted that the factory could be used for both peaceful and military purposes.
"It does have the dual-use problem," the spokesman, Thomas Steg, admitted.
------- korea
U.S., South Korea, Japan agree on nuke proposal for N. Korea
12/6/2003
Associated Press
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2003-12-06-koreas-nuclear_x.htm
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - The United States, Japan and South Korea have worked out a joint proposal on how to ease tensions over North Korea's nuclear weapons program and will ask China to relay it to the communist North, a senior South Korean official said Saturday.
If Pyongyang accepts the proposal, a second round of six-nation talks on the North Korean nuclear crisis will convene in Beijing, Deputy Foreign Minister Lee Soo-hyuck told South Korean reporters upon returning home from a trip to Washington.
Ahead of the Washington talks, South Korean officials said the proposal would deal with the main sticking point: when the United States should give written security assurances to North Korea. The North wants Washington to issue the assurances simultaneously with a Northern renounciation of its nuclear weapons program, while the United States wants the North to move first.
"The three countries have reached an understanding on the wording of a joint statement and agreed to give it to China," Lee said. "China will send it to Pyongyang and then there will be a response."
"The next few days are crucial. I am neither optimistic nor pessimistic," he added.
He did not give details on the proposal, drawn up in talks with his Japanese counterpart, Mitoji Yabunaka, and U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly. The three are their countries' top negotiators at the nuclear talks, which also include China and Russia.
The six-nation talks had been expected to convene in Beijing on Dec. 17. But officials in Washington and Seoul had indictated that they might be delayed, particularly because of differences over the security assurances.
Since the first round of the six-party talks was held in August in Beijing, North Korea has made demands for concessions - including the security guarantees - to be extended simultaneously with a drawdown of its nuclear program instead of after the program has been shut down.
North Korea rejects a U.S. demand that it first renounce its nuclear weapons program, saying it would "rather die" than submit to conditions that amounted to slavery.
China, North Korea's major ally, has taken the lead in informal discussions with North Korea.
In its offer, North Korea said it would declare its willingness to give up nuclear development, allow nuclear inspections, give up missiles exports and finally dismantle its nuclear weapons facilities. In return, it demanded economic and humanitarian aid, security assurances, diplomatic ties and new power plants.
A second round of talks would aim at adopting a declaration outlining a sequence of steps.
The nuclear crisis began in October 2002, when U.S. officials said North Korea admitted having a nuclear weapons program in violation of international agreements.
The United States and its allies suspended oil shipments to the North. North Korea in turn expelled U.N. nuclear inspectors, withdrew from the global nuclear arms-control treaty and said it was building nuclear arms to defend itself from U.S. invasion.
-------- missile defense
Australia Assures China on Missile Defense Program
Patrick Goodenough
Pacific Rim Bureau Chief
(CNSNews.com)
December 6, 2003
http://www.crosswalk.com/news/1234427.html
Pacific Rim Bureau - Australia has discussed its intention to join the U.S. ballistic missile defense program with China -- the plan's strongest critic -- and has assured Beijing that it has nothing to worry about.
Australia has become the first country to announce it will join the ambitious project, which aims to protect the U.S. and its allies from future missile attack by "rogue" states or terrorist groups.
The multi-billion plan, still under development, is controversial.
Critics argue that rather than making the world safer, it could unleash a new nuclear arms race, if existing nuclear powers like China or Russia respond by increasing the size of their arsenals to ensure they remain effective deterrents.
The U.S. has made it clear that the umbrella is not being designed with Russia or China in mind, and should not be seen as affecting their nuclear deterrents.
Beijing, in particular, is not convinced, largely because a theater missile shield defending Taiwan could render Chinese missiles less effective in the event of a future conflict.
"The incorporation of Taiwan into any foreign missile defense system is unacceptable and will seriously undermine regional stability," Beijing and Moscow said in a joint communique back in 2000.
Amid increased tensions across the Taiwan Strait, Chinese premier Wen Jiabao is planning to raise U.S. support for Taiwan during his forthcoming visit to Washington.
The Australian government says it has informed the Chinese and other countries in the region of its decision to back the defense shield.
In a television interview Friday, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer suggested that the Chinese were less hostile to the idea than had been previously the case.
"They've been very moderate in their response," he said.
"I don't think you could say that they've been supportive of this particular proposal, but I think they increasingly understand this isn't directed at China. or isn't designed to intervene in the China-Taiwan issue - which is of course their great area of sensitivity."
A spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Canberra said Friday there was no official response yet to the decision.
North Korean concerns
The missile defense system aims to detect incoming enemy missiles and then launch missiles from land- or sea-based platforms to intercept and destroy them in mid-air.
The "rogue" state most obviously of concern in the region is North Korea, which in 1998 test-fired a ballistic missile that flew over Japan before landing in the Pacific Ocean.
Pyongyang, which has admitted it has nuclear weapons, is developing longer-range rockets that American officials have warned could target the U.S. West Coast within a couple of years. That would also put Australia within range.
Canberra has not elaborated on the extent of its planned participation, but indicated that it could involve the use of Australian warships, and incorporate a U.S. satellite tracking station in central Australia called Pine Gap.
Defense Minister Robert Hill said he did not believe Australia would host interceptor missiles on its soil.
Likely areas of co-operation could include cooperation to ensure early warning of the launch of an enemy missile; acquisition of ship- and land-based sensors; and science and technology research, development, testing and evaluation.
Hill said in a statement the aim of the system was not to threaten other countries but to discourage them from investing in ballistic missile systems.
"The government is concerned that Australia might one day be threatened by long-range missiles with mass destruction effect and believes that investment in defensive measures is important," he said.
Space ambitions
The missile defense shield under development has been dubbed, mostly by opponents, the "son of Star Wars," in reference to President Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), or "Star Wars" proposals announced 20 years ago.
Although the current plans trace their roots from SDI, they are considerably more modest and Earth-based than the original ones, which envisaged a massive, space-based shield against a potential Soviet nuclear attack.
Critics continue to accuse the Bush administration of wanting to dominate space, however.
"The U.S. is not building a defensive system. It is planning to militarize and control space," said Dr. Hannah Middleton of the Australian Anti-Bases Campaign Coalition Friday. The coalition is opposed to U.S. bases and related facilities on Australian territory.
An organization called the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space said the missile defense plan "could ultimately carry warfare into the heavens."
Responded to the Australian decision, network coordinator Bruce Gagnon said the U.S. was finding the costs of developing the program so high it was "working overtime to convince allies to help with investments in the research and development phase of the project."
Left-wing politicians in Australia have also slammed the government's decision.
See related story: Australian Missile Defense Decision Puts Opposition on Defensive (Dec. 05, 2003)
-------- u.s. nuc weapons
Building mini nuclear bombs
From: "vera gottlieb" <veragott@mail.ocis.net>
Date: Sat, 6 Dec 2003
This is a very lose translation of this Spanish news item found in the Cuban "Granma International" - as reported by Prensa Latina (Latin Press). I tried to do a search and perhaps find this article somewhere else but did not find it. I did not search in US news services. I don't recall having heard anything on our own CBC. Do you have any further information on this? Rather chilling...can't we spend our money on better things? Doesn't this world have enough weapons of all kinds of mass destruction? Do we really need more?
Headline: "The USA approves production of mini nuclear bombs. Specially made to destroy subterranean military installations in more than 70 countries."
The White House approved production of mini nuclear bombs which could be used to destroy over 10,000 underground military installations which exist in over 70 countries around the world. The approval includes work on two types of atomic bombs; this could contribute to a new arms race and the proliferation of more nuclear arms on the international scene. According to the report by the Argentine newspaper "Clarin", it relates to mini nuclear bombs.
Scientist will look into a type of anti-bunker bomb that could destroy underground command centres and arms' storage. Experts will also look into the possibilities of precision mini nuclear bombs to destroy silos and the missiles they contain.
This article goes on to indicate the types of aircrafts that would be used to drop these mini nuclear bombs.
La Habana. 4 de diciembre de 2003
Aprueba EE.UU. producción de minibombas atómicas
• Especiales para destruir instalaciones militares subterráneas en más de 70 países
LA Casa Blanca aprobó la construcción de pequeñas bombas atómicas con las que podría destruir los más de 10 mil emplazamientos militares subterráneos que existen en 70 países del mundo, afirman fuentes congresionales, informa desde Washington Prensa Latina.
El presidente George W. Bush acaba de firmar una ley que otorga fondos al Departamento de Energía y del Agua que pasó casi inadvertida, comentaron en esos medios.
Ese paquete incluye partidas para la investigación y desarrollo de dos tipos de bombas nucleares que podrían contribuir tanto al desencadenamiento de una nueva carrera armamentista atómica como al aumento de la proliferación nuclear en la escena internacional.
Según la versión digital del periódico argentino Clarín, que se refiere también al hecho, se trata de dos variedades de minibombas nucleares.
Clarín subraya que los científicos investigarán el desarrollo de una variante antibúnker cuyo objetivo sería destruir centros de comando y control subterráneos, así como depósitos de armas que siempre son construidos en fortalezas bajo tierra.
Los expertos analizarán además la posibilidad de elaborar pequeñas bombas atómicas de alta precisión que podrían ser utilizadas para destruir silos y los misiles almacenados en su interior.
La ley prevé además fondos para la construcción de un lugar de ensayos nucleares en el estado de Nevada, pese a que Bush dijo que mantendría la moratoria de las pruebas nucleares.
El anuncio se produce tras haberse suspendido en mayo una ley promulgada hace una década que prohibía taxativamente la investigación de este tipo de armas.
Según especialistas en temas militares, los científicos tienen previsto estudiar la posibilidad de transformar dos ojivas nucleares, la B61 y la B83, en bombas antibúnker.
La B61 es una bomba termonuclear táctica que cae por gravedad y que puede lanzarse desde bombarderos B-52 y B-2 o aviones cazas F-16.
La B83 es un arma diseñada como una bomba de precisión que es apta para ser lanzada a baja altitud desde bombarderos invisibles Stealth B-2.
Los fondos asignados por el Congreso para las investigaciones de los artefactos ascienden a siete millones 500 mil dólares de los 14 solicitados por el Pentágono
-------- us politics
Pentagon Adviser Faulted Over Boeing Role
Saturday, December 06, 2003 8:15 a.m. ET
By Jim Wolf
(Reuters)
http://wireservice.wired.com/wired/story.asp?section=Breaking&storyId=804418&tw=wn_wire_story
WASHINGTON - Pentagon adviser Richard Perle came under fire on Friday for failing to disclose financial ties to Boeing Co. <BA.N>, even while championing its bid for a controversial $20 billion-plus defense contract.
Perle co-wrote a guest column in The Wall Street Journal newspaper this summer praising the plan to lease then buy 100 modified refueling planes, a year after Boeing committed to invest up to $20 million in Trireme Partners, a New York venture capital fund in which Perle is a principal.
"If ever there were an argument that traditional business practices are ill-suited for defense 'transformation', the saga of the tanker-leasing proposal would count as People's Exhibit A," Perle and a colleague wrote in the Journal on Aug. 14.
"It stinks to high heaven," said Keith Ashdown of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a Washington-based federal budget watchdog group, of Perle's failure to disclose his ties to Boeing in the Wall Street Journal piece.
"Mr. Perle's entitled to his own views on the tanker deal," said Peter Flaherty, president of the National Legal and Policy Center, a government and corporate accountability watchdog. "We just think that the public's entitled to know that he has a relationship with Boeing when he's expressing his views."
Perle's role adds to the ethical questions dogging the tanker deal, placed on hold by the Pentagon this week for an audit of suspected contracting improprieties that contributed to the resignation on Monday of Boeing's chief executive.
Last month, lawmakers voted to allow the lease of no more than 20 tankers and the purchase of up to 80, rather than an approach that would have cost $5 billion or more over time.
As a high-profile assistant defense secretary under former president Ronald Reagan, Perle carries a lot of weight in Washington. He is widely credited with helping to lay the political groundwork for the March invasion of Iraq.
CHARGES OF INFLUENCE-PEDDLING
Perle was overseas Friday and did not respond to requests for comment e-mailed via colleagues.
Perle's business interests have raised repeated questions about what critics call improper influence-peddling. On March 27, he quit as chairman of the Defense Policy Board, which advises the secretary of defense, amid allegations of conflict of interest for his representation of companies with business before the Defense Department. He remains a board member.
Chicago-based Boeing pledged in the middle of last year to invest up to $20 million over eight to 10 years in Trireme Partners, which invests in defense- and homeland security-related technologies. It is one of 29 such investments in cutting-edge technology funds worldwide totaling $250 million, said Anne Eisele, a Boeing spokeswoman. To date, Boeing has invested $2 million in Trireme, she said.
Boeing acknowledged in a recently released internal e-mail that it ghost-wrote several opinion pieces by prominent figures in favor of leasing tankers rather than buying them outright, as has been standard weapons-procurement policy.
But a company spokesman, Doug Kennett, said of the Perle piece: "We did not write nor did we place it," only fact-checked it, "which is a fairly standard thing."
The Wall Street Journal editorial-page editor who handled the column was not available for comment but "normally, we do like to disclose this kind of information," said Brigitte Trafford, a spokeswoman for Dow Jones & Co Inc. <DJ.N>, publisher of the Wall Street Journal, referring to an author's financial interests in the deal.
Boeing said it had briefed Perle on the tanker deal in his capacity as a resident fellow at the Washington-based American Enterprise Institute, a private research group. President Bush, at the institute's annual dinner in February, said it was home to "some of the finest minds in our nation ... at work on some of the greatest challenges to our nation."
--------
Conservatives Criticize Bush on Spending
Medicare Bill Angers Some Allies
By Dana Milbank
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, December 6, 2003; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40090-2003Dec5.html
Last month's passage of a Medicare prescription drug benefit that could cost $2 trillion over 20 years, after three years of sharp increases in federal spending, has provoked an unusual barrage of criticism of President Bush from conservative leaders.
The Wall Street Journal editorial page accuses Bush of a "Medicare fiasco" and a "Medicare giveaway." Paul Weyrich, a coordinator of the conservative movement, sees "disappointment in a lot of quarters." Bruce Bartlett, a conservative economist with the National Center for Policy Analysis, pronounces himself "apoplectic." An article in the American Spectator calls Bush's stewardship on spending "nonexistent," while Steve Moore of the Club for Growth labels Bush a "champion big-spending president."
"The president isn't showing leadership," laments Brian Riedl of the Heritage Foundation, who calculates that federal spending per household is at a 60-year high. "Conservatives are angry."
Such criticism is rare for Bush, who has assiduously courted the GOP's ideological base and has, in turn, built up enough goodwill that he can afford to stray from conservative orthodoxy, as he did on Medicare. This anger does not represent a political danger for Bush in the short term, conservatives leaders say, because it comes largely from conservative intellectuals, while grass-roots conservatives remain intensely loyal to Bush for his tax cuts, war leadership and antiabortion efforts.
But in the long term, the conservative leaders say, their discontent could spread to a popular backlash if spending continues to swell, pushing up deficits and interest rates. And the free spending is already limiting Bush's policy options. For example, economist Bartlett said, "the budgetary situation is getting so off track that you simply can't propose any more tax cuts without looking like a complete idiot."
The issue came to a boil this week, when White House economic aides summoned conservative economists to allow them to vent their rage. But according to participants, the session did little to dampen their anger. Joel D. Kaplan, the deputy director of the White House budget office, displayed a chart showing that, outside homeland security and defense, spending was falling. But under tough questioning, one participant recounted, Kaplan conceded that his figures did not include the series of "emergency" supplemental measures requested by Bush each year.
The next flare-up is likely to come Monday, when the House is scheduled to vote on a massive spending measure for 2004 that Congress negotiated with the Bush administration. The bill, which contains billions of dollars for lawmakers' pet projects, has aggravated fiscal conservatives, some of whom have threatened to join Democrats in opposition.
The spark has been the Medicare prescription drug benefit, which is expected to cost $400 billion over 10 years and, according to the Congressional Budget Office, could go as high as $2 trillion over another 10 years. Before its passage, former House majority leader Richard K Armey (R-Tex.) wrote to the Wall Street Journal to say that "the conservative, free-market base in America is rightly in revolt over this bill" and that "conservatives would be smart, and right, to reject it." Some conservatives, including Sens. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and Don Nickles (R-Okla.), did just that.
But the Medicare legislation comes on top of a federal spending increase of 23.7 percent since Bush took office. "In the last three years we've had the biggest farm bill, the biggest education bill, the biggest foreign aid bill and now the biggest health care bill in 30 years," said Moore of the free-market Club for Growth. "There's now not any pretense that Bush is committed to smaller government."
The White House prefers a different set of statistics. Excluding spending on defense and homeland security, Bush aides say, he cut spending 6 percent in 2002 and 5 percent in 2003, and 2 to 3 percent for 2004 -- this after a comparable increase of nearly 15 percent in these areas in the last year of the Clinton administration.
"The president has provided strong leadership to make sure we are doing what it takes to win the war on terror, our nation's highest priority, while holding the line on spending elsewhere in the budget," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said this week.
But when a White House official presented this analysis to a meeting he attended recently, "I nearly laughed out loud," said Heritage's Riedl. He calculates that 55 percent of all new spending in the past two years, or $164 billion of $296 billion, is from areas unrelated to defense and homeland security. Unemployment benefits are up 85 percent, education spending up 65 percent. "It's really an across-the-board thing," he said. This has led federal spending to top $20,000 per household in today's dollars for the first time since World War II -- a jump of $4,000 in the past four years.
Discretionary spending, which grew 2 percent annually during Clinton's presidency, has grown at 6.5 percent under Bush. And federal spending as a percent of gross domestic product, which decreased under Clinton, has edged back up to 20 percent under Bush.
Congress holds the purse strings. But the president gets a share of the blame, David Hogberg writes in the American Spectator: "He has vetoed no appropriations bill, and has actually encouraged profligacy by his eagerness to sign budget busters like the Medicare Bill, Farm Bill, and Education Bill."
Grover Norquist, an administration ally who leads Americans for Tax Reform, said it is true that "government spending is growing too rapidly." But he said Bush should not get all the blame. "I am disappointed that the movement, starting with me, has not yet figured out how to assign accountability and responsibility for spending," he said. Norquist said Bush "needs to make the case next year that this is what he is working on."
A Republican pollster working on the 2004 campaign said the spending issue is growing but has not yet reached a point of concern for Bush. "I'm seeing it percolating in primary polls in Republican segments, but they're not blaming Bush as much as the whole system," he said. "In the short term, voters are going to say spend what you need to spend on the war."
Nobody can be certain how long the conservative voters' tolerance of the spending growth will last. Weyrich, who heads the Free Congress Foundation, said it could be well into Bush's second term before conservative voters rebel against the growth of government. "I've helped to start revolts against many administrations over the years, and the level of outrage just isn't there where you could oppose the administration," he said. "People are upset about it, but they weigh it against what they consider to be Bush's leadership in Iraq and elsewhere. . . . They say, 'Well, we don't like this, but it's not enough to cause us to bolt.' "
Staff writers Dan Morgan and Jonathan Weisman contributed to this report.
-------- MILITARY
-------- afghanistan
Bomb Explodes in Center of Kandahar
December 6, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Afghan-Explosion.html
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) -- A bomb exploded in a bazaar in this southern Afghan city Saturday, wounding about 20 people, at least three seriously, in an attack that a Taliban spokesman said targeted -- but missed -- American soldiers who shop there.
The bomb, apparently placed on a motorcycle, detonated at about 12:30 p.m. outside a hotel in the Herat bazaar in Kandahar's commercial center.
Two shops were completely demolished. Broken glass from the shattered hotel front and victims' blood lay around the scene, which was quickly sealed off by U.S. troops and Afghan police. All the injured appeared to be Afghans, the U.S.-led military coalition said in an e-mail from its headquarters at Bagram Air Base, north of Kabul.
``Taliban and al-Qaida carried out this terrorist attack. We are trying to catch those responsible,'' Kandahar city police chief Mohammad Hashim said.
Later, Taliban spokesman Mullah Abdul Hakim Latifi said the bombings was carried out by fighters from the hard-line Islamic movement, ousted from power by U.S. forces two years ago. Speaking with The Associated Press in Kandahar by satellite telephone, he said the Taliban bomb was meant for U.S. soldiers shopping at the bazaar, but went off later than planned.
Latifi, a former Taliban official, last week accurately announced that Taliban had freed a Turkish engineer after holding him hostage for a month.
Qasim Khan, a doctor at Kandahar hospital, said three people seriously injured by the blast and flying glass had been taken to the U.S. military base at the airport for treatment.
Kandahar is the former stronghold of Taliban, whose supporters this year have mounted a wave of deadly attacks on soldiers from the U.S.-led coalition, Afghan officials and aid workers.
On Saturday, a U.S. military spokesman said special forces had raided the compound of a renegade Afghan commander suspected in the attacks on coalition soldiers, blowing up weapons and detaining suspects.
It was unclear if there were any casualties.
U.S. troops found hidden storage compartments containing hundreds of 107mm rockets, mortars, rocket-propelled grenades, anti-tank and anti-personnel mines and several howitzers.
The compound was near Gardez, the capital of Paktia province in the southeast on Friday, Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty said during a news conference at Bagram. Hilferty said several people were detained for questioning but did not elaborate.
The compound was used by Mullah Jalani, an associate of renegade warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a former prime minister who has joined the resurgent Taliban in vowing to battle foreign troops and topple U.S.-backed President Hamid Karzai, Hilferty said.
On Wednesday, two U.S. soldiers were wounded in Kandahar when a suspected Taliban militant threw a grenade at their military vehicle in a busy square.
Residents say American soldiers have been patrolling the city since a car bomb exploded outside U.N. offices here on Nov. 11, injuring two people, including a U.N. security guard. The Taliban claimed responsibility for that attack.
The U.S. military said coalition troops on Thursday found hundreds of rockets, mortars and mines neatly stacked in Kandahar prison, where 41 Taliban prisoners mounted a spectacular escape in October.
The American military also is concerned that Taliban could target the loya jirga, or grand council, which is to meet in the capital Kabul next week to debate and ratify a new constitution for Afghanistan.
The violence has seriously hampered development work across the south and east of the country, undermining efforts to rebuild and democratize it after more than two decades of war.
--------
9 Children Dead After U.S. Attack in Afghanistan
December 6, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Afghan-Attack.html
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- Nine children were found dead Saturday after an American air raid in eastern Afghanistan, and the military was investigating whether U.S. forces were responsible, a spokesman said.
An American A-10 aircraft struck a site south of Ghazni, 100 miles southwest of the capital, Kabul, where a ``known terrorist'' was believed to be hiding at about 10:30 a.m. Saturday, Army Maj. Christopher E. West told The Associated Press.
``At the time we initiated the attack, we did not know there were children nearby,'' he said.
The target was a suspected militant believed responsible for the killing of two foreign contractors who were working on an Afghan road, West said. He did not identify the contractors and had no information about their deaths, but two Indian engineers were reported kidnapped while working on the road Saturday.
West said U.S. troops collected ``extensive intelligence over an extended period of time'' and located the suspect targeted Saturday at an ``isolated, rural site.''
``Following the attack, ground coalition forces searching the area found the bodies of both the intended target and those of nine children nearby,'' he said Sunday.
The military was sending a team of investigators to the site to determine if U.S. forces were at fault, West said.
West said other houses were near the area attacked Saturday, but the aircraft did not strike them.
Coalition forces ``will make every effort to assist the families of these innocent casualties and determine the cause of the civilian deaths,'' he said from the U.S. headquarters in Bagram.
``We regret the loss of any innocent life and we follow stringent rules of engagement to specifically avoid this type of incident while continuing to target terrorists who threaten the future of Afghanistan,'' West said.
Ahmad Zia Masood, a spokesman for the governor of Ghazni province, claimed the U.S. military targeted Mullah Wazir, a Taliban militant he said fired at U.S. helicopters on Friday.
``The Americans recognized where the fire came from and used jets to bombard it'' on Saturday, he told the AP.
Masood said it was unclear if the 10 victims were Wazir and his family or their neighbors.
He said the attack took place at Atla village, just north of where the two Indian road engineers were kidnapped by suspected Taliban.
The kidnapped engineers, who were not identified, were working for an Indian contractor helping resurface part of the Kabul-Kandahar road, a reconstruction project mainly funded by the United States. The road was to be officially opened later this month.
Taliban attacks have plagued the flagship project. Four construction workers were killed at the end of August, and de-mining operations along the road were suspended last month after a carjacking. A Turk was abducted along the road last month.
Two contractors working for the CIA also were killed in an Oct. 25 ambush as they were tracking terrorists operating in the region of Shkin, about 100 miles south of Kabul.
Also Saturday, a bomb in Kandahar, the main southern stronghold of the Taliban, ripped through a bustling bazaar, wounding 20 Afghans. Taliban fighters claimed responsibility, saying the blast was aimed at American soldiers but went off late.
The bomb, apparently attached to a parked motorcycle or bicycle, exploded in front of a hotel at about 12:30 p.m. in the city's main commercial district. The wounded included three children, Afghan state TV reported.
U.S. officials have been trying to track down remnants of the Taliban and al-Qaida sympathizers in eastern and southern Afghanistan since ousting the hard-line Islamic regime two years ago. The militants have stepped up attacks in recent months, targeting foreign aid workers and perceived allies of the U.S.-led coalition.
The Indian engineers disappeared in Zabul province while traveling along the country's main highway between Kabul and Kandahar, an aide to Afghan Interior Minister Ali Ahmad Jalali told the AP.
An Indian Embassy official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the engineers were traveling with an Afghan driver and another Afghan employee when they were stopped.
The kidnappers ``roughed up the driver, and he was able to return to the company. They let the other Afghan go as well.
A spokesman for The Louis Berger Group Inc., an American engineering company overseeing the road project, declined to comment on the reported kidnapping, as did a U.S. Embassy official.
International aid agencies have scaled down operations in Afghanistan's south and east due to escalating violence, including the Nov. 16 shooting death of a French aid worker for the United Nations.
Associated Press writer Chris Hawley in New York contributed to this report.
--------
Afghan Elections Threatened by Violence
December 6, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Afghan-Threatened-Elections.html
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- Surging violence by pro-Taliban and al-Qaida insurgents against Westerners and Afghans who work with them could delay plans for a landmark presidential election this summer.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, a visitor here this week, insist the vote will go ahead -- a crucial step in ending more than 20 years of war.
Yet Afghan ministers and the United Nations make plain that security must improve -- with the aid of more foreign troops -- to make sure the vote is fair and includes all the country's bitterly divided groups.
``I don't think incomplete elections will be acceptable to anyone,'' Karzai's interior minister, Ali Ahmad Jalali, said.
``The government is determined to hold to the timetable. But if something happens we will have to make a decision'' on whether to wait, he said.
June 22, 2004, was set as election day under U.N. peace accords signed in Germany in early 2002 after a U.S.-led offensive drove the Taliban from power for harboring Osama bin Laden.
But the so-called Bonn process has been imperiled by delays in other vital steps, such as disarming unruly warlords and passing a new constitution, as well as the Taliban's increasingly merciless targeting of civilians.
At least 11 aid workers have been killed and the same number injured since March, including a French U.N. refugee worker assassinated in Ghazni city, south of Kabul, last month.
In the latest incident, suspected Taliban gunmen sprayed vehicles carrying Afghans working on a U.N.-sponsored census with gunfire, killing one and injuring 11 in southern Helmand province.
An explosion near the U.S. Embassy on Thursday evening, about two hours after Rumsfeld left the country, underlined that even the capital remains unsafe.
On Saturday, a bomb exploded in the center of Kandahar on Saturday, causing injuries, an official said, blaming the attack on al-Qaida or Taliban militants. Kandahar is the former stronghold of the Taliban.
U.N. officials say the violence will prevent them from sending workers -- whether Afghan or foreign staffers -- to carry out the crucial task of registering voters in remote villages.
Registration in major towns began only this month -- instead of October as planned -- and the United Nations says it will tackle the most risky areas later.
``We continue with June as our reference date, but the registration started very late and as of today we cannot go to all places in the country to register everyone,'' said Manoel de Almeida e Silva, the chief U.N. spokesman in Kabul.
Hostility to the peace process is centered in southern and eastern regions dominated by Pashtuns, the country's largest ethnic group and the country's traditional rulers.
Many Pashtuns supported the Taliban, and resent the prominence of other ethnic groups in Karzai's government, especially the Defense Ministry.
To reduce the power of militias such as the Tajik-dominated Northern Alliance, the United States in training a new Afghan National Army. But the force has been plagued by desertion and only about 6,500 men have been armed so far.
Disarming the warlords who still control much of the country -- and whose abuse of civilians made the Taliban welcome in many areas -- also has been slow.
At a briefing with Rumsfeld on Thursday, Karzai insisted that ``the Taliban or terrorists, whoever they are, will not be able to disrupt the process.''
Rumsfeld also was upbeat.
``While there always may be incidents from time to time ... Afghan forces as well as coalition forces ought to be able to manage anything like that quite well,'' he said.
Yet neither man ruled out a delay.
Jalali acknowledged that government plans to have 20,000 newly trained police in place to guard the registration and voting were no guarantee that spectacular attacks by Taliban or their allies wouldn't derail the process.
Officials pin their hopes also on expanding the 5,700-strong NATO-led peacekeeping force now confined to Kabul. NATO has agreed in principle, and Turkey and Belgium are expected to provide badly needed helicopters. But member nations are dragging their feet on committing extra troops.
``The situation confirms the need'' for the peacekeepers to fan out across the country, Almeida e Silva said. ``Timeliness is now particularly important.''
Observers warn that delaying the election by more than a few months could undermine the already shaky Bonn process -- Karzai's detractors could paint him as the latest in a long line of unelected Afghan rulers who clung to office.
Christopher Langton, a defense analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, said that while progress in stabilizing Afghanistan was slow, ``there are positives. The negative is what the Taliban do in spring.''
``A delay of more than two months and there would be loss of legitimacy,'' said Western diplomat said on condition of anonymity. ``But security is the real wild card.''
-------- arms
Iran woos New Zealand DIY missile builder
AUCKLAND (AFP)
Dec 06, 2003
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/031205232147.r3jvgak5.html
A New Zealand engineer who made world headlines with his homebuilt cruise missile said Saturday he had received "very serious" offers from an Iranian company to invest in the project.
Bruce Simpson said the firm was linked to the aerospace and missile industries, and was one of a number of enquiries from several countries including Pakistan, China and Lebanon.
But after "worrying about the bigger picture" and turning down the offers, the cash-strapped engineer found himself backrupted by the Inland Revenue Department for non-payment of taxes.
The Iranians made "very serious inquiries about investing in the development of the X-jet technology", Simpson said on his website aardvark.co.nz.
"I have since had emails from Pakistan, Lebanon, China and other countries, all of which sought to obtain details of the X-jet project and some of which have involved seemingly genuine offers of not insignificant payment for such information."
Simpson said he contacted the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service who advised it was "certainly not sensible" to export such technology.
Instead he signed a heads of agreement with a United States firm that would have set up a research and development plant in Waikato, south of here.
But the deal was scuttled last Monday when he was bankrupted.
A bitter Simpson said Inland Revenue was stupid to quash a deal that would have reaped cash "hundreds of times the value of the outstanding debt".
The 49-year-old engineer, website developer and software technician worked within a budget of 5,000 US dollars to build and perfect his do-it-yourself cruise missile.
The "X-Jet" is similar to the pulse-jets that powered Germany's V-1 missiles in World War II, and the GPS guided missile has a range of 160 kilometres (100 miles) with a 10 kilogram (22 pound) warhead.
Simpson said he acquired most of the parts from the online auction house eBay, including a GPS system purchased for 120 US dollars that "was delivered by international airmail in less than a week and passed through customs without any problems."
The missile was no longer in his possession, and its whereabouts would be kept secret "until an appropriate time", he said.
----
Air Force urged Boeing deal despite ethical concerns
NEW YORK (AFP)
Dec 06, 2003
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/031206131618.xmchpx58.html
An Air Force acquisitions officer urged Pentagon officials to close a 20-billion-dollar contract with Boeing after Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld expressed concerns about the ethics of the deal, the New York Times reported Saturday.
The officer, Marvin Sambur, also shared internal Pentagon messages about price, terms and conditions strategy with Boeing while negotiating was underway, the Times said, citing internal Pentagon e-mail messages.
The Air Force is trying to acquire 100 Boeing-767 tanker planes for refueling in a deal critics say is unnecessary and too costly.
On Tuesday, The Pentagon said it had asked for a "pause" in the multibillion dollar deal in the wake of revelations about the company's recruitment of an Air Force official.
In a letter to the Senate Armed Services Committee, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz cited Boeing's decision to sack chief financial officer Mike Sears for improperly recruiting a US Air Force official, Darleen Druyun, who played a key role in the program before leaving the military and joining Boeing.
"In light of the recent allegations and actions taken within the Boeing Company to remove Michael Sears and Darleen Druyun, I am ordering a pause in the execution of the contracts to lease and purchase tanker aircraft," Wolfowitz wrote in the December 1 letter.
Wolfowitz also asked the Pentagon's investigative arm to report to him if those ethical violations had any impact on the Air Force contract with Boeing.
Rumsfeld first expressed concern about the matter on November 25, the day the two were fired, saying it was important to investigate potential improprieties "to see that things are done properly."
Sambur sent internal email messages urging the deal on November 25 and 26, the Times said.
Sambur defended his actions to the Times Friday, describing the messages as "privileged inside-the-house e-mails" in which he stated his opinion.
"No one is trying to circumvent anything," he said.
----
Ministers flout arms sales code
Exports trigger human rights row
Richard Norton-Taylor
Saturday December 6, 2003
The Guardian
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/foreignaffairs/story/0,11538,1101277,00.html
The government is selling arms and security equipment to countries whose human rights record it has strongly criticised, according to lists of weapons cleared for export that have been seen by the Guardian.
The countries include Indonesia, where the Foreign Office has reported allegations of extrajudicial killings, Nepal, where it has reported summary executions, and Saudi Arabia, where torture is just one abuse of basic human rights attacked by the FO.
Licences have been approved this year for the export to Saudi Arabia of "security and paramilitary goods", hitherto unpublished figures show.
The list of items under this category is: "Acoustic devices... suitable for riot control purposes, anti-riot shields... leg irons, gangchains, electric shock belts, shackles... individual cuffs... portable anti-riot devices... water cannon... riot control vehicles... portable devices for riot control or self-protection by the administration of an electric shock".
The government's arms export guidelines state that licences will be refused if there is a "clear risk [they] might be used for internal repression".
The exports to Saudi Arabia, which also include a wide range of military hardware and weapons systems, were cleared despite sharp criticism of the country in the FO's latest annual human rights report published in the summer.
"We continue to have deep concerns about Saudi Arabia's failure to implement basic human rights norms," it says, referring explicitly to capital and corporal punishment and restrictions on freedom of movement, expression, assembly and worship.
It adds: "We believe that between January and December 2002, the Saudi authorities executed about 46 people, one of the highest figures for any country in the world."
The government also approved export licences for categories of arms including machine guns, rockets and missiles, to Indonesia.
Indonesian forces are engaged in fierce fighting against pro-independence rebels in Aceh where British equipment is being used despite assurances from the government they would not be used for offensive or counter-insurgency measures.
After foreign observers were refused acces to Aceh, the government told MPs last month that it "remained concerned about the situation in Aceh".
British-built Saracen armoured vehicles were being used by Indonesian forces in Aceh, Tapol, the Indonesia human rights campaign and the Campaign Against Arms Trade said this week.
Next week human rights activists in Indonesia are planning to challenge the legality of British arms exports to the country, Tapol said yesterday.
There have already been reports of Hawk jets and Scorpion tanks deployed in Aceh.
The FO says in its human rights report that while the professionalism of the Indonesian security forces had improved, "serious problems remain, with allegations of extrajudicial killings, disappearances, arbitrary detention, rape, torture and mistreatment of prisoners".
The government has also approved big increases in the sale of arms to Nepal where security forces are fighting Maoist guerrillas. Last year Britain provided Nepal with two military helicopters with funds from its "conflict prevention" fund.
Yet the FO accuses the Nepalese army and Maoists of "gross and widespread human rights abuses". Its annual report adds: "The security forces were responsible for extensive and systematic illegal detentions, torture and summary executions".
The government's arms export criteria state it "will not issue licences for exports which would provoke or prolong armed conflicts or aggravate existing tensions".
The list of export licences was provided by Nigel Griffiths, the trade minister, in response to questions from Menzies Campbell, Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman.
Mr Campbell said yesterday: "There is clearly a substantial disconnection between the government's avowed policy on human rights and its implementation of its own guidelines on arms exports".
"If we are serious about human rights we should not be exporting equipment under these categories to governments with such doubtful records."
The government says it keeps export licensing policy under review and that its controls are among the the toughest in the world.
-------- asia
N. Korea to Respond to Japan Spy Satellite
December 6, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-NKorea-Japan-Spy-Satellite.html
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- North Korea warned on Saturday that it will take unspecified countermeasures in response to Japan's attempt at launching two spy satellites to monitor the communist country, a news report said.
Japan tried last month to launch the satellites into orbit but failed because of technical problems.
``This is a very dangerous military activity,'' North Korea's state-run Rodong Sinmun newspaper said.
``We won't stand and watch while Japan continues to intensify its hostile activities against our country,'' said the newspaper, carried by the North's official KCNA news agency. ``We will continue to take measures to respond.''
The North Korean report, monitored by South Korea's national Yonhap news agency, did not elaborate.
The report comes amid diplomatic efforts to resume six-nation talks, possibly later this month, aimed at ending North Korea's nuclear weapons development. The United States, Japan, the two Koreas, China and Russia held the first such conference in Beijing in August but made little progress.
The nuclear standoff flared in October 2002, when U.S. officials said the North acknowledged running a secret nuclear program.
Japan put its first two spy satellites into space in March to watch North Korea's missile and nuclear programs. North Korea protested the launch, and warned Japan against triggering a regional arms race.
Japanese officials said the spy satellite program was prompted by North Korea's surprise test launch of a long-range missile over Japan in 1998. They said the satellites are not meant as a provocation and will also be used to monitor natural disasters and weather patterns.
--------
South Korea Awaits First Dead From Iraq
December 6, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-SKorea-Iraq-Emotions.html
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- Kim Young-jin begged her father not to go to Iraq, where he was to lay electric lines.
So she was beside herself when roadside gunmen riddled him and a fellow engineer, Kwak Kyong-hae, with bullets north of Baghdad last weekend. What hurts almost as much, she says, is that government policy made them targets.
Her father, 46-year-old Kim Man-soo, and Kwak Kyong-hae, 61, were shot dead and two other South Koreans were wounded when their vehicle came under fire on a road near Tikrit, the hometown of Saddam Hussein.
The four civilians worked for Omu Electric Co., which had been contracted by a U.S. firm to help restore Iraq's electric grid.
``Because our country said it was going to send troops to Iraq, the Iraqis killed my father and Mr. Kwak,'' the high school senior wrote in a scathing open letter to President Roh Moo-hyun days after the attack. ``My father was made a scapegoat for the country.''
As the bodies of South Korea's first fatalities in Iraq waited to be airlifted out of Baghdad, Kim's was a reluctant voice of criticism against Roh's plans to send up to 3,000 troops to the country in support of the United States. Her sorrow also foreshadows what grief might lie ahead if Roh follows through and Korean casualties mount.
``Couldn't somebody have called?'' Kim wrote, complaining that no one in the government had bothered to extend condolences to the family immediately after the attack.
She said Roh belatedly sent her an e-mail saying he ``could hardly suppress my sorrow'' and that the deaths were ``not just the tragedy of Young-jin's family but of the whole nation.'' But his government has been equally as quick to push ahead with its plans to back South Korea's most important ally.
On Thursday, the National Assembly extended the current mission of medics and military engineers already operating in Iraq until December 2004. And on Friday, Prime Minister Goh Kun told reporters that the government hoped to make fast progress next week on sending a bigger dispatch of up to 3,000 troops.
Roh proposed sending the 3,000 last month, but the mission is unpopular with the public and last Sunday's attacks were seen as putting extra pressure on the government to alter its plans.
The casualties, South Korea's first since the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March, came over a deadly weekend in which agents and diplomats from coalition partners Spain and Japan were also killed in separate attacks.
-------- business
Air Force urged Boeing deal despite ethical concerns
NEW YORK (AFP)
Dec 06, 2003
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/031206131618.xmchpx58.html
An Air Force acquisitions officer urged Pentagon officials to close a 20-billion-dollar contract with Boeing after Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld expressed concerns about the ethics of the deal, the New York Times reported Saturday.
The officer, Marvin Sambur, also shared internal Pentagon messages about price, terms and conditions strategy with Boeing while negotiating was underway, the Times said, citing internal Pentagon e-mail messages.
The Air Force is trying to acquire 100 Boeing-767 tanker planes for refueling in a deal critics say is unnecessary and too costly.
On Tuesday, The Pentagon said it had asked for a "pause" in the multibillion dollar deal in the wake of revelations about the company's recruitment of an Air Force official.
In a letter to the Senate Armed Services Committee, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz cited Boeing's decision to sack chief financial officer Mike Sears for improperly recruiting a US Air Force official, Darleen Druyun, who played a key role in the program before leaving the military and joining Boeing.
"In light of the recent allegations and actions taken within the Boeing Company to remove Michael Sears and Darleen Druyun, I am ordering a pause in the execution of the contracts to lease and purchase tanker aircraft," Wolfowitz wrote in the December 1 letter.
Wolfowitz also asked the Pentagon's investigative arm to report to him if those ethical violations had any impact on the Air Force contract with Boeing.
Rumsfeld first expressed concern about the matter on November 25, the day the two were fired, saying it was important to investigate potential improprieties "to see that things are done properly."
Sambur sent internal email messages urging the deal on November 25 and 26, the Times said.
Sambur defended his actions to the Times Friday, describing the messages as "privileged inside-the-house e-mails" in which he stated his opinion.
"No one is trying to circumvent anything," he said.
--------
Air Force Pursued Boeing Deal Despite Concerns of Rumsfeld
December 6, 2003
By DOUGLAS JEHL
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/06/business/06BOEI.html?hp=&pagewanted=all&position=
WASHINGTON, Dec. 5 - Even after Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld expressed concern late last month about improprieties in a proposed $20 billion contract with the Boeing Company, the Air Force's top acquisitions official, Marvin R. Sambur, distributed messages urging Pentagon officials to sign the deal "A.S.A.P.," according to internal Pentagon e-mail messages.
Earlier in the year, Dr. Sambur also forwarded to top Boeing executives, including James Albaugh, president of a Boeing division, copies of internal Pentagon communications outlining the Defense Department's negotiating strategy for price, terms and conditions of the contract, the e-mail messages show. The messages were sent to Boeing in April and May, at a time when the company and the Pentagon had yet to reach an agreement.
The messages, which were provided by government officials and confirmed as authentic by Dr. Sambur in a phone interview on Friday, provide fresh evidence of how the Air Force and Boeing worked as partners to promote the controversial deal, and how some Air Force officials continued to press for the contracts even against opposition from government auditors, some lawmakers and some top Defense Department officials.
The critics have portrayed the deal as too costly, unnecessary and unseemly. But the e-mail messages indicate the eagerness of some Air Force officials to complete a deal that would allow them to obtain 100 767's from Boeing for use as refueling tankers as a first step toward rebuilding an aging tanker fleet. Both Boeing and the Air Force have given high priority to the project, with Boeing eager for new government aircraft orders to supplement dwindling commercial business, and the Air Force concerned about a tanker fleet that dates from the Vietnam War.
On Nov. 24, Boeing acknowledged "compelling evidence" of misconduct by Michael M. Sears, the chief financial officer, and Darleen A. Druyun, a vice president who joined the company last January after serving as the chief Air Force negotiator on the project. Both were fired after an internal inquiry found that Mr. Sears discussed a job for Ms. Druyun at Boeing at the same time that she was representing the Pentagon. They also tried to cover up their discussions, the company said.
The Air Force began an investigation earlier this year into whether Ms. Druyun improperly disclosed information on a competing bid from Airbus for the tankers while she was working for the Pentagon.
The controversy led to the resignation on Monday of Philip M. Condit, Boeing's chief executive.
On Nov. 25, the day after the two executives were fired, Mr. Rumsfeld, said at a news conference that Boeing's decision to fire Mr. Sears and Ms. Druyun had persuaded him that it was important to look further into the accusations of improprieties "to see that things are done properly."
But despite Mr. Rumsfeld's action, Dr. Sambur sent internal e-mail messages on Nov. 25 and 26 to senior Pentagon and Air Force officials making clear that he favored the immediate signing of the contract despite the ethical and political concerns raised by the firings.
"We are ready to sign today," Dr. Sambur wrote in a message whose subject line included the words "HOT HOT!" Dr. Sambur added that "delaying until January will cause harm to the Air Force and Boeing."
The e-mail messages were addressed to a long list of senior officials, including Michael W. Wynne, the Pentagon's top acquisition official; Nancy L. Spruill, another top acquisition official; Gen. John Jumper, the Air Force chief of staff, and others involved in the debate about how the Pentagon should respond to Boeing's decision to dismiss the officials involved in the tanker deal.
The second e-mail message, on Nov. 26, called for signing the deal "A.S.A.P." but said that as a fallback the Pentagon should consider only a delay until Dec. 10 or 11, when Congress is scheduled to return from a recess.
Despite Dr. Sambur's efforts, Paul D. Wolfowitz, the deputy defense secretary, put the project on hold late Monday pending a review by the Pentagon's inspector general.
Senator John McCain, an Arizona Republican who has been the project's leading opponent, said in a phone interview on Friday: "This had already been revealed to be a corrupt if not terribly flawed process, and here they were trying to press ahead. Boeing is making an effort to clean up their act, but the Air Force and the Pentagon remain steadfast in their pursuit of a massive ripoff of taxpayer dollars."
The e-mail messages were read to a reporter on Friday by a government official. In a telephone interview, Dr. Sambur described them as "privileged inside-the-house e-mails" in which he simply stated his opinion. "Nobody's trying to circumvent anything," he said.
In the interview, Dr. Sambur also defended his decision last April and May to forward to Mr. Albaugh of Boeing internal correspondence sent to him about the tanker deal by James G. Roche, the secretary of the Air Force, and Mr. Wynne, the principal deputy under secretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics.
Among the messages was one in which Dr. Sambur urged Mr. Albaugh to treat the correspondence as sensitive. But Dr. Sambur said he had shared the information as part of a deliberate negotiating strategy. "The only way to show Boeing that we were serious was to show them that within this building, we were ready to pull the plug," he said.
As assistant secretary for acquisition, research and development, Dr. Sambur was Ms. Druyun's immediate supervisor at the Air Force until she retired last November before joining Boeing.
In September, Mr. McCain, who heads the Senate Commerce Committee, released documents based on more than 8,000 e-mail messages provided by Boeing. The messages offered a first glimpse of the high-level lobbying campaign that the company and the Air Force mounted to fend off critics and potential competitors in the project. On Friday, Senator McCain's office provided copies of additional e-mail messages from last spring, including those sent by Dr. Sambur to the Boeing executives.
In a letter to Mr. Wolfowitz on Tuesday, Senator McCain expressed concern that Dr. Sambur was preparing to sign the contract as early as Nov. 26. Aides to Senator McCain said on Friday that the senator had received information that was subsequently authenticated by Dr. Sambur.
An initial plan supported by both Boeing and the Air Force called for the government to lease all 100 planes from the company, a plan that both saw as advantageous for budgeting reasons but that the General Accounting Office and other critics said would add billions of dollars to the cost. Under a compromise authorized by Congress and signed into law by President Bush on Nov. 24, the Air Force is to lease 20 of the plans and buy up to 80 more, but critics including Senator McCain still say a better, cheaper option would be to rebuild existing tanker aircraft.
Mr. Wolfowitz has asked the Pentagon auditors to determine whether the apparent improprieties provide any reason that the $20 billion contract should not go forward. But at Boeing, a senior executive said this week that he feared the deal would now almost certainly be scuttled or opened to renegotiation. Boeing officials said this week that they were still committed to the tanker deal.
The story of the tanker deal, in which months of aggressive lobbying by Boeing and the Air Force overrode opposition and won approval from the Pentagon and Congress, has cast new light on a revolving-door world in which lines between government and contractors appear to have been blurred.
And some of the newly released documents provided by Senator McCain's office on Friday raised new questions about whether the Air Force overreached in providing assistance to Boeing.
"Please treat this as sensitive," Dr. Sambur said in an April 24 e-mail message to Mr. Albaugh in which he had forwarded internal correspondence sent to him about the tanker deal by Mr. Wynne, in which Mr. Wynne laid out what he portrayed as "our current strategy" to win "a simple price reduction" from Boeing.
The role played by Ms. Druyun has been the main focus of investigators looking into accusations of impropriety in the deal. But in Boeing's campaign to win support for the deal, which it saw as vital to its future, the company also appears to have enlisted other former Pentagon and Congressional officials, including some who had high-level contacts within the Bush administration and on Capitol Hill.
Among those who promoted the tanker deal were Richard N. Perle, a top Pentagon adviser who is a member of the Defense Policy Board. Mr. Perle also runs an investment firm in which Boeing invested $20 million last year, and he co-wrote an op-ed article in The Wall Street Journal in August arguing in favor of a deal in which the Air Force would have leased all 100 tanker aircraft from Boeing.
In the article, Mr. Perle and Thomas Donnelly, who both serve on the board of the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative research and advocacy group, wrote that a "special government green-eyeshade mentality" was holding up deal crucial to the Air Force.
A Boeing spokesman, Douglas Kennett, confirmed on Friday that Mr. Perle had been among journalists and policy advocates who were briefed by Boeing executives about the tanker deal as part of the company's effort to promote the contract. Mr. Kennett said that Mr. Perle and Mr. Donnelly had later shared a draft of their op-ed article with Boeing officials and asked them to double-check its facts.
Still, Mr. Kennett said of the op-ed article: "We didn't write it. We didn't place it. It was their words, not ours."
Boeing's investment in Mr. Perle's company, Trireme, one of the largest early stakes in the new company, was first reported by The Financial Times. Mr. Perle, whose office said he was out of the country on Friday, has denied any connection between Boeing's investment and his article.
Boeing's executives, board members and registered lobbyists include both Republicans and Democrats with close ties to the Pentagon, the White House and Congress. Its Washington office is headed by Rudy DeLeon, a former deputy secretary of defense in the Clinton administration who stayed on at the Pentagon in the early months of the Bush administration. Other senior executives include two retired senior Air Force generals, Timothy P. Malishenko and George K. Muellner, who both served as deputy assistant secretaries of the Air Force with responsibilities for contracts and acquisitions.
Boeing is a $50 billion company that has been expanding into the military business to offset declines in commercial aviation. By next year, military contracts are expected to provide more than half the company's business. But critics of the company have denounced what they have called an overly close relationship between Boeing and the Air Force during the negotiating of the aerial tanker deal.
"Boeing from the get-go was wired into all divisions of government on this project," said Keith Ashdown, vice president of policy at Taxpayers for Common Sense, one of several advocacy groups that was critical of the tanker project. "They had people who know the Air Force really well on their payroll, they had ties directly to senior leadership in the white house, and ties to the leadership in the House."
-------- china
Taiwanese To Hold Ballot on China Arms
By Philip P. Pan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, December 6, 2003; Page A11
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40611-2003Dec6.html
BEIJING, Dec. 6 -- Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian intends to call a referendum in March asking residents to vote on whether to demand that China withdraw missiles aimed at Taiwan and renounce the use of force against the island, a spokesman said Saturday.
The decision comes despite escalating threats from the Chinese government, which has warned that a referendum in Taiwan on any subject would be a step toward a vote on independence and could lead to a war.
The United States, Taiwan's main diplomatic and military supporter, has also expressed concern about Chen's referendum plans, but has stopped short of publicly urging him to abandon them.
James Huang, Chen's spokesman, said by telephone that the Taiwanese president has emphasized he will not hold a referendum on independence, the most sensitive subject for Beijing, which claims the self-governing island of 23 million is part of China.
But Huang said Chen will push ahead with a referendum on the Chinese military threat timed to coincide with the March presidential election. Chen is behind in the polls, and critics have accused him of trying to fuel anti-China sentiment to boost his support.
"The military issue will be on the ballot. That's for sure," Huang said. "That includes asking our people, 'Do you want to ask the People's Republic of China to withdraw their missiles directed at Taiwan and ask that the P.R.C. renounce the use of force against Taiwan?' "
He also said Chen will offer to cancel the referendum if China redeploys the estimated 500 missiles it has aimed Taiwan and renounces its threat of force.
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Running for Re-Election, Taiwan Leader Takes on China
December 6, 2003
By KEITH BRADSHER and JOSEPH KAHN
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/06/international/asia/06TAIW.html?pagewanted=all&position=
TAIPEI, Taiwan, Dec. 5 - President Chen Shui-bian of Taiwan said in an interview here on Friday that he planned a referendum next March calling on China to withdraw ballistic missiles aimed at Taiwan and demanding that China renounce the use of force against the island.
Mr. Chen's insistence on holding a referendum is likely to heighten tensions across the Taiwan Strait - already at their highest point in several years - and comes at an awkward time for President Bush, who will receive Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao at the White House next week.
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell spoke with Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing of China by telephone on Friday, and told reporters afterward that he hoped both sides "will realize where their interests lie and will be careful about what they say."
China has urged Washington to oppose more firmly what it sees as Mr. Chen's desperate election season gambit to excite antimainland sentiment. The Bush administration has made clear that it does not want a fresh crisis when it is deeply engaged in other hotspots, and depends on China's help to shut down North Korea's nuclear program.
In the interview, Mr. Chen said the referendum would not involve independence, the touchiest issue from the perspective of mainland China. But Beijing has expressed alarm about the precedent of holding any plebiscites on sensitive political topics.
Senior Chinese military officers publicly warned on Wednesday that Taiwan was facing an "abyss of war" and said that China would accept boycotts of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, reduced foreign investment and military casualties to prevent Taiwan from using a referendum to advance independence.
Mr. Chen contended that a referendum would help make people here and countries around the world more aware of what he described as an imminent and growing military threat from China, and that this would reduce the risk of a conflict. "Some argue that holding such a defensive referendum might send our children to the front line," he said. "In fact, the opposite is true."
Many people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait say that the political confrontation between the sides has reached its highest level since 1996, when China lobbed missiles into Taiwan's shipping lanes in an unsuccessful effort to dissuade voters from choosing Lee Teng-hui, a presidential candidate seen by Beijing as seeking greater independence.
Mr. Chen said he planned to hold the referendum on Election Day, on March 20. He is seeking re-election, and is in a race with Lien Chan of the Nationalist Party, who favors a less confrontational approach with China.
Mr. Chen said he had informed the United States of his plans for the referendum, and appealed for support on the grounds that Taiwan's democratic development needed strong American backing. That argument seems likely to elicit sympathy from Taiwan's supporters in Congress and among some neoconservative supporters of the Bush administration.
The State Department has bluntly discouraged Mr. Chen from holding a referendum on independence issues. But the administration has yet to respond to his new initiative to focus the referendum on China's military posture, especially as the precise wording has not yet been set.
In an interview late Friday morning in the reception hall of presidential offices used since Chiang Kai-shek's day, Mr. Chen explained his plans for the referendum. He said the question posed on ballots "could be for the 23 million people of Taiwan to demand that China immediately withdraw the missiles targeting Taiwan and openly renounce the use of force against Taiwan."
Investing some of the money from a booming economy, China has rapidly increased its arsenal of ballistic missiles and put many of them in easy striking range of Taiwan.
Although American and Taiwanese experts believe the missiles to be conventionally armed, Mr. Chen compared the danger they posed to Taiwan with the threat faced by the United States during the Cuban missile crisis.
Mr. Chen repeatedly spoke of Taiwan's struggle to build a full democracy and called the referendum a historic first for Taiwan. He pointed out that efforts to bring democratic institutions to the island, suppressed for decades under martial law, were always met with opposition from mainland China and the then-governing Nationalist Party.
"The holding of a referendum is a milestone in our democratic consolidation and the deepening of Taiwan's democracy," he said.
But Mr. Chen's critics at home and abroad accuse him of taking dangerous risks with Taiwan's security to bolster his own re-election prospects. His Democratic Progressive Party has not gone as far in pursuing formal independence for the island as some of the party's core supporters would like, and the referendum could increase turnout among such voters.
China is unlikely to back down in the face of Mr. Chen's referendum, a Chinese expert said.
"If he wants China to remove the missiles, it's very easy," Xu Shiquan, a former head of the Taiwan Research Institute in Beijing and a prominent adviser to China's leaders on Taiwan issues, said in a telephone interview when told of Mr. Chen's plans for the referendum. "He needs to forswear independence."
Mr. Xu added, "The impact of a referendum may be the opposite - we may need to increase our military strength because of growing fears that Taiwan is moving toward independence."
China had no official comment on Friday night.
Mr. Lien, the Nationalist Party's chairman and presidential candidate, criticized Mr. Chen in a separate interview on Friday, saying, "This is no time for our government to provoke the Chinese Communists on the mainland and create a situation of tension that will endanger the 23 million people on this island."
For years, Independence advocates have called for referendums as a way to bypass constitutional barriers to legal independence. After months of discussion this autumn, the Legislature passed a bill written mostly by the Nationalist Party that limited the ability of the president to call a referendum except when the country is "facing an external threat which may jeopardize national sovereignty."
Mr. Chen said the missiles posed just such a threat. Mr. Lien said the Nationalist Party disagreed and had been surprised that Mr. Chen was moving so swiftly to use the clause, which the Nationalists had supported only as a last resort in a genuine crisis.
"We have a sense of betrayal," he said.
-------- europe
Austrian rejects EU mutual assistance defence commitment
VIENNA (AFP)
Dec 06, 2003
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/031206132527.x2ty9tt0.html
Austrian Foreign Minister Benita Ferrero-Waldner said Saturday she was against the idea of European Union members being committed to come to the assistance of each other in the event of attack.
She was commenting on a suggestion by Italy last month that the future EU constitution now under discussion should include a mutual defence clause under which EU members would be required to provide military assistance if any of their number were attacked.
Speaking on radio here, Ferrero-Waldner said Austria -- neutral since its sovereignty was restored in 1955 -- had joined with three other EU neutral members, Ireland, Finland and Sweden, to prevent the proposed clause being made obligatory.
A letter from the four addressed to Italy as current EU president and made public Friday said decisions on defence guarantees with formal obligations "would not be in accordance with our security policy nor with the demands of our constitutions."
The four instead proposed a more flexible clause under which a member-state under attack would simply have the possibility of seeking the support of its fellow EU-members.
The letter represents a change of position for Austria.
Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel, the head of government,last Tuesday welcomed the Italian proposal and later told parliament here it was compatible with Austrian neutrality.
And Ferrero-Waldner herself said on television a week ago the proposed clause would not compromise Austria's neutrality.
--------
RECRUITERS
Trail of Anti-U.S. Fighters Said to Cross Europe to Iraq
December 6, 2003
By DESMOND BUTLER and DON VAN NATTA Jr.
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/06/international/europe/06QAED.html?pagewanted=all&position=
MILAN, Dec. 5 - A string of recent arrests of terror suspects has shown that Al Qaeda and groups linked to it have established a network across Europe that is moving recruits into Iraq to join the insurgency against American and allied forces, European intelligence and law enforcement officials said this week.
Over the past year, the officials estimate, the network of recruiters working in at least six European countries - Italy, Germany, France, Spain, Britain and Norway - has assisted hundreds of young men trying to get to Iraq. The network provided high quality fake documents, training, money, and infiltration routes into the country, the officials said.
They said the evidence indicated that the campaign to recruit young militant Muslims for Iraq had become better organized and coordinated in recent months.
According to an investigating judge in Italy, the new network is building on an underground that helped smuggle fighters out of Afghanistan and Pakistan in the fall of 2001, when Taliban and Qaeda forces were routed by American-led allied troops. But since the end of last year the flow of recruits, including young men from Europe and North Africa, has turned toward the new front in Iraq, the judge said. "In August and September people were approaching the borders of Iraq, in Turkey and Syria," he said. "These people got very close and it's very easy for them to slip in."
An Italian investigation of a terrorist group with links to Al Qaeda led to the arrest of three men in Italy and Germany last week. Two of the men who were arrested in Milan were accused of providing false passports and money to the network for Iraq. Six men arrested in northern Italy in April were also accused of aiding the recruiting operation.
Officials in Italy said the conclusions emerging from their case were supported by investigations in other European countries.
"We have seen an intensification of movement by people who are under investigation," said Armando Spataro, coordinator of terrorism investigations at Milan's Justice Department. "They were going to Iraq or to training camps. We have seen that movement across Europe."
The evidence gathered by Italian investigators indicates that fighters entering Iraq from Italy have been active in recent attacks on coalition forces there, Italian judicial and military officials said. One official said there was evidence that a recruit from Italy, Morchidi Kamal, was involved in the October rocket attack on the Rashid hotel in Baghdad, where the American assistant defense secretary, Paul D. Wolfowitz, was staying at the time.
Fake Italian documents recovered in Iraq, including passport photos and identity cards, suggest that three recruits from Italy died there, the officials said. However, Mr. Spataro said he had not seen conclusive evidence that recruits from Italy had died in suicide bombings in Iraq.
It is not clear how significant a role foreign terror recruits may have in the surge of violence in Iraq. President Bush and L. Paul Bremer III, the American administrator in Iraq, have said that "jihadists" and foreign terrorists have entered the country. But American military leaders there say they have not seen signs of a large influx of foreign fighters. They say that about 300 people of 5,000 prisoners in Iraq are holding non-Iraqi passports.
"It is not correct to say that there are floods of foreign fighters coming in, or thousands," said Gen. John P. Abizaid, commander of allied troops in the region. General Abizaid and other allied military leaders said the insurgency was led by Iraqis still loyal to Saddam Hussein's toppled government.
According to several European intelligence officials, the Italian investigation is one of several inquiries in Europe into recruitment of fighters for Iraq. German officials said Thursday that they had opened an investigation into recruiting activities after the arrest in a Munich train station on Tuesday of an Iraqi man, identified as Mohamed L., 29, suspected of aiding 12 people who traveled to Iraq. The arrest is not related to the Milan cell, Italian officials said today.
"Almost all Western European countries have been touched by recruiting," Mr. Spataro said. "It also means that the investigators must travel around more, back and forth."
Investigators in several European countries, including Italy, Germany and Britain, have focused on the participation in Iraq recruitment of a terrorist organization named Al Tawhid. The group is led by Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian who collaborated with Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, and has been implicated by American and European intelligence agencies in recent terror attacks in Jordan.
American officials, including Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, have also linked Mr. Zarqawi and his organization with Ansar al-Islam, a militant Islamic group based in Kurdish northern Iraq that is affiliated with Al Qaeda.
Italian investigators say documents and address books captured from a leader of Ansar showed that the group was in communication with Mr. Zarqawi and also with several of the suspects who are in jail in Milan. The investigators also believe that a satellite telephone used to call recruits in Milan from northern Iraq had been used by Mr. Zarqawi.
Last Friday, on the same day the two suspects were arrested in Milan, the German police in Hamburg, acting on an Italian warrant, arrested a third man, Abderazek Mahdjoub, 30. Italian officials have charged that Mr. Mahdjoub is a top figure in the Tawhid network, in charge of coordinating the movement of fighters from Europe to Iraq.
Also named in the most recent warrant is an Iraqi Kurd identified as Muhammad Majid, also known as Mullah Fuad, who is 32. A former resident of Italy who Italian authorities believe is a high-ranking militant in Ansar, he remains at large and is believed to be in Syria.
Transcripts of wiretaps printed in the warrant include calls Mr. Majid made to Italy in March asking that Tawhid members there send volunteers for suicide missions.
In a conversation with one of the men arrested in April, Mr. Majid asked him to recruit terminally ill men who would be willing to carry out suicide attacks.
The man replied, "I have one of them. He is sick. He is already sick and tired. There are also other people who are ready."
According to German and Italian officials, Mr. Mahdjoub, the Tawhid leader, traveled to Syria in March for a meeting with Mr. Majid. The purpose of Mr. Mahdjoub's trip was to check up on progress on moving recruits from Syria into Iraq, the officials said.
"Mahdjoub not only sent people, he went himself like a boss who goes to check up and make sure everything is working correctly before coming back," said the Italian judicial investigator.
Desmond Butler reported from Milan for this article and Don Van Natta from London. Jason Horowitz contributed reporting from Milan.
-------- iraq
Iraqis call for return of secret police
`We will use their own dogs to hound them'
Many of Saddam's ex-spies blamed for atrocities
MITCH POTTER MIDDLE EAST BUREAU
Dec. 5, 2003.
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1070579408943&call_pageid=968332188854&col=968350060724
BAGHDAD-A security organization whose very mention turns many Iraqis catatonic with fear is quietly creeping back into the consciousness as the way to bring Saddam Hussein to his knees and put the country back on its feet.
At least four Iraqi political factions are now advocating the reformation of the Mukhabarat, the dreaded spymasters responsible for some of the most grotesque acts of human cruelty this side of Nazi Germany.
Such is the despair and frustration with the intelligence gap in postwar Iraq, where U.S.-led coalition efforts are widely seen as haplessly failing to foreclose on the futures of resistance leaders loyal to Saddam and foreign extremists in their midst.
"We will use their own dogs to hound them," Nabil Musawi, deputy director of the Iraqi National Congress, one of the backers of the drastic initiative, said yesterday in an interview with the Star.
"And why not? The Allies used Nazis to hunt down other Nazis after World War II ... I'm willing to deal with the devil in the short term if it can help my people."
The Iraqi National Accord, Kurdish Democratic Party and the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq are also believed to be supporting the plan, which calls for the weeding out of the worst offenders among former Mukhabarat officers.
"It's very sensitive," Musawi said. "For many Iraqis, the thought of restoring the Mukhabarat will create fears of another brutal regime. And they have every right to those fears.
"But we would reconstitute it in such a way that we legislate, monitor, observe and impose legal barriers to prevent such a recurrence."
The Iraqi National Congress estimates as many as 27,000 officers worked at the Mukhabarat prior to the war. The vast majority, Musawi and others said, had no hand in atrocities.
"We're not talking about an amnesty," Musawi said. "At least 4,000 of them are killers, whether they were the decision makers or the ones who actually pulled the trigger. They will face justice. They won't be back.
"But 23,000 others were highly trained analysts. They know our country. They know the hiding places. This is something they can do as a step toward being forgiven."
Ali Abdel Amir, editor-in-chief of the Iraqi National Accord-published Baghdad Daily newspaper, said his party is advancing the issue as the co-ordinator of the Special Security Committee in the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council.
"The main concept is to differentiate between the ones who were and were not involved in crimes against the Iraqi people," he said.
A spokesperson for the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority said last night he was unaware of the plan.
But both Musawi and Amir said coalition security officials are involved in the discussions.
"It depends on which Americans we talk to. Some are keen, some are not," Musawi said.
"At the moment, the security file is very gray. Nobody knows who is doing what - even the Americans I talk to don't know what's going on."
Musawi said the intelligence gap in tracking the postwar insurgents has been severely hampered by U.S. insistence on filtering all actionable information through Washington.
"Today's priceless information is useless tomorrow. By the time it goes from Baghdad to Washington and back, the opportunity gets lost."
The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), by contrast, is lukewarm to the idea. Speaking yesterday from one of the party offices in Baghdad - ironically, a Saddam-era guest house once controlled by Mukhabarat officials - party spokesperson Ahmed Barbari argued for burying the dreaded organization forever.
"The Mukhabarat, their job was to kill. You won't have an easy time finding good ones among them," he said.
While neither the PUK, nor the rival Kurdish KDP movement can claim stellar human rights records among their own security apparatuses, Barbari favoured the creation of a new broad-based security service drawn from the gamut of Iraqi factions.
But in a separate interview yesterday, PUK Deputy General Secretary Nosirwan Mustafa said some former Mukhabarat officials are likely candidates to join a new Iraqi security service.
The scars to the Iraqi psyche remain so fresh that even the mention of the word Mukhabarat makes many shudder. Yesterday a man involved in a Baghdad field office training young Iraqis in the theory of unbiased journalism - a novel concept in these parts - agreed to discuss the matter only on condition of anonymity.
"I am not a free man. I am still afraid of retribution from the Mukhabarat," he said.
"We all hate them, yet we want stability and we know they could deliver it. Despite the fame of the CIA and the FBI, they don't have the background of Iraqis. Only locals can understand each other.
"If they can find a way to reform it, taking out the criminals, it might work. But how do you do it? I consider every (former) agent a dishonest man."
The National Congress' Musawi acknowledged the fear. It is an emotion he shares.
Five members of his own family were murdered by Saddam's regime. "To think I am actually promoting this idea surprises even me," Musawi said. "I lost my father and two sisters in mass graves. We haven't found them yet.
"The word Mukhabarat raises all kinds of feelings in me. But we have to be realistic. We are here, we are now, and we have to do something."
--------
Rumsfeld Makes Unannounced Visit to Iraq
December 6, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Rumsfeld-Iraq.html?hp
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Taking a fresh look at postwar Iraq, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld met Saturday with senior American commanders and was assured that a recent switch to more aggressive anti-insurgency tactics has begun to pay off.
Meanwhile, a funeral north of Baghdad for two Iraqis killed in a firefight with U.S. troops turned violent, with mourners killing a security officer and chanting pro-Saddam Hussein slogans over his body.
The funeral in Samarra started after American forces returned the bodies of the Iraqis killed here last week to their families. The town is in the so-called Sunni Triangle, the central region north and west of Baghdad where opposition to the U.S. occupation has been fiercest.
After a somber procession through the town, mourners began firing weapons in the air -- as is customary -- and members of the U.S.-led Iraqi Civil Defense Corps ordered them to stop, witnesses said. The mourners fired at the paramilitary forces, shooting a civil guard in the head, and set their truck on fire.
As the rest of the civil defense corps fled, dozens of people jumped up and down on the burning pickup and near the body, chanting, ``Long live Saddam! Death to the traitors!''
Security was tight for Rumsfeld's visit, which was not announced in advance. He arrived and left aboard an Air Force C-17 cargo plane and was whisked from Baghdad International Airport to the 82nd Airborne's post in a Black Hawk helicopter with gunners aboard.
He also went for the first time to Kirkuk, the center of Iraq's northern oil fields, and met with L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. civilian administrator of Iraq.
It was Rumsfeld's second trip to Iraq in four months, reflecting the Bush administration's push for faster progress toward improving security and speeding the political transition to Iraqi control, as well as an effort by the Pentagon to improve the morale of American troops.
Ordierno and other commanders spoke of the more offensive-minded approach to countering the shadowy resistance forces that made November the deadliest month for U.S. forces since the war began in March.
``It improves -- every month it gets better,'' Maj. Gen. Raymond Ordierno, commander of the Army's 4th Infantry Division, told Rumsfeld, who nonetheless expressed doubt that the drop in attacks on American troops marked a turning point.
``It's too early to say it's a trend,'' the defense secretary told reporters after having lunch with soldiers of the 82nd Airborne Division at a muddy outpost on the outskirts of Baghdad.
The aggressive tactics, which have included the first use of aerial bombing since the fall of Baghdad in April, have made Iraqis who oppose the resistance less fearful of coming forward with tips on the whereabouts of weapons and fighters, Ordierno said. ``When we have a successful operation, other Iraqis come out of the woodwork and offer information,'' he said in a briefing for Rumsfeld on recent operations in his area of responsibility. That includes Kirkuk, east to the Iranian border, and a large portion of the area north and west of Baghdad where anti-American sentiment runs highest.
Odierno told Rumsfeld that only about 5 percent of the homemade bombs set by insurgents detonate because U.S. soldiers are getting better at finding them.
The top commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, said in an interview with reporters traveling with Rumsfeld that U.S. intelligence has not established conclusively that fallen Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is directing he insurgency. Sanchez nevertheless said it is believed that Saddam remains in the country.
Looking to the future, Rumsfeld said he was encouraged that the U.S. military is putting more emphasis on fielding an Iraqi Civil Defense Corps, designed as a sort of paramilitary force to perform low-level counterinsurgency operations and provide intelligence.
As an adjunct to that force, U.S. commanders are creating an Iraqi counterterror unit.
Rumsfeld said he was impressed with the work of the 82nd Airborne Division in training Iraqi civil defense troops.
``They are volunteering in large numbers,'' he said. ``The work that they are engaged in is dangerous.''
As he strolled through the training area, with Sanchez and others in tow, several dozen young Iraqi recruits in street clothes practiced marching in formation. ``Left, ... left, left, right left,'' they sang out at the command of a U.S. drill master.
Rumsfeld said he would like the training effort accelerated so Iraqis can relieve the U.S. military quicker of responsibility for their nation's security.
Brig. Gen. Martin Dempsey, commander of the 1st Armored Division, which is responsible for security in the Baghdad area, told reporters that in late November his troops attacked four of 10 known cells of insurgents. One, he said, was responsible for the rocket attack on the Al-Rashid Hotel in October that killed a U.S. Army colonel.
The attacks were successful in some respects, he said, but have not ended the problem. They disrupted the cells' ability to attack but did not destroy them, he said.
``Until you grab the leadership and the financers, they do have the ability to replenish themselves'' and strike again, Dempsey said.
``Now you might say, `Why didn't you attack all 10, General?' Well, we haven't gotten enough intelligence (information) to penetrate all of them,'' he said in an interview with reporters.
Sanchez said information collected from Iraqis is becoming more reliable, and he dismissed suggestions that the more aggressive tactics of his troops have created a backlash from ordinary Iraqis who resent the aggression.
``The opposite has been the case,'' he said. ``The people of the country are indeed cooperating with the coalition.''
Iraq was Rumsfeld's final stop on a weeklong trip that began in Belgium for NATO talks and took him to the former Soviet republics of Azerbaijan and Georgia.
An attempted visit to the Central Asian nation of Uzbekistan, where 1,000 U.S. troops are based, was scratched when poor visibility at the Tashkent airport forced his plane to turn back Friday.
Associated Press writer Sameer N. Yacoub in Samarra contributed to this report.
--------
Baker Is Named to Restructure Iraq's Huge Debt
December 6, 2003
By ELISABETH BUMILLER
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/06/international/middleeast/06BAKE.html
WASHINGTON, Dec. 5 - President Bush turned Friday for assistance on Iraq to the man who helped him win the contested election in 2000, naming former Secretary of State James A. Baker III as his personal envoy to restructure more than $100 billion in Iraq's foreign debt.
The appointment of Mr. Baker, a longtime Bush family confidant and troubleshooter, was, in effect, a public admission by the White House that the occupation and reconstruction of Iraq is a more urgent problem than officials acknowledge. Over Mr. Baker's decades of friendship with the Bush family, both father and son have turned to him when things have gone wrong, and Mr. Baker has for the most part delivered.
"Secretary Baker will report directly to me and will lead an effort to work with the world's governments at the highest levels with international organizations and with the Iraqis in seeking the restructuring and reduction of Iraq's official debt," Mr. Bush said in a statement.
But administration officials said that the portfolio of Mr. Baker, 73, would be much broader than seeking an international agreement to restructure the debt, and that he would serve as an unofficial ambassador to explain the administration's plans for Iraq to skeptical nations in Europe and the Middle East. Officials noted that Mr. Baker, who was a very powerful White House chief of staff and treasury secretary in the Reagan administration, and an equally powerful secretary of state for the first President Bush during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, was not a man accustomed to remaining in the background.
Some administration officials said the president had persuaded the man who directed the legal strategy that led to the Supreme Court ruling in Mr. Bush's favor in the 2000 Florida election recount to take on Iraq. Mr. Baker was said to have accepted the job only after being convinced that he would have direct access to Mr. Bush as his envoy, just as he had with Mr. Bush's father. The White House said the appointment had been made at the request of the Iraqi Governing Council.
Although Mr. Bush has never been as close to Mr. Baker as he was the first President Bush - and was said to distrust him after his father's losing 1992 campaign, which Mr. Baker ran - any such feelings have long been set aside in the pursuit of results, in this case the solvency of Iraq.
"James Baker's vast economic, political and diplomatic experience as a former secretary of state and secretary of the treasury will help forge an international consensus for an equitable and effective resolution of this issue," Mr. Bush said in his statement.
An associate of Mr. Baker said he was on a long-planned hunting trip in Texas and could not be reached for comment.
Mr. Baker's appointment raises questions about the role of the Treasury secretary, John W. Snow, who has been leading the administration's efforts on Iraqi debt. At the same time, the appointment gives Mr. Baker diplomatic responsibility and visibility that would ordinarily be accorded to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell. Administration officials said Mr. Baker would regularly travel to foreign capitals to meet with heads of state about American plans for Iraq.
At the State Department, Mr. Baker's appointment, with its emphasis on debt, was cast as more of a supplanting of the Treasury Department's role. "If this was going to take away from anyone's role, it would be John Snow's," said a State Department official who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivities of the large personalities involved.
"The job that Baker's doing is not a job that Powell would be doing," the official said. "To do the job the way it needs to be done, you need a special envoy. It requires the investment of time and energy that a secretary of state doesn't have."
The official added that Mr. Powell had been involved in the decision to appoint Mr. Baker.
Treasury officials said Friday that Iraq's debt was somewhere between $100 billion and $120 billion. Of that, some $40 billion is owed to the United States, France, Germany, Japan, Russia and other nations that belong to the Paris Club, a group of industrialized nations that conducts debt negotiations. About $80 billion is owed to Arab nations and others outside the Paris Club.
The debt does not include as much as $100 billion more demanded in war reparations from countries like Kuwait and individuals who claim damages from Iraq.
The Paris Club has begun discussing Iraq's debt, but a French official said this week that the talks were only in the earliest phases, and that they had not reached a substantive level. The World Bank has proposed forgiving two-thirds of Iraq's debt, but it is unclear what the White House, or Mr. Baker, thinks of the idea.
Associates of Mr. Baker, who is known in Washington as a smooth operator who knows how to work the media to his advantage, said he would time with foreign leaders explaining the administration's plans for transferring sovereignty to the Iraqis by June 30.
Arab diplomats say they are particularly irritated with the Bush administration for what they describe as keeping them in the dark about the process of moving Iraq toward self government. They say no one is informing them about the plans of L. Paul Bremer III, the top American civilian administrator in Baghdad.
Mr. Baker will be aided in his endeavors by his longtime associate, Margaret D. Tutwiler, the former ambassador to Morocco who is awaiting Senate confirmation as the under secretary of state for public diplomacy. Ms. Tutwiler's job description is to improve the image of the United States overseas, particularly in Arab countries.
--------
Bomb Kills U.S. Soldier, at Least 3 Iraqis
By Alan Sipress
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, December 6, 2003; Page A12
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A39909-2003Dec5.html
BAGHDAD, Dec. 5 -- At least three Iraqis and a U.S. soldier were killed Friday when a remote-controlled bomb exploded beside a U.S. military patrol as it drove along a popular shopping boulevard in eastern Baghdad, Iraqi police and hospital officials said.
The explosives, hidden in the street's dusty median strip, damaged one of three passing Humvees, killing a soldier from the U.S. Army's 22nd Signal Brigade in the second vehicle, according to U.S. military officials. Witnesses said they saw other soldiers pull the victim from his disabled Humvee and rush him away.
The blast, which occurred shortly after 9 a.m. as shop owners were opening for the morning, also rocked a packed minibus traveling in the opposite direction, shattering its windows and badly hurting many of the passengers, witnesses said. Police said at least 12 Iraqis were wounded in the incident. But shop owners said the toll could have been much higher if the explosion had taken place on a day other than Friday, when the streets were largely empty for the Muslim day of prayer.
"This is not the place to plant explosives. It's too crowded, too many civilians," said Ali Hamid Adwan, 29, who was cleaning the front of his cosmetics shop when he was jarred by the powerful explosion. "They should fight somewhere else."
Two hours after the attack, local residents continued to crowd the main street of the New Baghdad neighborhood, examining the crater left in the median strip and denouncing the violence.
Abdul Wahid Alwan, 39, had been eating breakfast in his pastry shop when the explosion blew out its windows and caved in part of the ceiling. The blast killed a man in his twenties just as he was passing in front of the store, Alwan said as shards of glass crackled underfoot.
Condemning the attackers for taking their battle into a crowded Iraqi neighborhood, he said: "We all know where the Americans are. They should go and attack them there."
The attack in New Baghdad came one hour after another roadside bomb exploded elsewhere in the city, injuring a U.S. soldier in a passing convoy, U.S. military officials said.
In a separate incident north of Baghdad, a U.S. armored vehicle caught fire early Friday morning but military officials said it was unclear whether this was the result of a mechanical failure or an ambush.
Despite the attacks, U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt told reporters that the rate of guerrilla strikes continues to fall. During the last week, he said insurgents carried out an average of 19 attacks a day against U.S. and allied military forces -- down from more than double that number in early November -- and two strikes a day against Iraqi security forces and civilians.
"We certainly hope that the offensive operations being conducted against the enemy in Baghdad have sent a clear message to the terrorists that we will come after you. We will kill you or we will capture you," Kimmitt said.
Meanwhile, militant Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr warned in his Friday sermon that he would call a general strike if U.S. authorities did not release his followers who he said have been detained. He set a three-week deadline.
Sadr and his close associates in the Shiite Muslim community have complained that authorities are arresting activists critical of U.S. policy in Iraq. Neither Sadr nor U.S. officials have detailed how many of his followers are being held.
-------- israel / palestine
Powell Hears Shadow Plan for Peace in Middle East
December 6, 2003
By STEVEN R. WEISMAN
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/06/international/middleeast/06DIPL.html
WASHINGTON, Dec. 5 - Rebuffing appeals from Israel, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell met Friday with two self-appointed peace negotiators who are promoting a shadow agreement on a Palestinian state, and afterward both the State Department and Mr. Powell's guests maintained that their goals were the same.
The meeting at the State Department between Mr. Powell and the negotiators, Yossi Beilin of Israel and Yasir Abed Rabbo, who led the Palestinian delegation, was closed to reporters and was discussed later by administration spokesmen with extreme delicacy, mainly because of Israel's hostility to the plan.
"I thought it was a very good meeting," Mr. Powell told reporters in front of the State Department after a separate session with King Abdullah II of Jordan. He added that he used the session with the negotiators to emphasize the administration's own stalled peace plan toward Palestinian statehood, known as the road map.
"I had a chance to describe to them the primacy of the road map as the document that the sides agree upon at this moment," Mr. Powell said. "It is still there, and I think that still is the basis to go forward."
Mr. Rabbo and Mr. Beilin also praised the meeting before leaving for the United Nations, where they presented their plan to officials there. "We were encouraged," said Mr. Rabbo. "The solution here satisfies the basic aspiration of the people on both sides."
For Mr. Powell and others in the administration, it was a day highlighting a certain frustration over the Middle East situation, mixed with a few embers of hope that peace talks might be revived in coming days and weeks after months when little has happened.
The basic critique in the administration of the proposal, unveiled in Geneva on Monday and now known as the Geneva plan, is that it ignores the requirements, outlined in the road map, that the Palestinian side has to crack down immediately on terrorist groups and the Israeli side has to ease conditions for Palestinians in the West Bank.
The plan worked out by Mr. Beilin, a former justice minister in Israel, and Mr. Rabbo, a former Palestinian information minister, calls for a final settlement on a Palestinian state but does not address the first steps that have bedeviled negotiators in the administration.
Despite criticism of the Beilin-Rabbo plan by some conservative Christian and Jewish groups, administration officials say that hard-liners among Mr. Bush's aides supported the idea of Mr. Powell meeting with Mr. Beilin and Mr. Rabbo.
Elliott Abrams, director of Middle East affairs at the White House, attended the meeting. Mr. Abrams was an outspoken critic of the Clinton administration's approach on the Middle East, from which the Beilin-Rabbo plan borrows heavily. He was said to have supported the idea of the meeting.
An administration official said that in political terms, it was tactically wise to meet with the plan's authors, proclaim solidarity with their general goal and maintain that the administration had the only plan for getting there.
Denouncing Mr. Beilin and Mr. Rabbo, others in the administration said, would only strengthen their hand, highlight the Middle East stalemate and reinforce the critics' image of Mr. Bush as beholden to Israel and its conservative American supporters.
The Geneva plan projects a Palestinian state occupying nearly all of the West Bank and Gaza, but with Jewish settlements along the West Bank's borders and most of Jerusalem given to Israel.
In return, the Palestinians would get sovereignty over parts of East Jerusalem and the holy sites at the Temple Mount.
This vision of a state was built on maps circulating in the final days of the Clinton administration. That fact alone rankles members of the Bush administration who viewed President Clinton's efforts as misguided.
But some Middle East experts in the Bush administration say privately that a future Palestinian state may well look like the one worked out by Mr. Beilin and Mr. Rabbo and their teams, though it will take years of pursuing a step-by-step approach to build confidence on both sides and reach that goal.
"Their plan deals with final-status issues," said an administration official, using a phrase connoting the fact that boundaries and attributes of a Palestinian state are to be negotiated only after initial steps are taken to stop terrorism and curb Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
"The final-status issues are reserved for the third phase of the road map," this official added. "When we get to the third phase, we'll talk about the kinds of things that the Geneva plan talks about. But the fact that people are talking about these things now is a useful thing."
Administration officials say that Mr. Sharon and his aides are making comments that suggest the possibility of new conciliatory steps toward the Palestinians. And the Palestinian prime minister, Ahmed Qurei, is in negotiations with Palestinian groups to get a new cease-fire in return for actions by Israel.
An administration official said that Israel had begun suggesting it might be prepared to "freeze" expansion of settlements in the West Bank and Gaza. But he said it was not clear whether Israel's definition of that word was the same as the American definition.
"We continue to talk to both sides, including at very high levels," said an administration official. "We are encouraging each to do the things that each side can do. So far, we're hearing a lot of talk."
--------
An Ally of Sharon Foresees a Palestinian State
December 6, 2003
By JAMES BENNET
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/06/international/middleeast/06ISRA.html
JERUSALEM, Dec. 5 - Israel's deputy prime minister predicted in remarks published Friday that Israelis and Palestinians would not reach a peace agreement, but that Israel would have to cede some territory and permit the creation of a Palestinian state.
The comments, by Ehud Olmert, a leader of the dominant Likud Party, suggest that a view is gaining acceptance on Israel's political right that it must concede its dream of a "Greater Israel" incorporating all of the territory of the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.
If matters continue as they are in those territories, Mr. Olmert warned, "It will lead to the loss of Israel as a Jewish state."
Mr. Olmert said Israeli Jews risked becoming a minority controlling an Arab majority. "I shudder to think that liberal Jewish organizations that shouldered the burden of the struggle against apartheid in South Africa will lead the struggle against us," Mr. Olmert said, in an interview with Israel's largest daily newspaper, Yediot Ahronot.
The shifting demographic balance, long a concern of Israel's left, has become a preoccupation of the right as the two populations approach parity and as the Likud, with a strong plurality in Parliament, seeks to function as a governing party.
Mr. Olmert echoed increasing fears among Israelis that Palestinians will stop calling for a two-state solution to the conflict between the two peoples and start demanding a single state, with a Palestinian majority. Some diplomats here argue that the presence of more than 200,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank and Gaza has already made a two-state solution unworkable.
Mr. Olmert is an ally of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, the Likud leader. Mr. Sharon has hinted at plans for territorial compromise or unilateral Israeli withdrawal. His political opponents dismiss his remarks as political posturing, but his advisers say he is trying to build support on the right for action.
Dennis Ross, the director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and a former negotiator in the Clinton administration, said: "I think we're now seeing the beginnings of a fundamental transformation in the Likud. You now have leading members of the Likud recognizing the demographic reality."
While not specifying boundaries, Mr. Olmert suggested that he envisioned conceding outlying neighborhoods of Jerusalem, as well as territory in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. He said he was seeking an Israel that would be 80 percent Jewish and 20 percent Arab - roughly the proportion within Israel today.
About 5.2 million Jews and 1.3 million Arabs are Israeli citizens, while 3.5 million more Arabs live in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
The Palestinian leadership and the Bush administration oppose unilateral moves, saying borders should be negotiated.
Mr. Olmert acknowledged that he was breaking ranks with friends in the Likud, and his interview was sharply criticized by other politicians in the party. Gilad Erdan, a Likud legislator, said, "It is inconceivable that I should wake up one day and find myself in a party that supports a Palestinian state, and now unilateral separation."
Mr. Erdan told Israel Radio that Israel could manage the demographic challenge. If there is peace and economic improvement, he said, the Palestinians "will not continue to make babies at the same rate and quantity they do today."
If terrorism continues, he said, their conditions will remain poor, and they will choose to emigrate. Further, he said, if Palestinians remain and violence continues, "there is no reason to give civilian rights equal to those of Jewish citizens."
Referring to the peace initiative known as the road map, Mr. Olmert said that even if Israel faced no pressure from Washington, it would have to make territorial concessions.
"Let's say the president tells us: `I release you from all commitment to the road map - do as you please,' piles on aggressive rhetoric against Arafat and crowns it all with generous foreign aid to Israel," he said. "How will that help us deal with the expected majority of Palestinians between the Jordan and the sea?"
--------
Palestinians Divided Over Cease - Fire Offer
December 6, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Palestinian-Talks.html
CAIRO, Egypt (AP) -- Hopes faded for Palestinians to offer a full-scale truce to Israel as the militant Hamas and Syrian-based factions said Saturday that they would accept only a narrow cease-fire halting attacks on civilians inside Israeli territory.
Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia arrived in Cairo to push the negotiators to call an end to all violence in exchange for Israel also stopping military assaults. He said he expected some sort of cease-fire offer to come out of the talks.
But after two days of debating various proposals, the Palestinian factions remained deadlocked over the nature of the truce, with Egyptian mediators pressing for a broader cease-fire that would also halt attacks against Israeli soldiers and Jewish settlers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction insisted on halting all violence if Israel would agree to halt military operations and make political compromises as well. The more militant Hamas and Islamic Jihad were only offering to stop attacks on civilians inside Israel.
``We agreed to avoid civilians if the Israelis avoid our civilians,'' said Islamic Jihad spokesman Mohammed al-Hindi. He added a broader cease-fire could be discussed later if Israeli compliance was guaranteed by the international community.
Israel has hinted it could reduce its own military actions if a truce is declared, but it said the cease-fire must be total and be followed by the dismantling of Palestinian militant groups.
But even proponents of the broader truce conceded that would probably not be accepted.
``We cannot say we failed, but we didn't get to what we want,'' said Fatah delegate Ahmed Ghneim. ``Nothing is impossible but it is looking less likely that we will have a comprehensive cease-fire.''
A statement on the outcome of the Cairo negotiations was expected to be released Sunday, but the delegates were still working out the wording.
The talks held in secret near the Great Pyramids include about a dozen Palestinian factions. They were aimed at ending the more than three-year Palestinian uprising, which has led to hundreds of deaths on both sides, in suicide bombings aimed at Israelis and harsh reprisals by the Israeli military.
Egyptian intelligence chief Brig. Omar Suleiman, who is overseeing the negotiations, is to travel to Washington this week and had hoped to go with a cease-fire proposal in hand to seek U.S. backing, putting pressure on Israel to go along with a truce.
Egypt and Qureia both see a truce as a way to revive the ``road map,'' the latest Mideast peace plan being pushed by the United States and the international community that would lead to creation of a Palestinian state in 2005.
Arriving in Cairo on Saturday, Qureia said any truce would require Israel to also pull back from violence. ``There will be no free truce,'' he said. ``But there will be a truce and a mutual cease-fire.''
Qureia further acknowledged that he had received no guarantees from Israel that it would commit to a truce.
``There are no guarantees because there was no discussion with the Israelis on this issue,'' he said. ``We are eager first to come to an understanding amongst ourselves and then we will talk it over with the Israelis.''
Qureia has refused to launch a crackdown against militants, saying it could lead to a civil war, given the militants' strong constituency among Palestinians.
In June, the Palestinians declared a cease-fire on attacks within Israel that also was negotiated in Egypt. Israel was not formally part of that truce, and it collapsed after seven weeks, with Israel attacking Palestinians and Palestinians resuming suicide bombings.
This time, Suleiman has urged the factions to adopt a total cease-fire and give full authority to Qureia to work out the details with Israel. Such an offer would have called on Israel to respond with broad initiatives as well.
The Palestinian demand was that Israel stop building a controversial security barrier that, in part, cuts deep into the West Bank; withdraw from Palestinian towns and cities reoccupied since fighting erupted in 2000; and halt all aggression -- including targeted killings of militants and military incursions into Palestinians areas.
-------- landmines
Nepal lays 10,000 landmines to counter insurgents
By Jan McGirk
06 December 2003
UK Independent
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/story.jsp?story=470586
Trekkers beware. Stepping off the beaten path in Nepal could prove fatal. A report this week revealed that Nepal now manufactures its own anti-personnel mines and the armed forces in the Himalayan kingdom have studded the countryside beyond the Kathmandu Valley with 10,000 landmines to deter Maoist insurgents. Anti-vehicle mines are said to be supplied to Nepal by China, India and Russia.
Despite government assurances that all minefields, meant to protect police outposts and army barracks, have been fenced off with barbed wire, explosions have killed more than 500 Nepalese and maimed 900 in 32 months. At least a third of the fatalities was civilian, including 25 children. Since peace talks between government officials and rebels stalled in August, bloodshed has mounted, particularly in impoverished western Nepal. Anti-royalist guerrillas, who control 40 per cent of the country, plant Indian-manufactured mines, along with booby traps and homemade pressure-cooker bombs. A roadside blast last month killed Brigadier General Sagar Bahadur Pande, the most senior officer targeted by the insurgents who model themselves on Peru's Shining Path guerrillas.
The report was released by the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL), to mark the sixth anniversary of the Ottawa Treaty that prohibits use of the hidden devices. Some 141 countries have signed the treaty, but Asia is a particular blackspot.
The United States arms and trains the Nepalese army, which went on the offensive after the Maoists broke a truce in August. The death toll in eight years of strife stands at 8,300. Pitched battles this week killed dozens of rebels and at least six security troops.
-------- russia / chechnya
Suicide Bombing on Russian Train Near Chechnya Kills 42
December 6, 2003
By STEVEN LEE MYERS
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/06/international/europe/06RUSS.html?pagewanted=all&position=
MOSCOW, Dec. 5 - A suicide bomber set off a devastating explosion inside a crowded commuter train in southern Russia on Friday, killing at least 42 passengers, officials said. President Vladimir V. Putin denounced the bombing as a terrorist act intended to disrupt parliamentary elections here this weekend.
The explosion, which occurred at 7:42 a.m., wrenched apart the second carriage of the train only moments after it left the station in Yessentuki, near the foothills of the Caucasus, not far from Chechnya.
The force of the bomb - which one official estimated to contain more than 20 pounds of plastic explosives - hurled bodies and body parts dozens of yards from the carriage.
More than 150 other passengers, many of them students on their way to schools in the resort city of Mineralnye Vody, were wounded, some of them gravely. Officials grimly warned that the death toll could rise yet higher.
It seemed unlikely that the suicide attack would drastically affect the outcome of Sunday's national elections. The war in Chechnya has barely registered as a campaign issue, and leaders across the political spectrum condemned the attack.
Mr. Putin rose to power vowing to crush Chechnya's separatist movement. As with previous attacks attributed to Chechens, the bombing only hardened the Kremlin's avowals to crush separatists in Chechnya whom officials link to international terrorist organizations.
"The crime committed today is of course an attempt to destabilize the situation in the country on the eve of the parliamentary elections," Mr. Putin said in remarks broadcast on national television. "I am sure the criminals will not succeed in this."
Boris V. Gryzlov, Russia's interior minister and the leader of the United Russia party predicted to triumph in Sunday's elections, starkly vowed to punish those responsible for the bombing.
"The earth will burn under their feet," he said angrily in televised remarks. "These animals will not feel safe anywhere."
The bombing, nevertheless, underscored the bloody price that the smoldering conflict continues to exact on Russia, despite the Kremlin's political efforts to write a new constitution and elect a new president in the battered republic.
There were cryptic and unconfirmed reports last week that one of Chechnya's most notorious rebel commanders, Shamil Basayev, had threatened to stage a new wave of terrorist attacks leading up to Sunday's elections and the New Year holidays.
Only hours before the bombing, officials said, the police foiled another attack by discovering a car loaded with explosives in Ingushetia, which borders Chechnya. Security has been tightened across Russia, especially in and near Chechnya.
While there was no immediate claim of responsibility for the bombing, Sergei N. Ignatchenko, chief spokesman for the Federal Security Service, said in an interview that it bore all the characteristics of terrorist acts by Chechnya's separatist fighters.
In the train's twisted wreckage, investigators found the body of a man believed to have been the suicide bomber, as well as grenades strapped to his legs and a bag believed to have contained the explosives, he said.
Nikolai P. Patrushev, the director of the Security Service, who appeared on television with Mr. Putin, said the bomber appeared to have worked with three accomplices, all women. Two of them, he said, are believed to have leapt from the train shortly before the explosion. A third, who he said might have detonated the explosive by remote control, was gravely wounded and not likely to survive.
Over the spring and summer, Russia suffered a wave of terrorist attacks, most of them carried out by suicide bombers, including women. The attacks - at a rock concert in Moscow, a bus stop and military hospital in Mozdok and government buildings in Chechnya - killed more than 250 people.
The involvement of women in all but one of the attacks has struck a nerve in Russia, where they are luridly described as "black widows," bent on avenging the deaths of fathers, husbands and sons.
In recent months, however, the attacks appeared to wane. The last occurred in early September, when a bomb exploded on a train on the same commuter line as Friday's attack, killing six people.
Officials have attributed the attacks - as well as the siege of a theater in Moscow in October last year that ended with the deaths of 129 hostages and 41 guerrillas - to Chechens aided and increasingly schooled by international Islamic extremists.
"The crime committed this morning also says that the international terrorism that has launched a challenge to many countries of the world continues to remain a serious threat today for our country as well," Mr. Putin said in his remarks. "It is a cruel, cunning, dangerous enemy."
Leaders from China, Europe and the United Nations joined Mr. Putin in denouncing the attack. The United States also condemned it. "No cause, no circumstances justify such actions," said Adem Ereli, deputy spokesman at the State Department in Washington.
Battered by the overwhelming power of federal and regional troops in Chechnya, the separatists no longer have the ability to mount significant military offensives and have instead relied increasingly on guerrilla strikes and terrorist bombings.
From the initial reports, Friday's attack appeared well organized. Officials said the train had been swept for bombs before it left the resort town of Kislovodsk. It appeared that the four people reportedly involved must have boarded at one of three stops along the way, evading the heightened security measures. It was not clear what happened to the two women Mr. Patrushev said jumped from the train.
Television images showed a scene of blood and carnage in the twisted metal wreckage of the carriage. Hours after the attack, rescuers struggled to remove victims. By Friday night, more than 100 people remained in hospitals.
In an interview at the Federal Security Service's headquarters on Lubyanka Square, Mr. Ignatchenko said intelligence reports suggested that separatist fighters in Chechnya continued to receive financial support from abroad, including from Islamic charities in Saudi Arabia. He cited evidence of a $3 million payment in March that he said might have financed the summer attacks.
He acknowledged the difficulty of tracing the organization of the bombings, saying many are planned and carried out locally. "It is hard to determine if a person who works as a cook or sells something in a market is a terrorist," he said. "At some point, he gets a command."
While Mr. Ignatchenko said Russia had had recent success in fighting terrorism stemming from the wars in Chechnya, he warned of a new threat. After nearly a decade of conflict, including two wars and the destruction of the republic's economy, industry and schools, he said, "a new generation has grown in Chechnya that has not seen anything but war."
"Many cannot read," he added. "Many cannot speak Russian. But they know very well how to disassemble a Kalashnikov and how to set up a mine."
-------- space
Spy Satellites Used to Look for Damage on Space Station
By Kathy Sawyer
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, December 6, 2003
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40037-2003Dec5.html
NASA has enlisted U.S. spy satellites and taken other measures to inspect the exterior of the international space station for signs of any damage that might explain a strange metallic crunching noise that was heard by the two astronauts on board in the middle of the night of Nov. 26.
NASA has also shifted steering control of the orbiting laboratory to Russian-built thrusters while engineers study a new problem in the ailing U.S.-built gyroscope system, spaceflight officials said yesterday.
The station team has coped with a series of such problems afflicting the half-built facility since its main supply line, the space shuttle fleet, was grounded after the Columbia disaster Feb. 1. The space station now relies completely on Russian spacecraft with much less cargo capacity, hampering the team's ability to make repairs because of a lack of parts.
The station has a system of four gyroscopes to control its motion and can operate with as few as two. One failed last year, but NASA has been unable to carry up a replacement or return the failed unit for analysis to determine the nature of the problem and whether it affects the three other gyros.
On Nov. 8, controllers detected unusual, exaggerated vibrations and spikes in electrical current in the No. 3 gyro, flight director Joel Montalbano said yesterday in a televised briefing from Houston. Although the gyro system seemed to be working normally last week when the team used it to shift the station's position, he said, it will be given a rest to protect the remaining gyros while engineers study the problem.
"It's not where we want to be," but there is enough backup capability with the Russian thrusters that "we're not in any kind of real crisis," said Bill Gerstenmaier, station program manager.
The gyroscopes -- wheels that spin at 6,600 rpm -- use renewable power from the station's solar panels. The Russian thrusters will use up a small amount of propellant, which must be hauled to orbit. But officials said the station has a plentiful supply, and they expect enough to be delivered by Russian Progress cargo ships to keep the outpost safe for a year or more.
The station must shift its orientation periodically to avoid extreme heating by the sun.
The team will also continue to pursue the cause of the mysterious noise -- "like a tin can being compressed" -- that disturbed the crew last month, Gerstenmaier said. "We haven't seen anything off nominal" that might be related, he said, but the team wants to make certain it understands the problem.
Astronaut Michael Foale and cosmonaut Alexander Kaleri have used the robot arm and cameras to inspect the hull for damage, but their viewpoints are distant and at a steep angle, officials said.
Discussions are underway about the prospects for a spacewalk, possibly in February, which would allow for a close-up inspection, but station managers have withheld approval as they work through concerns about leaving the station with no one inside.
Gerstenmaier said that coping with the loss of the shuttle fleet is good preparation for interplanetary voyages of the future, which will have to operate independent of supply lines from Earth.
-------- us
MEDICINE
Hundreds of U.S. Troops Infected by Parasite Borne by Sand Flies, Army Says
December 6, 2003
By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/06/international/middleeast/06PARA.html
PHILADELPHIA, Dec. 5 - Hundreds of American troops in Iraq have been infected with a parasite spread by biting sand flies, and the long-term consequences are still unknown, Army doctors said Friday.
The resulting disease, leishmaniasis, has been diagnosed in about 150 military personnel so far, but that is sure to climb in the coming months, the doctors said.
All have only the skin form of the disease, which creates ugly "volcano crater" lesions that may last for months, but usually clear up by themselves.
None have developed the visceral form that attacks the liver and spleen and is fatal if untreated. Military doctors have told all troops who were in the region to carefully watch themselves for persistent fevers.
Sand flies may actually disrupt some units' missions, said Lt. Col. Glenn Wortmann, an infectious disease specialist at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, who is treating many patients. Although the skin form of the disease is not life-threatening, 100 to 200 soldiers in some units have been badly bitten and are in danger of developing the disease. Right now, those that develop leishmaniasis lesions are sent back to Walter Reed for treatment. Those soldiers are lost to duty for 30 to 40 days, Colonel Wortmann said.
Almost all Iraqis killed by the visceral form of the disease are malnourished children under 5, not healthy adults. "For us in the military, that's a good thing," said Lt. Col. Russell E. Coleman, an insect specialist with the 520th Theater Army Medical Laboratory, who gave a presentation here to the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. "We're well fed and have healthy immune systems, so hopefully we won't see visceral leishmaniasis in even one soldier."
The soldiers were bitten during the dry, hot season that began in March, just after the invasion began, but the disease can take months to develop. Iraqi doctors told American doctors that in Iraq cases usually peaked in December and January.
Only about 32 of the 500,000 American troops involved in the Persian Gulf war a decade ago developed skin leishmaniasis, he said. But that war was fought mostly in Kuwait in colder weather, before the fly season. However, a dozen developed visceral leishmaniasis. All recovered.
No treatment for either form of leishmaniasis has been approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration, but the military gives 10 to 20 days of intravenous Pentostam, a 50-year-old drug recommended by the World Health Organization.
Civilians, including contractor employees, can get the drug through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Dr. Philip Coyne, a treatment specialist at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Medical Research.
Pentostam speeds healing, with less scarring, and doctors hope it helps prevent skin leishmaniasis from becoming visceral. However, long-term Pentostam can poison the liver and pancreas and is hard to administer in war areas.
Dr. Coleman estimates that more than 1,000 cases may be diagnosed by February. His unit, based at Tallil Air Base near Nasiriya, specializes in detecting and treating chemical and biological warfare, he said, and detects diseases like malaria. "But we spent 95 percent of our time on leishmaniasis," he said.
Dr. Coleman found soldiers who got more than 200 bites in a single night, he said. Because of the heat, he said, soldiers ignored precautions, sleeping outside in their underwear and scorning insect repellent because sand stuck to it.
Sleeping inside under mosquito netting is recommended, though the military's nets had mesh too large to stop Iraq's sand flies, which are about one-quarter the size of mosquitoes.
Air Force tents at Tallil, where 15,000 troops were stationed, were air-conditioned and some had cement floors, so they had few flies, Dr. Coleman said. Army tents were hot and were built on the ground or on wood slats, under which mice and other rodents that can also carry the parasite that causes leishmaniasis scampered freely.
Dr. Coleman said that military officials at the base took precautions, like spraying insecticides, killing rodents and shooting stray dogs, which can also be infected. Nonetheless, the flies persisted through the hot season, he said.
Now the soldiers they bit are turning up at Walter Reed in numbers that have risen to more than 40 a day. "It's going to be a long slog - as long as we're in Iraq," Colonel Wortmann said.
--------
Army Will Face Dip in Readiness 4 Divisions Need to Regroup After Iraq
By Vernon Loeb
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, December 6, 2003; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A40059-2003Dec5?language=printer
Four Army divisions -- 40 percent of the active-duty force -- will not be fully combat-ready for up to six months next year, leaving the nation with relatively few ready troops in the event of a major conflict in North Korea or elsewhere, a senior Army official said yesterday.
The four divisions -- the 82nd Airborne, the 101st Airborne, the 1st Armored and the 4th Infantry -- are to return from Iraq next spring, to be replaced by three others, with a fourth rotating into Afghanistan. That would leave only two active-duty divisions available to fight in other parts of the world.
Briefing reporters at the Pentagon, the official said the four returning divisions will be rated either C-3 or C-4, the Army's two lowest readiness categories, for 120 to 180 days after they return as vehicles and helicopters are overhauled and troops are rested and retrained.
C-3 means a division is capable of performing only some of its combat missions, and C-4 means a division needs additional manpower, training or equipment to fight a major regional war.
A fifth division, the 3rd Infantry, which returned from Iraq in August, is still not fully ready to return to combat, the official said.
While the Army had been using 120 days as its standard for "resetting" divisions returning from overseas deployments, overhauling the divisions returning from Iraq could take as long as 180 days because of the extreme weather in Iraq and the unprecedented magnitude of the planned troop rotation.
The four returning divisions will bring 650 helicopters, 5,700 tanks and other tracked vehicles and 46,000 wheeled vehicles with them, the official said. "This is not Hertz rent-a-car, where you drive [vehicles] for two years and you get rid of the fleet," he said. "We have to take good care of our tanks . . . and all the other equipment. Because we don't get to buy new."
Once those divisions return from Iraq, Army readiness will be at its lowest point since the end of the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Since then, Army officials have tried to keep divisions at the highest, C-1 readiness level.
This dip in readiness could have political consequences for President Bush, who sharply criticized the Clinton administration during the 2000 campaign for allowing two Army divisions to fall to the lowest readiness category in 1999 because of peacekeeping obligations in the Balkans.
"Obviously, this is much worse in terms of the numbers," said Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee who has called for increasing the size of the Army. "This is an indication of the stress the Army is under."
With all of the Democratic presidential candidates criticizing Bush's handling of the war in Iraq and his overall stewardship of foreign policy, the strategic implications of the Army's low readiness rates could also become an issue in the campaign.
"It's called dangerous," said Rep. Ike Skelton (Mo.), ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, who has been calling for 40,000 more Army troops -- the equivalent of two divisions -- since 1995. "The purpose of the military is to stand ready, to face dangers as they appear. Afghanistan came out of the blue, and fortunately we were able to respond."
The Army official acknowledged that four divisions rated C-3 or C-4 represent a "risk" in the nation's strategic posture. But he added: "It's a manageable risk. We've looked at this thing several ways from the joint [inter-service] perspective. It's a manageable risk."
A spokesman for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said the forces would be available if they were needed. "The fact that you have personnel, for example, on leave, or in school, does not mean that they could not be reconstituted in units on rather short order," said the spokesman, who asked not to be quoted by name. "So the idea that you're placing the country at risk is probably an inaccurate and inappropriate way to look at it."
Military analysts differ over the significance of divisions scoring low on the Army's readiness rating system.
Retired Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey, a former division commander and staunch advocate of more Army forces, said four to five divisions below the C-1 rating "means literally half the Army is broken and not ready to fight."
"We have a potential huge challenge from North Korea," McCaffrey said. "So by definition, at this point, we would only be able to respond to an emergency in North Korea with air and naval power or nuclear weapons. It's an unacceptable, in my judgment, strategic risk."
Michael O'Hanlon, a defense analyst at the Brookings Institution who has written extensively about readiness, said the Army's system for gauging readiness is suspect and should not be overemphasized.
Although overhauling 650 helicopters used in Iraq will be a lengthy process, O'Hanlon acknowledged, the job of resetting four divisions back from Iraq would at most delay the Army's ability to respond to a major provocation by North Korea by a month or two.
"It's sort of like the New York Yankees in January," O'Hanlon said. "Their readiness is lower because they haven't gone back to spring training. But they're still a damn good baseball team."
The Army's dip in readiness will almost certainly be used by both Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill pushing for an increase in Army troops, which Rumsfeld has thus far opposed.
Earlier this week, members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said that they, along with Rumsfeld's staff, are still trying to determine whether the requirement for Iraq, which now stands at 130,000 soldiers, is a "spike" that will soon come down, or an ongoing commitment.
If it is a spike, they said, increasing the size of the Army may not be necessary.
Critics of the administration respond that even the most optimistic military commanders believe 50,000 or more U.S. troops will be needed in Iraq for three to five more years.
--------
Army Force Stretched After War in Iraq
December 6, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Army-Readiness.html
SHANNON, Ireland (AP) -- The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have taken a toll on the Army, but the soldiers who are due home next spring are fit to return to a war zone if called upon, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Sunday.
Military officials have said only two of the Army's 10 active-duty divisions will be at full strength for any new conflict next year.
The four Army divisions currently serving in Iraq are expected to need about six months to rest, retrain and repair equipment when they return from Iraq early next year. With three divisions set to rotate into Iraq and another into Afghanistan as replacements, about 80 percent of the Army's fighting strength will be either on the mend or on duty fighting terror and stabilizing the two countries.
One of the two remaining divisions, the 3rd Infantry, is just back from Iraq and not yet up to full capacity.
Rumsfeld, however, said the Army's rating system for combat readiness may be outdated and inappropriate during a period in which the nation is at war.
In an interview aboard his plane while flying from Iraq to a refueling stop in Ireland on Sunday, Rumsfeld said he intended to discuss the matter soon with Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Schoomaker.
``If you are going to use metrics that are fashioned for peacetime and you think that they should apply in a circumstance such as we're in -- which is not peacetime -- then I think it at least raises a caution flag,'' Rumsfeld said.
``Our force today is as trained, equipped, experienced, combat hardened'' as in any recent time, Rumsfeld said. Even though their vehicles and aircraft need refurbishing or replacement and the troops need rest and fresh training, that does not mean they are not ready for further combat, he added.
After recent war-gaming exercises, senior military commanders have concluded that the United States has ``the capabilities today to fulfill'' the Pentagon's contingency plans for war, Rumsfeld said.
``So in terms of risk -- that type of risk -- military experts do not believe we have a circumstance that is in any way difficult,'' he said.
Army officials acknowledge the force is stretched but say the drop in readiness will not leave America vulnerable should a new fight arise with an adversary such as North Korea. Troops from the National Guard, reserves and the other military services are capable of joining any fight, and the recovering soldiers could be quickly reactivated if they are needed, officials say.
``We've got great soldiers, and they can go right back into a conflict, but they've got to retrain,'' Kim Waldron, a spokeswoman for Army Forces Command in Atlanta, said Saturday.
The Army's 4th Infantry, 101st Airborne, 1st Armored and 82nd Airborne division are to leave Iraq by next May. When those troops return, they will need at least six months to rest, resume training and repair helicopters, tanks, Humvees and other gear that has been pushed to or past the breaking point in Iraq's harsh desert environment.
During the retraining, those divisions' formal readiness ratings will fall to the lowest or second-lowest level, first reported by The Wall Street Journal.
``The dip in readiness is a natural result of troops returning home,'' Waldron said. ``It's not something we allow, it's just something that happens when troops come home.''
U.S. military readiness could become a touchy issue for President Bush, who criticized then-President Clinton for allowing two divisions to drop to low readiness levels after deployments in the Balkans in the late 1990s.
Some in the Army have grumbled about the strains on the force. ``Beware a 12-division strategy for a 10-division army,'' former Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric Shinseki said when he retired last summer.
Supporters of enlarging the military say the situation shows just how thin the war on terror has stretched the Army.
``The Army will always march at the sound of the guns, regardless of the condition they are in. But the reality is they're not going to go with the same kind of efficiency and force that they were prepared to go (with) six months or a year ago,'' Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., told the Los Angeles Times after a trip to the war front.
``They would have to scramble; they would have to divert resources that are scheduled to go to Iraq and Afghanistan; they would have to improvise.''
Some in Congress have called for increasing the size of the Army, arguing that it is overstretched in Iraq. They worry that the strain will lead to a serious dropoff in recruiting.
Rumsfeld said Sunday he shares the worry about a decline in recruiting, and he has instructed aides to take pre-emptive measures, such as targeted financial incentives.
Associated Press writers Matt Kelley and Jennifer Kerr in Washington contributed to this report.
-------- war crimes
General Gets 20 Years for Sarajevo Atrocities
December 6, 2003
By MARLISE SIMONS
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/06/international/europe/06HAGU.html
PARIS, Dec. 5 - In the first case linked to the long and cruel siege of the city of Sarajevo, former Gen. Stanislav Galic was sentenced Friday to 20 years in prison by judges at the war crimes tribunal in The Hague.
He commanded the Bosnian Serb troops during more than half of the 44 months of the blockade, a slow and bloody stranglehold that prosecutors said had turned the historic Bosnian city into a "medieval hell."
In the summary of their verdict on Friday, the judges said civilians of the mostly Muslim city had been deliberately fired on "while attending funerals, while in ambulances, trams and buses and while cycling." They were attacked while tending gardens or shopping, the judges said, most of the time in daylight, without posing any military threat.
The encircled city, with its more than 400,000 residents, was often short of food, water, medicine and electricity. As Bosnian Serb troops, aided by Yugoslav forces, shelled and sniped at the city from their mountaintop positions, with United Nations peacekeepers standing by powerless, much of the violence was broadcast on television and shocked the world. Finally, in August 1995, Western forces launched airstrikes against Serbian troops.
Human rights groups have said more than 11,000 people, including more than 1,500 children, were killed in Sarajevo. The siege tore up a city that had had a reputation as a civilized place where Muslims, Jews and Orthodox and Catholic Christians had lived together for centuries.
But its peace ended when Bosnia declared independence from Yugoslavia in March 1992. Several weeks later, Bosnian Serbs and Yugoslav Serbs fired at peace demonstrators from the city's mountaintops.
General Galic commanded the 18,000-member Romanija Corps of the Bosnian Serb Army from September 1992 to August 1994 - when, prosecutors said, close to 3,800 civilians were randomly and arbitrarily killed. His successor, Dragomir Milosevic - no relative of former President Slobodan Milosevic - has also been indicted on war crimes charges, but he is still at large.
In the verdict on Friday, Mr. Galic was convicted of one count of war crimes in violation of the Geneva Conventions and four counts of crimes against humanity, including murder and other inhumane acts.
In the lengthy trial, 171 witnesses were heard, among them survivors of shelling and sniping incidents. Witnesses also included members of international military forces stationed in Sarajevo. Prosecutors and the defense made use of films, photographs and sound recordings of what might well be the most thoroughly documented siege of a European city.
One of the three United Nations judges, Rafael Nieto-Navia, dissented and said he wanted a 10-year sentence because the prosecution had not proved beyond reasonable doubt that General Galic had issued orders to aim at civilians.
But the judge said there was credible evidence that the general knew, or had reason to know, of the attacks on the population and did not take enough measures to stop these or to punish the perpetrators.
News reports from Sarajevo, on the other hand, said Friday that many residents of the city considered the 20-year sentence too lenient and had reacted with anger after hearing the news. Some said the crimes against their city warranted lifelong imprisonment, and others called for the death sentence, which the tribunal cannot impose.
--------
AP: Iraq Set to Form War Crimes Tribunal
December 6, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Iraq-War-Crimes.html?pagewanted=all&position=
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- A law creating an Iraqi-led tribunal that could put Saddam Hussein and hundreds of his aides on trial for crimes against humanity and genocide could be passed in the coming days, Iraqi and American officials told The Associated Press.
Some human rights groups criticized the plans, saying Iraq's U.S. occupiers have too much of a hand in them and that Iraqi judges and prosecutors may not have the experience needed to try the cases.
The law creating the tribunal will be similar to proposals made in Washington in April, one member of Iraq's Governing Council said. The law calls for Iraqi judges to hear cases presented by Iraqi lawyers, with international experts serving only as advisers.
That would be starkly different from U.N.-sponsored tribunals set up to consider war crimes in the former Yugoslavia and in Rwanda. In those cases, international judges and lawyers have argued and decided cases.
Two members of the Governing Council -- Mahmoud Othman and Samir Shakir Mahmoud -- said Friday the tribunal would be created in the coming days, as did an official of the U.S.-led occupation authority, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The New York-based International Center for Transitional Justice said its sources in the coalition authority said the tribunal could be established as early as Sunday.
Othman said the tribunal would hear hundreds of cases involving members of the former regime.
``There will be more trials than only the 55 deck of cards,'' he told AP, referring to the U.S. list of most-wanted Iraqis. ``Anybody against whom a complaint is filed with evidence against them could be tried.''
Already, thousands of relatives of the missing have filed complaints against members of the former regime. One group in Baghdad, the Iraqi Human Rights Society, took 7,000 complaints before the paperwork overwhelmed its staff.
The Governing Council has been discussing the war crimes tribunal law for months, and it was not expected to encounter major opposition within the governing body. The U.S. occupation authority, which has veto power over Governing Council decisions, also must sign off on the plan.
It remained unclear when the trials would begin. The coalition authority now holds at least 5,500 people in prisons, but it isn't known how many of those are war crimes suspects and how many are accused of common crimes.
Those in custody include Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as ``Chemical Ali'' for his role in chemical attacks on Kurds in the 1980s; Saddam's secretary, Abid Hamid Mahmud al-Tikriti, and Muhammad Hamza al-Zubaydi, a leader of 1991 suppression of the Shiite Muslim rebellion. If Saddam himself is captured, he presumably would be tried by the special tribunal as well.
As evidence, prosecutors will use a growing cache of documents seized from the former regime. The coalition now has an estimated nine miles of paperwork, and Iraqi human rights groups and political parties have even more.
Evidence also will come from the excavation of mass graves that dot the Iraqi landscape. Some 270 mass graves are believed to hold at least 300,000 sets of remains. Forensic teams are expected to start excavating a few for evidence in late January, according to an AP investigation.
Human rights workers said the trials could include genocide cases -- for a campaign against Kurds in northern Iraq in the 1980s, and for the draining of southern marshes in 1992 that drove many Shiites from their homes.
They also could include cases against former Iraqi officials for the massacres of Shiites and Kurds in 1991, when those communities rose up against Saddam at the end of the Gulf War.
The tribunal will use a combination of laws, according to people who have seen a draft of the plan, including the Iraqi penal code of 1969 and the Iraqi criminal code of 1971. In addition, the new charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity -- taken from international courts -- will be added, they said.
Human rights groups have criticized the draft, but Othman said the only changes are small alterations in legal wording.
Some groups said the United States has dictated the terms of the tribunal -- down to who would be prosecuted, and how -- and worry Iraqi judges and lawyers may not be up to the task.
``Any tribunal established on behalf of the Coalition Provisional Authority will not be able to rid itself of the perception and the fact that it is an instrument of American power,'' said Paul van Zyl of the International Center for Transitional Justice. ``Any justice it dispenses will be of dubious legality and questionable legitimacy.''
Richard Dicker, director of the international justice program at Human Rights Watch, said he was concerned officials didn't consider bringing in judges who have worked on major war crimes trials in other countries.
``After three decades of Baath Party rule, the capacity of Iraqi judges to conduct incredibly complicated trials has been greatly diminished,'' he said by telephone from New York. He said he worried about the tribunal's ability to provide fair trials.
Two recent studies of the Iraqi judicial system, obtained by AP, describe a legal system riddled with corruption and incompetence. One was conducted in August by the United Nations; the other in June by the Justice Department.
``A degraded justice system and inadequate and outdated legal framework is not capable of rendering fair and effective justice for violations of international humanitarian law and other serious criminal offenses involving the prior regime,'' the U.N. study said.
But Sandra Hodgkinson, director of the coalition authority's human rights and justice office, said she believed an Iraqi court system -- with some training from international experts -- will work.
``Iraqis want it that way, and they're capable of doing it that way,'' she said. ``There is no need to have an international tribunal when the local population is willing and able to do it.''
Adnan Jabbar al-Saadi, a lawyer with the Iraqi Human Rights Ministry who said he expected to argue some of the tribunal cases, agreed.
``I think it's very important for people to see the criminals who killed their families in court,'' he said. ``The United Nations asked us if they should give money to people so they would feel better, and I told them nothing will make them feel better except seeing the responsible criminals in prison.''
Some groups questioned the legality of the tribunal. Under the Geneva Conventions, an occupying power can't create new laws, except when needed to restore order.
``They have authority to prosecute people for current crimes, and violations of existing law, and war crimes committed during hostilities,'' van Zyl said. ``They do not have authority to prosecute people for past gross violations of human rights.''
Hodgkinson said she wasn't concerned about questions of legality.
``I would be surprised if anybody would ever raise this as an issue,'' she said.
Associated Press writer Sameer N. Yacoub contributed to this report.
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
-------- homeland security
Socks Prompt Warning About Al Qaeda and Planes
Associated Press
Saturday, December 6, 2003
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40006-2003Dec5.html
The discovery of a pair of stretched-out socks with traces of explosives in them has prompted a government warning that al Qaeda might still be planning to use personal items to blow up a plane, the Department of Homeland Security said.
The bulletin was issued Wednesday to state and local officials, as well as to federal transportation officials, said department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse.
The FBI also issued a circular on the subject, he said.
Roehrkasse said there is no specific intelligence information indicating the terrorist group has a plot to blow up an aircraft using socks or other personal belongings.
He declined to say where the socks in question were discovered.
ABC News, citing an anonymous source, reported yesterday that the socks were seized by British authorities in Gloucester, England, during the arrest of Sajid Badat last month.
Badat was arrested Nov. 20 and charged with conspiring in an explosives plot with shoe bomber Richard Reid, who is serving a life sentence for attempting to bomb an airliner in December 2001.
Roehrkasse said the bulletin issued by Homeland Security "indicated al Qaeda operatives continue to display an interest in modifying personal items for potential use as improvised explosive devices, and continue to desire to target aviation."
Screeners from the Transportation Security Administration have already been asked to be extra alert during the holiday season, Roehrkasse said. He said it is not known specifically what the socks may have been used for, or whether the explosive residue came from a floor or a shoe or were intended for use on someone's body.
-------- prisons / prisoners
Deals Reported Afoot for Detainees
But Lawyers Question Pacts for Clients Without Access to Counsel
By John Mintz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, December 6, 2003; Page A06
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40032-2003Dec5.html
The first few detainees at the Guantanamo Bay prison designated for trial soon before special military tribunals have been negotiating plea bargains with their U.S. captors under which they would acknowledge working with the al Qaeda terrorist network or the Taliban, according to several of the men's defense lawyers and other legal sources.
U.S. officials hope that plea agreements with two British prisoners and one Australian held at the U.S. military jail in Cuba will result in them publicly expressing regret for their actions in court, informed sources said. One U.S. goal is to show that cooperating with interrogators results in reduced sentences, they said. The men's discussions about guilty pleas have been taking place without their having access to legal advice, and their attorneys, who are making plans to visit some of the men at the jail for the first time, said they could well end up trying to dissuade the captives from following through.
"It's quite unusual for someone [to enter into a plea agreement] without any legal advice," said Stephen Kenny, a lawyer for David Hicks, 28, an Australian former kangaroo skinner and ranch hand. U.S. and Australian officials have said he confessed to training with al Qaeda and fighting for the Taliban. "He's been in a cage for two years. This [plea deal] could be very unfair to David," Kenny said.
Human rights activists have long denounced U.S. policy toward the detainees at Guantanamo Bay because U.S. officials refuse to say when the captives will be freed and they are denied access to U.S. courts. Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court said it would review the rights of the detainees in a case brought by some of their relatives.
Lately, however, U.S. officials have stepped up the release of detainees to their home countries, bringing the total to more than 80. The effort to get the military trials underway also would address the criticism that the prisoners should be released or charged.
Kenny, who practices law in Hicks's hometown of Adelaide, said U.S. or Australian officials he declined to identify told him of his client's desire to plead guilty. Likewise, attorneys for a British detainee, Moazzam Begg, said they, too, have been told by U.S. or British "official sources" that he and another detained Briton are discussing plea agreements.
In July, U.S. officials designated six of the 660 Guantanamo Bay detainees as eligible to appear before military tribunals (or, in government parlance, commissions). Only three of the six were publicly identified: Hicks, Begg and fellow British citizen Feroz Abassi.
Earlier this week the Pentagon announced it had appointed an experienced Marine litigator, Maj. Michael Mori, to represent Hicks -- the first government defense lawyer assigned to any of the Guantanamo Bay captives. Mori and Kenny are expected to visit Hicks in Cuba soon.
The private lawyers, mostly human rights advocates with long records of criticizing the United States for the detainees' situation at Guantanamo Bay, were hired by the detainees' families, who from the start dismissed any possibility that their relatives were affiliated with al Qaeda or the Taliban.
Lawyer Clive Stafford Smith, who represents Begg, said that his client can decide to plead guilty if he chooses. But he said he all but assumes any confession his client made was coerced and is a lie. As the Begg family's attorney, he said, "I could say to him, 'We know you didn't do it.' "
Smith said that interrogators had certainly warned his client that " 'these damned defense lawyers will try to talk you out of pleading.' . . . This is all part of a Stalinist show trial, in which you're tried in public only if you agree to plead guilty."
Smith said nongovernmental "sources" whom he declined to identify told him that Begg plans to plead guilty to a plot in which he would have helped arrange for an unmanned drone aircraft to fly over London spraying weapons-grade anthrax spores. Security experts say such a sophisticated operation is almost surely beyond the current known capabilities of terrorists, and Smith said it was "clearly a fantasy."
Maj. John Smith, a spokesman for the Pentagon's military commissions office, declined to comment on detainee interrogations but said officials cannot have reached any formal plea agreements because the prisoners have not yet consulted lawyers.
Last month, after lengthy consultations with the Australian government, the United States announced a deal under which Hicks would not face the death penalty and would serve any prison time in his homeland. U.S. officials have reached a similar arrangement for the British detainees.
Hicks, a Muslim convert who traveled the world fighting with Islamic guerrilla movements from Kosovo to Kashmir, was captured in late 2001 fighting with the Taliban, U.S. officials said. His family denied he had dealt with terrorists, but this summer Australian officials announced he had confessed to training with al Qaeda.
Begg's family said he was helping to build a school in Afghanistan in 2002 when he was pushed into the trunk of a car in Pakistan by four men, including two with American accents. He called his father in England with his cell phone from the trunk, and months later showed up in Cuba.
-------- terrorism
Terrorism Warning for Airlines Focuses on Shoes and Clothing
December 6, 2003
By PHILIP SHENON
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/06/national/06TERR.html
WASHINGTON, Dec. 5 - The Homeland Security Department has issued a new terrorism warning to airlines and state and local law enforcement agencies after a police raid in Britain last week turned up evidence suggesting that Al Qaeda might try again to place explosives in shoes or clothing, law enforcement officials said on Friday.
They said the British police had found residue of explosives in socks belonging to a 24-year-old British man who was arrested on charges of conspiring with Richard C. Reid, the Qaeda member who tried to blow up a passenger plane over the Atlantic in December 2001 with explosives in his shoes.
In an advisory sent out on Wednesday to airlines and state and local law enforcement officers, the Homeland Security Department, which oversees the Transportation Security Administration, said the socks "were held together with a string" and "appeared to be elongated as if they were stretched out from carrying something."
"While it is not clear exactly in what capacity the individual may have been using the socks, it is possible the suspect may have been suspending the socks from around his/her neck or under outer garments in an effort to conceal explosives carried in them," it said. "It also cannot be discounted that these tethered socks were components of an improvised explosive device in the making."
Bush administration officials said a similar warning had been issued by the F.B.I. to its state and local counterparts.
The British suspect, Sajid Mohammed Badat, of the southwest England city of Gloucester, was taken into custody on Nov. 27 and has been accused of conspiring with Mr. Reid and "others unknown" to cause "an explosion of a nature likely to endanger life or cause serious injury," according to the formal charges. He was also accused of possessing explosives.
Brian Roehrkasse, the chief spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, would not confirm that it was Mr. Badat's arrest that had prompted the warning; the department's advisory did not mention Mr. Badat by name or refer to the circumstances of his arrest.
But Mr. Roehrkasse acknowledged that federal law enforcement officials had new concern over the possibility that terrorists would try to use explosives hidden in shoes or clothes. "This is an example of how, when we get actionable information about potential Al Qaeda tactics, we pass it on to the security professionals," he said of the advisory.
British officials have offered few details of the relationship between Mr. Badat and Mr. Reid, who is also a British citizen and has acknowledged his membership in Al Qaeda and his loyalty to Osama bin Laden.
-------- ENERGY AND OTHER
-------- genetics
Effort to Ban Human Cloning Will Resume
Bush Administration, Allies Will Pursue U.N. Vote Despite Diplomatic Setback
By Colum Lynch
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, December 6, 2003; Page A04
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A39943-2003Dec5.html
UNITED NATIONS, Dec. 5 -- The Bush administration and its allies are reopening their campaign to enact a global ban on human cloning, and pressing for a vote next week on a resolution calling on U.N. members to start drafting a treaty prohibiting the controversial practice.
The United States and key European and Latin American countries with large Roman Catholic constituencies are seeking to overturn a recent recommendation by the U.N. General Assembly's legal committee to defer any consideration of a ban on the cloning of human embryos until 2005.
Over the past year, the United States has led a diplomatic effort, which now includes 66 nations, to adopt a U.N. resolution calling for the 191-member General Assembly to begin negotiations on such a treaty. It is confident that it has enough votes lined up to win easy passage of the resolution.
But in a bruising diplomatic setback, the General Assembly's legal committee, which includes most U.N. members, voted 80 to 79 last month to postpone any debate on cloning for two years, effectively blocking the U.S.-led initiative.
The motion to postpone was introduced by Iran on behalf of the 57-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), and drew the support of many of Washington's closest European allies, including Britain.
Key supporters of the total ban, including Spain, Portugal, Costa Rica and Italy, are confident that they can now muster a majority to defeat the deferral motion if it is put to a vote again.
Costa Rican Ambassador Bruno Stagno, the chairman of the anti-cloning coalition, formally tabled on Friday the resolution banning cloning and said he plans to put it to a vote as early as Monday. "What we are aiming for is to somehow defeat that [deferral] recommendation and then, having defeated it, go with a vote" on the resolution, he said. "In our view . . . the no-action motion runs counter to the rules of procedures."
But the initiative carries the risk of delivering another embarrassing defeat for the United States at the United Nations, which remains deeply divided over the wisdom of outlawing the use of cloned embryos in the pursuit of scientific and medical advances.
Although most U.N. members favor a prohibition on the cloning of human beings, Germany, Britain, Belgium and more than 30 other countries have been pressing for a partial ban that would allow the continued use of cloned human embryos for stem cell and other research. Islamic countries, whose religion rejects the idea that life begins at conception, have been more receptive to the practice of human cloning for medical purposes and say they want more time to consider their position on the issue.
Many scientists argue that the use of cloned human embryos in stem cell research has potential for curing diseases, including Parkinson's disease and leukemia. "Reproductive cloning [cloning human babies] should be banned," said Michael Manganiello, president of the Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research, "but we strongly support the ability of scientists to investigate the potential of therapies that can be derived from stem cells from therapeutic cloning."
In recommending that the cloning debate be postponed, Iran argued last month that there was too much political division and scientific uncertainty surrounding the complex issue to make decisions with far-reaching consequence.
Spain, Costa Rica and the other U.S. allies protested that the Islamic procedural motion calling for a deferral was a violation of U.N. rules. "We understand the OIC request for more time," Stagno said. "We are concerned by the legal precedent if we do not challenge it."
The White House has privately expressed reservations about the wisdom of a new battle over cloning that it might lose, according to diplomats familiar with the discussions. Instead, the White House favors a compromise that would permit renewed debate on cloning within the next year.
But the Bush administration yielded to pressure from Spain, Portugal and Italy at a closed-door meeting Thursday night to back the challenge. "We support a total ban, we support the Costa Rican resolution, and all of our votes would reflect that position," said Richard Grenell, the spokesman for the U.S. mission to the United Nations.
-------- health
With Flu Cases Spreading, Demand for Vaccine Grows
December 6, 2003
By DENISE GRADY and LAWRENCE K. ALTMAN
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/06/national/06FLU.html?pagewanted=all&position=
With influenza cases surging in at least 10 states, vaccine makers said yesterday that they had shipped out their entire supplies, and health officials said they were trying to determine whether there was enough vaccine left to immunize people who still want flu shots. More vaccine cannot be made in time for this year's flu season.
Fears of the disease, prompted by unusually early and widespread outbreaks, mostly in Western states, have fueled a high demand for the vaccine.
"This is looking like a year when more vaccine is being used by more people in the United States than any other year," said Dr. Keiji Fukuda, chief of the influenza epidemiology branch at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "Vaccine supplies are getting smaller. One of the things we're trying to do right now is get a sense of how much vaccine is out there."
Ordinarily, the government does not track precisely how many doses have been given out or how much inventory remains.
The nation's two vaccine makers, Aventis Pasteur and Chiron, said they had shipped out all the vaccine they had made, a total of about 80 million doses. That is in sharp contrast to last year, when 10 million doses were left over and thrown away, said Dr. Michael Decker, vice president for scientific and medical affairs of Aventis Pasteur. Because flu strains vary from year to year, a new vaccine must be formulated each year.
"I would suspect a person determined to get a flu shot will find it right now," he said, "but it's probably a lot like shopping on Christmas Eve. You better move fast."
But in interviews yesterday afternoon, health officials in half a dozen states generally said that so far, supplies seemed adequate. For a more accurate appraisal, the C.D.C. and medical groups have begun surveying doctors and health departments to find out whether they are running out of vaccine. If there is a serious outbreak and some areas have shortages while others have unused vaccine, the disease centers hopes to help redistribute the supply.
A pressing question is just how severe this year's flu season will be. The disease is already off to a much earlier start than usual in both Europe and the United States.
"It's fair to say this is looking to be a more severe season than the last couple of seasons, which have been relatively mild," Dr. Fukuda said. "What is not clear is where on the bigger scale of severity this season is going to fall."
Dr. Klaus Stöhr, the World Health Organization's expert on influenza, said, "The current evidence suggests a more severe influenza season this year than in the last three years, but there is no way to know that with 100 percent certainty." He also said that no shortages of flu vaccine in Europe had been reported to his agency.
Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert and chairman of the department of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University, said that this year's strain of the virus was especially likely to cause serious disease. The predominant strain is known as Fujian, and it was not included in this year's vaccine. Officials have said the vaccine should still provide at least partial protection, but that is not known for sure.
Every year, about 36,000 people in the United States die of complications from influenza. Most are elderly or suffering from chronic diseases, and they die from pneumonia or a worsening of their other illnesses brought on by the flu virus.
Dr. Schaffner said there were more deaths among children than would be expected: five in Colorado and a sixth being investigated, as well as one in New Mexico. That was a cause for concern among experts, he said.
"We fret about that," he said. "This has been much discussed during the last week or so."
In recent years, Dr. Schaffner said, studies revealed that children under the age of 2 were especially vulnerable to severe complications of flu, like pneumonia and systemic infections. As a result, medical groups have been encouraging vaccination for children between 6 months and 2 years of age.
He said the flu now seemed to be moving east. "We have suddenly, this last week, exploded with flu-like activity in Nashville and middle Tennessee," he said. "We're seeing it in emergency rooms, and the labs are coming back with positive results."
As for the vaccine, Dr. Schaffner said: "I've already heard about spot shortages. But if your doctor doesn't have it, try another doctor or clinic or a drugstore. There is still vaccine in the pipeline, and it's being distributed."
But, he added, "I believe that if the flu continues to accelerate as we move east, demand for the vaccine will continue, and I am concerned that by the end of the month there will be much larger shortages."
Another question is how effective the flu vaccine will be in protecting against the Fujian strain, which is the predominant one circulating in the United States and Europe but was not included in this year's vaccine.
In California, Norma Arceo, a spokeswoman for the Department of Health Services, said, "Counties have some vaccine left, but we also know that some of our county clinics have already run out." But, she added, the situation is not considered a shortage.
"We are doing a survey in anticipation of running out of vaccine," she said. "Most important is that the flu shot gets distributed to people at risk."
In Georgia, Dr. Susan Lance-Parker, chief of notifiable diseases at the Division of Public Health, said news that the vaccine had sold out was a surprise.
"We're in the process of assessing how much we have," she said. "We're assessing at district level, at the local health department level. How much they have is unclear at this point."
In Florida, Dr. John O. Agwunobi, secretary of the department of health, said the state seemed to be in no danger of running out and had just received a new shipment of vaccine yesterday.
State officials in Colorado, Texas, Massachusetts, Maine and Rhode Island also said that so far, supplies seemed adequate. Most said that their highest risk populations, including elderly people and those with chronic diseases, had already been vaccinated.
But Dr. David Cohn, associate director of public health in Denver, said he thought the companies' having sold out their stocks could create a crisis in weeks to come. If that occurs, he said, "the alternative will be for people to take appropriate preventive measures, like avoiding closed places with poor ventilation, where you're most likely to get infected." He also said that health officials would then encourage the use of antiviral drugs to treat the flu.
Information about influenza and the vaccine is online at the Centers for Disease Control's Web site: www.cdc.gov/ncidod/diseases /flu/fluinfo.htm
Anahad O'Connor contributed reporting for this article.
-------- ACTIVISTS
Mom Vainly Tries to See U.S. Iraq Soldier Daughter
Fri Dec 5, 2003
(Reuters)
By Michael Georgy
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=574&ncid=721&e=5&u=/nm/20031205/wl_nm/iraq_daughter_dc
TIKRIT, Iraq - A peace activist accused the U.S. military on Friday of depriving her of the chance to visit her soldier daughter, telling her that the truck driver was on a mission.
But Lieutenant Colonel William MacDonald, spokesman for the U.S. Fourth Infantry Division in Tikrit, said he was trying to organize a meeting for Saturday.
Anabel Valencia said she had informed U.S. military officials that she would be at the gates of the base at noon to see 24-year-old Giselle. She arrived only to discover that her daughter had been sent on a mission to Baghdad.
"I have not seen her in three years, I don't know why they are doing this," said Valencia, standing outside a sprawling U.S. military base in Saddam Hussein's hometown.
"The last time we spoke she said 'I miss you and my father and sister. I want to come home for Christmas but I have to finish my mission'."
"I feel so bad. I am sad," said Valencia, who was accompanied by Medea Benjamin of Global Exchange, an anti-war human rights group.
Several parents of Americans serving in Iraq have come to the country to visit their children, including ones that were killed in the war that toppled Saddam.
Their presence just outside the military complex clearly made U.S. troops nervous. One arrived with a sniffer dog and firmly told Valencia to keep a distance from the main checkpoint.
"Can I talk to her?" Valencia asked before being told that Giselle had been sent on a mission to Baghdad, where her brother is also serving in the U.S. Army.
Valencia and her party were told that Giselle would be back at five o'clock. But MacDonald contradicted that claim.
"This mission has been scheduled for quite a while and you know she is a soldier. She is out performing her duty," he said.
One soldier stood by and reminded everyone that "this is a war and soldiers are sent on missions."
Giselle had spoken to her mother highly of her tour of duty in Iraq.
When a group of U.S.-trained Iraqi policemen showed up, American soldiers loaded their weapons.
"The Americans asked us to come here to stop the demonstration," said Iraqi policeman Mohanan Taha.
Asked if protests were illegal in the new Iraq, he told reporters: "There are no human rights under the Americans. Nothing. It is all empty talk."
"We miss the days of Saddam," said Iraqi policeman Mohammed Shawki.
----
Burma Says 16 Prisoners Released
WORLD IN BRIEF
Saturday, December 6, 2003
Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40248-2003Dec5.html
BANGKOK -- Burma's ruling military junta said Friday it had released 16 political prisoners who were arrested in a bloody crackdown on the National League for Democracy (NLD).
Brig. Gen. Than Tun, a military intelligence officer, told reporters in Rangoon that 14 remaining prisoners, including NLD vice chairman Tin Oo, would soon be released. The first group was let go on Wednesday.
A total of 136 people were arrested in the May 30 crackdown, government officials said.
NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi remains under house arrest. U.N. human rights envoy Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, who met with her in November, said she has refused to accept her freedom until all NLD members detained since May 30 are released.
----
'America's Hangar': Air and Space Museum's new wing
CHANTILLY, Virginia (AFP)
Dec 06, 2003
http://www.spacedaily.com/2003/031206224959.p766l33i.html
The airplanes hung from the rafters have the allure of models in a child's bedroom, but each of the giant trusses holding them up could hold nine tonnes: the new National Air and Space Museum is a modeler's dream -- made life-size.
The giant hangar is "perhaps the largest room in the world," Smithsonian Institution secretary Lawrence Small said. It contains the first copy of the space shuttle, the B-29 that first dropped an atomic bomb as a weapon and the supersonic Concorde airliner.
The 311-million-dollar museum includes a 50-meter (164-foot) control tower that reproduces the work environment of air traffic controllers, overlooking the airliners queuing for takeoff at nearby Dulles International Airport, which serves the capital.
Authenticity is the rule. Some items are the last remaining copies, such as the renowned Japanese KI-45 "Kai Toryu" from World War II -- wingless but the only survivor among 1,700 built.
The helicopter came to symbolize Vietnam's jungle war, and a Bell Iroquois with 2,400 flying hours shows the danger of its mission: Its fuselage is shot through with Viet Cong bullets and patched dozens of times.
From the entrance it is easy to recognize the stubby nose and the squat tail of the shuttle. On display is the Enterprise, which NASA used between 1977 and 1979 for approach and landing tests before Columbia's first flight in April 1981.
On the first floor, an SR-71 reconnaissance plane looks as flat as a sting ray. It takes its name from its all-black paint: "Blackbird." Conceived and built in the early 1960s, it is still the fastest jet in the world and can reach the highest altitude: 3,620 kilometers (2,250 miles) per hour at 85,000 feet. Its record: from West Coast to East Coast in 64 minutes; New York to London in two hours.
Next to that lighting bolt, the gleaming B-29 seems inoffensive -- if it weren't for the letters in black paint on the fuselage near the cockpit: Enola Gay. The name of the pilot's mother was painted on just an hour before takeoff and forever linked to the cataclysmic explosion of the first atomic bomb over Hiroshima on August 6, 1945.
Beneath the four-engine superfortress, a plaque salutes the "most sophisticated propeller-driven bomber of World War II and the first bomber to house its crew in pressurized compartments." It also mentions the atomic weapon over Hiroshima, but makes no mention of the 230,000 civilian casualties.
The museum's director, retired general John Dailey, has resisted groups who want the death toll included.
"We don't do it for other airplanes," he told AFP. "From a consistency standpoint, we focus on the technical aspects."
Museum entry is free of charge. It shows 80 percent of the Smithsonian's aircraft collection that could not be shown at the museum in Washington.
"America's Hangar," as the new museum is called in a promotional book, opens officially on December 15 to coincide with the Wright Brothers' first flight on December 17, in North Carolina. Three million visitors are expected in 2004.
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