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NUCLEAR
Bush, Kerry spar over how to keep nukes from kooks
Paul Nitze The man who brought us the Cold War.
Discussion centers on U.S. war crimes
Dear Mr. Patriot
Iraqi Catastrophe
Iraq war junk gets dumped in India.
Lithuania will ask EU to operate Soviet-built nuclear plant for longer
France says future is nuclear with new generation of power-plants
U.S. Might Reconsider Sanctions on Indian Scientists
Iran Deals Blow to European Nuclear Plan
Iran reported nearing nuclear capability
PART I: The enemy beyond
Allies against Iran
Iran Not Seen Accepting Nuclear Incentives
S.Korean munitions violated nuclear accord -group
Berlin to Spend Billion on Missile Defense
Committee rejects public consultation on missile defence
Paul H. Nitze, Missile Treaty Negotiator and Cold War Strategist
Paul Henry Nitze, 1907-2004 Architect of Cold War
Delegates ask NRC to hasten VY report
Hanford tests plans for nuclear waste
Scientists complete tests on Hanford tank waste treatment
Report: Yucca Mountain to be at capacity before opening
MILITARY
3,200 Peacekeepers Pledged on Mission to Darfur
India opposes sale of F-16 jets
Indian navy denies submarine deal
About 4.5 million dollars spent on arms buyback in Baghdad: Iraqi PM
Meditations on Okinawa
Burmese generals reinvent dark days
Myanmar power play leaves India smiling
Blair sees battalion for Iraq, not Bush
Britain to Send 850 Troops Toward Baghdad
Britain agrees to send 850 troops into US-controlled zone in Iraq
Defense Work Gives CACI Boost In Earnings
Romania Makes Pitch to Host US Military
US Lifts Haitian Arms Embargo as Tensions Mount
Falluja Chiefs Demand Halt to U.S. Airstrikes
Debate Lingering on Decision to Dissolve the Iraqi Military
Abolishing Iraq Army: the fallout
1000 Al-Qaeda 'warriors' inside Iraq
Rabbis tell troops to disobey orders
In Gaza, Debate Over Pullout Plan Pits Settler Against Settler
Russian military prosecutor blasts rights group report on bullying
"Starfleet Academy" - The Beginning
CIA Refuses to Release "Dynamite" Report on 9/11 Accountability
Pentagon exaggerated risk posed by Iraq: US senator
Tenet: CIA made errors
Iraq rips U.N. help for elections
Iraqi Faults U.N. on Lack of Staff to Aid in Voting
Frederick Gets 8 Years in Iraq Abuse Case
MP Pleads Guilty to Abuses at Iraq Prison
U.S. Soldier in Abu Ghraib Scandal Gets 8 Years in Jail
Commander of Transport Unit Is Relieved of Duties
Commander of supply company relieved of duty
Pentagon Says No Medical Draft Is Needed
Pentagon says 200,000 who started anthrax-shot regimen must continue
The Unknown Soldiers
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
U.S. Loses Ruling on Monitoring of Detainees
Rights groups back Chile's tribal 'terrorists'
DEA Withdraws Its Support Of Guidelines on Painkillers
House, Senate at impasse on 9/11 overhaul
9/11 Panel Backs Senate Plan for Intelligence Overhaul
FBI Investigates Holes In 3 US Airways Planes
Intelligence Reform Hits a Hurdle
U.S. to Enforce Rules for Mail to Canada
Pentagon probes punishment of whistleblower
Afghan Prisoners Released From U.S. Base
Military to keep freeing prisoners
Warner gives rights back to 1,892 felons
Powell removes Baghdad from terror blacklist
Terrorists in Falluja
POLITICS
Oil-rich countries seen most corrupt
Panel: 248 Companies Received Iraqi Oil
Bush Predicted No Iraq Casualties, Robertson Says
"Soldiers Pay"
Fear of Draft Affecting Election
Bush Predicted No Iraq Casualties, Robertson Says
Bush's True Believers
ENERGY
Experts see solar power competitive in next decade
Solvay joins fuel-cell venture capital fund
BOTTOM LINE with BRIAN GOMEZ
OTHER
Excess Mercury Levels Increasing Survey Shows
Pumpkins Can Clean Up Toxic Soils
ACTIVISTS
Hong Kong democrats say 'no' to power
-------- NUCLEAR
Bush, Kerry spar over how to keep nukes from kooks
By Associated Press
October 21st, 2004
http://www.qctimes.com/internal.php?story_id=1037693&t=Nation+%2F+World&c=26,1037693
WASHINGTON (AP) President Bush and John Kerry agree the most horrifying threat facing the country is a nuclear weapon in terrorist hands, each man claiming to be best able to prevent it from happening. But securing bomb-grade material in Russia and at labs elsewhere will be a daunting task no matter who is in the White House.
U.S. Sen. Kerry has argued that the administration has not focused adequately on Iran's efforts to obtain nuclear technology and, through inattention, has allowed North Korea to develop a few nuclear warheads.
Bush has countered that multilateral talks, involving China, are making progress and that Kerry's demand for direct bilateral U.S.-North Korean negotiations will only hamper that effort. As for Iran, both candidates have promised to continue to press sanctions to sidetrack that country's uranium enrichment efforts.
But Iran and North Korea are not where terrorists would turn now for a nuclear weapon, antiproliferation experts say. Iran does not yet have any weapons-usable nuclear material, and North Korea in the near term is likely to husband its few nuclear warheads rather than deal one to terrorists.
Instead, terrorists' most likely pathway to the bomb might well be poorly secured nuclear material stockpiled in Russia and highly enriched uranium used at foreign research reactors. How Bush and Kerry intend to deal with that more immediate threat has prompted sharp exchanges between the two camps.
Vice President Dick Cheney this week raised the possibility of terrorists using a nuclear weapon against a U.S. city. The Kerry campaign responded by criticizing the administration's progress in safeguarding nuclear materials in Russia and around the world.
The U.S. government has struggled for 12 years, spending as much as $1 billion annually in recent years to better secure 600 tons of plutonium and weapons-grade uranium in Russia and at 130 foreign research reactors.
"Whoever is elected in November, it will be crucial to match actions to words ... to overcome the obstacles to locking down these stockpiles before terrorists or thieves get to them," Matthew Bunn and Anthony Wier, nonproliferation experts at Harvard University's Managing the Atom Project, wrote in a critique of Kerry and Bush claims.
During the debates, Kerry promised that within four years he would finish security improvements at the Russian nuclear sites and retrieve reactor uranium now in more than 40 countries. He charged that Bush would take 13 years to get that job done and complained that the president has cut money for the program.
Countered Bush: "We've increased funding for dealing with nuclear proliferation about 35 percent since I've been president."
The Energy Department acknowledges that comprehensive security improvements have been completed for only about a quarter of the plutonium and highly enriched uranium in Russia, although an additional 21 percent have had "quick fixes" such as new fences and locks. Progress has stalled at sites holding more than half of the material mainly because of disputes over access.
But Energy Department officials argue that using the volume of material as a yardstick understates the progress and exaggerates the threat.
Three-fourths of the Russian nuclear sites - including the most vulnerable - already have some upgraded security, says Paul Longsworth, deputy administrator for defense nuclear nonproliferation at the department's National Nuclear Security Administration.
Work on the remaining sites - which are the most sensitive, hold the most weapons-usable material and also are pretty well guarded now - has been held up by an access dispute that is close to being resolved and will be addressed by the end of 2008, Longsworth said in an interview with The Associated Press.
As for Kerry's claim that Bush would take 13 years to finish the job, independent nonproliferation groups say that assumes the access issue will not be resolved and the rate of progress will not improve from the scant 35 tons brought under heightened protection in 2003.
"That's ... just bunk," argues Longsworth, and doesn't take into account that once the access issue is resolved security improvements will be made much more quickly.
Bush's assertion of significantly increased spending on these programs also has come under criticism.
Upon taking office, Bush sought sharp cuts in the nonproliferation programs but reversed course after a year. He budgeted $1.059 billion for international nuclear threat reduction this year, about the same that Congress has been providing all along, and, taking inflation into account, only a little more than President Clinton sought his last year in office.
Most of the 35 percent increase cited by Bush reflects money for dealing with U.S. nuclear material at relatively secure Energy Department sites, according to the Russian-American Nuclear Security Advisory Council, a private research group.
Even with more money, meeting either the Bush or Kerry timetable could be difficult.
"Technically if the political and bureaucratic obstacles could be swept aside, the job could be done in four years," according to Bunn and Wier.
But Bunn told the AP that success "will require heavy lifting coming out of the White House." Whoever is president will have to press the issue personally with Russian President Vladimir Putin "to sweep aside some of these obstacles," he said.
Among the obstacles are Russia's refusal to give U.S. technicians access to sites holding its largest stockpiles of uranium and plutonium, liability risks faced by U.S. contractors doing nonproliferation work in Russia, and reluctance by operators of foreign research reactors to give up their highly enriched uranium.
"We're taking every step we can to get it done," said Longsworth. "Just saying you're going to do it doesn't make it possible." On the Net
Energy Department: www.energy.gov
Russian American Nuclear Security Advisory Council http://www.ransac.org
Nuclear Threat Initiative: www.nti.org
--------
Paul Nitze The man who brought us the Cold War.
slate.msn.com
By Fred Kaplan
Oct. 21, 2004
http://slate.msn.com/id/2108510/
When Paul Henry Nitze died at the age of 97 on Oct. 19, an era died with him. If there was one man responsible for America's emergence as a global military power in the mid-20th century, Nitze could lay claim to that credit. If one man was most responsible for the nuclear nightmares that many Americans suffered along the way, Nitze could wear that tag as well.
In the annals of Cold War history, three sets of documents stand out as potent hair-raisers-the kinds of documents that not only gave their readers cold sweats, but also changed the course of American security policy-and Nitze wrote all of them.
The first and most pivotal was a top secret paper, written in April 1950, called "United States Objectives and Programs for National Security," more famously known as NSC-68. In the months leading up to this paper, the Truman administration was split on its policy toward the Soviet Union. Secretary of State Dean Acheson saw the Soviets as a serious threat that needed to be countered through an enormous military buildup. Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson sided with fiscal conservatives-and Truman himself-who believed that boosting the annual arms budget beyond $15 billion would wreck the economy. Acheson's powerful policy planning chief, George Kennan, though worried about the Soviets, favored a "containment" policy that stressed bolstering the West more through political and economic means.
At the beginning of 1950, Acheson fired Kennan and put Nitze in his place. Nitze, a former Wall Street banker, had been one of Kennan's deputies, but openly sympathized with Acheson. Nitze's first task: Scare the daylights out of Truman, so he'd raise the military budget. NSC-68 was the vehicle for doing so.
The document (which was declassified in the mid-1970s) warned of the "Kremlin's design for world domination," an urge it posited as intrinsic to Soviet Russia. "The Kremlin is inescapably militant," the paper argued. The Soviet system required "the ultimate elimination of any effective opposition," and so it would inexorably seek to destroy its main opponent, the United States. Moreover, the paper continued, once the Kremlin "calculates that it has a sufficient atomic capability to make a surprise attack on us," it might very well launch such an attack "swiftly and with stealth." The Soviets would have this capability as early as 1954-"the year of maximum danger"-unless the United States "substantially increased" its army, navy, air force, nuclear arsenal, and civil defenses immediately.
Years later, in his memoir, Present at the Creation, Acheson admitted that the language was "clearer than truth," as he put it, but justified the hype. "The purpose of NSC-68," he wrote, "was to so bludgeon the mass mind of 'top government' that not only could the President make a decision but that the decision could be carried out."
Truman received NSC-68 on April 7, 1950. Two weeks later, he called Louis Johnson into his office and told him the economy-in-defense policy was dead. On June 25, the North Korean army spilled over the border. The Korean War forced a reassessment of U.S. policy. NSC-68 may not have been the best fit for the circumstances, but it was there. The National Security Council adopted it on Sept. 30. The defense budget climbed-not just to beat back North Korea, but to tackle communism everywhere-and didn't come down again for decades. From then on, U.S. foreign policy adopted the Manichean worldview that Nitze laid down in NSC-68, viewing every local struggle as reflecting the "underlying conflict" between the "free world" of the West and the "slave society" behind the Iron Curtain.
The next turning point came in 1957, when Dwight Eisenhower, a Republican and fiscal tightwad, was president. The Democrats, including Nitze, were out of power. Intelligence estimates were indicating that the USSR would soon outgun the United States in nuclear weaponry. Yet Eisenhower seemed passive in the face of this threat.
Nelson Rockefeller urged Eisenhower to form a panel to examine whether the United States should fund a nationwide program of fallout shelters in case of Soviet attack. Eisenhower appointed a prominent lawyer named Rowan Gaither to head it. Gaither and his staff expanded the mission to look at the nuclear balance generally. Nitze was one of the staff members. When Gaither got sick, Nitze was picked to write the final report.
The result-"Deterrence and Survival in the Nuclear Age," aka the Gaither Report-was another barn-burner. It warned of the "spectacular progress" the Soviets had made in their missile program and the "increasing threat which may become critical in 1959 or early 1960. ... If we fail to act at once, the risk, in our opinion, will be unacceptable."
Eisenhower didn't succumb to the logic of the Gaither Report, so some of Nitze's associates-or perhaps Nitze himself-leaked it to the press. It became the basis of fears about a "missile gap," which would fuel the next round of the U.S.-Soviet arms race, even though-as Eisenhower knew at the time (from top-secret satellite photos) and as John F. Kennedy (who campaigned on the missile gap) learned once he got into office-there was no missile gap, except perhaps in America's favor. The intelligence reports of the mid-to-late '50s, it turned out, were wrong. The Soviets had only a handful of ICBMs. We were way ahead.
Kennedy gave Nitze a job as one of several assistant secretaries of defense. Under Kennedy, Nitze played a key role in building up U.S. conventional forces in Western Europe, which had genuinely dwindled under Eisenhower. But otherwise, he was viewed as too hawkish by many of his associates-especially during the crises over Berlin in '61 and Cuba in '62, when he seemed less averse to taking steps that risked nuclear war-and never became part of Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara's, much less Kennedy's, inner circle. Lyndon Johnson finally gave him the deputy secretary of defense title he wanted-after a brief stint at secretary of the Navy. But, by that time, the country was embroiled in Vietnam and Nitze made little impact.
Nitze's deepest embitterment came during the Carter administration. He was one of Carter's earliest supporters in the 1976 Democratic primaries. He sent him papers, discussed policy with him, and gave money to his campaign. But when Carter took office, Nitze got nothing. Worse still, Carter gave all the plum national-security jobs to doves, Nitze's rivals. These analysts, such as Paul Warnke, Harold Brown, and Anthony Lake, took a less alarmist view of the Soviet Union than Nitze thought responsible.
In 1975, Nitze had formed a group called the Committee on the Present Danger, designed to ring the alarm bells over a new Soviet nuclear build-up. After the Carter appointments, Nitze put his group on war footing. When Carter and Leonid Brezhnev signed the SALT II arms-control treaty in June 1979, Nitze declared war. SALT II was a modest treaty. But to Nitze, it was a disaster because it left the Soviets with superiority in missile megatonnage and throw-weight. He warned that the Soviets might use this edge to engage in "nuclear blackmail." It was a bizarrely abstract argument, but Nitze recited it over and over, supporting his views with elaborate charts. He wrote highly influential articles-his third set of scary documents-in Foreign Affairs and Foreign Policy, warning of an impending Soviet first-strike capability. He wrote pamphlets for the Committee on the Present Danger, warning, in terms straight out of NSC-68, that the "Soviet Union has not altered its long-held goal of a world dominated from a single center-Moscow."
Nitze also testified against SALT II before Congress. When one senator asked him if he considered himself to be more patriotic than Warnke, an old friend and colleague of his who was now Carter's arms-control negotiator, Nitze replied: Yes.
When Ronald Reagan was elected president in 1980, he gave jobs to the hawks and made Nitze his arms-control negotiator. Then something strange happened: Paul Nitze became a serious arms controller. During arms talks in Geneva in 1982, he and his Soviet counterpart, Yuli Kvitsinsky, went for a famous "walk in the woods," and carved out a comprehensive package for eliminating intermediate-range nuclear missiles. The deal was so radical for its day that both of their superiors rejected it-though it set the stage for a similar treaty that Reagan would sign with Mikhail Gorbachev five years later.
It's always been a mystery why Nitze took such an unexpected direction. Was it simply the urge to behave like a professional diplomat when entrusted with actual responsibility? Despite his invective against Warnke and Carter's SALT II treaty, Nitze had been the one who negotiated SALT I and the Anti-Ballistic-Missile Treaty during the Nixon administration.
Maybe so. But a deeper explanation, I think, goes back to an almost-unknown episode in Nitze's life, revolving around a speech he wrote in April 1960 for a national-security conference at Asilomar in Monterey, Calif. This was a nerve-racking time for nuclear strategists. Khrushchev had been threatening to invade West Berlin, a vital Western enclave deep inside East German territory. The United States and NATO could not beat back such an invasion with conventional arms. Would we-should we-use nuclear weapons? Could nukes play any useful military role? If so, what? If not, what were we supposed to do with them?
Nitze was one of several thoughtful people wrestling with these dilemmas. He used the Asilomar speech to offer some answers, and they were very different from what anyone expected. He proposed that the United States should "multilateralize" control over its nuclear weapons, turning the Strategic Air Command into a division of NATO. Then, he added, NATO should "turn over ultimate power of a decision on the use of these systems to the General Assembly of the United Nations," and invite the Soviets to do the same with their weapons. He also suggested that, as part of this new arrangement, the United Nations would not fire the weapons except in retaliation for a direct nuclear attack by an enemy.
In my only interview with Nitze, in 1981, I asked him about the Asilomar speech (a draft of which I had found in the Kennedy Library). He told me he was still proud of that speech, but that all of his friends and colleagues hated it. He seemed bitter recalling their reaction, even 21 years after the fact.
Nitze never made another speech like it. One month after Asilomar, he gave another speech at Maxwell Air Force Base, in Alabama, and took the polar-opposite view-that, given its nuclear dilemmas, the United States should develop a first-strike capability. But it seemed clear to me from my interview with him that Nitze had continued to mull those dilemmas over in his own mind, and that he'd never entirely dismissed the Asilomar option. It may well have been Asilomar he was thinking about during that walk in the woods.
Fred Kaplan writes the "War Stories" column for Slate.
-------- depleted uranium
Discussion centers on U.S. war crimes
Collegian
Oct. 21, 2004
By Meaghan Haugh
http://www.collegian.psu.edu/archive/2004/10/10-21-04tdc/10-21-04dnews-12.asp
About 30 students and community members gathered last night in the Willard Building to discuss the United States' intervention in Iraq.
The event, "A People's Tribunal on U.S. War Crimes in Iraq: Overcoming the Silence," held by members from by the Human Rights Film Series, Streets Project, Penn State Amnesty International and the State College Peace Center, was part of War Crimes Week at Penn State.
Doug Morris, member of the Human Rights Film Series and Streets Project, said the event was held to recognize the United States' violation of the United Nations Charter, which the United States signed and ratified on Oct. 24, 1945.
"Having a small tribunal at Penn State isn't going to have a giant effect on policy, but we have to do something," Morris said.
Morris said the United States is guilty of violating the U.N. Charter and violating the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of Iraq. He added the U.N. Charter outlines only two legitimate reasons for attack: as self defense against armed forces and if the security council authorizes that peaceful means have been exhausted.
Morris said Iraq was a defenseless country with no weapons of mass destruction that posed no immediate threat to the United States.
Morris began the tribunal by asking the group if they felt it was unusual to hear the terms "U.S." and "war crimes" linked together.
Jude Simpson, a State College resident and State College Peace Center board member, said many U.S. citizens keep quiet about the harsh realities of U.S. intervention in war because they do not want to seem unpatriotic. However, she said U.S. citizens need to speak out about democracy to be patriotic.
"A lot of people need to hear about the atrocities of war and realize a lot of laws are being broken," she said. "We shouldn't stand for this occupation of another country."
Morris said there are harsh constraints about what is discussed about U.S. interventions in the classroom, creating the mentality that America is the greatest country.
"We grow up on the assumption that we have the right to attack other countries," Morris said.
Paul Simpson, a State College resident, local physician and State College Peace Center member, discussed his research of depleted uranium, which is used in war tanks, missiles, bombs and machine guns during combat. He began researching the effects of the use of depleted uranium after seeing several of his patients deployed from Iraq who were exposed to depleted uranium.
He said when depleted uranium is used in combat, it pierces through armor, explodes and then incinerates everything inside. He said depleted uranium has not only caused birth deflects, cancer and respiratory problems among Iraqi civilians and U.S. military and their offspring, but once uranium is released, it is radioactive forever.
"People are constantly exposed to this stuff," he said. "The entire Middle East has been contaminated with uranium through dust storms."
The tribunal showed slide shows with graphic pictures of injured Iraqi civilians, bombed buildings and open caskets of Iraqi victims, as well as closed U.S. caskets.
"A People's Tribunal on U.S. War Crimes in Iraq" will be held again at 7 p.m. Sunday in 362 Willard.
-----
Dear Mr. Patriot
axisoflogic.com
Oct 21, 2004
http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_12815.shtml
American soldiers are dieing like dogs in the desert. The media says 1000 have died, but it's more like 'thousands'. Sixteen dead bodies were recently found in a mass grave in Falluja (see below), and another larger mass grave was found in the province of Ramadi, where the U.S. occupation forces had once located a military base . Fierce unrelenting attacks by Iraqi Resistance forced American troops to vacate Ramadi on the 20th of February, leaving behind the bodies of many of their comrades hastily buried in mass graves. They are not counted as dead, but are considered missing in action.
The Pentagon has reported 1,019 dead and 7,245 wounded in Iraq. The military has actually evacuated 16,765 service members from Iraq and Afghanistan for injuries and ailments not directly related to combat, according to the U.S. Transportation Command. Most are from Operation Iraqi Freedom. That's a total of 24,010 Americans evacuated with ailments wounds and injuries, but this is nothing compared to the mass murder being carried out against the Iraqi people.
In the past two years the Bush administration has killed over 37,000 innocent men, women, and children in Afghanistan and Iraq in the name of Democracy and freedom, with well over 500,000 wounded. America is also using food and water as weapons in Iraq, causing thousands of men, women, and children to starve to death each month.
In the commission of multiple war crimes the Bush administration has compromised every ideal embodied in the American constitution, the Bill of Rights, the 'Conventions Against Torture', the 'Hague Conventions', and the 'Geneva Conventions'. As a result of this wanton killing of innocents, hatred for America is on the rise and terrorism is increasing.
As long as companies like Bechtel and Halliburton and men like Bush and Cheney continue to exploit the Iraqi people and leave them but two choices; to live under occupation and enslavement by America, or die fighting that system which enslaves them, there will be endless war.
Bush has promised to, "export death and violence to the four corners of the earth", but war and killing will only breed hatred and more war and killing. Bush and Chainey's way is the wrong way. It's against Christianity, the U.S. Constitution, humanity, and it's against the earth. Americans must wake up. This path of war and death, which has been chosen for them, can only lead to their own destruction, in the same way it ended for Napoleon's France and Hitler's Germany.
Bush's bombing of Iraq and Afghanistan with over 1000 metric tons of DU weapons, made from the deadly U238-isotope - America's nuclear waste - is probably the most egregious war crime ever committed. According to a UN Sub Commission report, cancer in Iraq has increased 1000%, and deformities 600%, childhood leukemia and spontaneous abortions have become commonplace. Depleted Uranium has rendered Iraqi lands infertile, entered the food chain, and contaminated the ground water. With a half-life of 4.5 billion years the Uranium 238 dropped on Iraq by Bush and his father has left much of the country permanently unfit for human habitation.
This is how Bush intends to bring democracy to the world, by killing tens of thousands if not millions of people and radiating the planet. It's time for Americans, and particularly Bush supporters, to stop the flag waving and wake up from the patriotic fantasies. America will never bring freedom and democracy to Iraq through mass murder and the commission of war crimes.
The Iraq of Bush's creation is a hell on earth, a world of women and children mutilated by bomb fragments, roaring jets and helicopters, screaming artillery shells, and explosions as Iraqi homes are obliterated. Gunfire fills the air. American snipers using Israeli techniques are killing women and children, drowning Iraq in a sea of blood. The survivors of the daily bombings and shootings live in terror. The crying of women and children can be heard everywhere along with the crying of babies who have seen their mothers' bodies ripped apart in the name Democracy.
After more than a year U.S. Armed Forces have been unable to take Fallujah. The Iraqi people are fighting off the American invaders with increasing heroism. Against all odds, against planes, tanks, artillery, and a 150,000-man army, the determined Iraqi patriots are fighting to protect their homeland and their families.
-----
Iraqi Catastrophe
Media Lens
by David Edwards
October 21, 2004
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=15&ItemID=6462
On February 16, 2003, Tony Blair responded to the biggest protest march in Britain's history the previous day:
"Yes, there are consequences of war. If we remove Saddam by force, people will die, and some will be innocent. ... But there are also consequences of 'stop the war'. There will be no march for the victims of Saddam, no protests about the thousands of children that die needlessly every year under his rule..." (Blair, 'The price of my conviction,' The Observer, February 16, 2003)
Blair was referring to the mass death of children under sanctions reported by the UN, human rights groups and aid agencies. In a Newsnight interview Blair argued, "because of the way he [Saddam] implements those sanctions [they are] actually a pretty brutal policy against the Iraqi people". (BBC2, Newsnight Special, February 6, 2003)
In the late 1980s - before sanctions were imposed in 1990, and before the 1991 Gulf War - the mortality rate for Iraqi children was about 50 per 1,000 live births. By 1994 the rate had nearly doubled, to just under 90. By 1999, it had increased again to nearly 130 - 13% of Iraqi children were dying before their fifth birthday.
In response to this catastrophe, senior UN diplomats in Iraq resigned in protest. UN humanitarian coordinator, Denis Halliday, for example, resigned describing Western sanctions policy as "genocidal".
On October 11, a new global report was published by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). Roger Wright, UNICEF's representative for Iraq, said:
"Since 1990, Iraq has experienced a bigger increase in under-five mortality rates than any other country in the world and since the war there are several indications that under-five mortality has continued to rise." ('Little progress on child mortality,' Integrated Regional Information Networks, October 11, 2004 http://www.reliefweb.int/w/rwb.nsf/480fa8736b88bbc3c12564f6004c8ad5/a244c1afba0ef201c1256f2a002a8f2c?OpenDocument)
UNICEF estimates that some indications showed improvement in Iraqi child mortality between 1999 and 2002 - the death rate dropped to 125 in 2002 (from 130 in 1999). However, this trend has +reversed+ under the occupation and child mortality is actually worsening as compared to 2002 levels. Wright added:
"Since the war more children in Iraq are malnourished, fewer children are protected from immunisable diseases and there has been an increase in the incidence of diarrhoeal disease." (Email to Media Lens, UNICEF Iraq Information, October 19, 2004)
In other words, the "coalition" is now presiding over levels of Iraqi infant mortality +worse+ than those described by Blair himself as brutal. And this in the context of the "coalition" having spent just $29m of the allotted $18.4bn US tax dollars allocated for Iraq's reconstruction on water, sanitation, health, roads, bridges, and public safety. (Naomi Klein, 'Why is war-torn Iraq giving $190,000 to Toys R Us?', The Guardian, October 16, 2004)
Quoting Iraqi Ministry of Health data, UNICEF reported last month that about three out of 10 children in Iraq are chronically malnourished or stunted. This is a consequence of underlying poverty and the inadequate intake of micronutrients. Acute malnutrition among children has almost doubled since the war began, moving from 4 per cent to 7.7 percent.
On September 3, Iraq's Ministry of Health and other health professionals reported there was still "a chronic shortage of medicines in the country". Intissar al-Abadi, chief pharmacist of Yarmouk hospital in Baghdad, told IRIN:
"We had a programme in which cancer and growth hormone drugs were available to patients according to their needs. The ministry used to offer a certain quantity to us every year, so there could be controlled assistance to the patient, but now all that is gone. You cannot imagine what effect the shortage of such drugs has had on patients." ('Medicine shortage continues,' Integrated Regional Information Networks, September 3, 2004, www.reliefweb.int)
The first comprehensive study on the condition of schools in post-conflict Iraq shows that one-third of all primary schools in Iraq lack any water supply and almost half are without any sanitation facilities.
The survey states that since March 2003, over 700 primary schools had been damaged by bombing - a third of those in Baghdad - with more than 200 burned and over 3,000 looted. ('Iraq's schools suffering from neglect and war UN Children's Fund,' October 15, 2004 http://www.reliefweb.int/w/rwb.nsf/480fa8736b88bbc3c12564f6004c8ad5/fc340119ab6c95e3c1256f2e0058e358?OpenDocument)
All of these horrors are a direct result of the illegal US-UK invasion, of the "coalition's" incompetence in failing to plan for the occupation, and of the minimal spending on health care and public works. Bob Herbert wrote in the New York Times:
"As for the rebuilding of Iraq, forget about it... It's hard to believe that an administration that won't rebuild schools here in America will really go to bat for schoolkids in Iraq." (Herbert, 'A War Without Reason,' The New York Times, October 18, 2004)
The list of horrors goes on. Dr Thikra Najim, a specialist in gynaecology and obstetrics, reports that the number of cases of cancer in Iraq appears to be rising rapidly, especially for breast cancer. Dr Najim said:
"Now we're seeing three or four cases every week. I think the number is increasing. This is disastrous. We have to study it." ('Iraq: Cancer cases increasing, doctors say,' Integrated Regional Information Networks, September 29, 2004)
Doctors are now seeing many more cases of cancer in general. About 4,000 patients per year used to be seen at the radiation hospital in Baghdad. Dr Ahmed Abdul Jabhar, deputy director of the hospital, reports that 7,000 patients have been seen so far this year.
A September 21 Iraqi Ministry of Environment report revealed that Iraq is afflicted by widespread radioactive pollution, especially at Tuwaitha nuclear research site, south of Baghdad. Immediately following the US-UK invasion, residents of the area looted containers holding radioactive materials. The radioactive contents were dumped on the ground at the site and the containers used to carry water, milk and other household materials and foodstuffs. The survey reported:
"This site was polluted by looting and destroying research materials. We found a number of containers which had traces of radiation. We also found it in houses and villages nearby." ('Radioactive material and pollutants widespread,' Integrated Regional Information Networks , September 21, 2004, www.reliefweb.int)
As the occupying power, the "coalition" is accountable under international law for this looting and lawlessness. Former US Proconsul, Paul Bremer, told a conference of insurance agents that Baghdad was already in chaos by the time he arrived:
"We paid a big price for not stopping it because it established an atmosphere of lawlessness. We never had enough troops on the ground." (Thomas Ricks, Robin Wright, The Washington Post, October 5, 2004) http://www.nyu.edu/globalbeat/index.html#bremer
The Iraq survey also found depleted uranium in large amounts in southern Iraq, including in Hilla, the port city of Basra, and Karbala and Najaf.
Professor Doug Rokke, ex-director of the Pentagon's Depleted Uranium Project, who was tasked by the US department of defence with organising the DU clean-up of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait after the 1991 Gulf War, is himself ill:
"I am like many people in Southern Iraq. I have 5,000 times the recommended level of radiation in my body. The contamination was right throughout Iraq and Kuwait... What we're seeing now, respiratory problems, kidney problems, cancers, are the direct result of the use of this highly toxic material. The controversy over whether or not it's the cause is a manufactured one; my own ill-health is testament to that." (Quoted, Pilger, The New Rulers of the World, Verso, 2002, p.48)
The Media Response
So what kind of response would we expect from our media to the appalling news that an improving trend in child mortality has reversed under the Iraqi occupation, and that our government is presiding over genocidal levels of child deaths?
We recall, after all, that the Observer's Nick Cohen wrote in March 2002:
"I look forward to seeing how Noam Chomsky and John Pilger manage to oppose a war which would end the sanctions they claim have slaughtered hundreds of thousands of children who otherwise would have had happy, healthy lives in a prison state (don't fret, they'll get there)." (Cohen, 'Blair's just a Bush baby', The Observer, March 10, 2002)
The Sunday Telegraph declared, "it is the neighbourly duty of the West to liberate the Iraqis from their captivity at the hands of Saddam: the war would be just because of the suffering it would end." (Matthew d'Ancona, 'The Pope's disapproval worries Blair more than a million marchers', Sunday Telegraph, February 23, 2003)
A search using the Lexis-Nexis website shows that the UNICEF report received brief mentions in four British newspapers.
The Financial Times reported matter-of-factly:
"In 11 countries, under-five mortality has risen since 1990, the report notes. They include Cambodia, Iraq, Ivory Coast and four southern African nations - Botswana, South Africa, Swaziland and Zimbabwe - where Aids has been most rampant." (Frances Williams, 'Unicef warns on child mortality targets,' The Financial Times, October 8, 2004)
That was that! No mention of the tragedy that has befallen Iraq under the British and US occupation. Not a word of comment on the significance of the disaster for the claims that the invasion would relieve the suffering of ordinary Iraqis.
In the Guardian, Rory Carroll wrote:
"Unicef said that even... 'alarmingly slow progress' had bypassed southern Africa, Iraq and countries of the former Soviet Union... In addition to southern Africa, infants were now more likely to die in Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Iraq, Cambodia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan." (Rory Carroll, 'Bucking world trends, Africa's child death rate is rising,' The Guardian, October 8, 2004)
Iraq was presented as just another item on a list. Of the fact that Britain invaded Iraq illegally and is therefore morally responsible for the mass death of children, not a word appeared in the paper.
The Independent's Jeremy Laurance noted of the report:
"It charts the drastic decline in the health of the [Iraqi] population and the catastrophic deterioration in health services during Saddam Hussein's era, one which has accelerated since the war."
Again, no attempt was made to highlight the significance of the fact that the decline in health services "has accelerated since the war".
Laurance continued:
"One third of the health centres and one in eight of the hospitals was looted of furniture, fridges and air conditioners or had equipment destroyed in the immediate aftermath of the war."
Laurance then reviewed child mortality figures in the 1990s, adding:
"Adult death rates have risen and life expectancy has fallen to below 60 for men and women. Overall, Iraq's state of health is now rated on a par with the impoverished countries of the Sudan, Yemen and Afghanistan, where once it was ranked alongside Jordan and Kuwait, the report says." (Jeremy Laurance, 'Iraq: the aftermath: Iraq faces soaring toll of deadly disease,' The Independent, October 13, 2004)
Again, no conclusions were drawn on the moral status of the 'liberators' of Iraq.
SUGGESTED ACTION
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Iraq war junk gets dumped in India.
UPI
October 21, 2004
By INDRAJIT BASU, UPI Business Correspondent
http://www.menafn.com/qn_news_story.asp?StoryId=CqxC0qeidAw5KAweTAxjHCxDHCI1QDw5Rlwy
CALCUTTA, India, Oct. 21 (UPI) -- Sept. 30 was just another day for Santosh Khushwaha and Lal Chand, two metal scrap melting workers at Bhushan Steel, a medium-sized steel products maker near Delhi in India. Till about afternoon that is, after which both their lives changed forever. A loud explosion in the scrap yard they were working knocked them unconscious and when they woke up they found themselves in a hospital with pieces of shrapnel in their bodies. Ten others in the same scrap yard were killed by the explosion with eight dying on the spot, not knowing what hit them. Another 11 sustained injuries, which later proved fatal for two.
Although in a poor country like India such incidents hardly attract the kind of uproar this one did -- because hundreds die every year from similar industrial accidents that go unnoticed -- this incident let lose a wave of panic. That's because the hunt for reason behind this blast led to a startling revelation; the blast was not an ordinary industrial mishap but was caused by an exploding shell while handling a consignment of imported scrap of war junks.
Perennially starved of feed stock, Indian steel mills have found plenty of cheap fodder in Iraqi war junk. But along with mangled pipes and twisted rods, India has also become the favorite dumping ground for dangerous war debris.
Subsequent investigations also revealed the extent of such imports, which is clear from the fact that a dozen projectiles or shells were found dumped by the roadside of a highway near Delhi. Many more were recovered from various other parts of the country, which was a result of illegal importers getting rid of such debris following a police crackdown.
The ammunition in scrap has its roots in the industry's insatiable demand for steel. The Indian steel industry can be divided into two basic categories: integrated big factories and small steel factories. It is the latter that depend heavily on scrap for their feed stock.
Currently, three largest steel plants have a capacity to produce over 20 million tons a year, while 200 odd smaller steel factories command a further 15 million tons. In about 10 years India is projected to build up a steelmaking capacity of about 90 million tons.
Nevertheless, with more than 2 million tons likely to be imported this year alone, India is no stranger to scrap imports -- nor to explosive scrap, for that matter. A cache of explosive scrap from Iraq was confiscated in 1995. Between 1995 and 2001 several other consignments have been detected from countries such as Somalia and Iran.
But over the past year, two things happened that changed the way the scrap business is conducted, making the entire process much more incendiary. One, the price of scrap increased dramatically because of high demand, to $240 to $250 per ton against the $100 level a year ago. Second, the war in Iraq made available a whole lot of junk that could be accessed at much cheaper rates than the skyrocketing prices of conventional junk.
"Loose metal scrap is one-fourth the price of processed scrap and that is why India has emerged as one of the favorite destinations," said Siddarth Kak, of Central Board of Excise Customs.
Which is why, say industry sources, although the provisional authority in Iraq imposed restrictions on scrap exports this year, traders have carried on, taking advantage of the lack of security in India. They add that since such imports are, as a rule, not permitted from war-ravaged countries such as Iraq, imports follow a circuitous route: scrap is first bought in bulk by dealers who take them to dumping yards of Dubai and Iran before exporting them to the country. All it takes is a declaration from the exporter certifying the consignment is fit for "normal factory" use. The scrap is offloaded at Indian ports and then transported onward.
"As the certificates stating the country of origin declare the scrap originated from Iran or Dubai, there isn't much that we can do," said a customs officer.
However, the Bhushan incident has rattled the Indian government sufficiently that officials have vowed to further tighten the scrap-import policy to filter out hazardous material is in the offing.
Authorities have announced that soon imports of metal scrap originating from Iran, Afghanistan and Somalia will be stopped altogether.
The Home Ministry has also ordered a nationwide inspection of iron and steel factories and formed a co-ordination group comprising the Intelligence Bureau, Customs and the Directorate General of Foreign Trade. The Ministry said import of metal scrap originating from war zones will now be subject to "100 percent inspection of unshredded and uncompacted materials" and will also need a certificate from exporters declaring the material is "safe." In addition, Finance Ministry officials have sought the help of forensic experts to probe major import consignments.
But many say such safeguards are hardly a deterrent. And critics add that there is also the worry of depleted uranium shells used by United States aircraft and tanks to attack Iraqi tanks during the war.
"The worrying thought is that these could find their way into scrap exports from Iraq soon," said VP Malik, a defense expert. "The recoveries till date could just be the tip of the iceberg.
-------- europe
Lithuania will ask EU to operate Soviet-built nuclear plant for longer
VILNIUS (AFP)
Oct 21, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041021135126.lrnkwbme.html
Lithuania will ask the European Union to allow it to operate one of two units at a Soviet-built nuclear power plant for a half year longer than agreed, the country's prime minister said Thursday.
"We have decided to ask the European Commission to send its experts to hear our arguments," Algirdas Brazauskas told journalists after a government meeting.
"The operations of the first unit at Ignalina should be extended as we lack energy capacities in the region," he added.
Brazauskas said that the letter to the EU will be sent in the nearest future.
In tough negotiations over membership of the European Union which it joined in May, Lithuania committed itself to close the first unit this year and to shut down the facility completely in 2009.
The EU is worried about the safety of the Ignalina plant, as it operates the same type RBMK reactors as in Ukraine's Chernobyl nuclear plant, which exploded in 1986.
Brazauskas however said that operations of the first unit at Ignalina should be extended until a new power plant in Russia's Kaliningrad region and neighbouring Latvia are built.
The Ignalina plant, which supplies about 70 percent of all energy consumed in the Baltic state, operates two Chernobyl-type RBMK reactors with 1300 Megawatt capacity each and employs some 4,500 people.
Last year Ignalina sold 14.25 billion kilowatthours of energy, almost half of it was sold to neighbouring markets.
The EU has promised to finance the closure of the plant, estimated at 2-3 billion euros (2.5-3.75 billion dollars) over 30 years and has already allocated more than 200 million euros to prepare decomissioning of the first unit.
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France says future is nuclear with new generation of power-plants
AFP
Oct 21, 2004 http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20041021/sc_afp/france_nuclear_041021170728
PARIS (AFP) - France staked its claim to remain a world leader in atomic energy by announcing that it will build the first of a new generation of pressurised water nuclear plants at a site on the Normandy coast.
Construction of the EPR (European Pressurised Water Reactor) is due to start in 2007 at Flamanville near Cherbourg on the Cotentin peninsula, with the first electricity being produced five years later, the state-owned generator EDF said in a statement.
Built at a cost of three billion euros (3.8 billion dollars), the reactor will be the first of a so-called "third generation" of nuclear power stations intended to take over from France's existing stock of 19 plants -- including 58 reactors -- over the next two decades.
France currently produces more than 75 percent of its electricity from "second generation" nuclear installations. The earliest at Fassenheim near the German border went into service in 1977, and their life expectancy is around 40 years.
The "first generation" were the prototypes built in the 1950s and 60s.
While the pressurised water technology does not mark a major innovation, the EPR design, conceived over ten years by Siemens of Germany and the French company Areva, is intended to provide electricity more efficiently and more safely than current models.
According to EDF, the reactor should reduce the risk of accident by ten and its double casing be able to withstand the impact of an aircraft flown by terrorists. The design also means that even if there is a disaster, the reactor core will collapse in on itself to contain radiation leaks.
The EPR reactor should also generate 1,600 megawatts of electricity -- compared to 900 for most current reactors -- need less regular re-charging, and have a life span of 60 years.
However opponents of nuclear power say official statements about the safety of EPR are not to be believed. "The EPR reactor offers no greater guarantee against terrorism than any other reactor," said Stephane Lhomme of the Get out of Nuclear collective.
"We are investing three billion euros in a technology that is almost obsolete for political reasons that have no connection with a rational, properly thought-out energy policy," said Greenpeace in a statement.
France's centre-right government took the decision in May to press ahead with the new generation of nuclear reactors, arguing that it is the best response to the likely long-term increase in petrol prices as well as demands for a cleaner environment.
Two other sites, one in northern Normandy and the other in southeast France, had been under consideration for the project.
"On the environmental front the reactor reinforces France's preeminence in the fight against climate change, and economically it will allow us to ensure supply and limit the effects of a rapid increase in oil prices," said Patrick Ollier, chairman of the National Assembly's economic affairs committee.
Development of the EPR is also seen as a crucial way of maintaining France's technological edge in the highly competitive nuclear energy market. Earlier this month President Jacques Chirac was lobbying hard in China for contracts in the country's ambitious nuclear programme.
France also hopes to be chosen as the site for the future International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) which aims to develop the creation of energy through nuclear fusion by mid-century. However the bid from the research station at Cadarache in southern France faces stiff opposition from Japan.
-------- india / pakistan
U.S. Might Reconsider Sanctions on Indian Scientists
(Reuters)
By Carol Giacomo
Oct 21, 2004
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=6576750&pageNumber=0
WASHINGTON - The Bush administration might reconsider sanctions imposed on two Indian scientists for alleged nuclear cooperation with Iran if New Delhi offers "significant and convincing" proof they were not involved, a senior U.S. official said on Thursday.
The sanctions imposed in late September against Y.S.R. Prasad and C. Surendar -- both former chiefs of the state-run Nuclear Power Corporation of India -- have angered New Delhi, which insisted the men were wrongly implicated and the penalties should be removed.
Washington is improving its ties with the world's largest democracy, attracted by its booming technology expertise and commercial market, but India's nuclear weapons capability and ties to Tehran are a serious concern.
The senior U.S. official, who spoke anonymously, cautioned against predicting that the sanctions, which bar the men from doing business with Washington, would be lifted or waived.
He told Reuters: "The Indians are being given a chance now to clarify, rebut, give us any information and we promise we'll consider it."
U.S. officials said the penalties were imposed only after talks with Indian authorities who failed to act.
The issue was to be raised during Assistant Secretary of State Christina Rocca's visit to New Delhi this week, which focused on expanding a new U.S.-India strategic partnership.
The administration is also considering imposing sanctions on one to three additional Indian "entities" for aiding what Washington insists are Iran's nuclear weapons programs. Some officials said no decisions have been made on these cases.
The State Department did not detail the alleged offenses by the two scientists but officials said it involved aid to Iran's nuclear program during the first half of 2003.
POWER OR WEAPONS?
Experts say the sanctions may relate to India's development of an economic way to produce tritium, a radioactive isotope used in nuclear bombs.
The United States and other countries accuse Iran of using a civilian nuclear energy program as a cover for the development of atomic weapons, which Tehran denies.
The administration waived sanctions on Indian companies four or five times in recent years before citing the scientists.
"This is a hugely sensitive issue for the Indians" who fear being lumped with nuclear rival Pakistan, where Abdul Qadeer Khan was discovered running a nuclear black market that sold to Iran, Libya and North Korea, a U.S. official said.
Officials say they do not believe there is a Khan-like network in India but contend the country's borders are porous and export controls must be strengthened.
Complicating the issue, sanctions were imposed soon after Washington lifted decades-old export curbs on equipment for India's commercial space program and nuclear power facilities.
Henry Sokolski of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Education Center thinktank said sanctions are an "early warning signal" of serious differences over Iran.
"You would think India understands we have so much more to offer them than Iran does. It suggests Iran is more dominant in that region and can manipulate its neighbors more than we can," he said.
Both President Bush and Democratic challenger John Kerry say keeping nuclear arms from terrorists would be a primary focus if they win the Nov. 2 election.
-------- iran
Iran Deals Blow to European Nuclear Plan
October 21, 2004
By WILLIAM J. KOLE
Associated Press Writer
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/N/NUCLEAR_AGENCY_IRAN?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
VIENNA, Austria (AP) -- Iran vowed anew to continue enriching uranium, dealing a potential setback to a European plan to ease the nuclear standoff with Tehran by offering sales of nuclear fuel and a trade deal as incentives.
Britain, France and Germany were to offer Iranian officials the enticements Thursday in a private meeting in Vienna, hoping to persuade the country to stop enrichment, which can be used both to generate electricity or build a nuclear weapon.
But even before they could make a formal pitch, Iran said Wednesday it had a compromise proposal which would not compromise its right to enrich uranium. The Iranians did not give details, but President Mohammad Khatami made it clear that his government had no intentions of stopping the practice.
"We expect that our legitimate rights be recognized and that Iran not be deprived of nuclear technology," Khatami told reporters Wednesday in Tehran. "The main problem is that they say, `You should ignore your rights,' and that we would never do."
Diplomats involved in Thursday's talks did not immediately react to the Iranians' statements.
By offering the incentives, the three European powers are giving Iran one last chance to avoid the threat of U.N. sanctions. Although Iran insists its nuclear activities are peaceful and geared purely toward generating electric power, the United States has accused it of running a clandestine weapons program.
On Nov. 25, the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency's 35-nation board of governors will deliver a fresh assessment of Iran's cooperation - or lack of it - with the nuclear watchdog agency. The United States is pressing to report Iran's noncompliance to the U.N. Security Council, which has the power to impose sanctions.
The incentives being offered to Iran included the possibility of buying nuclear fuel from the West, along with the promise of lucrative trade, diplomats said on condition of anonymity. They did not confirm reports that a light-water nuclear research reactor was part of the package.
"We will have to see the offer. We have not seen anything yet," an Iranian official told The Associated Press. "And then we will have to take it to our capital. We really have to wait and see."
The foreign ministers of Britain and Germany this week urged Iran to indefinitely suspend its nuclear program. Iran has resumed testing, assembling and making centrifuges used to enrich uranium, heightening U.S. concerns that its sole purpose is to build a bomb.
But the European negotiators are holding out hope that a diplomatic confrontation - and the looming threat of punishing sanctions - can be avoided if Tehran agrees to give up enriching uranium in exchange for peaceful nuclear technology.
If Iran does not accept the incentives, suspend enrichment and agree to IAEA verification that it has done so, the three likely would back the U.S. push to report Tehran's defiance to the Security Council, the diplomats said.
IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said the nuclear agency was not directly involved in the talks, but that agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei "absolutely" welcomed the initiative.
"Mr. ElBaradei has been calling on the Iranians to fully suspend" uranium enrichment, Fleming said. "He's been supporting dialogue as a way forward in Iran, coupled with a continuation of an intensive inspection process. Any constructive dialogue is welcomed."
Experts say Iran has been building a heavy-water reactor, which would use plutonium that also could be used in a nuclear weapon. A light-water research reactor, by contrast, uses a lower grade of plutonium.
On the Net:
IAEA, www.iaea.org
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Iran reported nearing nuclear capability
(UPI)
October 21, 2004
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20041021-115857-7429r.htm
Vienna, Austria, Oct. 21 -- Iran reportedly is making steady progress toward producing nuclear fuel and could make a significant amount of enriched uranium within a year.
Mastering enrichment would move Tehran a big step closer to being able to build an atomic bomb, the Los Angeles Times said Thursday.
Iran's closely guarded progress, according to new estimates by diplomats, scientists and intelligence officials, already has intensified its confrontation with the United States and other countries that fear it is trying to develop nuclear weapons.
Iran insists that its goal is to generate electricity.
Its leaders have so far rejected demands by the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency, the United States and European countries that they freeze enrichment activities.
The United States and its allies, arguing that the threat is imminent, want the U.N. Security Council to impose sanctions on Iran.
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PART I: The enemy beyond
Asia Times
By Ehsan Ahrari
Oct 21, 2004
http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/FJ21Ak03.html
After the US dismantlement of the regime of Saddam Hussein, Iran has emerged as a major target of the acrimonious rhetoric of the Bush administration and Israel's threats related to that country's nuclear aspirations. Given the fact that Iran's active nuclear program has been the focus of US concern since the early 1990s, it is likely to acquire a crisis situation in the near future.
Two other realities are also keeping this issue on the front burner from the American vantage point. First, there is a high probability that North Korea will emerge as the next nuclear power. Washington is very much concerned about the precedent-setting nature of that development for Iran. Second, Iran has recently demonstrated much flip-flopping on whether it is enriching uranium, and has lost credibility even among its friends in Europe. What is the nature of Iran's security concerns? What is the nature of domestic debate inside Iran regarding its nuclear future? What are the dynamics of Arab concerns related to this issue? These are key questions that will be addressed.
Iran's security concerns
Since the Islamic revolution of 1979, which ousted Mohammad Reza (the Shah) as the ruler of that country, Iran has faced numerous challenges, some of which emanated from the very nature of the regime that captured power, while the others are related to security concerns and reactions of other states of the region to the Islamic revolution.
The radical change of government in Iran created ample consternation in the region, since the then extant politico-economic conditions of the neighboring states were very similar to the ones that prevailed in Iran under the monarchy. (It should be noted that those conditions remain very much the same in the Persian Gulf monarchies even today.) In addition, the very fact that the Islamic government was established as a result of a revolutionary change itself became a major reason for the neighboring Muslim autocrats to fear a potential recurrence of that phenomenon inside their own respective borders. To further intensify their fears, the government of Ayatollah Rouhollah Khomeini threatened the Gulf monarchies about exporting the Islamic revolution. A defensive action deemed warranted from the Arab monarchies.
The Gulf sheikhdoms responded by establishing the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), whose real raison d'etre was security, even though all other declared reasons minimized that particular objective. Autocracies are terrible liars. One can imagine how seriously the US took the Iranian revolution, which was happening when the Soviet Union was also in the process of occupying Afghanistan. America decided to create a major unified command, the Central Command (CENTCOM), whose aim was to deter or ameliorate security-related challenges that were then mushrooming. In the aftermath of the Islamic revolution, Iran saw two major enemies, the US and Iraq. Iran and Iraq were long-term rivals. Despite the fact that Iran is a predominantly Shi'ite state and the majority of Iraq's population is also Shi'ite, Iraq's ruling elite was Sunni. So there were religious and ethnic reasons (Arab versus Persian) for rivalry, or even hatred, between the ruling elites of the two nations. More substantially, Saddam Hussein had his own hegemonic ambitions in the region, which collided with those of Iran's, even during the days of Mohammad Reza.
Iraq proved Iran's fears by invading it in 1981, an event that lasted eight years, causing many thousands of deaths and a waste of hundreds of millions of dollars. Saddam calculated that a weak government and revolutionary turbulence in Iran were ideal reasons for invading it. His purpose was to bring an end to the Islamic Republic and make Iran a supplicant state. The US also convinced Iran of its own ill intentions toward it by supporting Iraq in that war. Washington's official explanation for "tilting" toward Iraq was that it was only supporting the lesser of the two evils, even though it really despised both regimes.
The Iran-Iraq war affected the Iranian psyche so intensely that building an arsenal of ballistic missiles and acquiring chemical warfare capabilities became enduring predilections of the Islamic Republic. It was only a matter of time before Iran was to consider developing its nuclear program. It should be recalled that in the early days of their rule, the ayatollahs were not interested in resuscitating the ambitious nuclear program that Mohammad Reza had initiated. Moreover, Saddam's own quest for nuclear weapons also convinced the Iranian rulers that they must also seek the nuclear know-how, just in case they were to face a nuclear Iraq.
Israel became the third enemy of Iran, largely because of the very nature of its Islamic government. The Khomeini government broke off diplomatic ties with Israel and established such ties with the Palestinian Liberation Organization as a legitimate representative of the Palestinians. More important, the Islamic Republic played a crucial role in politicizing the Lebanese Shi'ites. It also supported the Hezbollah - an Islamist party of Lebanon - politically and materially in its ongoing battles with Israel, which occupied southern Lebanon even after withdrawing from portions of it in the aftermath of its military invasion of Lebanon in 1982. Thus, Lebanon emerged as a major battleground between the hegemonic ambitions of Israel and Iran. Israel never forgave Iran for acutely radicalizing the Shi'ites of that country, a development that played a crucial role in the decision of then Israeli prime minister Yehud Barak to withdraw his troops from southern Lebanon in May 2000.
Iran also became one of the foremost members of "the rejectionist front" - Libya, Iraq, Syria and Yemen being the other members - which rejected a negotiated solution of the Palestinian question. Even after the end of the Cold War, when the rejectionist front lost its chief backer, the Soviet Union, Iran and Syria maintained their opposition to a negotiated solution of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Even when Syria joined the negotiating process initiated by the administration of president George H W Bush, Iran refused to budge from its hardline position of "no negotiations" with Israel. Iran also remained a profound supporter of the first Palestinian intifada (1987-1993) as well as the second one (2000-present). As a result of these developments Iran and Israel viewed each other as major adversaries.
Israel's founding father and its first prime minister, Ben Gurion, decided in the 1950s that his country must ensure that its military dominance - both in conventional and nuclear realms - will never be challenged by any Arab or Muslim state. For that reason alone, he initiated a policy of not only purchasing cutting-edge conventional weapons, but also acquired nuclear weapons know-how for the Jewish state. His second objective was that no Arab or regional Muslim state should be allowed to develop nuclear weapons, for it would use them to destroy Israel. That principle has been applied across-the-board to countries that are technically still at war with Israel, but even to Egypt, which has been at peace with the Jewish state since 1979.
Israel has had unqualified support of the US on maintaining its superiority in conventional weapons. Regarding Israel's possession of nuclear weapons, no one in US official circles publicly questioned the legitimacy of that country's possession of nuclear weapons. That issue remained one of the glaring double standards of America's approach to nuclear nonproliferation. In 1981, Israel carried out its much-heralded preemptive raid on Iraq's nuclear reactor in Osirak. As America's resolve about nuclear nonproliferation hardened in the following decades, Israel became increasingly voluble about denying any Middle Eastern states nuclear weapon capabilities.
After the US invasion of Iraq, the only Middle Eastern countries with nuclear aspirations were Iran and Libya. Libya has recently abandoned its nuclear aspirations with much fanfare. Even though Iran has an active nuclear program, it insists that it has no intentions of developing nuclear weapons. Still, when Iran examines its immediate surroundings, it sees US forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, where they are likely to stay for the remainder of this decade. After ridding Iraq as one of the major challenges to its dominance, as Iran scrutinizes America's intentions, developing its own nuclear weapons appear as an option of the last resort, very much like it was viewed by Ben Gurion of Israel in the 1950s and by Kim Jong-il now.
Iran's domestic debates Like all fledgling democracies, Iran has a variety of opinions concerning nuclear weapons. Within the unofficial, but informed circles, one can expect thoughtful discussions regarding whether Iran should develop nuclear weapons. A year or so ago, those who either did not want their country to develop those weapons, or those who wanted Iran to postpone it to a distant future, were vocal about airing their views. Now, as their country has been publicly viewed as being so close to developing weapons capabilities, one hears even from the reformists that Iran has the right to enrich uranium. Still, reformists also insist that enriching their stockpile of uranium does not mean that the government will develop nuclear weapons. Obviously, this group is under a lot of pressure not to give in to international pressure on this issue, especially while it is also fighting uphill political battles to remain in power.
The conservatives (or hardliners), on the contrary, are split into two sub-groups. The first one, while insisting that Iran should not ratify the protocol agreement to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) that the chairman of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, Hasan Rowhani, has negotiated with the European Union-3 (France, Germany and the United Kingdom). Through that protocol, Iran agreed to suspend uranium enrichment as a goodwill gesture. Now, even people like Rowhani are finding themselves being taken over by the momentum related to the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) vote of last month, calling on Iran to suspend all activities related to nuclear development. The hardliners, who control the Iranian majlis (parliament), are currently quite vocal about not ratifying that EU-3 protocol. They would like their country to abandon the NPT a-la North Korea.
The second sub-group of hardliners is the Iranian version of neo-conservatives. These are young conservatives who don't seem to trust even their conservative elders - ie, those who personally participated in the Iranian revolution. According to one source, these "young neo-cons tenaciously believe in the earlier Utopian notions of the revolution; a theocratic and authoritarian state structure; an egalitarian and state-owned economic system; and a messianic foreign policy". In the tradition of the American neo-cons, they want their country to flex its muscles in the region. They have already attracted the backing of the Revolutionary Guards and other conservative groups of that country's national security establishment. Even though the neo-cons have not yet publicly insisted that Iran should develop nuclear weapons, they resolutely support the proposition that their country should abandon the NPT, which would leave their nuclear program beyond the eyes of the IAEA.
The Arab reaction Given the ongoing political turbulence in Iraq and Palestine, Arab attention is not exactly focused on the threatening aspects of Iran's potential surfacing as a nuclear power. It is safe to state that George W Bush, through his decision to invade and occupy Iraq, and Israel, through its freewheeling use of military force to suppress the Palestinian insurgency, have so enraged the Arab and Muslim world that even a potential emergence of a nuclear Iran does not appear as menacing to them. Besides, in the post-September 11 era of unrestricted use of American military power, Arab states have little to fear from a "nuclear" Iran. Currently, the Muslim preference (from the predominantly Sunni Arab countries as well as Shi'ite Iran) is to see an end to the US occupation of Iraq, the resolution of the Palestinian question, and an end to their torment.
As a general saying in that region goes, one must fight the enemy beyond before one worries about differences from within one's family. It is rare to see the emergence of that type of espirit de corps in the world of Islam.
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Allies against Iran
The New York Times
October 21, 2004
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2004/10/21/allies_against_iran/
A HIGH-STAKES struggle is being played out between European governments and the Bush administration over the best way to address Iran's apparent pursuit of nuclear weapons capability. Because there is no better way to keep Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons -- certainly no acceptable military option -- Washington ought to cooperate with its British, German, and French allies trying to resolve diplomatically what otherwise could become a dangerous crisis.
At the State Department last week, European envoys sketched their negotiating ideas and were excoriated by the State Department's top arms-control official, John Bolton. As with North Korea's nuclear program, the Bush administration is divided between pragmatists and hard-liners such as Bolton, who don't believe in negotiating with potential proliferators or rewarding rogue regimes for not developing nuclear weapons.
Still, the current US position is to not obstruct the European effort to negotiate a bargain that would indeed reward Iran for halting its drive toward a nuclear weapons capability. The most that can be said for this standoffish attitude is that it does no harm -- provided that Washington consents to cooperate in the event that Tehran does strike a nonproliferation deal and does keep its word.
In the European approach to Tehran, as in most difficult diplomatic challenges, the negotiator has a better chance of success if he comes to the table with credible penalties to impose as well as attractive rewards to bestow. In the matter of Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons, the plausible penalty that Tehran wants to avoid is to be arraigned before the UN Security Council and face UN sanctions.
The Europeans have been more reluctant than Washington to resort to such sanctions. The director of the Carnegie Endowment's Non-Proliferation Project, Joe Cirincione, believes that the United States should be a party to the European offer to Iran. "The Europeans need to be tougher, and the US needs to be more flexible," Cirincione says.
The offer the Europeans plan to present shortly to Iran foresees a two-phase approach. In phase one, Iran would accept a verifiable suspension of all uranium enrichment activities. In return, Iran would receive trade and investment benefits from Europe. In a second phase, Tehran would accept a permanent cessation of uranium enrichment or plutonium reprocessing and would be guaranteed a fuel supply for peaceful nuclear power.
Ideally, such a pact should become part of a global arrangement for international control of enrichment facilities. If a global standard of this kind is not created and Iran and North Korea both go nuclear, the world would face what Cirincione calls a "tipping point," driving Japan, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt to go nuclear as well. Nothing could be a greater threat to international and US security.
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Iran Not Seen Accepting Nuclear Incentives
Associated Press
By WILLIAM J. KOLE
October 21, 2004
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-4566876,00.html
VIENNA, Austria (AP) - Iran is unlikely to accept European incentives aimed at getting it to suspend uranium enrichment, diplomats said Thursday, raising the prospect of a showdown next month between Tehran and the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency.
Envoys from Britain, France and Germany offered civilian nuclear technology and a trade deal to the Iranians in a private meeting at the French mission to international organizations in Vienna. But Western diplomats said they doubt Iran will back down easily.
Iran did not immediately respond to the incentives, which included the promise of lucrative trade, a light-water nuclear research reactor and the chance to buy nuclear fuel from the West.
An Iranian diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Thursday's meeting did not involve detailed negotiations, merely the formal presentation of the European offer.
Amir-Hossein Zamaniyan, director-general of international affairs for Iran's Foreign Ministry, would take the proposal back to his government for study, the diplomat said.
The offer came a day after President Mohammad Khatami said Iran would not give up uranium enrichment, which can be used both to generate electricity or build a nuclear weapon.
Iran insists its nuclear activities are peaceful and geared solely toward generating electric power. The United States contends it is running a covert atomic weapons program.
On Nov. 25, the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency's 35-nation board of governors will deliver a fresh assessment of Iran's cooperation with the nuclear agency. The United States is pressing to report Iran's noncompliance to the U.N. Security Council, which has the power to impose sanctions.
Iran is unlikely to cave in quickly to demands that it suspend enrichment, a Western diplomat familiar with the nuclear agency's dealings with Tehran told The Associated Press. The official was not directly involved in Thursday's meeting.
Although the IAEA had no hand in the European offer, agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei has said he welcomes any attempt to negotiate an end to the standoff - so long as Iran consents to continued comprehensive inspections that can verify it does not pose a nuclear proliferation threat.
The Bush administration - which labeled Iran part of an ``axis of evil'' along with North Korea and Iraq when it was still ruled by Saddam Hussein - said this week it did not endorse the European allies' plan.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the Iranians ``have shown a pattern of not being willing to comply and of not being willing to be transparent and open about their intentions and programs.''
The British and German foreign ministers have urged Iran to suspend its nuclear program indefinitely. Iran has resumed testing, assembling and making centrifuges used to enrich uranium, heightening U.S. concerns that its sole purpose is to build a bomb.
Iran's long-range ballistic missile capabilities, combined with its nuclear know-how, pose a threat not only to Israel but to Europe, Israeli President Moshe Katsav said Thursday in Vienna.
``Why does Iran need rockets with a range of 3,000 kilometers (1,800 miles)? Why is Iran investing money in the development of weapons of mass destruction?'' Katsav said during the first visit to Austria by an Israeli head of state.
If Tehran does not accept the European incentives, suspend enrichment and agree to IAEA verification that it has done so, Britain, France and Germany likely would back the U.S. push to report its defiance to the Security Council, diplomats said.
Experts say Iran has been building a heavy-water reactor, which would use plutonium that also could be used in a nuclear weapon. A light-water research reactor, by contrast, uses a lower grade of plutonium.
-------- korea
S.Korean munitions violated nuclear accord -group
Reuters
By Jack Kim
21 Oct 2004
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/SEO333035.htm
SEOUL, Oct 21 (Reuters) - South Korea produced anti-tank munitions in the 1980s using depleted uranium imported for non-military use and failed to make required disclosures, a South Korean lawmaker and an environmental group said on Thursday.
A government official said depleted-uranium munitions were produced for five years and the government had told the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in 1987 when the programme was ended.
Depleted uranium is a by-product of nuclear fuel production. It can be used to strengthen ammunition and enable it to penetrate armour.
The disclosure comes at a sensitive time for South Korea, which said in September some of its scientists had enriched a small amount of uranium in 2000 and separated plutonium in 1982.
The government said those tests were conducted by scientists purely out of curiosity, although the IAEA said the failure to disclose them was a matter of serious concern.
South Korea is involved in international efforts to get communist North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons ambitions but the North has said it would not resume talks until an investigation of the South's tests was complete.
South Korea made anti-tank munitions with material derived from the conversion of depleted uranium in the mid-1980s, Jo Seoung-soo, a lawmaker from the opposition Democratic Labour Party, and the Green Korea United group told a news conference
Doing so without disclosure broke an agreement with the U.N. nuclear watchdog, they said.
"The use of the material in anti-tank munition requires conversion of depleted uranium and not reporting it is in violation of the safeguards," said Seok Kwang-hoon, spokesman for the Green Korea United environmental group.
Jo and Seok said the munitions-making at government laboratories between 1983 and 1987 was not aimed at producing nuclear weapons.
"But this is a violation of the IAEA safeguard agreement, and the government's failure to disclose it hurts South Korea's credibility," Jo told reporters.
The government official said the IAEA was notified in 1987 when the programme was scrapped.
"No reporting before that had been required," he said.
Another government official said the development of the munitions had "very little to do with the IAEA".
The use of depleted uranium in munitions did not involve conversion of uranium, but a simple reshaping of the material and that process carried no reporting requirement, the second official said.
"This has absolutely nothing to do with nuclear weapons," he said.
The IAEA will report in November on its findings on South Korea's admission to enriching uranium and separating plutonium after inspections in South Korea.
-------- missile defense
Berlin to Spend Billion on Missile Defense
dw-world.de
21.10.2004
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,1564,1367828,00.html
Germany reportedly plans to spend over 1 billion ($1.25 billion) on the development of a new transatlantic anti-aircraft system over the next eight years.
According to German press reports Thursday, Bundestag rapporteurs after years of research have finally approved what amounts to the largest current trans-Atlantic defense project.
At a time when Germany is tightening its defense spending and streamlining its military, parliamentary factions agreed to order between 12 and 24 of the MEADS units, under development for the last few years.
MEADS (Medium Extended Air Defense System) is a ground-launched missile system which can destroy aircraft and missiles within a range of up to 1,000 kilometers (621 miles). The newspaper also reported that further development is planned on IRIS-T missiles.
Trans-Atlantic ties
The program is being hailed as a symbol of trans-Atlantic cooperation, with Germany set to contribute some 25 percent of the project's costs, the US shouldering over 50 percent and Italy financing 17 percent.
In an interview with the daily Berliner Zeitung, Hans-Peter Bartels (SPD) revealed that Berlin has earmarked some 1.142 billion until 2012 for the MEADS system development, and said that contracts with EADS (Germany), Alenia Maraconi (Italy) and Lockheed Martin (US) are expected to be signed by the end of 2004.
New defense concerns
According to Bartels, the first MEADS systems will be ready by 2012. The program, which will provide both defense for German airspace and can also be used abroad, will gradually replace Germany's existing Patriot radar guided anti-aircraft missile system.
The new ground-to-air system will also be able to destroy chemical, biological and atomic warheads.
Although the MEADS program was first drawn up in 1987 against a background of Cold War hostilities, experts believe the new defense system is even more relevant in the face of the international terrorist threat.
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Committee rejects public consultation on missile defence
CBC News
21 Oct 2004
http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2004/10/21/missile_defence041021.html
OTTAWA - Liberals and Conservatives voted together in a House of Commons committee on Wednesday to reject cross-country public hearings into the U.S. ballistic missile defence system.
New Democrat Alexa McDonough wanted any vote on Canada's participation in missile defence delayed until the Commons foreign affairs committee could hold public consultations.
"Parliament is not the centre of the universe," she said. "Canadians demand and expect to be consulted on this incredibly important decision."
The government has already agreed to expand the role of NATO to provide the satellite and tracking information the missile defence system would need.
Both Prime Minister Paul Martin and Defence Minister Bill Graham have suggested Canada has little choice but to take part in the new continental defence plans.
This week, the Liberals agreed to hold a non-binding vote in the House of Commons on missile defence. Liberal MP Bernard Patry, who chairs the committee said the panel has no power to delay that vote. "The committee doesn't decide when a vote will take place in the House of Commons. It's irrelevant," he said.
Conservative MP Kevin Sorenson said he has been inundated with hundreds of e-mails demanding public hearings - which he said smells of an orchestrated campaign.
"It seems like it's more a political agenda than really getting to the bottom of the questions we want answered," Sorenson said.
Liberal MP Dan McTeague said public meetings should be held, but in Ottawa so the politicians can hear from experts.
"You can't have public consultation on a matter the public doesn't even understand yet," said McTeague. "So let's get on with it."
Besides, he noted, the Liberal caucus isn't going to let its members leave Ottawa on a cross-country tour while the government holds only a minority in the House.
-------- treaties
Paul H. Nitze, Missile Treaty Negotiator and Cold War Strategist, Dies at 97
October 21, 2004
By MARILYN BERGER
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/21/politics/21nitze.html?ei=5094&en=725258faf69b5647&hp=&ex=1098331200&partner=homepage&pagewanted=all&position=
Paul H. Nitze, an expert on military power and strategic arms whose roles as negotiator, diplomat and Washington insider spanned the era from Franklin D. Roosevelt to Ronald Reagan and helped shape America's cold war relationship with the Soviet Union, died Tuesday night at his home in Washington. He was 97.
The cause was pneumonia, said his wife, Elisabeth Scott Porter.
From the beginning of the nuclear age, whether in government or out, Mr. Nitze urged successive American presidents to take measures against what he saw as the Soviet drive to overwhelm the United States through the force of arms. Yet he may be best remembered for his conciliatory role in efforts to achieve two major arms agreements with the Soviet Union.
In one, he was successful in negotiating an agreement that eliminated intermediate-range missiles from Europe. In the other, he hoped to cap his long career with a so-called grand compromise in 1988 that would have severely circumscribed work on President Reagan's cherished strategic missile defense initiative in exchange for deep cuts in the nuclear arsenals of both superpowers. His efforts foundered when the negotiators ran out of time as the Reagan administration came to an end.
In a now legendary moment of the cold war, Mr. Nitze undertook a bold but unsuccessful personal effort to achieve an earlier arms agreement with the Russians. In 1982, acting on his own and, some say, superseding his instructions, Mr. Nitze took a walk with his Soviet counterpart in the Jura Mountains, where he tried to strike a bargain on a package dealing with intermediate-range missiles in Europe.
In that episode - which later became the subject of the Broadway play "A Walk in the Woods" by Lee Blessing - Mr. Nitze tried to cut through the bureaucratic tangle but was thwarted when both Moscow and Washington repudiated the agreement.
Mr. Nitze (pronounced NITS-uh) refused an appointment in the first Bush administration as ambassador at large emeritus, saying it would leave him with no clear responsibilities. He retired to an office at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies of the Johns Hopkins University - a school that was named for him in 1989 - where he continued to write articles in a continuing attempt to influence policy.
With that, his long career in government came to an end, a career that began in 1940 with a telegram that said, "Be in Washington Monday, Forrestal."
The summons from James V. Forrestal, then a special assistant at the White House, lured Mr. Nitze from the lucrative confines of Wall Street to the first of many assignments in government that involved him in the supply of the Allies for the war effort, a survey of the impact of the Allied bombing of Germany and Japan, the feeding of the hungry of war-ravaged Europe, the creation of the Marshall Plan and crises in Iran and Berlin.
In the aftermath of World War II, Mr. Nitze became part of the remarkable group of public servants - George F. Kennan, Charles E. Bohlen, Robert A. Lovett, John J. McCloy - that coalesced around Dean Acheson to develop foreign political and military policy as the United States took its place as a major world power.
He was a senior State Department official in the Truman administration, an assistant defense secretary in the Kennedy administration, and Navy secretary and later deputy defense secretary of in the Johnson administration.
By the time he became one of the chief negotiators on strategic weapons, Mr. Nitze had accumulated more experience in national security affairs than anyone else of his time, to the point that his critics began to think that he believed he had a monopoly on understanding the political uses of nuclear weapons.
Postwar Policy Framework
Ever since 1950, when as head of the policy planning staff of the State Department he was the principal author of a study on the Soviet threat, Mr. Nitze took a dark view of Soviet intentions, seeing in the Kremlin a drive for world hegemony.
The study, known as N.S.C.-68, conceived of deterrence in military rather than diplomatic terms, warned against sole reliance on the nuclear deterrent and urged a buildup of conventional forces.
Its precepts became a cornerstone of American policy. In succeeding years, when the United States nuclear monopoly was broken, Mr. Nitze warned regularly that the Soviet Union was trying to achieve preponderant nuclear strength as a tool of blackmail or, in the worst case, to win an all-out war.
Later, when Mr. Nitze took his walk in the woods near Geneva to work out an arms deal, he confounded his critics, who considered him too hard-line because of his pessimistic views of the Russians.
A man of intimidating intellect, Mr. Nitze could be warm and affectionate or cerebral and brittle. He was a formidable bureaucrat with a brilliant mind and a persuasive pen. Out of government- as he was during the Carter administration- he was an equally effective critic, as he showed in the late 1970's as the mastermind of the opposition to the second strategic arms limitation agreement. He used complicated charts and computer printouts to warn that the treaty would lock the United States into permanent strategic inferiority.
Despite that vigorous opposition, once Mr. Nitze was back in government he urged President Reagan to comply with the terms of the treaty, even though it was never ratified, and to try to reach a better agreement with Moscow.
Among his colleagues there were those who said Mr. Nitze was so embittered at being excluded from the Carter administration that he could not assess the treaty dispassionately. He had too often been passed over for the major jobs, always on tap but never on top, as his old neighbor James Reston once wrote.
He always seemed too conservative for the liberal administrations and too liberal for the conservative ones. In an interview in which he looked back at his long career in government, Mr. Nitze acknowledged that it was one of his life's major disappointments that he had never been appointed to a cabinet-level position - as secretary of state or defense, or as director of central intelligence.
"I sometimes think I would have liked to be secretary of agriculture," he said with a rueful chuckle.
While his considerable expertise was in political-military affairs, his little joke was not far off the mark, and in his later years he tried to get the country to deal with environmental problems. For years, in addition to homes in Washington, Northeast Harbor, Me., and Aspen, Colo., he maintained a 1,920- acre working farm in Maryland on the banks of the Potomac, where he kept pigs and cattle and grew corn.
It was there that he rode horses, sailed along the Potomac and practiced the piano in a lifelong endeavor to understand, as one friend said, why Bach sounds like Bach.
A Confirmed Pessimist
For all that good life, Mr. Nitze - handsome with a full head of white hair and still athletic and trim in his later years, well-educated, intelligent and wealthy - remained a confirmed pessimist, having been deeply affected by seeing at first hand the outbreak of the two world wars.
Paul Henry Nitze was born on Jan. 16, 1907, in Amherst, Mass., where his father, one of the world's leading philologists, was a professor of Romance languages. The Nitze family did not live on a professor's salary, though. Mr. Nitze explained that "both my grandparents did very well." During his childhood there were summers in Europe, mainly in Germany, and the family was in the Tyrol in 1914 when World War I broke out.
Mr. Nitze spent much of his boyhood in Chicago. His father taught at the university, and he attended experimental schools before going on to Hotchkiss and Harvard. Generally a good student, he said: "I distinguished myself by getting the lowest mark ever given at Harvard, a zero, in a course on the history of economic thought. The most beautiful girl suggested that I go down to Newport for the weekend on the day of the final exam."
The zero left no permanent economic scar, for Nitze got rich in Wall Street despite the Depression, first at Dillon Read & Company and then in his own firm. He made one fortune from a company he started with other investors, known as the U.S. Vitamin and Pharmaceutical Company. Another fortune came from real estate investments in Aspen. In 1932 he married Phyllis Pratt, whose grandfather was a founder of the Standard Oil Company of New York and the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. Mrs. Nitze died in June 1987.
In 1993 he married Elisabeth Porter. She survives him, as do his four children: Heidi Nitze and Peter, both of New York; William, of Washington, and Phyllis Anina Nitze Moriarty of Boston; a stepdaughter, Erin Porter, of Salt Spring Island, British Columbia; 11 grandchildren; three step-grandchildren; and seven great-grandchildren.
There will be a memorial service at 11 a.m. Saturday in the National Cathedral in Washington, followed by a reception at the Metropolitan Club, 1700 H Street NW, Washington. Burial will be private.
Earlier this year, in one of his last public appearances, Mr. Nitze was present in Maine at the christening of a Navy guided-missile destroyer bearing his name, only the eighth time the Navy has named a warship for a living person.
Mr. Nitze was called to Washington by Mr. Forrestal - then an assistant to President Roosevelt - who had been president of Dillon Read, where Mr. Nitze had been a vice president.
It was 1940 and Mr. Nitze, who had seen Hitler during a visit to Germany, opposed United States entry into the war. But he quickly became active in the American war effort. He helped draft the Selective Service Act and, in 1942, became chief of the Metals and Minerals Branch of the Board of Economic Warfare.
Subsequently he became director of foreign procurement and development for the Foreign Economic Administration. He was vice chairman of the United States Strategic Bombing Survey, a study that years later caused him to question United States bombing strategy in Vietnam. After the war he headed the billion-dollar global relief program.
In 1950, during the Truman administration, he succeeded George F. Kennan as head of the State Department's policy planning staff. It was then that Mr. Nitze started making his mark as a political-military strategist whose dark view of the Russians surpassed those of Mr. Kennan and Mr. Bohlen, the nation's leading experts on the Soviet Union. Mr. Kennan found the language of N.S.C.-68 to be dangerously melodramatic and unhelpful.
Seven years later, although he was out of favor during the Eisenhower administration, Mr. Nitze was appointed to the presidential committee headed by H. Rowan Gaither that called for nationwide fallout shelters and warned of a "missile gap" that eventually proved to be illusory.
Mr. Nitze was a Democrat who changed parties to protest Roosevelt's effort to pack the Supreme Court. He returned to the fold at the beginning of the Eisenhower administration. Squeezed out of office because of his association with Mr. Acheson and discouraged at being on the outside, Mr. Nitze went back to his farm and, at the suggestion of his wife, who wanted to take his mind off his troubles, entered a horse race at the Charles County fair. When he won, he acknowledged, at least to himself, his longing for recognition.
President Kennedy offered Mr. Nitze several jobs and gave him 30 seconds to decide which one he wanted. He chose deputy defense secretary, but did not get the post until seven years later. In the intervening years he was an assistant secretary in the Pentagon and then secretary of the Navy.
When President Nixon appointed Mr. Nitze to the United States delegation to the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks with the Soviet Union, he played an important role in negotiating the Antiballistic Missile Treaty, but he resigned in 1974, charging that the "depressing reality of the traumatic events" related to Watergate was making the administration too eager to cut a deal with the Russians.
As an early supporter of Jimmy Carter, Mr. Nitze expected that he would finally get a major appointment and was bitterly disappointed when he was passed over once again. His views were too hawkish for the liberal foreign policy that President Carter wanted to pursue.
Mr. Nitze mounted a spirited - some called it venomous - opposition to the confirmation of one of his old colleagues, Paul C. Warnke, as Mr. Carter's strategic arms negotiator, incurring the wrath of old friends who labeled him an ideologue.
Critic of Carter Arms Pact
When Mr. Warnke was confirmed and the Carter administration achieved a second strategic arms limitation treaty, Mr. Nitze became its most vocal and effective critic, the intellectual guru for the Committee on the Present Danger in its campaign against the agreement. It was never ratified.
Mr. Nitze's hard line toward Moscow found greater resonance with the next president, Ronald Reagan, who put him in charge of the United States delegation to the talks on intermediate-range nuclear weapons. His mandate was to negotiate the so-called zero-zero option by which the United States would forgo future American deployment of new missiles in Europe if the Soviet Union would remove the missiles it had targeted on Western Europe.
The two sides were far apart when Mr. Nitze went on the now famous walk in the woods to draw the Russians into a package deal. When the proposal was rejected by both sides, Mr. Nitze, instead of being reprimanded, was appointed special adviser to the president on arms control matters in 1984.
Though the Soviet Union rejected the zero-zero option, a few years later it accepted a more comprehensive arrangement, the so-called double zero agreement that limited medium-range missiles in Europe and shorter-range missiles as well. That agreement was signed on Dec. 8, 1987.
In November 1985, Mr. Reagan awarded Mr. Nitze the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Yet that same year Mr. Nitze once again seemed to be going out on his own to raise serious questions about Mr. Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative. While insisting that he favored the program, informally known as Star Wars, he laid down such stringent terms for its acceptability that he seemed to be torpedoing it from the start, in effect handing useful arguments to its opponents.
At the same time, he was seeking to make a deal that would limit the elaborate new antimissile system in exchange for cuts in offensive weapons, a two-pronged ploy that once again provided evidence of his cunning and skill as a negotiator, another example of a talent that contributed to a lifetime of survival in Washington.
"Some people say there are two policies in the executive branch," he said one day as he sat in his office on the seventh floor of the State Department just before his 79th birthday. "One is mine and the other is the president's, which is marginally so. Some of the things I've said are different from what the president has said, but all the things I have said have been approved by the president."
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Paul Henry Nitze, 1907-2004 Architect of Cold War Had Role in Ending It
By Don Oberdorfer and Patricia Sullivan
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, October 21, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48221-2004Oct20.html
Paul Henry Nitze, author of the basic U.S. strategy against the Soviet Union at the start of the Cold War and later a key negotiator of U.S.-Soviet arms accords that helped dismantle the global conflict, died of pneumonia Tuesday at his home in Georgetown. He was 97.
Nitze, whose senior government posts spanned nearly a half-century and eight presidents, from World War II to the end of the Reagan administration, was nearly without parallel for the breadth and depth of his experience in world affairs.
He helped devise U.S. economic warfare policy in World War II, was a major figure in initiating the Marshall Plan to rehabilitate postwar Europe and in the decision to build a hydrogen bomb, advised President John F. Kennedy in the Berlin and Cuban missile crises and had a hand in U.S. military policy in the Vietnam War.
Nitze helped rein in the nuclear arms race through negotiations with the Soviet Union. He assisted in negotiating four major arms control treaties with the Soviets in the 1970s and 1980s and was among the leaders of a campaign to reject the SALT II arms control treaty.
An intense, wealthy and well-connected figure who enjoyed operating behind the scenes, Nitze never achieved a Cabinet position, partly because of his prickly personality. He was part of the old Washington establishment, steeped in a Yankee background, educated in elite schools and patrician in his bearing. "My body does what I tell it to do," he once informed a tennis partner, notwithstanding that he was past retirement age. Despite his dominating persona, he was an intellectual egalitarian and hired proteges who would intellectually challenge him.
Nitze was best known for two prominent and contrasting episodes in his long career.
In 1950, he wrote NSC 68, the official National Security Council blueprint for American strategy in the Cold War, which called for "a rapid and sustained buildup of the political, economic and military strength of the free world" to combat the power of the Soviet Union. Nitze, then chief of policy planning at the State Department, wrote that such an unprecedented peacetime mobilization was required "to wrest the initiative from the Soviet Union [and] confront it with convincing evidence of the determination and ability of the free world to frustrate the Kremlin design of a world dominated by its will."
The second celebrated episode was Nitze's attempt -- which he initiated -- to break the deadlock over intermediate-range missiles in Europe in mid-1982 during a "walk in the woods" near Geneva with his negotiating counterpart, Soviet Ambassador Yuli Kvitsinsky. When Nitze's unauthorized compromise became known in Washington, it touched off a fierce protest by conservatives leading to its rejection by President Ronald Reagan, even as Moscow also rejected it.
Nevertheless, the bold effort by an establishment conservative in an out-of-channels initiative with the Soviet Union captured the imagination of politicians and the public. Nitze's exploit became the subject of many articles and speeches and a play that won the American Theatre Critics' drama award in 1988.
Former Secretary of State George P. Shultz, who relied extensively on Nitze's advice in arms negotiations with Moscow, called Nitze the finest public servant he had ever known. In his 1993 memoir, "Turmoil and Triumph," Shultz described his former aide as an almost legendary statesman who was "a walking history of the Cold War" because of his involvement in nearly every major decision of the confrontation.
Soviet negotiators, who knew Nitze and his record well, treated him with deference in the negotiations of the late 1980s and referred to him respectfully in private as "the old man." At the Reykjavik, Iceland, summit of 1986, Nitze was paired with another trim, white-haired figure of great prestige, Marshal Sergei Akhromeyev, then chief of staff of the Soviet armed forces, in an all-night bargaining session that made unexpected gains. The session paved the way for the first substantial arms reduction agreements of the Cold War.
Such was Nitze's impact that a Navy destroyer was named for him in April, only the eighth time in Navy history a warship was named for a living person. Journalist and author Strobe Talbott said at an Aspen Institute conference honoring Nitze that the ship, like the man, "is lean, it is fast, it's adroit, it's got by far the smartest electronics . . . and even the weapons that it has on board are an exquisite combination of offensive and defensive."
Nitze's outspokenness and his notable shifts of position on arms control issues prompted criticism from both liberals and conservatives domestically. Although he participated in negotiations aimed at achieving the strategic arms accord in the Nixon administration, Nitze led a campaign against the eventual SALT II agreement while out of government during the Carter administration. He bitterly opposed the nomination of Paul C. Warnke, a former colleague, to be Carter's chief arms negotiator, testifying that Warnke's views were "demonstrably unsound," "asinine" and a "screwball, arbitrary, fictitious kind of viewpoint that is not going to help the security of this country." Warnke, also a statesman of stature for many years, got the job over Nitze's objections.
Such activities led Talbott to write in "The Master of the Game," his 1988 biography of Nitze, that "when outside the government, he was part of the problem afflicting arms control, an implacable obstructionist and sometimes even a character assassin of those who were trying to advance the process. When inside the government, he tended to be part of the solution -- a dogged negotiator, an innovative deal maker, a bold infighter, a trusted counselor."
Internal disputes over the Strategic Defense Initiative illustrated Nitze's ability to formulate clear and relatively simple statements of policy about highly complex questions. Nitze's one-paragraph formulation of the desirable relationship between offensive and defensive arms was enshrined as the centerpiece of Reagan's 16 pages of secret instructions to Shultz on the occasion of the resumption of U.S.-Soviet arms bargaining in January 1985.
Nitze was born in Amherst, Mass., on Jan. 16, 1907, the son of a college professor of Romance languages. After graduating from Harvard University, Nitze and a friend, on a dare, canoed from Boston to New York. The young graduate then went to work on Wall Street on the eve of the Great Depression.
Because of good fortune in business and his marriage to Phyllis Pratt, an heiress to the Standard Oil fortune, Nitze became wealthy at an early age. Fascinated by world affairs, he devoted himself primarily to public service from the time he first came to Washington in 1940 at the invitation of his close friend, James V. Forrestal, later the first secretary of defense.
In 1943, Nitze and his relative by marriage, Christian Herter, then a congressman from Massachusetts and later secretary of state, founded the School of Advanced International Studies in Dupont Circle, which in 1950 became affiliated with Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. In 1989, Johns Hopkins renamed it the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies. Nitze maintained his office there as diplomat-in-residence from his retirement from government in 1989 until his death.
During World War II, Nitze was a senior official of the Board of Economic Warfare, which was charged with obtaining and allocating war-related resources. Near the end of the war, Nitze became vice chairman of the Strategic Bombing Survey, which studied the impact of the air war against Germany and Japan, including the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.
Nitze joined the State Department in 1946 and took part in the planning and implementation of the Marshall Plan for European recovery. In 1950, he succeeded George F. Kennan -- the State Department's "wise man" and chief architect of the containment policy -- as director of the policy planning staff. He was a participant in the decision to build the hydrogen bomb and helped design the U.S. position in the Korean armistice negotiations and policy in Iran.
Nitze left government early in the Eisenhower administration but was brought back by Kennedy to be chief of the International Security Affairs office of the Defense Department, often known as the Pentagon's State Department. In that job, Nitze was deeply involved in the 1961 Berlin crisis and other famous episodes.
In his 1989 memoir, "From Hiroshima to Glasnost," Nitze revealed that he suggested at the height of the Berlin crisis that Kennedy consider a strategic nuclear strike against the Soviet Union to forestall a similar Soviet attack. Nitze wrote that in retrospect, the Berlin confrontation of 1961 posed an even greater danger of nuclear war than the more-celebrated Cuban Missile Crisis the following year, when Nitze was part of the Executive Committee of the National Security Council that met daily with Kennedy.
As secretary of the Navy and later deputy secretary of defense in the Johnson administration, Nitze organized the defense of the Pentagon against Vietnam War protesters, participated in bombing strategy in Vietnam and eventually advocated a unilateral bombing halt and a move toward negotiations.
President Richard M. Nixon recruited Nitze as a member of his strategic arms negotiating team with the Soviet Union in 1969. Nitze was among the negotiators of the 1972 SALT I offensive arms accord and the companion Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty on defensive arms. He was an early member of the SALT II negotiating team but resigned in the summer of 1974, shortly before Nixon's resignation.
In 1976, the final year of the Ford administration, Nitze was an influential member of Team B, a controversial group of outsiders who reassessed U.S. intelligence data and concluded that there was a sharply growing danger to the United States from a Soviet drive for nuclear superiority. Many scholars have since disputed its accuracy.
Nitze was an important organizer and member of the Committee on the Present Danger, a group of hard-liners who lobbied against the Carter administration's arms control policies. This put him at odds with a number of friends and former colleagues who were the authors of those policies. Nitze was a Democrat who was never partisan.
Shortly after leaving government in 1989, he was severely injured when a horse fell on him at his farm in Bel Alton, breaking his pelvis and leg. He recovered, but in 1993 colon cancer was diagnosed and he had a heart attack.
He told a Washington Post reporter in 1994 that he had a personal trainer and a wife who took him dancing at the River Club between their extremely active social engagements. Friends called him physically robust until recently and intellectually active.
In the 1940s, Nitze built the first ski lift on Buttermilk Mountain in Aspen, Colo., charging a nickel for a ride in an old fishing boat attached to a smelly and unreliable motorized winch, his grandson recalled at the Aspen Institute event. With his sister Elizabeth Paepcke and brother-in-law, Nitze then put together the financing for Aspen Skiing Corp., which founded the winter resort. He was chairman and the largest shareholder until he negotiated a sale of the company to 20th Century Fox in 1978.
He was a trustee of St. Mary's College of Maryland from 1985 to 1996 and was described by President Jane Margaret O'Brien as "instrumental in raising St. Mary's academic profile to a national level."
In 1985, Reagan awarded Nitze the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor.
Nitze's wife of 55 years, Phyllis Nitze, died after a long bout with emphysema in 1987.
Survivors include his wife of 11 years, Elisabeth "Leezee" Scott Porter of Washington; four children from his first marriage, Peter Nitze of New York, William Nitze of Washington, Anina Nitze Moriarty of Boston and Heidi Nitze of New York; a stepdaughter, Erin Porter of Salt Spring Island, B.C., Canada; 11 grandchildren; three stepgrandchildren; and seven great-grandchildren.
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
-------- vermont
Delegates ask NRC to hasten VY report
Reformer
By Carolyn Lorié
October 21, 2004
http://www.reformer.com/Stories/0,1413,102~8860~2481856,00.html
BRATTLEBORO -- Vermont's congressional delegation has asked the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to step up the release of the Vermont Yankee engineering inspection report.
The inspection was completed in September and a public exit meeting is tentatively planned for Nov. 9, at which time the report's preliminary findings will be made available to the public. The full report, however, will not be available until 45 days after the meeting.
In their letter, the delegation voiced support for more public and state input for the final report.
"We believe that the State of Vermont and the public should have time to review the independent engineering inspection report before it is made final, and be provided an opportunity to hear from and interact with the inspection team members regarding its contents," wrote Sens. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and James Jeffords, I-Vt., and U.S. Rep. Bernard Sanders, I-Vt.
They also asked that the two parties -- the New England Coalition and the Vermont Department of Public Service -- petitioning to intervene in the Vermont Yankee uprate case have access to the report so that they can amend their petitions, if necessary. Vermont Yankee is seeking to increase its power output by 20 percent.
Petitions to intervene had to be filed by Aug. 30. The state made the deadline after the NRC refused to grant a deadline extension. In its filing, however, the state maintained its right to amend the contentions, depending on the findings in the inspection report.
Amendments to NRC filings must pass very specific criteria and it is unclear if the state will be able to meet those criteria.
Finally, the delegation noted that the public will be barred from speaking during today's oral arguments before the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, which is part of the NRC. The state, the coalition, Vermont Yankee and NRC officials will present arguments on whether hearings in the uprate case should be granted.
Members of the public can submit comments in writing but will not be allowed to speak or ask questions. The NRC also plans to bar signs larger than 18 inches square and will not permit them to be waved or held up during the proceedings.
The NRC has stated, however, that the public will have opportunities in the future to comment on the uprate, including the exit meeting on the inspection.
"We expect the NRC to adhere to this promise, and ensure that the exit meeting is a participatory public meeting, allowing our constituents to learn about the results of the independent engineering assessment, to make statements, and to ask questions about the independent engineering assessment," wrote Leahy, Jeffords and Sanders.
-------- us nuc waste
Hanford tests plans for nuclear waste
The Associated Press
By SHANNON DININNY
October 21, 2004 http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002068773_hanford21m.html
YAKIMA - Scientists have completed another round of tests on a process that would turn nuclear waste stored in underground tanks at the Hanford nuclear reservation into glass for long-term disposal.
About 53 million gallons of highly radioactive waste from World War II and Cold War-era plutonium production sit in 177 aging underground tanks at Hanford, less than 10 miles from the Columbia River.
Plans call for using a process called vitrification to turn the high-level waste into glass logs for long-term disposal in a nuclear-waste repository. Construction already is under way on a plant to treat the high-level waste.
But the plant was not designed to treat the less-radioactive waste also found in the tanks, and researchers have been studying a similar process called bulk vitrification to treat that material.
The highly radioactive waste would be filtered from the lower-level waste as it flowed into the vitrification plant.
Bulk vitrification requires electric currents to be passed between electrodes in a mixture of soil and tank waste. The aim is for the soil to then capture the waste as it melts into glass.
Using about 2 gallons of liquid waste from one of the Hanford tanks - the largest quantity of actual tank waste to be used in the bulk-vitrification testing to date - scientists completed an engineering-scale test the week of Oct. 11.
CH2M Hill Hanford Group, the contractor hired to handle tank-waste cleanup, termed the test a successful "melt," resulting in a 220-pound slab of radioactive glass.
Detailed tests on the glass remain to be completed to confirm that the mixture meets standards for long-term disposal, said Rick Raymond, director of supplemental treatment for CH2M Hill.
"It's not a done deal, but it looks very promising," Raymond said yesterday. "We need to collect more information before any decision can be made."
The next step would be a full-scale test of the treatment process. Such a test would provide a solid technical foundation for evaluating the viability of the technology, said Roy Schepens, manager of the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of River Protection, which manages tank-waste cleanup.
The Energy Department has applied for a permit to build and operate a pilot test facility to treat as much as 200,000 gallons of low-level waste. Public comment already has been accepted on the proposal, but the state Department of Ecology has not yet issued the permit.
For 40 years, the Hanford reservation made plutonium for the nation's nuclear-weapons arsenal. Today, work there centers on a $50 billion to $60 billion cleanup, to be finished by 2035.
Much of the cleanup involves retrieving and treating the tank waste, composed of radioactive liquid, sludge and salt cake. Most critical was the liquid waste in 149 tanks that had a single-wall construction, making them more susceptible to leaks as they aged.
An estimated 67 of the tanks leaked radioactive brew into the soil, contaminating the aquifer and threatening the Columbia River.
-----
Scientists complete tests on Hanford tank waste treatment
By Associated Press
Oct 21, 2004
http://www.tdn.com/articles/2004/10/21/area_news/news08.txt
YAKIMA, Wash. -- Scientists have completed another round of tests on a process that would turn nuclear waste stored in underground tanks at the Hanford nuclear site into glass for long-term disposal.
About 53 million gallons of highly radioactive waste from World War II and Cold War-era plutonium production sit in 177 aging underground tanks at Hanford, less than 10 miles from the Columbia River.
Plans call for using a process called vitrification to turn the high-level waste into glass logs for long-term disposal in a nuclear waste repository. Construction already is under way on a plant to treat the high-level waste.
But the plant was not designed to treat the less-radioactive waste also found in the tanks, and researchers have been studying a similar process called bulk vitrification to treat that material.
The highly radioactive waste would be filtered from the lower-level waste as it flowed into the vitrification plant.
Bulk vitrification requires electric currents to be passed between electrodes in a mixture of soil and tank waste. The aim is for the soil to then capture the waste as it melts into glass.
Using about two gallons of liquid waste from one of the Hanford tanks -- the largest quantity of actual tank waste to be used in the bulk vitrification testing to date -- scientists completed an engineering-scale test the week of Oct. 11.
CH2M Hill Hanford Group, the contractor hired to handle tank waste cleanup, termed the test a successful "melt," resulting in a 220-pound slab of radioactive glass.
Detailed tests on the glass remain to be completed to confirm that the mixture meets standards for long-term disposal, said Rick Raymond, director of supplemental treatment for CH2M Hill.
"It's not a done deal, but it looks very promising," Raymond said Wednesday. "We need to collect more information before any decision can be made."
The next step would be a full-scale test of the treatment process. Such a test will provide a solid technical foundation for evaluating the viability of the technology, said Roy Schepens, manager of the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of River Protection, which manages tank waste cleanup.
The Energy Department has applied for a permit to build and operate a pilot test facility to treat as much as 200,000 gallons of low-level waste. Public comment already has been accepted on the proposal, but the state Department of Ecology has not yet issued the permit.
For 40 years, the Hanford reservation made plutonium for the nation's nuclear weapons arsenal. Today, work there centers on a $50 billion to $60 billion cleanup, to be finished by 2035.
Much of the cleanup involves retrieving and treating the tank waste, composed of radioactive liquid, sludge and saltcake. Most critical was the liquid waste in 149 tanks that had a single-wall construction, making them more susceptible to leaks as they aged.
An estimated 67 of the tanks leaked radioactive brew into the soil, contaminating the aquifer and threatening the Columbia River.
--------
Report: Yucca Mountain to be at capacity before opening
License extensions results in more waste
REVIEW-JOURNAL
By KEITH ROGERS
October 21, 2004
http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2004/Oct-21-Thu-2004/news/25051449.html
More nuclear waste than the planned repository at Yucca Mountain can hold will pile up at reactor sites as the government continues to approve license extensions for power plants, an environmental research organization claimed in a study to be released today.
If a repository is built by 2010 in the mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, its 77,000-ton capacity will be filled by existing spent fuel awaiting shipment. That's not counting another 9,900 tons that will have accumulated in the meantime from license extensions, according to the study by the Environmental Working Group.
"A more realistic estimate based on the 20-year average license extensions being granted, means that over 18,000 more metric tons (19,800 tons) of nuclear waste will cross the country to Nevada for disposal than estimated," the group's report states, referring to estimates by the Department of Energy.
"To accommodate all this high-level nuclear waste, Yucca Mountain will have to be expanded, and getting it there, by whatever means, will take decades longer than even the government's longest predictions," according to the study.
The increased inventory of spent fuel stems from reactor license extensions that were "quickly and quietly approved" by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the group claims.
The group said nuclear power plant re-licensing doubled after Congress approved the Yucca Mountain repository in 2002. There are renewal applications pending for 18 more reactors.
That means there will be more waste to store at reactor sites or above-ground facilities and more risks involved with thousands of more waste shipments than DOE has calculated, said Richard Wiles, senior vice president of the nonprofit group.
"The risk compounds itself, and they're not being truthful with the public about what their real plans are for the waste," Wiles said.
Allen Benson, a spokesman for DOE's Office of Repository Development in Las Vegas, noted that between 2007 and 2010 the agency is required to report to Congress on the need for additional disposal capacity.
In September 2002, two months after Congress approved the repository, DOE officials acknowledged there will be more high-level waste than space for it in Yucca Mountain as liquid waste in tanks at nuclear weapons facilities is converted into glass logs. Agency spokesman Joe Davis said at the time that Congress would have to decide on expanding the repository, if it's built, or finding a site for a second one.
DOE figures show that once the conversion task is completed in 2035, only 8,275 glass logs out of 23,475 will fit in the repository. The cost of converting liquid waste into glass logs will be $9 billion more than the repository's $58 billion price tag.
Wiles said the solution to the capacity dilemma is to stop making more waste and explore on-site storage at reactors as compared to risks involved with hauling it to Yucca Mountain.
"We're not saying shut down all the reactors today because we're too dependent on them as an energy source," he said.
Reliance on nuclear power can be reduced through more efficient use of electrical power and through environmentally sound operation of coal and natural gas plants until alternative energy sources are developed, he said.
The DOE contends that for security reasons it's better to put all the waste at a single location rather than have it scattered across the country.
Critics, including Nevada's delegation, have said that logic is flawed because some amount of spent fuel always will be at reactor sites as they continue to operate.
-------- MILITARY
-------- africa
3,200 Peacekeepers Pledged on Mission to Darfur
By Colum Lynch
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 21, 2004; Page A22
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49656-2004Oct20.html
UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 20 -- The African Union's peace and security council Wednesday formally agreed to send as many as 3,200 African peacekeepers to the Darfur region of Sudan to help halt violence that has contributed to the deaths of more than 70,000 people and driven more than a million from their homes.
The African force would have a mandate to monitor abuses of civilians in Darfur and ensure the delivery of humanitarian relief to hundreds of thousands of displaced people. It would monitor compliance by the Sudanese government and two rebel groups with a cease-fire agreement and provide limited protection to civilians "whom it encounters under imminent threat," according to a statement released by the organization in Addis Ababa.
President Bush ordered the Defense Department on Monday to send two C-130 military transport planes to the region later this month for two weeks to ferry about 1,000 Rwanda and Nigerian troops into Darfur. The State Department, meanwhile, has authorized two U.S. companies to spend $20.6 million on transportation, housing and communications for the African forces, according to U.S. and company officials.
The funding is part of a five-year contract between the State Department and Reston-based DynCorp and Los Angeles-based Pacific Architects and Engineers (PA&E) Inc. to support "peacekeeping and conflict management support-related taskings through sub-Saharan Africa," according to a State Department official. PA&E already provides logistical support for a group of 390 African Union troops and cease-fire monitors posted in Darfur.
The U.S. commitment is part of a broader effort by Western governments, including Australia, Belgium, Britain, Canada, France, the Netherlands and the European Union, to provide more than $200 million in logistical support for the enlarged African Union mission. The Bush administration hopes that the pledges will help speed the arrival of the African peacekeepers to Darfur, where it says government-backed Arab militia have engaged in a campaign of genocide against the region's black African tribes.
Security in Darfur has worsened in recent weeks, with fresh U.N. reports of fighting between government and rebel forces and attacks on civilians in villages and camps throughout Darfur. A convoy of 36 trucks transporting goods for the World Food Program was attacked and looted in West Darfur. The top United Nations envoy in Sudan, Jan Pronk of the Netherlands, will meet Sudan's foreign minister, Mustafa Osman Ismail, in Khartoum on Thursday to convey his concerns about the security situation, U.N. spokeswoman Marie Okabe said.
The violence in Darfur began in February 2003 when the Sudanese Liberation Army and the Justice and Equality Movement took up arms against the government, citing discrimination against the region's black tribes. Khartoum organized and equipped Arab militia, known as the Janjaweed, who participated in a counterinsurgency campaign aimed at expelling many of the region's black tribes.
The World Health Organization estimates that more than 70,000 people have died in Darfur since March and 10,000 are dying each month from disease and violence.
-------- arms
India opposes sale of F-16 jets
October 21, 2004
By Tom Carter
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20041020-100008-9730r.htm
India is concerned about reports of a renewed Pakistani effort to buy F-16 fighter jets from the United States, saying the advanced aircraft could spark an arms race in South Asia even though Washington maintains that no such sales are being contemplated.
"We are against introducing such advanced weaponry into South Asia," an Indian government official said Tuesday on the condition of anonymity. "They are not useful in the war on terror, and experience has shown that they could be used against India. ... They could spark a buildup or a weapons race in the region."
In September, the Pakistani press carried a statement by a Pakistani defense official saying the United States had agreed to consider selling the nation F-16s fighter jets.
Last week, Rear Adm. Craig McDonald, head of the office of the U.S. defense representative in Pakistan, was quoted in press reports as telling a Pentagon-organized conference on security cooperation that the Bush administration would go before Congress early next year to seek authorization for the sale.
"It's a very long, involved process that will be taken up with our Congress once they come back after the first of the year," he was quoted by Reuters news agency as saying.
Participants in a six-day U.S.-India forum sponsored by the Aspen Institute and the Confederation of Indian Industry that ended Tuesday said they told Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld that such a sale, while manageable for the Indian military, would be taken badly by the Indian public.
Mr. Rumsfeld did not comment on the prospects of the sale of the F-16s at the meeting Monday, the participants said. But a retired senior Indian military officer said he understood the plan called for an initial sale of 18 planes, with another 62 aircraft to be sold later.
The State Department, however, bluntly refuted the idea on Tuesday.
"There has been absolutely no decision taken anywhere, at any level of the U.S. government, on the sale of F-16s to Pakistan," a department official said on the condition of anonymity.
The official said that the sale of F-16s to Pakistan, along with dozens of other issues relating to U.S.-Pakistan relations, had been on the table for months, but nothing had changed.
"Everyone wants to know if the ball has moved. The ball has not moved," the official said.
Officials at the Pakistani Embassy did not return repeated calls for comment.
Washington sold 40 F-16s to Pakistan from 1983 through 1987, during the period Pakistan supported the United States in its efforts to drive the Soviet Union out of Afghanistan. But in 1990, Congress passed legislation halting delivery of the jets for fear that Pakistan had built a nuclear bomb.
U.S. concerns over a Pakistani nuclear device proved correct in May 1998 when Pakistan carried out nuclear weapons tests in response to tests by India.
However, since the September 11, 2001, attacks in the United States, Pakistan has re-emerged as a key U.S. ally in the war on terrorism.
--------
Indian navy denies submarine deal
bbc
21 October, 2004
http://news..co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/3763970.stm
The Indian navy has denied reports that a deal has been finalised with Russia for the lease of an Akula-class nuclear-powered submarine.
Navy spokesman, Commander Vinay Garg, told the BBC talks were continuing between the two countries but no agreement was completed.
He said more details could be expected by Monday.
Earlier reports from Moscow claimed India had reached agreement to lease the submarine for 10 years.
The reports said the deal was worth tens of millions of dollars.
The Akula is a sophisticated nuclear-powered submarine that would significantly increase India's naval reach.
--------
About 4.5 million dollars spent on arms buyback in Baghdad: Iraqi PM
BAGHDAD (AFP)
Oct 21, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041021182517.oyfek0iz.html
About 4.5 million dollars has been handed out so far in a weapons buyback programme in Baghdad's Sadr City district said Prime Minister Iyad Allawi Thursday, promising that the process would be repeated throughout Iraq.
"The trial worked in Thawra-Sadr City and there are 4.5 million dollars worth of arms so far (collected) and calls to extend the period, but of course it will not be extended," he told reporters during a visit to the northern city of Mosul.
"We will begin searching for any remaining arms in the next few days and this will be repeated in all governorates of the country."
Earlier the commander of the Iraqi national guard in Sadr City Colonel Mehdi Zayer put the amount spent in the buyback at three million dollars.
Hundreds of fighters, middlemen, dealers and ordinary citizens lined up on the last day of the buyback Thursday to hand over weapons at a football stadium on the edge of Sadr City, which has been serving as the main drop-off centre for the past week.
US troops and Iraqi forces stood on guard.
The buyback, started on October 11 and extended twice already, came after radical Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr called on his militiamen in Baghdad to hand over their weapons in return for an amnesty for his fighters and the release of some of his movement's members from US-run prisons in Iraq.
Once the buyback is completed, Iraqi forces backed by US troops are expected to conduct searches and raids to verify the extent of disarmament in Sadr City, which had been the scene of off-and-on clashes between Sadr's militia and US and Iraqi forces over the past six months.
-------- asia
Meditations on Okinawa
Asia Times
By Adam Lebowitz
Oct 21, 2004
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Japan/FJ21Dh02.html
NAHA - Typical of Asian countries, Okinawa possesses an enhanced fecundity. The tendrils of the remarkable banyan tree descend from branches and re-root; the trunk webs out and hosts itself over a spreading terrain.
So too the politics and history of Chalmers Johnson's Cold War Island are particularly fecund subjects of analysis: Okinawa simultaneously is left out in the cold on the periphery of Japan's national narrative, while it also is at the center of a heated discourse centering on the United States relationship with Asia. Both literally and figuratively, the Ryukyu island chain is in a contentious position. There is the legacy of warfare on the islands from World War II and continuing with present US troop deployments and base life. These represent for political progressives in Japan an Okinawa battle-scarred and betrayed and are open evidence of the Japanese government's duplicitous dealings, rhetorically anti-militarist but providing a launching pad for the world's largest military.
The Vietnam War was fought mainly from Okinawa - carpet-bombing Boeing 52-model super fortresses roared off these islands to Indochina - and the psychic conduit between the two countries may be enforced by a certain reading of history. Filmed battle footage of the two jungle fights is strikingly familiar: soldiers fire red-yellow flames into caves against a muddied and cratered verdant jungle landscape. The early color stock used by brave Army cameramen seems to differ little in quality from the film used by CBS crews of equal bravery 20 years hence. Even if grand strategies changed in the interim (did they?) it is not hard to imagine the former as a dry-run for the latter (although historian Richard Drinnon traces the flame semiotic to the Pequot - North American/Native American - wars).
Therefore I myself, even more an outsider than the Yamat-chu Japanese and a resolute non-combatant, came to assume all Okinawans were sick of all conflicts hot and cold and especially suspect of the "national security" concept. Like all assumptions, it has come to be proven wrong with the acquaintance of a young man who is my most diligent student and a resolute supporter of the ruling and pro-US Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). He claims to have family buried at Yasukuni Shrine where lie interred the remains of much of Japan's World War II soldiery, including convicted war criminals, and he told me of a trip to Taiwan to meet fellow travelers in a kind of anti-Beijing friendship society.
He is a serious student and an absolute pleasure to teach, and he argues with me in class and therefore is a coveted rarity (at least by me) in the Japanese university classroom. His presence also enlightened me about another concept some Okinawans hold: they are the front line with China. It is not a neo-con/nationalist viewpoint but indisputable historical fact - envoys from the Ryukyu court ventured to the Ming court in 1372 - but there are tenser stand-off issues of late over fishing and drilling in the Senkaku/Diaoyu/Spratly Islands. Modern Japanese maps claim territorial waters although Chinese documents make mention of them from centuries before. Natural gas may lie within their depths; state-owned Texaco- and Chevron-partnered China National Offshore Oil Corporation drill and loudspeakers from the Japanese navy protest; and 30 years ago Okinawan fishermen marched on Tokyo carrying placards demanding Japan exert its national authority to "protect" the islands; three months ago Chinese soccer fans at the Asia World Cup jeered the Japan national team and unfurled banners demanding the islands' return. (China lost the Asian World Cup title to Japan in Beijing.)
We found ourselves committed to three days of rest and relaxation among these complex realities last month, and I wanted to face Okinawa as a tourist with adjacent energies funneled toward the kids' pleasures as opposed to grumpy introspection. In reality, there was time enough only to view the capital city, visit the aquarium two hours away by car, and maybe stop at a beach along the way.
With the ocean nearby, intense foliage, numerous taxis and two-to-four-story, gaily painted concrete blocks, the atmosphere of Naha seems closer to Saigon or Bangkok than Tokyo. Overall, the capital looks in good nick with its gleaming new commuter monorail. From the upper vantage offered by the monorail, we could see the kinds of structures that delineate the cityscape: traditional tile-roof homes of white volcanic stone, the blocks, the steel and glass high rises and strip malls increasingly dominating the vacant areas midway between the airport and Shuri-jo castle bounding the line.
It is not difficult to visualize Vietnam in Okinawa in other, more historical contexts, namely Shuri-jo castle itself. It surmounts the highest peak in town, well placed in now a very tony area that includes the prefectural art college that offers courses in traditional dance and music performance. All palatial structures were laid waste during the war but have been rebuilt and painted in a regal red that is slightly more orange in tinge than the royal buildings of Kyoto. There is little authentic about the carpeted and air-conditioned interiors save for the main hall that strives for replication. The many guides, guards, and gatekeepers are dressed in royal colors including the distinctive flat caps with the rolled visors accompanying regalia in Northern Vietnam. Actually, the lay of the castle with its ponds and stone gates is an image of quiet grandeur immediately bringing to mind the great grave complexes of Hue.
People now remember well the Ryukyu kingdom as a hub of trade linking the great Asian capitals of Ayuthaya and Edo and reaching deep into Qing China. Without a doubt the most impressive surviving artifact is a huge jade stamp consigned by the China Emperor and bearing printing in immense Chinese and Arabic script. Admiral Mathew Perry visited the castle in 1853 and signed a cooperation pact with the kingdom separate from the one with Japan. Soon afterward it was annexed by Japan and became a prefecture in 1879.
Even now it is still a commercial crossroad and the possibility for American consumorismo are high even by Japanese standards. A&W, Foremost Blue Seal ice cream (on the island since 1948 and proud member of the American Chamber of Commerce, Okinawa), and Spam are well-integrated into the regional diet. For the first time in 13 years in Japan I found Manischewitz wine. But amidst this tempest, Okinawans strive to be, well, Okinawan. Almost half the population is believed to possess some skill in playing the sanshin, a small snakeskin three-string banjo forming the basis of the most melodic pop music coming from Japan these days. Shi-sa, pairs of singha-like lions crouching on the tile roofing of traditional homes are everywhere in Naha, and an impressive one stands guard at the police box in front of the gleaming prefectural government building, which has its own pair guarding the sliding glass entrance. Shi-sa sit on the top of public lavatories, at the ends of bridges and at either end of Kokusai-dori entertainment thoroughfare, and even at small cross-walks in front of kindergartens and schools. Saki's fiery cousin awamori is imbibed in copious quantities or mixed with tangy juice from shikwasa lime or acerola. Instead of green tea people take sampin (jasmine) tea imported from China in the 16th century, which well matches the food: It is saltier and greasier than Japanese food, totally lacking the undertones of soy and sweet rice wine. The tofu is fried harder as in Southeast Asian cooking.
It is a tendency of anthropology from both Japan and the West to look askance at "tradition" and conclude it to be the slut of modern ideology, and it is true that surreal shi-sa and modern "folk music" might be so revealed under methodological dissection. But if it adds an artistic touch to the urban landscape and at worst inspires drunkards to pluck at an instrument from the wall and sing in a distempered if forced dialect, I am almost forced to retort: "So, what's the problem?"
On August 13, at around 2:15pm, a US military transport CH-53D helicopter lost its tail assembly and spun into a building on the campus of Okinawa International University in Ginowan city. It was a worst case scenario for an accident, and yet miraculously nobody on the ground was injured, despite a hail of flying metal fragments (striking 17 houses and 33 vehicles) and the fiery explosion on campus. One of its pilots was severely injured and it is perhaps to the flier's credit as much as pure luck there were not fatalities.
This city has been blessed with perhaps one of the greatest idiocies of municipal planning, the urban air base. The response of the US military was immediate and precise: The area was cordoned-off; local constabulary and inspection teams were denied access; media photographers were harassed and film confiscated; the remains of the craft were expeditiously trucked away. The presence of silver-suited bearers of Geiger counters added an eerie corner to the tension.
Adding to the chagrin of the regional authorities, especially Ginowan's mayor, has been Tokyo's unwillingness to discuss the matter. Former foreign minister Yoriko Kawaguchi offered characteristic blander-than-thou statements of not feeling at liberty to comment on anything, but if these were meant as sorry mollifications they were nothing compared to the snub from the center as Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi refused to meet with either the mayor or Governor Inamine Keiichi, the centrist ex-businessman who generally is seen as Tokyo's point man. In any event, flights are now on as before due to "Iraq-related activity" and the government concurs with the US military that this is a good reason.
This incident confirms Okinawa as the US's only truly successful colonial experiment in Asia, what the Philippines might have and Vietnam should have been, albeit on a Gramscian plane (Antonio Gramsci was a communist leader and Marxist theoretician, 1891-1937). That is, popular gatherings and local media demanding "Quit Okinawa!" (such as the 30,000 who turned out in Ginowan on September 12) are not suppressed, which would give rise to a greater backlash, but instead coercion is aimed at the center whose position of political quietude effectively mutes the periphery. The relocation of Futenma Air base to a sea-based heliport called Henoko has been on the books for some time but is faced with local opposition since construction involves the destruction of coral reefs. Nature is a just pride in Okinawa. Chura-umi Aquarium displays the dense marine environment resulting from the convergence of two oceans and a massive aquatic trench. I am no diver but experienced entering a tropical fish community simply by wading chest-deep in a popular rural beach, breaking apart bits of pork sausage. It is that amazing. There were also a number of young GI families visiting the aquarium.
In short, it is impossible to ignore the presence of US military life on Okinawa if only because one TV channel belongs to Armed Forces Network and runs in place of commercials "public service" announcements ranging from encouragements to be courteous in base apartments, employment opportunities at the Department of Defense-run department store ("Serving those serving our country"), and on-the-spot interviews of troops on the ground doing good in Iraq and Afghanistan. America exists in Okinawa as the military, and it is possible that every incident between military personnel and locals re-introduces the idea of a troubled Vietnam-era society to Okinawans. Before General Anthony Zinni's (former commander-in-chief of the US Central Command) peaceable and intelligent administration in 1971, Okinawa's Camp Foster was notorious for its race riots and narcotics; these days, the sight of young soldiers smiling and relaxing while guarding the helicopter crash sight is enough to raise the ire of a local newspaper (Okinawa Times, September 5).
Okinawa straddles many borders: national, cultural, military, commercial, and temporal. It is a center holding the desires and remembrances of forces in opposition to each other. In all likelihood, the direction of these islands will be decided in some far-off capital that equally as likely will cause a reaction in another. But it is also to the credit of the residents they have found a rootedness even if the ground itself shifts.
Adam Lebowitz is a teacher and translator living in Japan 13 years. His articles have appeared in Counterpunch and Japan Focus and he is completing a collection of original Japanese poetry. His e-mail is noriko-adam@tokai.or.jp.
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Burmese generals reinvent dark days
heraldsun
21oct04
http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,11131721%255E401,00.html
HARDLINERS in Burma's military regime were consolidating their control of the country yesterday after ousting the Prime Minister, painting a gloomy prospect for the release of detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
Prime Minister Khin Nyunt was arrested and put under house arrest for alleged corruption on Tuesday after a power struggle within the junta's top ranks.
Burmese state radio and television said General Khin Nyunt, 65, had retired for "health reasons" and had been replaced by Lieutenant-General Soe Win, who has publicly stated his opposition to talks with Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy.
General Soe Win was seen as an organiser behind a violent clash between Ms Suu Kyi's supporters and a pro-junta mob in May last year that heralded the Nobel peace laureate's latest period of house arrest.
Representatives of ethnic groups vital to the stuttering democratic process were gathering in Rangoon after being summoned by the military, according to sources in Burma.
The deposed premier was seen as responsible for persuading almost 20 ethnic groups opposed to the regime to sign up to ceasefire agreements.
Their cooperation is seen as vital to any success for the junta's seven-point democracy roadmap with its eventual goal of national elections - although Western observers have dismissed the plan as a sham. Democracy activists have also criticised it because it has no provision for the release of Ms Suu Kyi.
United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan called yesterday for "the Myanmar authorities to remain committed to the process of national reconciliation and democratisation" and urged Rangoon to release Ms Suu Kyi "without further delay".
Rangoon was calm yesterday with the military keeping a low-profile.
Jewellery shops and cinemas were closed for fear of looting during the changeover.
Barbed wire was laid out in front of the roads to the homes of senior military leaders in the capital but security overall remained low key, according to witnesses.
The isolated regime closed its border checkpoints as the drama played out and telephone communication with Rangoon became difficult amid the rumours of change.
"We are a little bit concerned that in the future it will be more difficult for our businesses until things become clearer," a businessman in Rangoon said. "We will just have to wait and see."
Pro-democracy supporters said they were pessimistic about the political changes and the rise of Soe Win, an ally of the junta's hardline head, Than Shwe.
Major-General Myint Swe, who led the operation to put the former premier under arrest, takes General Khin Nyunt's position as head of military intelligence that he held for 20 years.
Ms Suu Kyi's party reacted cautiously to the new appointment.
"We must wait and see. It does not depend so much on Soe Win but on the No.1 (Than Shwe)," party spokesman U Lwin said.
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Myanmar power play leaves India smiling
Asia Times
By Sudha Ramachandran
Oct 21, 2004
http://atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/FJ21Df01.html
BANGALORE - Even as New Delhi prepares to welcome Myanmar's top general to India next week, dramatic developments in Yangon might improve the mood at this historic interaction. With the arrest of premier Khin Nyunt, known to back China in the Sino-Indian contest for influence in Myanmar, the balance is believed to have tilted in India's favor.
Than Shwe, head of the powerful State Peace and Development Council - the junta that rules Myanmar - and also commander-in-chief of its defense forces, will be the first Myanmar head of state to visit India in 25 years. New Delhi, which has been attempting to woo Myanmar's generals in recent years, is preparing to roll out the red carpet.
Only a couple of days ago, it seemed India's bid to court Myanmar's top general was running into rough weather. A three-day convention held in Delhi over the weekend called for the restoration of democracy in Myanmar. More than 100 leaders of various pro-democracy and ethnic-minority groups from Myanmar, as well as representatives of Western non-governmental organizations dealing with Myanmar, participated in the convention, which was incidentally convened by former Indian defense minister George Fernandes. An embarrassed Ministry of External Affairs rushed to get the convention deferred, calling on Fernandes - a "friend" of Myanmar's pro-democracy activists who was himself part of a government that actively courted the junta - to postpone the meet. When he refused, India denied the "prime minister" of the coalition government of the "Union of Burma", Sein Win, a visa to attend the seminar.
The gloom the Delhi convention cast over India's proposed overtures to General Than Shwe has now been lifted somewhat by the dramatic ouster of pro-China Khin Nyunt. Khin Nyunt incidentally was also close to Pakistan. With Khin Nyunt now out in the cold, Delhi just might be able to breathe easier.
Neutralizing China's significant influence in Myanmar has been a key concern that has driven and determined India's policy in recent years. India has traditionally backed pro-democracy movements in its neighborhood, and this was the case with Myanmar as well. When the military junta ignored the verdict of the 1991 general election in which the National League for Democracy (NLD) won a landslide majority, India was among the most vociferous of the countries demanding that the junta respect the verdict. It extended moral support and more - Myanmar's pro-democracy activists were provided sanctuary on Indian soil, the government-controlled All India Radio broadcast pro-democracy propaganda - to the struggle for democracy led by NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Suu Kyi was even honored with the Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding in 1995.
India's policy toward Myanmar was based in part on a principled position to give its support to pro-democracy struggles in the region. It was also based on historic ties between India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Myanmar's independence hero, Aung San (Suu Kyi's father). There were emotional links as well - Suu Kyi acquired her university education in Delhi.
But India slowly woke up to the fact that a policy toward Myanmar based on emotions and principles was not serving India's security interests. While India was backing the democratic movement, China had been backing the generals since the late 1980s. Unlike the rest of the world, which had condemned the military for its brutal crackdown in 1988, China remained silent. And when the rest of the world refused to do business with Myanmar in a bid to pressure the junta to restore democracy in the country, China extended a supportive hand by engaging in diverse forms of cooperation, including the sale and supply of military equipment, trade in consumer goods, building Myanmar's infrastructure and so on.
China's rising profile in Myanmar was seen in Delhi as a direct threat to Indian security interests. Most worrying for India was the growing Chinese naval presence in the Bay of Bengal. Indian intelligence agencies have repeatedly drawn attention to the Chinese-built radar facility on Myanmar's Coco Islands (near India's Andaman and Nicobar Islands), which is reportedly serving as a listening post for Beijing on India's missile-testing facilities situated on its east coast.
But there were other reasons for India's decision to improve ties with Myanmar's military junta. The raging insurgency in the Indian northeast that borders Myanmar was an important factor. Many of the insurgents have set up camps and training facilities across the border in Myanmar. Tackling the insurgency required a crackdown on their sanctuaries in Myanmar. And this, India realized, was not possible without the help of Myanmar's generals.
There was also the problem of the narcotics said to be flowing from the Golden Triangle through Thailand and Myanmar into India. Cooperation with Myanmar was essential to crack down on this issue as well.
India's economic interests, too, figured in the calculated move to court the junta. India's "Look East" policy, adopted in the mid-1990s, was an important reason Myanmar emerged as a country with which India wanted to do business. For India, the road to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations ran through Myanmar. Besides, the construction of roads and railway lines through Myanmar to Thailand and beyond was seen as essential to step up trade with Southeast Asian countries. This land link through Myanmar and the prosperity the trade would bring were viewed in Delhi as the best way to bring the poverty-stricken, insurgency-ridden northeastern states out of their isolation.
These calculations all contributed to India's decision to tone down its anti-junta position in Myanmar. Initially this decision resulted in India softening its rhetoric against the junta. By the end of the 1990s that had changed to an active courting of the generals. Today, India calls for "reconciliation" in Myanmar and simultaneously does business with the generals.
But dealing with the generals has not been an easy game. Given the bitter power struggle within the senior ranks, India's interaction with the junta meant that it, too, would be sucked into the power game. With Khin Nyunt backing China, it was only natural that his main rival Maung Aye, the second-most-powerful man in Myanmar, warmed up to India. It is said that Maung Aye was concerned with Myanmar's excessive dependence on China and used this issue to undercut Khin Nyunt's influence by being more responsive to India.
It is against this background that Than Shwe will be given a red-carpet welcome in New Delhi. Top-most on India's agenda is the issue of dismantling camps set up by northeastern insurgents in Myanmar. This has gained urgency, especially after the series of blasts that rocked the states of Assam and Nagaland in recent months.
According to a report in Indian Express, four hotlines exist between the armies of the two countries, the highest at the level of Corps Commander in the areas along the India-Myanmar border. Citing official sources, the report says that reactivation of these lines could be the first step towards developing a more coordinated approach in fighting the insurgency.
"Operational options that have been mooted so far at different levels include simultaneous flushing out of insurgents from either side and then trapping them along the border. There is also a view that the border be patrolled jointly and a combined operation launched only after completing the groundwork." The report goes on to say that while both sides have agreed to cooperate in tackling the insurgents, there are hurdles in implementing joint action on the ground. India has Maung Aye to thank for Myanmar's cooperation in fighting the northeast insurgency. And during meetings with Than Shwe, Delhi will seek to move the shared intention with regard to fighting insurgency to concrete action on the ground. With Khin Nyunt checkmated, it is likely that Maung Aye will succeed the aging and reportedly ailing Than Shwe. And that would come as good news for Delhi.
India's heart might beat for Suu Kyi, but its head has led it to court the generals in Myanmar in recent years. And that appears to have paid off - at least for now.
Sudha Ramachandran is an independent researcher/writer based in Bangalore, India. She has a doctoral degree from the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. Her areas of interest include terrorism, conflict zones and gender and conflict. Formerly an assistant editor at Deccan Herald (Bangalore) she now teaches at the Asian College of Journalism, Chennai.
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Blair sees battalion for Iraq, not Bush
October 21, 2004
By Ed Johnson
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20041020-100007-6708r.htm
LONDON - British troops would be redeployed in Iraq to help stabilize the conflict-torn country, not boost President Bush's chances of re-election, Prime Minister Tony Blair said yesterday as he tried to quell dissent among skeptical lawmakers.
Many members of Mr. Blair's governing Labor Party are deeply suspicious of a U.S. request for a battalion of British troops, currently stationed in southern Iraq, to move north to the more volatile, U.S.-controlled sector near Baghdad.
Mr. Blair said he has not decided whether to grant the request, which he says came from U.S. commanders trying to free up American forces to intensify their attack on insurgents.
Critics, however, say the move would provide political cover for Mr. Bush, who has faced repeated accusations from Democratic nominee Sen. John Kerry that the United States is going it alone in Iraq.
"We are about to enter a period of increased activity in Iraq. This is nothing to do with the American elections. It has everything to do with the Iraqi elections in January," Mr. Blair told the House of Commons.
"We have to create the conditions in which fair elections under United Nations supervision can take place."
Mr. Blair confirmed that troops from the Scottish regiment, the First Battalion Black Watch, could be redeployed from the southern port city of Basra.
"There are some 650 troops involved. I cannot say where in Iraq they are going. They will remain under the operational command of U.K. forces," he said, adding that they would be home in Britain by Christmas.
Mr. Blair and his Cabinet ministers insist it is a military matter, to support American forces rather than shore up Mr. Bush ahead of the Nov. 2 election.
The senior British officer in Iraq, Gen. John McColl, agreed.
"The request is in response to the situation on the ground. There's been a spike in insurgent activity as a result of the Ramadan period," Gen. McColl told British Broadcasting Corp. radio yesterday.
Several lawmakers have asked why the United States, which has about 130,000 troops in Iraq, needs British troops to plug a gap.
"I think it is important to understand this. Although it is true that there are 130,000 American troops ... not all of those troops are suitable for the particular tasks they are being called upon to do," Mr. Blair said. "It is important that we recognize that there is an enormous amount of cover that the Americans provide us."
Britain has about 9,000 troops in Iraq, operating in the relatively peaceful area around Basra. Sending British soldiers into the U.S.-controlled sector, where there are more attacks by insurgents, carries a risk of higher casualties and would be politically sensitive for Mr. Blair. Sixty-eight British soldiers have been killed in Iraq, compared with more than 1,000 U.S. troops.
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Britain to Send 850 Troops Toward Baghdad
October 21, 2004
By PATRICK E. TYLER
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/21/international/middleeast/21cnd-britscnd.html?oref=login
LONDON, Oct. 21 - Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon announced today that 850 British troops currently deployed in southern Iraq would advance toward Baghdad to replace American fighting units that are expected to mount an assault on Iraqi insurgents west of the capital near Falluja.
"The government has decided that we should accept the U.S. request for assistance," Mr. Hoon told Parliament at midday. He said the deployment would take "a matter of weeks, not months" and that it would be "limited in scope, time and space."
Mr. Hoon's announcement ended weeks of speculation about the role of British forces in American-led efforts to suppress an insurgency that is threatening to delay and disrupt Iraq's national elections, set for January.
"After careful evaluation, the chiefs of staff have advised me that U.K. forces are able to undertake the proposed operation, that there is a compelling military operational justification for doing so, and that it entails a militarily acceptable level of risk for U.K. forces," Mr. Hoon told the House of Commons.
Opposition members of Parliament have questioned why the United States, with 130,000 troops in Iraq, needed 850 British forces for the approaching mission.
The Iraqi war is deeply unpopular with the British public, and Mr. Blair has come under increasing criticism for the involvement of Britain, which has about 9,000 troops in Iraq.
When the possibility first arose that Britain might station troops in volatile areas, away from Basra, the British stronghold in the south, it raised concerns among lawmakers in Britain and led to charges that Mr. Blair was seeking to boost President Bush's re-election bid.
On Monday Mr. Hoon replied to scathing criticism in the Commons by declaring: "I want to make it clear that the request is a military request. And although it is linked to elections, it is not the U.S. elections, but with efforts to create the best possible security situation in which to hold the Iraqi elections in January."
Mr. Hoon said the British troops would be drawn from Scotland's Black Watch regiment, whose soldiers are among the most experienced and best equipped in Iraq.
British officials have also emphasized a determination among British military commanders to play a strong supporting role in any new American operation to pacify the country in advance of the elections.
Mr. Hoon's description of the timing of the operation - "weeks" rather than "months" - also indicates that the Bush administration may be preparing to mount a major military campaign in Iraq during the final weeks of the presidential election campaign.
Prime Minister Tony Blair, speaking to Parliament on Wednesday, said the redeployment of British forces and any prospective military campaign would have nothing to do with the American presidential elections, and everything to do with guaranteeing free elections in Iraq.
Gen. Sir Michael Walker, chief of the defense staff, speaking at a news conference after Mr. Hoon, said there would be a 30-day limit on the British redeployment.
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Britain agrees to send 850 troops into US-controlled zone in Iraq
LONDON (AFP)
Oct 21, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041021165521.4d4f34x5.html
Britain agreed Thursday to an unprecedented US request to redeploy 850 crack troops to a volatile area to the west of Baghdad, freeing up US soldiers for an expected assault on the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah.
"The government has decided that we should accept the US request for assistance," Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon told parliament, adding that the deployment would be "limited in scope, time and space".
The redeployment marks the first time since the March 2003 invasion that British troops have left southern Iraq for US-controlled areas, where they are liable to come under hostile fire.
Britain has about 8,500 troops in the relatively tame south, mostly around Basra, compared to 138,000 US troops in the centre and north.
Hoon said the 850 troops would be drawn predominantly from Scotland's Black Watch regiment, currently in southern Iraq, to relieve a US unit for other tasks, with some anticipating an assault on Falluja, west of Baghdad.
The Black Watch, an armoured infantry battalion equipped with Warrior armoured troop carriers, contains some of Britain's most battle-hardened troops which helped last year in the overthrow of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.
The 850-strong force contains hundreds of specialists from other units, including experts in reconnaissance, engineering, logistics, and communications.
"They are not going to go for a few days," Major General Robin Brims, Deputy Chief of Joint Operations, told journalists at the Ministry of Defence in London.
"We've got the order," he said. "Now we've got to make the necessary arrangements."
The Black Watch battalion had beeen on reserve for British commanders in the south and its tour will now be extended, while the first battalion of the Scots Guards regiment will replace in the south them as intended.
British troops operating in the US zone will remain under the overall command of Britain's most senior officer in Iraq, Major General Bill Rollo, but the US Marine Corps will control their day-to-day tactical operations.
This means that if the US military leadership want to change the battlegroup's mission or tasks, they will have to obtain Rollo's agreement.
They will continue to use the British rules of engagements.
Chief of Defence Staff General Sir Michael Walker, Britain most senior military officer, said that the redeployment was subject to "a 30-day limit", although he left open the possibility of an extension.
If troops were still needed in the area after that time, the Black Watch would not necessarily be replaced by British troops, although British commanders have been drawing up contingency plans in case they need to send another battalion to replace them.
Thursday's announcement ended nearly a week of speculation that Blair would consent to a Pentagon plea for British troops to "backfill" for US forces ahead of an expected US assault on the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah.
Hoon insisted that the decision was unrelated to US President George W. Bush's fight to win a second term in the White House in his November 2 election showdown with Democratic challenger John Kerry. "I emphasize again that this was a military request," he said, "and has been considered and accepted on operational grounds after a thorough military evaluation by the (British) chiefs of staff."
"This deployment is a vital part of the process of creating the right conditions for the Iraqi elections to take place in January," he said.
It is not clear exactly where the British troops will be based although it will be somewhere in Multi-National Force (West), the operational sector that lies in the centre of Iraq to the west of Baghdad.
There were frequent shouts of protest during the exchanges that followed Hoon's statement.
Opposition Conservative spokesman for defence Nicholas Soames said he supported the redeployment as "a necessary military contribution" to the task of ensuring peace in Iraq in the run-up to January's elections.
But he said ministers would be relieved Hoon had ended "the unnecessary and unacceptable confusion of the last few days".
Hoon denied newspaper reports claiming Britain planned to send a further 1,300 soldiers to Iraq.
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Defense Work Gives CACI Boost In Earnings
By Ellen McCarthy
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 21, 2004; Page E05
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49923-2004Oct20.html
Lucrative Defense Department contracts, gained partly through acquisitions, helped boost CACI International Inc.'s first-quarter revenue and profit.
The Arlington government contractor earned $19.8 million (66 cents a share) in the quarter ended Sept. 30, compared with a profit of $13 million (44 cents) in the comparable quarter last year. The company's first-quarter revenue rose 65 percent to $388.7 million.
J.P. "Jack" London, CACI's chief executive, said the government's war on terrorism has fueled much of the company's growth. "It creates the national policy environment where resources are going be expended in areas where we have offerings and where we have positioned the company to be a provider."
The company said its quarterly revenue from Defense Department contracts alone rose 86 percent from the comparable quarter a year earlier. Revenue from Pentagon customers totaled $277.8 million. London said a "significant" portion of that growth was the result of CACI's acquisition of American Management Systems Inc.'s defense and intelligence group. The company completed the $550 million purchase of that division in May.
In the spring, the company's stock was hurt by allegations in an internal Army report that said one of CACI's employees was involved in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. Shares of CACI's stock traded as low as $37.14 in late May. The company's stock has rebounded and closed yesterday, before the after-hours earnings announcement, at $56.27, up 57 cents.
"Investors have really gotten back on the bandwagon for CACI," said William W. Hamilton, an analyst with Pershing LLC. "They continue to execute on their plan and are consistently delivering good numbers. I think they've really put together a . . . portfolio of capabilities that is in the right niches of where the government is spending its money, especially in intelligence work."
The company also raised its financial guidance for the year. CACI said it expects revenue for fiscal 2005 to fall between $1.53 billion and $1.58 billion and profit between $80.6 million and $83.6 million.
-------- europe
Romania Makes Pitch to Host US Military
Baku Today
21/10/2004
http://www.bakutoday.net/view.php?d=10774
As the United States begins to re-position its military forces to better combat the terrorist threat and deal with crises in the Middle East and Central Asia, Romania is trying to convince U.S. defense officials to move American troops to a dormant airbase on the Black Sea.
When U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld visited Romania last week for a NATO meeting, he was shown around a sprawling airbase near the port of Costanta in what reporters traveling with Mr. Rumsfeld described as a sales pitch. Adjacent to the airbase is a huge, under-utilized army facility and, nearby, are training ranges for armor and infantry as well as an air defense training area. But a Romanian general who asked not to be identified says the complex's main attraction for the Americans is its strategic location on the Black Sea and its relative proximity to hot spots like Iraq.
The Pentagon is already familiar with the facility. About 7,000 U.S. troops moved through the Mihail Kogalniceanu airbase in February and March of last year on their way to Iraq, and about 3,500 U.S. support personnel were stationed there temporarily. Three years ago, the Romanians allowed the Pentagon to use it as an air transport hub during the invasion of Afghanistan. The U.S. military spent more than three million dollars to upgrade the facility, but there are no U.S. troops there now.
The Romanian offer comes as the U.S. military seeks to create smaller military units that are more flexible and able to deploy quickly to various trouble spots. One goal of that strategy is to reduce the number of troops at large U.S. bases in such places as Germany and station them in smaller facilities in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.
Romania, a former communist state that became a member of NATO this year, but is still one of the poorest nations in Europe, stands to gain economically from any U.S. military presence. If U.S. troops were to relocate there, they would bring cash to a region that relies on revenue earned from summer tourism but struggles to get by in the off season.
Still, Romanians like defense analyst Cornel Codita, say the decision of the Romanian government to offer Washington the use of the complex is more political than economic. Mr. Codita says a U.S. presence in Romania will enhance his country's strategic alliance with the United States.
"It was not so much the economics involved, because everybody knew that there would be, at most, a local impact...So the whole emphasis is much more on the political impact," he said.
In a show of support for the United States, Romania has dispatched nearly 600 troops to Afghanistan and another 700 to southern Iraq, where they are working alongside British forces. Mr. Codita says Romania sees its participation in those operations as being part of its duty as a U.S. ally
"You need to be an ally in difficult times to be credible, and we are still building our credibility inside the alliance...This is not a case of countries which are wanting to go to war, which are willing to go," Mr. Codita said. "It's a case of how do you deal with a dictatorship which is threatening the whole equilibrium in a strategic position and is, by that effect, threatening the security of the entire international community."
Not everybody is happy with the prospect of a U.S. military presence on the Black Sea. Russia, which is still angry at NATO's expansion into the Baltic states, is also skeptical about Washington's post-Cold War shift of its forces from western to eastern Europe. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov signaled Moscow's continuing doubts about any such move after meeting with his NATO counterparts in the Romanian mountain resort of Poiana Brasov last week.
"The key question here, of course, is why such bases would be, in fact, installed. In order to counter real threats? That's one thing. But if they were mythical threats, that's another matter altogether," Mr. Ivanov said.
But Mr. Ivanov acknowledged that his country, too, is opening bases on its southern flank, in such countries as Tajikistan, because "that is where the threat to Russia comes from."
At the U.S. European Command in Stuttgart, Germany, officials emphasize that the Pentagon has made no decision yet about taking up Romania's offer to use the facilities near Constanta. They say that decision is likely to be made next year. A Pentagon assessment team is to visit the facilities and similar installations in neighboring Bulgaria later this year.
If Washington does decide to use the Romanian base, those officials say, it would station no more than a few hundred U.S. troops there on a permanent basis but would increase the numbers for training exercises or in the event of future military operations.
-------- haiti
US Lifts Haitian Arms Embargo as Tensions Mount
(Inter Press Service)
by Jim Lobe
October 21, 2004
http://www.antiwar.com/lobe/?articleid=3826
Amid growing reports of violence in Haiti's capital Port-au-Prince, the United States announced Tuesday it will consider requests to sell weapons to the country's interim government on a case-by-case basis, signaling the end to a 13-year arms embargo.
The decision, confirmed by the State Department, appears designed to begin supplying weapons to the 2,500-man police force that has carried out gun battles with militants loyal to ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who was flown into exile aboard a U.S.-chartered jet earlier this year.
The police, however, have also been accused of firing on peaceful pro-Aristide demonstrators and rounding up well-known leaders of Aristide's political movement, Lavalas.
Human rights group Amnesty International (AI) on Tuesday denounced last week's arrest of the Reverend Gerard Jean-Juste while the priest was distributing food to hundreds of children and poor people at a church in a Port-au-Prince suburb.
According to testimony gathered by the London-based group, Jean-Juste was punched while being dragged out of the presbytery by police officers, some of whom were wearing masks.
The police later said the arrest was a preemptive action based on intelligence that the priest was linked to pro-Aristide gangs, although no evidence to support that charge has been released.
"Amnesty International considers that if the arrest is politically motivated for Rev. Jean-Juste being a vocal supporter of former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Amnesty International would consider him a prisoner of conscience," said the organization in a statement.
The rise in tensions in the Caribbean nation began in September after Hurricane Jeanne devastated the port town of Gonaives, Haiti's third-largest city, killing as many as 2,000 people and destroying hundreds of homes and businesses.
The interim government of Prime Minister Gerard Latortue, which took power with the help of U.S. Marines and French troops after Aristide's departure, failed to coordinate or provide much help to the stranded population, fueling popular discontent with the regime, particularly among the poorest sectors that have long supported Aristide.
Pro-Aristide demonstrations broke out on Sept. 30, the 13th anniversary of the military "coup d'etat" that exiled the leader the first time in 1991. Aristide, the first democratically elected president in Haiti's history, is now living in South Africa.
At least two protesters were killed by police Sept. 30. The following day, the remains of three policemen who had been beheaded were found on the street, bringing tensions in the capital to a boil. Some 50 people have since been killed in sporadic violence.
Since the anniversary, the situation in the capital has been unsettled, while former soldiers and military officers who led an insurrection against Aristide last winter and who still control much of the countryside announced they intend to move to the capital to back the police against pro-Aristide gangs and militants.
The former soldiers have pressed the government to restore the army, which was abolished by Aristide after his return from exile in 1994.
The result is a growing sense of chaos in Haiti, according to Professor Robert Fatton, a Haiti expert at the University of Virginia, who described the situation as "very explosive."
"What's going on now is that the Latortue government is losing control of the situation," he said in an interview.
"The armed insurgents who opposed Aristide are increasingly taking center stage in the political situation, which will probably spell significant trouble for the country. They literally want to go into Cite Soleil [the capital's poorest neighborhood] and try to repress that segment of the population that continues to support Aristide."
Last week Washington accused Aristide supporters of promoting violence against the regime, and over the weekend Latortue himself accused South African President Minister Thabo Mbeki of "not respecting international law" by permitting Aristide to rally his supporters from South African territory.
Mbeki's spokesman rejected the charge with "contempt," noting that the South African president "cannot be used as a scapegoat for failure by the interim Haitian authorities to bring about peace and stability."
Jim Morrell, director of the Haiti Democracy Project (HDP), a lobby group closely tied to the Latortue government, also charged that Aristide was inciting his supporters.
"We know Lavalas leaders are in touch with Aristide over the phone, but we don't claim to know the contents of those conversations," he said. Morrell called for the 3,000-man United Nations peacekeeping force now in Haiti to be reinforced and "get proactive, because if it doesn't, a growing part of the Haitian people will look on the damned army as their salvation." "As bad as is the memory of the army years," added Morrell, "it's even worse now with Lavalas gangs in the streets."
The UN force, which took over from U.S. and French forces in July, is currently only at less than half strength.
But Fatton said neither more troops nor renewed U.S. aid to the police is likely to resolve the situation, particularly given the failure of the government to take a more conciliatory attitude toward Lavalas, which most observers believe remains the most popular political movement in the country.
"The UN could send more troops, but that's not really the problem," he said. "There has to be some sort of real, meaningful dialogue between the different sectors in Haiti, particularly Lavalas. The growing and very explosive polarization, with the former army entering the scene and the government lacking the means or the will to curb it, spells big trouble."
Fatton also accused the government of using Aristide as a scapegoat for its own failures.
"They want to portray him as completely unpopular and yet blame him for paralyzing Port-au-Prince; they're trying to find a way to explain that the country is falling apart and they are not responsible, so they arrest Lavalas leaders, some of whom could not possibly be involved with violence."
Washington imposed an arms embargo against Haiti after the coup against Aristide in 1991, although it helped equip and train the police force created after the United States restored Aristide to power in 1994.
The State Department said Tuesday it would consider requests for arms from the Latortue government on a case-by-case basis.
Fatton said the situation, particularly the increasingly desperate plight of the tens of thousands of people in Gonaives, could result soon in a new exodus of Haitian "boat people," something Morrell also said was quite possible.
Both analysts stressed that the Bush administration was hoping "to keep the lid on" both the violence and any chance that thousands of Haitians would take to the sea, and was unlikely to do much more pending the Nov. 2 presidential election.
-------- iraq
Falluja Chiefs Demand Halt to U.S. Airstrikes
October 21, 2004
By EDWARD WONG
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/21/international/middleeast/21cnd-iraq.html
CAMP FALLUJA, Iraq, Oct. 21 - Tribal sheiks and clerics in the insurgent stronghold of Falluja met today to discuss reopening negotiations with the interim Iraqi government over a peace agreement to prevent an expected American invasion. The leaders put out a statement demanding that the government led by Prime Minister Ayad Allawi halt the almost daily American airstrikes in the city and help families who have fled Falluja return to their homes.
If the government meets those conditions, the leaders said, the city will take it as a sign of good faith and continue talks. But at around 4 p.m. here, explosions were heard in the southern districts of Falluja, with
aircraft flying overhead, witnesses said. The attack lasted for about an hour. There were no immediate reports of casualties from the American military or the Falluja hospital.
The meeting of city leaders came just three days after the lead negotiator for the leaders of Falluja, Khalidal-Jumali, said the city had broken off talks with the Iraqi government and the American military. The holy warriors in Falluja, 35 miles west of Baghdad, had refused to carry on negotiations while airstrikes continued, Mr. Jumali said.
Dr. Allawi's recent demand that city leaders turn over the Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had also chilled the talks.
"It's a common saying that if you want your orders to be followed, you must order something that people are capable of," Abdullah al-Janabi, the white-turbaned head of the mujahedeen council in Falluja, said today in an interview with Al Jazeera, the Arab satellite network.
In recent weeks, the American military and Dr. Allawi have increased their threats against the leaders of Falluja, saying an invasion by marines and other troops will likely take place soon to bring the rebel city back under the control of the Iraqi government. Another sign of an impending offensive came in London today, when British Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon announced that 850 British troops will move from the south into central Iraq to allow American soldiers to concentrate on preparing an assault on Falluja.
Marines aboard a transport helicopter that touched down early this morning here at Camp Falluja, the main American base in the area, talked eagerly of taking the offensive against the mujahedeen. The marines withdrew from the city last May after turning over control to an Iraqi militia that quickly dissolved, with some members even joining the insurgents. Since then, jihadists have built up defenses and set up Taliban-like rule in Falluja, allowing militant groups such as Tawhid and Jihad, led by Mr. Zarqawi, to thrive.
American officials in Washington have said the invasion almost certainly will not take place before the presidential elections in the United States. That gives the American military a narrow window in which to subdue Falluja, election experts say, because significant swaths of Sunni-dominated rebel territory, includingFalluja, must be brought under control by the time of the scheduled elections in January in order for the elections to appear legitimate. In the northern city of Mosul, Dr. Allawi said the government was still committed to pacifying Falluja through political means.
"We are expending all political efforts so that the brothers and the honorable residents of Falluja stick
to the decisions of the government," he said to pool reporters in between meetings on Thursday with city leaders. "When political patience runs out that will be another matter."
"The important thing is that they stick to the sovereignty of the law, disband illegal armed organizations and hand over heavy and medium weapons," Dr. Allawi added. "We are determined that this happens across the country."
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'CATASTROPHIC SUCCESS'
Debate Lingering on Decision to Dissolve the Iraqi Military
October 21, 2004
By MICHAEL R. GORDON
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/21/international/21war.html?ei=5094&en=8068024c5d6929a4&hp=&ex=1098417600&partner=homepage&pagewanted=all&position=
IRAQIS IN INSURGENCY'S CROSSFIRE An Iraqi national guardsman, wounded when Americans came under heavy fire in August during a search in Najaf, was taken to a forward operating base for treatment.
hen Maj. Gen. David H. Petraeus flew to Baghdad on June 14, 2003, he had a blunt message for the American-led occupation authority. As the commander of the 101st Airborne Division, General Petraeus had been working tirelessly to win the support of Iraqis in Mosul and the neighboring provinces in northern Iraq.
But the authority's decree to abolish the Iraqi Army and to forgo paying 350,000 soldiers had jolted much of Iraq. Riots had broken out in cities. Just the day before, 16 of General Petraeus's soldiers had been wounded trying to put down a violent demonstration.
Arriving at the huge Abu Ghraib North Palace for a ceremony, General Petraeus spied Walter B. Slocombe, an adviser to L. Paul Bremer III, who headed the authority. Sidling up to him, General Petraeus said that the decision to leave the soldiers without a livelihood had put American lives at risk.
More than a year later, Mr. Bremer's disbanding of the Iraqi Army still casts a shadow over the occupation of Iraq. The American military had been counting on using Iraqi soldiers to help rebuild the country and impose order along its borders. Instead, as a violent insurgency convulsed the nation, United States forces found themselves deprived of a way to put an Iraqi face on the occupation.
While Mr. Bremer soon reversed himself on paying salaries to the ex-soldiers, his decision to formally dissolve the Iraqi military and methodically build a new one, battalion by battalion, still ranks as one of the most contentious issues of the post-war.
Mr. Slocombe argues that the move was necessary to establish an Iraqi military that was not tainted by corruption and was acceptable to ethnic groups that had long been repressed by Saddam Hussein's military. He also says that it was the only possible course because so many Iraqi soldiers had fled their posts and drifted back into the population and military bases had been picked clean by looters.
But senior American generals were privately urging a much different approach, according to interviews with military and civilian officials. Top commanders were meeting secretly with former Iraqi officers to discuss the best way to rebuild the force and recall Iraqi soldiers back to duty when Mr. Bremer arrived in Baghdad with his plan.
"It was absolutely the wrong decision," said Col. Paul Hughes of the Army, who served as an aide to Jay Garner, a retired three-star general and the first civilian administrator of Iraq. "We changed from being a liberator to an occupier with that single decision,'' he said. "By abolishing the army, we destroyed in the Iraqi mind the last symbol of sovereignty they could recognize and as a result created a significant part of the resistance."
Drafting the Plan
When the Bush administration first began to plan for post-war Iraq in early 2003, disbanding the Iraqi military was not part of the strategy. Douglas J. Feith, the under secretary of defense, outlined a policy for retaining and retraining the existing Iraqi military in a March 2003 meeting of the National Security Council that President Bush attended.
The idea, which was developed with General Garner, was to take existing units, remove high-level Baathists and supporters of Saddam Hussein, and put the soldiers to work. The Iraqi military, Pentagon officials reasoned, would have its own transport and could help with the reconstruction, functioning as a kind of modern day Civilian Conservation Corps. Units that proved themselves capable and politically reliable could help the American military maintain order.
At the White House meeting, Mr. Feith made another argument for using the existing army. Iraq was racked by unemployment and taking 350,000 armed men, cutting off their income and, in effect, throwing them out on the street could be disastrous.
American commanders also backed that approach. In a March 2003 meeting with a team of visiting Pentagon officials, General John P. Abizaid, then Gen. Tommy Franks's deputy, expressed concerns that the Americans would arouse resentment if they enforced security in Iraq largely by themselves. He favored a quick turnover of power to an interim Iraqi authority and the use of Iraqi forces to complement and eventually replace the Americans.
"We must in all things be modest," General Abizaid said, according to notes taken by a Pentagon official. "We are an antibody in their culture."
There was a military imperative as well. The American commanders knew they might have sufficient forces to oust Mr. Hussein, but it would be difficult to control a large nation with 25 million people and porous borders with Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Kuwait. The V Corps, which oversaw United States Army forces in Iraq, wanted Iraqi Army units to patrol the borders to block terrorists, jihadists and Iranian- sponsored groups from sneaking into the country and to prevent loyalists and possible caches of unconventional weapons from getting out, a former V Corps officer said.
The Bush administration did not just discuss keeping the old army. General Garner's team found contractors to retrain it. MPRI, a consulting company based in Alexandria, Va., and run by Carl Vuono, a retired general and former Army chief of staff, received an initial contract for $625,000. The company sent a nine-member team to Kuwait to begin creating a program to involve former Iraqi soldiers in reconstruction.
RONCO, a Washington consulting company, developed a proposal to screen Iraqi soldiers so they could join a new fighting force or be retrained for other duties. The company drew up a detailed plan for three screening centers in northern, central and southern Iraq.
Civilian and military planners had been actively encouraging Iraqi Army units to surrender en masse or to flee and not fight for Mr. Hussein. There were indications the Iraqis would do just that. Faced with advancing American and British troops and a furious barrage from the air, most of the enemy soldiers fled in the first days of the war instead of surrendering. Still, the American generals decided it was vital to use the Iraqi forces, who many officers figured had done what they had been asked.
The New Iraqi Military
On April 17, little more than a week after American troops first entered Baghdad, General Abizaid joined in a satellite video conference with senior officials, including Paul D. Wolfowitz, the deputy defense secretary. General Abizaid noted that no Iraqi units were still in place but urged that the United States form a three-division interim Iraqi military using units that had "self-demobilized" as well as members of opposition groups, who would be invited to appear at processing centers.
In Iraq, the American generals were trying to field a new Iraqi military. On May 9, Lt. Gen. David McKiernan and other senior officers met with Faris Naima, a former Iraqi officer, in a meeting coordinated by a C.I.A. official in Baghdad.
Mr. Naima had the professional bearing of a soldier and spoke fluent English. He had been the commander of Al Bakr Military College, a training ground for Iraq's top officers. Suspect politically, but still valued by Mr. Hussein's government, he was appointed as the Iraqi ambassador to the Philippines and then Austria. According to a report by Kuna, the Kuwaiti news agency, Mr. Hussein's son Qusay ordered him and his wife to return to Baghdad after their tour in Vienna, but Mr. Naima refused.
Wearing a frayed business suit at the meeting with the American generals, Mr. Naima pulled out a folded piece of paper from his jacket that outlined his plan for how to proceed.
Because looting had broken out in Baghdad and crime was rampant, he said a show of power was needed. The most important thing, he said, was security. He also said the Americans had to act fast to get the Iraqi noncommissioned officers and the police back to work, according to an officer who was present.
Mr. Naima urged the Americans to establish three- Iraqi military divisions, which would be deployed in northern, central and southern Iraq. An army company would be stationed in each major town to back up the police. Mr. Naima said there were plenty of potential military leaders who were not committed Baathists. The idea, he said, would be to start at the top, create a new Iraqi Ministry of Defense, and then work down. All the officers would be required to denounce the Baath Party.
When the Americans wondered where they would find the officers, Mr. Naima had an answer. I can bring them to you, he told the generals.
He also offered some political advice. The Americans should announce a departure plan so Iraqis did not view them as occupiers. And they had to pay the military, the police and the bureaucrats. Iraq was a nation of civil servants, he said, and they needed their salaries to survive.
The Americans were impressed. They thought they could work from the top down as well from the bottom up to summon Iraqi soldiers to duty, screen them and quickly install a new force.
While the American generals and the C.I.A. were working on reviving the army, General Garner's occupation authority was making parallel efforts. Soon after arriving in Baghdad, one of his top planners, Colonel Hughes of the Army, heard from an officer in the 101st Airborne Division, whose troops were patrolling Baghdad. Some former Iraqi officers had told the Americans they wanted to receive their salaries.
After securing approval from senior officers, Colonel Hughes met with the group at the officers' club of the Iraqi Republican Guard. The men, calling themselves the Independent Military Gathering, said they wanted to cooperate with the Americans. Though many wanted to work outside the military, they were willing to supply names of potential recruits, including lower ranking noncommissioned officials. Before the war, they had had removed computers containing military personnel records from the Iraqi Defense Ministry. Eventually, they gave the Americans a list of some 50,000 to 70,000 names, including the military police.
In Washington, though, Mr. Bremer was developing a dramatically different approach. A boyish-looking former diplomat, Mr. Bremer was to replace General Garner in May. He would become known in Baghdad for his take-charge personality and his trademark desert boots worn with Brooks Brothers suits.
He believed that many of the problems with violence and crime that the United States faced in Iraq stemmed from Iraqi fears that Mr. Hussein and his Baathist supporters might outlast the American occupiers and claw their way back to power. He wanted to take bold action to demonstrate that the Baathists were through, once and for all.
In a memo to the Pentagon, Mr. Bremer , noted his desire that "my arrival in Iraq be marked by clear, public and decisive steps to reassure Iraqis that we are determined to eradicate Saddamism." While his main purpose was to promote the de-Baathification of Iraq, plans to abolish Mr. Hussein's army soon became part of the initiative. Mr. Slocombe, who was under secretary of defense in the Clinton administration, recommended that the Iraqi military and the Ministry of Defense be formally eliminated.
As he saw it, the Iraqi Army had gone AWOL. There were no longer intact divisions, and many military vehicles and bases had been looted. Moreover, Mr. Slocombe thought the force was corrupt and dominated by Sunni officers. He did not believe it was feasible to recall the existing army and felt there was no choice but to build a new one from scratch.
After he arrived in Iraq, Mr. Slocombe met with Mr. Naima, former Iraqi officers and General McKiernan. Mr. Slocombe thanked the Iraqi officers but made it clear that he did not view them as the nucleus of a new Iraqi command, a participant said. It was a blow not only to the Iraqis but to the American military officers who thought they were identifying senior officers to help remake the army.
Mr. Feith, the senior deputy to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, said in an interview that Mr. Bremer's thinking represented a necessary shift. Mr. Feith said that using the Iraqi Army had seemed sensible because the value of putting an intact army to use outweighed the disadvantages of using a potentially corrupt force.
"It made sense at first to say we are going to use them," Mr. Feith said. "When we saw that the Army did not remain in units, that the people disappeared, that looters had stripped all of the infrastructure, all of the various pros that weighed in favor of using the army had been negated by events. And we were left with the cons, a bad, corrupt, cruel and undemocratic army."
After arriving in Iraq, Mr. Bremer formally issued Order No. 2, The Dissolution of Entities, which abolished the army.
The order, dated May 23, noted that the occupation authority planned to create in the near future the New Iraqi Corps as the first step in forming a national self-defense capability for a free Iraq. But the schedule for building that force was methodical and no one who had served in the Iraqi military at the rank of colonel and above was to be recruited without thorough vetting. There were provisions for making a termination payment to officers who were mustered out, but salaries would no longer be paid. There was no mention of a program to retrain the troops for other tasks.
The Administration's Role
The role of top Bush administration officials in approving the plan is unclear. Mr. Slocombe said the decision was the subject of extensive consultations with senior Defense Department officials in Washington. A draft of Mr. Bremer's decree abolishing the army, he said, was sent to Mr. Rumsfeld before it was issued.
Lawrence Di Rita, Mr. Rumsfeld's spokesman, said in an e-mail message that the issue was not taken up by cabinet-level officials and was "definitely not one that the secretary of defense decided."
General Peter Pace of the Marines, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the Joint Chiefs were not consulted about the decision.
Condoleezza Rice, Mr. Bush's national security adviser, indicated that the idea did not originate in the National Security Council but acknowledged that the White House did not object.
"I don't think that anybody thought it was wildly out of context with what we were trying to achieve and the whole structure had been set up so that some of those decisions could be made in the field or through the Pentagon chain," she said in an interview.
In the field, however, the plan was more contentious than many in Washington realized. Much of the debate did not concern the abolition of the army but the subsequent plan overseen by Mr. Slocombe to establish a new army from the ground up.
Under his schedule, which Mr. Slocombe said was worked out with military planners, it would take a year to field the first division of infantry - about 12,000 Iraqi troops - and two years to train and equip a three-division force. To avoid the taint of Baathism, no one from the rank of colonel and above could join without vetting.
The military did not like that approach. The commanders did not care whether the army was formally disbanded as long as a new one was quickly assembled to take its place. But General Abizaid wanted Iraqi soldiers available in several months, not several years, planners at his command said.
When Col. John Agoglia, the liaison between the occupation authority and General Franks of the Central Command, learned of the plan, he quickly called the military headquarters in Qatar. "There was a debate, which was not whether to formally disband the old army and not primarily about whether to recall old units," Mr. Slocombe said in an interview. "It was whether to put the process to train, equip and mold an Iraqi army under the command of select former Iraqi generals."
Mr. Slocombe said that his approach was no slower than that advocated by American commanders, because the extensive looting of the bases would have hindered retraining. He argued that his plan would produce a more reliable ally, not a Sunni-led force that would not be accepted by the Shiites and other ethnic group.
A former planner from General Franks's command strongly disagreed. "We wanted to rapidly call the soldiers back, get them on our side and then sort out who could and could not be trusted," said the planner, who did not want to be identified because he did want to be publicly caught up in the controversy. "It would have been a lot faster than building one battalion at a time. And we wanted to send a psychological message that they were going to be part of the new Iraq, to prevent them from turning against us."
General Garner, who was winding up his service in Iraq at that time, was also opposed. He said he had not been given advance notice of the plan. "What was happening was that hundreds of Iraqi soldiers were just beginning to come back," Mr. Garner said. "We could have brought back and paired them up in former units. Instead, we just shut the door on them."
General Franks and his commanders were in an awkward position, trying to influence a decision that already had been made. In late May, Rear Admiral James A. Robb, the Central Command's chief planning officer, told Mr. Slocombe that General Abizaid believed that former senior Iraqi officers should not be disqualified and that the training should be accelerated. General Franks followed up in a video conference on June 2 with Mr. Bremer.
"I think the velocity of doing it can be characterized as a miscalculation," General Franks said about the plan in an interview.
He also urged Mr. Bremer to pay the demobilized soldiers, who had few job prospects in a nation with soaring unemployment rates. General Petraeus reinforced that message when he ran into Mr. Slocombe at the military ceremony in Baghdhad two weeks later.
In a compromise, Mr. Slocombe agreed that senior Iraqi officers could serve on an advisory board, but without the prospect of command, the idea soon withered.
Soon after Mr. Bremer issued his order abolishing the army, the occupation authority made a discovery. He had initially decided to bar officers from the rank of colonel and above unless they could prove they were not high-ranking Baathists. But an examination of personnel records showed that important Baathists did not appear in large numbers until the rank of major general. Even then, only 50 per cent of those officers were affected. That was the point Mr. Naima had made with General McKiernan.
There was another problem with the plans for the Iraqi Army. The acronym for the New Iraqi Corps turned out to be a profanity in Arabic, so the name had to be changed.
Stretching the Military
As the insurgency took root in the volatile Sunni Triangle and in other Iraqi cities, the United States military was finding itself increasingly stretched thin. At the same time General Abizaid was pressing Mr. Bremer and Mr. Slocombe to speed up the training of the military, he also urged that a militia be established to help fill the security gap. But members of the new Iraqi Civil Defense Corps lived at home and were not a national force.
Mr. Slocombe and Maj. General Paul D. Eaton, who was brought in to oversee the training of the army, drafted a new plan to accelerate it, taking advantage of an agreement to train Iraqi officers in Jordan.
When fighting erupted in Falluja earlier this year, however, the newly trained Iraqi security forces did not acquit themselves well. An Iraqi Army unit showed little stomach for battle. When ordered to join American marines in combat, the soldiers refused to board a helicopter to take them to the town, saying they would not bear arms against fellow Iraqis.
In June, almost a year after he voiced his concerns about the initial decision not to pay the army, General Petraeus was appointed to a new post: training the new Iraqi Army.
In recognition of Iraq's new sovereignty, a veteran Iraqi general is serving as the army chief of staff, and some senior officers have been recruited. General Petraeus has trained one brigade of a new intervention force to fight insurgents and another brigade of regular army troops. He intends to have a division of each by January
But he - and his military and civilian bosses - have a larger goal in mind. By having an Iraqi army that can defeat the insurgency and secure the peace, they know, the Americans eventually can go home. "I know where this ends," General Petraeus said when he took on his new post. "It ends with the Iraqis in charge of their country."
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Abolishing Iraq Army: the fallout
The New York Times
By Michael R. Gordon
October 21, 2004
http://www.iht.com/bin/print_ipub.php?file=/articles/2004/10/20/news/war.html
When Major General David Petraeus flew to Baghdad on June 14, 2003, he had a blunt message for the American-led occupation authority.
As the commander of the 101st Airborne Division, Petraeus had been working tirelessly to win the support of Iraqis in Mosul and the neighboring provinces in northern Iraq.
But the occupation authority's decree to abolish the Iraqi Army and to forgo paying 350,000 Iraqi soldiers had jolted much of Iraq.
Riots had broken out in cities. Just the day before, 16 of Petraeus's soldiers had been wounded trying to put down a violent demonstration.
Arriving at the massive Abu Ghraib North palace for a ceremony, Petraeus spied Walter Slocombe, an adviser to L. Paul Bremer, the occupation authority chief. Sidling up to him, Petraeus said the decision to leave the Iraqi troops without a livelihood had put American soldiers at risk.
With unemployment rampant, the civilians had taken a respected national institution and essentially thrown it onto the street.
Slocombe reported the general's views to Bremer, who soon reversed himself on salaries. But Bremer stuck to his decision to dissolve the Iraqi military and to methodically build a new one, battalion by battalion.
A year and half later, the Bush administration's decision still casts a shadow over the war.
Bremer has argued that the move was a necessary step to establish an Iraqi military that is not tainted by corruption or a long legacy of repression. It was, Bremer insists, also the only viable approach since so many Iraqi soldiers had fled their posts and melted into the population.
But interviews with military and civilian officials indicate that senior U.S. generals were privately urging a dramatically different course.
Top American generals, in fact, were holding secret meetings with former Iraqi officers with the aim of recalling much of the Iraqi military back to duty when Bremer arrived in Baghdad and issued his decree.
"It was absolutely the wrong decision," said Colonel Paul Hughes, who served as an aide to Jay Garner, the first civilian administrator of Iraq. "From an Iraqi perspective it stopped everything cold. We changed from being a liberator to an occupier with that decision. By abolishing the army, we destroyed in the Iraqi mind the last symbol of sovereignty they could recognize, and as a result created a significant part of the resistance."
When the Bush administration first began to plan for postwar Iraq in early 2003, abolishing the Iraqi military was not part of the strategy.
Douglas Feith, the under secretary of defense, outlined a policy for retaining and retraining the existing military in a March 2003 meeting of the National Security Council that President George W. Bush attended. The idea was to take existing units, remove high-level Baathists and supporters of Saddam Hussein and put the soldiers to work.
The Iraqis, Pentagon aides reasoned, would have their own transport and could help with reconstruction.
Units that were deemed to be politically reliable and had proved themselves could help maintain order.
At the White House meeting, Feith made another argument for using the existing army. Iraq was racked by unemployment, and it could be disastrous to take 350,000 armed men, cut off their income and deprive them of jobs. The plan presented by Feith was strongly supported by Garner, a retired three-star general.
American commanders also backed this approach. In a March, 2003 meeting with a team of visiting Pentagon officials, General John Abizaid expressed concerns that the Americans would stir resentment if they enforced security largely by themselves. He favored a quick turnover of power to an interim Iraqi authority and the use of Iraqi forces to complement and eventually replace the Americans.
There was a military imperative as well. The American commanders knew they might have sufficient forces to oust Saddam Hussein, but it would be difficult to control a large nation with 24 million people and long porous borders with Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Kuwait.
The 5th Corps, which oversaw U.S. Army forces in Iraq, wanted Iraqi Army units to patrol the borders to block terrorist groups from sneaking into the country and to prevent Saddam loyalists and possible caches of unconventional weapons from getting out, according to a former 5th Corps officer.
Training contractors found
The Bush administration did not just discuss keeping the old army. Garner's team found contractors to retrain it. MPRI, an Alexandria, Virginia-based consulting firm run by Carl Vuono, a retired general and former army chief of staff, received an initial contract for $625,000.
RONCO, a Washington consulting company, developed a proposal to screen Iraqi soldiers so they could join a new fighting force or be retrained for other duties. The company drew up a detailed plan for three screening centers in northern, central and southern Iraq.
Civilian and military planners assumed that entire units of the Iraqi Army would surrender en masse. Instead, faced with advancing U.S. and British troops and a furious barrage from the air, the enemy soldiers fled. During the American push to Baghdad, not one unit of significant size turned itself in.
Still, the American generals figured, it was vital to use the Iraqi forces, even if it meant recalling deserters.
On April 17, little more than a week after American forces first entered Baghdad, Abizaid joined in a satellite video conference with senior officials, including Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy defense secretary. Abizaid noted that no Iraqi units were still in place but urged that the United States form a three-division interim Iraqi military using "self-demobilized" soldiers as well as members of opposition groups, who would be invited to appear at processing centers.
In Iraq, the allied land war commander was also involved in an effort to field a new Iraq military. On May 9, Lieutenant General David McKiernan and other senior officers talked with Faris Naima, a former Iraqi officer, in a meeting coordinated by a CIA official in Baghdad.
Saddam's order refused
Naima had the professional bearing of a soldier and spoke fluent English. He had been the commander of the Al-Bakr Military College. Suspect politically but still valued by Saddam's government, he was appointed as the Iraqi ambassador to Philippines and, later, Austria. According to a report by the Kuwaiti news agency KUNA, Saddam's son Qusay ordered him and his wife to return to Baghdad after their tour in Vienna, but Naima refused.
Wearing a frayed business suit at the meeting with the American generals, Naima pulled out a folded piece of paper from his jacket that outlined his plan for how to proceed. Because looting had broken out in Baghdad and crime was rampant, he said a show of power was needed.
The most important thing, he said, was security. The Americans had to act fast to get the Iraqi noncommissioned officers and the police back to work.
Naima urged the Americans to establish a three-division Iraq military, which would be deployed in northern, central and southern Iraq. An army company would be stationed in each town to back up the police. Naima said there were plenty of potential military leaders who were not committed Baathists. The idea, he said, would be to start at the top, create a new Iraqi Ministry of Defense, and then work down.
All the officers would be required to denounce the Baath Party. When the Americans wondered where they might find the officers, Naima had an answer.
"I can bring them to you," he told the generals.
He also had two pieces of political advice. The Americans should announce a departure plan so Iraqis did not view them as occupiers. And they needed to pay salaries to the military, police and civil servants. Iraq was a nation of civil servants, he said, and salaries needed to be paid.
The Americans were impressed. They planned to work from the top down as well from the bottom up to summon Iraqi soldiers to duty, screen them and quickly put in place a new force. While the American generals and the CIA were working on bringing the army back, Garner's occupation authority was making parallel efforts.
Soon after arriving in Baghdad, Hughes received a message from an army officer in the 101st Airborne Division, whose troops were patrolling Baghdad: The Americans had been contacted by some former Iraqi officers. They wanted their salaries.
After securing approval from senior officers, Hughes met with them.
In a meeting at the Iraqi Republican Guards Officers Club, the men told Hughes they wanted to cooperate with the Americans.
Though many of them wanted to work outside the military, they were willing to supply names of potential recruits, including lower ranking non-commissioned officials.
Because they had expected that the Iraqi Defense Ministry would be a target in the war, they had removed its computers containing personnel records for the Iraqi military. Eventually, they produced for the Americans a list of more than 50,000 to 70,000 names, including military police.
In Washington, though, Bremer was developing a dramatically different approach. Bremer was to replace Garner in May as head of the occupation authority and would become known in Baghdad for his take-charge personality and his trademark desert boots worn with Brooks Brothers suits.
Bremer believed that much of the problems the United States faced in Iraq stemmed from Iraqi fears that Saddam Hussein and his Baathist supporters might outlast the U.S. occupiers and claw their way back to power. He wanted to take bold action to demonstrate that the Baathists were through, once and for all.
In a memo to the Pentagon, Bremer noted his desire that "my arrival in Iraq be marked by clear, public and decisive steps to reassure Iraqis that we are determined to eradicate Saddamism." While his main purpose was to promote the de-Baathification of Iraq, plans to abolish Saddam's army soon became part of the initiative.
Slocombe, a former under secretary of defense for policy in the Clinton administration, recommended that the Iraqi military and the Ministry of Defense be formally eliminated.
As he saw it, the Iraqi Army had gone AWOL. There were no longer intact divisions and many of the military's vehicles and bases had been looted.
Also, Slocombe viewed the military not as a nationally respected institution in Iraq but as a Sunni-dominated force that was corrupt and repressive. Slocombe did not want to try to recall the exiting army. He wanted to build a new one from scratch.
Feith, the senior Rumsfeld deputy, acknowledged in an interview that Bremer's thinking represented a 180-degree shift.
"It made sense at first to say we are going to use them," Feith said. "When we saw that the army did not remain in units, that the people disappeared, that looters had stripped all of the infrastructure, all of the various pros that weighed in favor of using the army had been negated by events. And we were left with the cons - a bad, corrupt, cruel and undemocratic army."
After arriving in Iraq, Bremer formally issued an order that abolished the army. The May 23 order noted that the occupation authority planned to create in the near future a New Iraqi Corps, as the first step in forming a national self-defense capability for a free Iraq. But the schedule for building that force was slow and nobody who had served in the Iraqi military at the rank of colonel and above was to be actively recruited.
There were provisions for making a termination payment to officers who were mustered out, but salaries would not continue to be paid. There was no mention of a program to disarm and retrain the troops for other tasks.
Who made the decision?
Washington's role in approving the plan remains unclear. Slocombe said that the decision was the subject of extensive consultations in Washington and that senior Defense Department officials were part of the discussion.
A draft of Bremer's decree abolishing the army, he said, was sent to Rumsfeld's office before it was issued.
But Lawrence Di Rita, Rumsfeld's spokesman, said in an e-mail that the issue was not handled by cabinet level officials. "It was not a matter decided upon by principals and definitely not one that the secretary of defense decided."
Asked for comment, Condoleezza Rice, Bush's national security adviser said, "I don't think that anybody thought it was wildly out of context with what we were trying to achieve, and the whole structure had been set up so that some of those decisions could be made in the field or through the Pentagon chain."
But Rice's assumption that the decision had been well coordinated by the civilians and military was misplaced.
When Slocombe outlined the training plan, American commanders became concerned. He intended to develop a new army from the ground up, battalion by battalion. Under his schedule it would take a year to field the first infantry division - about 12,000 Iraqi troops - and two years to train and equip a three-division force.
To avoid the taint of Baathism, no one from the rank of colonel and above could join, an approach at odds with that of McKiernan, who was already meeting with Iraqi generals.
Colonel John Agoglia, the liaison at Bremer's occupation authority from General Tommy Frank's Central Command, was stunned by the plan.
The military did not have a problem with an order formally abolishing the Iraqi army as long as a new one was quickly assembled to take its place. But Slocombe were talking about building a three-division force over two years instead of the several-month period that Abizaid had in mind.
Agoglia placed a quick call to the Qatar headquarters of Franks. He and his commanders were in a difficult position, trying to cope with a decision that had already been made.
In a June 2 video conference, Franks tried to work out the problem. He said he understood why Bremer wanted to minimize the role of senior officers, but cautioned that the issue might come up again. He urged the occupation authority to move quickly in recruiting a new force.
And he said the occupation authority needed to pay the demobilized soldiers, who had lost their livelihood and had few prospects in a nation with overwhelming unemployment.
Petraeus reinforced that message about paying the Iraqis when he ran into Slocombe at a military ceremony in Baghdad two weeks later.
Soon after Bremer issued his May 23 order, his occupation authority made a discovery. It had decided not to recruit high-ranking officers on the grounds that they were committed Baathists. But an examination of personnel records showed that important Baathists did not appear until the rank of major general.
Even then, only 50 percent of the major generals were committed Baathists. This was the point Naima had made with McKiernan.
There was another issue. The acronym for the New Iraqi Corps turned out to be a profanity in Arabic. The name had to be changed.
The training program was sped up. Abizaid also pressed Bremer to do something to fill the security gap by creating a militia. Called the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps, it was a belated effort to fill the vacuum left by the abolition of the Iraqi Army and to put an Iraqi face on security operations. But the members of the militia lived at home and were not a national force.
Despite all the efforts to develop a new army, the first units turned out to have little stomach for tangling with insurgents. A unit that was ordered to join U.S. Marines during their push into Falluja refused to board a helicopter, saying they would not bear arms against fellow Iraqis.
Almost a year after he voiced his concerns to Slocombe in Baghdad, Petraeus was appointed to train the new Iraqi Army.
Looking back at the issue, Franks said of the lengthy effort, "I think the velocity of doing it can be characterized as a miscalculation."
--------
1000 Al-Qaeda 'warriors' inside Iraq
21 oct 04
Herald and Weekly Times
http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,11130759%255E401,00.html
UP to 1000 foreign "holy warriors" inspired by Osama bin Laden may have infiltrated Iraq, a British military think-tank warned yesterday.
They are jeopardising efforts to bring stability to the country, said the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
There were not enough coalition troops in Iraq to ensure security in the face of the rising insurgency, it added.
The organisation said it could be up to five years before Iraq's own security forces were able to guarantee stability themselves.
"The outcome of the US-led international effort to bring stability to the country is far from certain as the most powerful military power in the world struggles with a multi-faceted insurgency," said IISS director John Chipman.
The report said the insurgency cast doubt on the whole operation.
"Through regime change in Iraq, the US and the UK intended in part to usher democracy into the Gulf region to advance a salutary long-term political convergence between Islam and the West," it said.
"But the insurgency and other state-building problems have raised doubts about the project's ultimate political benefits, while costs in terms of increased terrorism have materialised."
The report said the invasion of Iraq had "enhanced jihadist recruitment and intensified al-Qaeda's motivation" to mount terrorist operations.
The US military presence offered the terror network "perhaps its most attractive 'iconic' target outside US territory", it said.
"With Osama bin Laden's public encouragement, up to 1000 foreign jihadists may have infiltrated Iraq," it said.
With an estimated 18,000 such "warriors" trained in al-Qaeda camps, those fighters in Iraq represented only "a minute fraction of its strength".
Meanwhile, British Prime Minister Tony Blair led a frantic attempt to quell a revolt by his own backbenchers over proposals for British troops to relieve US forces in Iraq.
The previously pro-war MPs are furious after an American request for about 650 members of the British Black Watch to be sent to an area 40km south of Baghdad nicknamed the "triangle of death".
Suspicion was growing last night that the move, so close to the presidential elections in November, was a gesture of political friendship by Mr Blair rather than a military necessity.
-------- israel / palestine
Rabbis tell troops to disobey orders
October 21, 2004
By Abraham Rabinovich
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20041020-100008-6133r.htm
JERUSALEM - Some 60 leading rabbis have issued an unprecedented call for Israeli soldiers to defy any orders to evacuate Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
Also, Israel's security service tightened protection for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon amid fears of an assassination attempt by Jewish settlers reminiscent of the 1995 attack that killed Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.
The added security was on display as Mr. Sharon made a dramatic entrance into Israel's parliament yesterday, surrounded by a phalanx of bodyguards.
Security officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, confirmed that Israel's secret service, the Shin Bet, is on high alert for possible attacks on Mr. Sharon. They confirmed that security has been bolstered around the prime minister, lawmakers and parliament.
The rabbis' call for defiance by soldiers and the increased security reflected the explosive political climate in the tense countdown to next week's vote in the Israeli parliament on whether to evacuate Jewish settlers from Gaza and four West Bank settlements.
The evacuation plan has put Mr. Sharon, the one-time champion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza, at odds with his former allies.
The prospect of the parliamentary vote prompted 60 rabbis, many of them heads of religious academies, or yeshivas, to declare this week that soldiers have a higher duty to preserve Jewish control of the Holy Land than to obey "immoral" orders from the army.
Israeli officials lashed back, with Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz calling the rabbis' appeal "a terrible danger" to the Jewish state.
"The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) is what unites the different parts of this nation. This is the source of our strength. Refusal to execute an order will rend the nation," Mr. Mofaz said in an appeal to rabbis to recant.
Two hundred yeshiva graduates serving in the reserves signed a petition this week saying they will carry out the army's instructions, whatever they may be.
Others, however, say they will follow the directives of their rabbis.
At the Birkat Moshe Yeshiva in Ma'aleh Adumim outside Jerusalem, almost all of the students interviewed this week said they accepted the urging of the yeshiva head, Rabbi Nachum Rabinowitz, to refuse to evacuate settlements.
Yair Itzkowitz, 19, who is to begin his army service in March, said he would ask his commander to excuse him on ideological grounds from any assignment connected with evacuating settlements.
"If the commander is stubborn and refuses, it seems to me that I would prefer to sit in jail," Mr. Itzkowitz said. "In any case, I would call Rabbi Rabinowitz directly to ask how to act. There is no doubt that if he tells me to refuse, I will do as he says."
Soldiers who were raised in settlements, many of whom serve in elite combat units, are particularly vexed at the prospect of evacuating settlements. Army officials have indicated that such soldiers will not be asked to evacuate their own settlements.
--------
In Gaza, Debate Over Pullout Plan Pits Settler Against Settler
By John Ward Anderson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, October 21, 2004; Page A20
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49659-2004Oct20.html
RAFIAH YAM, Gaza Strip -- It has been a rough couple of months for Merav Cohen, a Jewish settler and mother of three who has broken ranks with her neighbors to support Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to close the settlements, withdraw the troops and get out of the Gaza Strip.
She has been threatened with eviction from her home, her 2-year-old son was denied entry to the settlement's pre-kindergarten, and she has been ostracized by her neighbors -- all for supporting the disengagement plan, Cohen said. Meanwhile, explosions and gun battles between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian guerrillas keep the family awake at night. Her 6-year-old daughter, Rose, was so afraid that she moved in with her grandmother in Israel, 60 miles away.
"I want to disengage," Cohen, 30, said as an exchange of gunfire just a few hundred yards away echoed around her kitchen and underscored her fears. "I live in a democratic country, and I expressed my feelings in a free way, and they're preventing my kid from going to school. It's unheard of."
But in the view of many Jewish settlers here, Cohen and a few others who have publicly supported giving up Gaza are committing heresy. Gaza is part of the land of Israel, the Jewish national home, these residents believe, and relinquishing any part of that land -- even this tiny sliver, where more than 8,000 settlers are surrounded by 1.3 million Palestinians -- is a betrayal of the Zionist dream.
The prospect of an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza -- which Israel's parliament, the Knesset, is to vote on early next week -- has unleashed a raucous, passionate and possibly dangerous debate that is being framed by both sides in nearly apocalyptic terms.
Avraham Shapira, a former chief rabbi of Israel, called last week for Israeli soldiers to disobey any order to expel settlers from Gaza, saying it was "forbidden" by Jewish law and comparing it to eating pork or desecrating the Sabbath. Dozens more rabbis have signed letters, petitions and advertisements declaring that soldiers can refuse evacuation orders as a matter of conscience.
In an article titled "Refusing a Mad and Evil Order," Rabbi Shlomo Aviner -- dean of a Jerusalem religious school run by Ateret Cohanim, a group involved in moving Jews into Arab neighborhoods in East Jerusalem -- described Sharon's disengagement plan as a "horrible national crime and crime against humanity."
Settlers have branded Sharon, the architect of Israel's settlement expansion, a traitor. Politicians and top security officials openly express concern that he could be assassinated, and he appeared in parliament Wednesday surrounded by bodyguards.
Political analysts and commentators have warned of the collapse of the government, a split in Sharon's Likud Party, even a potential civil war. Sharon has warned of the "dissolution of the state." The military chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Moshe Yaalon, said in a speech Tuesday that soldiers refusing orders would pose "a danger to Zionism" and implored the rabbis, "Don't put us into impossible situations."
Some of the cruelest blows are being struck here in southern Gaza's Gush Katif bloc, a collection of 16 settlements with about 5,900 residents on a narrow piece of land on the Mediterranean coast along the border with Egypt. Under Sharon's disengagement plan, the settlements would be evacuated between June and September 2005, with displaced families being given financial compensation packages ranging from about $100,000 to $500,000.
About six families, most of whom moved here for economic reasons rather than religious ones, have declared their support for Sharon's plan, citing the dangerous living conditions, grim economic climate and their belief that Gaza is not part of the land of Israel that the Bible says God promised to Abraham. The country, they say, is better off giving it up.
Meir Rotenstein, 42, an electrician and father of five who has lived in Gush Katif for most of the past 21 years, said that since he went public with his feelings, his business has been boycotted and his children have been harassed and mugged at school. He was denounced by name in a widely circulated flier, and his 12-year-old son, Daniel, now refuses to attend classes.
"What the older generation is doing is inciting the youth to behave aggressively and violently," Rotenstein said. "Since I was born, I've been religious. I'm not ultra-Orthodox, but I wear a yarmulke on my head. But after all of this, I can say I am ashamed to be a religious person living in this community."
The dissent here became public Aug. 19 when the owner of a local pizza parlor, Avishai Nativ, hosted a meeting at his house that involved five settler families and a women's group called Shuvi (the Hebrew word for "come back") that is dedicated to immediate withdrawal from Gaza. Nativ said in an interview that he made his own psychological break with Gaza 10 years ago when the Oslo peace accords made it clear that it would eventually be turned over to the Palestinians.
"The government should have evacuated the settlements then, and we could have saved a lot of money and spilled blood," he said.
After the meeting at his house, there was a clash at the settlement gate between the visitors and anti-disengagement settlers that was filmed by a local television crew. The next day, according to people who attended the meeting, local officials and settlers began a campaign to persecute them, which they said has kept many withdrawal supporters silent. Nativ said his pizza business was down 85 percent.
"I'm a single mom with one child, and I've had many threats not to talk," said a settler in Rafiah Yam who favors Sharon's initiative and declined to be identified for safety reasons. "Many people would like to leave, but they're afraid that if they open their mouths, the establishment" will retaliate.
But the zeal for staying is strong among people who have toiled for decades to create homes and businesses here, who stay despite the daily threat of attack, and who believe that withdrawing unilaterally would reward Palestinian violence.
"I've been here two months, and I've already seen the rockets, and I can't sleep at night, and I wake up from the shooting," said Ligal Aharoni, 19, who works in a health clinic in Neve Dekalim to fulfill her national service requirements. "But if we're not here, the Qassams will hit Ashkelon, and then we'll just have to come back again," she said, reflecting a widely held view here that the Gaza settlements are Israel's first line of defense and that without them, Palestinians would fire homemade Qassam rockets at towns and cities inside Israel.
"Whoever wants to can leave here in peace -- no one is being kept here against their will," said Sheera Yovel, 63, who has lived in Gush Katif for 20 years, stretching across three generations of her family. "But you don't uproot people from their homes -- that's only done in Russia by the czar."
Researcher Samuel Sockol contributed to this report.
-------- russia / chechnya
Russian military prosecutor blasts rights group report on bullying
MOSCOW (AFP)
Oct 21, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041021134824.1ya1pefp.html
A Russian military prosecutor Thursday blasted a Human Rights Watch report on bullying in the military, saying the rights group was blowing the problem out of proportion.
HRW's conclusions on the scope of hazing in the Russian military "absolutely do not correspond to reality," Alexander Nikitin was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies.
"Interviews with 100 soldiers from 50 units... are unlikely to accurately reflect the objective picture," RIA Novosti and ITAR-TASS quoted Nikitin as saying.
"Statistics show that hazing-related crimes have not been recorded in more than 80 percent of military units," he said.
In a report released in Moscow on Wednesday, the New York-based human rights group said that hazing in Russia's armed forces was leading to dozens of deaths, hundreds of attempted suicides and thousands of desertions each year, without providing specific figures.
The report was a result of three years of research and interviews with more than a "100 conscripts, their parents, organizations, and former military servicement.... who had served on more than 50 bases."
In it, HRW said that "hundreds of thousands of new recruits in the Russian armed forces face grossly abusive tretment at the hands of more senior conscripts."
It also said that officials have turned a blind eye on the problem.
But Nikitin angrily refuted the charge in his remarks on Thursday.
Many of the abuse instances recorded in the report "have already been looked at by the courts, which by itself refutes the conclusion, which does not correspond to reality and is pushed by the authors, that Russian government agencies have been inactive" in this respect, he said.
"It's unfortunate that an organization as famous as Human Rights Watch did not find it the time to discuss this theme with the military prosecutors in the three years that it has worked on the report," he said.
"This gives rise to a certitude that the authors are not interested in a really objective approach to studying this question, but are simply pursuing a goal -- to force upon society a notion, which has long become archaic of how the prosecutors and the higher command treat such things in the army," he said.
-------- space
"Starfleet Academy" - The Beginning
Peterson AFB CO (AFPN)
by Capt. Johnny Rea
Oct 21, 2004
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/milspace-04zb.html
Air Force Space Command officials stood up a space education and training organization here recently that they said will provide the foundation to creating a new generation of space professionals.
The National Security Space Institute will be the Department of Defense's single focal point for space education and training, complementing existing space education programs at Air University, the Naval Postgraduate School and the Air Force Institute of Technology.
"Through extensive space education and training programs, the (space institute) will help shape and create the growing team space professionals across the DOD and other stakeholder government communities," said Lt. Col. Ed Fienga, of the AFSPC space professional managemen t office.
Its courses, when coupled with the operational qualifications demanded of space professionals, will secure the U.S advantage in space, said Gen. Lance W. Lord, commander of AFSPC.
The Space Warfare Center's Space Operations School at Schriever AFB, Colo., was redesignated as the NSSI on Oct. 1 with an official activation ceremony here Oct. 18.
The new institute incorporates the current programs provided by the Space Operations School, and eventually expand and integrate space-related education from other DOD activities. An Air Force Reserve associate unit, projected for fiscal 2006, will provide added support to NSSI programs.
About 2,500 students are expected to attend the institute annually, said Colonel Fienga, including servicemembers from all branches of the armed forces as well as representatives from the National Reconnaissance Office, NASA and other national agencies. Air Force students will comprise nearly 60 percent of the at tendees.
The institute will conduct and coordinate space education, training, research and development programs for government space organizations, officials said. These programs will address space system capabilities, limitations, vulnerabilities and use; system acquisition; and space warfighting tactics and planning to provide full-spectrum professional development for space professionals in a variety of space missions and organizations.
Colonel Fienga said the current courses taught by the Space Operations School will continue under NSSI - a combination of "legacy" courses focused on space application to joint warfighting, as well as space professional development courses. Eventually, the institute will incorporate other courses, where appropriate, presented elsewhere in DOD to eliminate redundancy.
"Space warfighting systems and capabilities are integral to our success in fighting today's battles and the linchpin to all planning and execution for success in tomorrow's battles," General Lord said.
"NSSI's integrated approach to space education and training will ensure optimum opportunities for the advancement of space systems knowledge and will ultimately enhance mission effectiveness.
-------- spies
CIA Refuses to Release "Dynamite" Report on 9/11 Accountability
Democracy Now
October 21st, 2004
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/10/21/1440244
The CIA is ignoring calls from members of the House Intelligence Committee to release an internal report on whether agency employees should be held accountable for intelligence failures leading up to the Sept. 11 attacks. We speak with Los Angeles Times columnist Robert Scheer who broke the story. [includes rush transcript] The ranking members of the House Intelligence Committee have called on the CIA to turn over an internal report on whether agency employees should be held accountable for intelligence failures leading up to the Sept. 11 attacks.
An intelligence official told the New York Times that the report was not finished and that "the matter is still under review."
Some Democratic lawmakers have questioned whether the report is being withheld to avoid embarrassment for the Bush administration in the final weeks before the presidential election. So far no agency employee has been fired or faced other disciplinary measures in connection with Sept. 11.
The review, by the CIA's inspector general, was sought in December 2002 by the joint Congressional committee that investigated intelligence failures leading up to the 9/11 attacks.
In a written statement, Democratic Congressman Rush Holt of New Jersey said the CIA report concludes that senior intelligence officials "failed to do all that they could have to prevent the attacks, and that White House officials were not as focused on the al Qaeda threat as previously asserted."
Robert Scheer, Los Angeles Times columnist and co-author of "The Five Biggest Lies Bush Told Us About Iraq." His latest column is titled, "The 9/11 Secret in the CIA's Back Pocket"
RUSH TRANSCRIPT
AMY GOODMAN: We go now to Robert Scheer, the L.A. Times columnist who's written about the story and co-author of The Five Biggest Lies Bush Told Us About Iraq. Welcome to Democracy Now!, Robert Scheer.
ROBERT SCHEER: Hi.
AMY GOODMAN: Your latest piece is called, "The 9/11 Secret in the C.I.A's Back Pocket." Please explain.
ROBERT SCHEER: Well, what happened here is that the report was done, as I understand it, in May and June, and turned over to the inspector general in July. Now, the inspector general -- it was finished, and the inspector general is supposed to hand it over to Congress. And my sources, what I reported, was that there's no national security reason for withholding the report from Congress. That's the only grounds in which the inspector -- inspector general and the Justice Department, State, C.I.A, Defense Department, is supposed to act as an independent auditor. They're supposed to be check on the agency. And so, if the C.I.A director doesn't want to turn over the whole report to Congress he has -- legally has seven days to notify Congress that there's a national security concern then Congress can act on that. They can demand to see the report, they can meet, or what have you. In this case, the inspector general has been stalling, and -- been stalling since July; and what I reported was people who have knowledge of this saying they're stalling the report until after the election, so, it won't adversely affect Bush's chances. And Porter Goss who's the -- was the head of the House Intelligence Committee is the new C.I.A Director-Republican -- former Republican congressman-is the one who is currently stalling it. So, here is a study on what happened at 9/11 demanded in December of 2002 -- 2001 by Congress -- 2001 by Congress. An eleven-man committee at the C.I.A worked on that question for almost two years; and it hasn't been turned over. And my understanding, and what I reported in The Los Angeles Times, is that this is dynamite. It's the first report to really fix the responsibility by naming names. Remember, both reports that we've had, the Senate Intelligence Committee -- joint committee -- intelligence committee -- and the 9/11 Commission managed to be bipartisan by holding back on the question of accountability, particularly accountability of the Bush administration. My understanding is that this report is explosive because it says the Bush administration was asleep at the wheel before 9/11 and it fixes responsibility on individuals quite high up, and that it says the administration covered up after 9/11 by not holding these people accountable. So there it is.
JUAN GONZALEZ: And Bob, the current inspector general of the C.I.A -- Was the I.G. appointed by the Bush administration, or was he a holdover?
ROBERT SCHEER: Yeah. It was a holdover. And -- But the main thing is the I.G. is supposed to, as I say, be an independent auditor. They're supposed to operate in a professional manner; and the director isn't even actually supposed to -- he's not supposed to comment or respond to the report when it's requested. No inspector general has ever been overruled by the C.I.A director in the history of the agency in a matter of this sort. Not one report has been held up by the director of the C.I.A, ever, in the history of the agency. This is the first time. I know it's difficult for people to understand, but the C.I.A actually, in order to preserve the democracy, the State Department, the C.I.A, the Justice Department, Defense Department have this independent auditing arm that's supposed to keep the thing straight. And what happened here is that the system broke down. And, as I say, since July, there's been a report that they've been sitting on that does what has not been done. After all, this is a nation that's been traumatized by 9/11. This is a president who demands to be re-elected primarily on the basis of 9/11; and the public opinion shows that without 9/11, this president would be incredibly weak. That's his one issue, is: How did he handle the attacks -- respond to the attacks on the United States? And what this report says is that this administration bears responsibility on the highest level for being unprepared before 9/11 and not doing -- holding people accountable after 9/11. I mean it's amazing. You know, if you have an automobile accident, or something, people want to know who's accountable. Here you have this horrible event happen, and we still do not have a single individual in this country who has been held accountable for: How did these people get into the country? Why were our defenses down? Why didn't the agencies coordinate? Why didn't they act on the information? So, it is - it's a major scandal. This is the first report that names names, breaks open this controversy, tells us what really happened, and what didn't happen on the part of the administration; and they're afraid of this report, and that's why they're suppressing it. And now you have the House and Senate -- the chairman of the committee -- the Democrat and Republican of the House saying: "Where's the report?" It's been fifteen days since they wrote their letter (and I wrote about it in the -- in my column in The Los Angeles Times). They demanded to know where is this report, and Jane Harmon, the ranking Democrat on the committee, has said, you know, I'll quote her, she said: "We believe that the C.I.A has been told not to distribute the report. We are very concerned." And so she is finally - you know -- she's raising the issue, and she said, I'll quote again, Jane Harman, she said: "It fuels the perception that no one is being held accountable. It is unacceptable that we don't have the report. It not only disrespects Congress, but it disrespects the American people. And then in my column, I said: "The stonewalling of the Bush administration and the failure of Congress to gain release of the report [here [inaudible] intelligence reports that I quote] 'led the management of C.I.A to believe it can engage in a cover-up with impunity. Unless the public demands an accounting, the administration and C.I.A's leadership will have won and the nation will have lost.'" So, my question there would be: Where are all these people who say 9/11 has to be the focus of this election, has to be the focus of our policy? Why aren't they demanding the first report that lays out the responsibility, holds people accountable?
AMY GOODMAN: Robert Scheer, I want to thank you very much for being with us. Los Angeles Times columnist who broke the story of this C.I.A pre-9-11 accountability report that the C.I.A refuses to release. And you are listening to and watching Democracy Now!
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Pentagon exaggerated risk posed by Iraq: US senator
WASHINGTON (AFP)
Oct 21, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041021193648.1x6elscv.html
A senior Democratic senator released a report Thursday alleging that the US Pentagon exaggerated the military risks posed by Iraq before the US-led war there to support a decision already taken by the White House to invade the country.
In a statement, Senator Carl Levin, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said a months-long probe conducted by his staff of prewar intelligence showed that the US Defense Department tailored its analysis to the George W. Bush administration's liking, after "assessments of the intelligence community did not make a sufficiently compelling case" for invasion.
Levin, who began his inquiry in June 2003, concluded that defense officials had found only "a relatively weak" relationship between Saddam and the Al-Qaeda terrorist network, rather than the substantial one that the Bush administration cited as a justification for invading Iraq.
Levin said the Pentagon analysis presented to the White House -- and in particular intelligence supplied by the office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith -- inflated the risks "to support the policy goal of removing Saddam Hussein."
Levin called for tougher congressional legislation and better legislative oversight of intelligence assessments, the reliability of which he said have been undermined.
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Tenet: CIA made errors
The Herald-Palladium
By ANNA CLARK
October 21, 2004
http://www.heraldpalladium.com/articles/2004/10/21/news/news1.txt
BENTON TOWNSHIP -- Although he emphasized that the Central Intelligence Agency boasts "tremendously talented men and women," former CIA Director George Tenet said it "did not live up to our expectations as professionals" regarding the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the search for nonexistent weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
"We had inconsistent information, and we did not inform others in the community of gaps in our intelligence," Tenet said. "The extraordinary men and women who do magnificent work in the CIA are held accountable every day for what they do, and as part of keeping our faith with the American people, we will tell you when we're right or wrong." Tenet called the war on Iraq "wrong" in a speech Wednesday night to 2,000 members of The Economic Club of Southwestern Michigan at Lake Michigan College's Mendel Center. He did not elaborate.
Despite proclaiming to be "as forthcoming as I can," Tenet made light of a question about whether or not the United States made an error in committing intelligence to the search for nonexistent WMDs in Iraq rather than exploring terrorism elsewhere.
Tenet apologized for being rude but did not answer the question.
He did add that he doesn't think the Iraq war was wholly bad.
"When I look at the regime (Saddam Hussein) ran, and the elaborate depth he took to deny us the ability to build our intelligence, I can't say it was a waste," Tenet said. "I believed he had weapons of mass destruction. He didn't. At the end of the day I have to stand up accountable for that. In the meantime our nation needs to honor the commitment we made in Iraq."
Tenet was faulted in April's 9/11 Commission report for not having a strategy to battle terrorism before the terrorist attacks. He also took responsibility for a later discredited line in President George Bush's 2003 State of the Union address, which alleged that Iraq was trying to buy uranium from Africa. Tenet said the CIA had seen and approved the speech in advance, and he assumed responsibility for the error.
Tenet said that while the Iraq war was "rightly being challenged," the CIA was making important strides toward success in the greater war on terrorism.
He said the United States is "winning the war on terror" due to the CIA's efforts to "capture or kill" three-quarters of al-Qaida's leaders, pinpointed before 9/11. He expects to see Osama bin Ladin captured.
Tenet highlighted places throughout the world, including Iran and North Korea, that are potential terrorism threats, while commending the cooperation of Pakistan and Libya with U.S. efforts.
He said the Pakistani president "came to our side" after 9/11 and allowed for important al-Qaida captures in a nation the terrorist organization once considered safe. Libya initiated contact with the CIA and explicitly committed to dismantling its weapons program - the first time any such program was self-dismantled without a shot being fired, Tenet said.
"Demographics and distribution trends are something we also need to keep an eye on," Tenet said. "The developed world is not reproducing at levels to maintain its position, while developing nations who cannot afford it, mostly Muslim ones, are exploding."
Tenet said a developing nation's low per capita income, high unemployment among young men and high infant mortality rate strongly increase its likelihood of becoming a "terrorist safe haven."
"In 2010, 100 million people outside of Africa will be infected with HIV," Tenet said. "The secondary implications of this are staggering."
He said the work of public health officers, missionaries and literacy teachers in third world nations are crucial to the war on terrorism, because terrorists build supporters by spinning poverty as a form of humiliation caused by wealthy nations like the United States.
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Iraq rips U.N. help for elections
October 21, 2004
By Rawya Rageh
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20041021-120702-4834r.htm
BAGHDAD - Iraq's interim government complained yesterday that the United Nations is not doing enough to help prepare for January elections, saying the organization has sent fewer election workers than it did when tiny East Timor voted to secede from Indonesia.
"It is unfortunate that the contribution and participation of U.N. employees in this process is not up to expectations," Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari told reporters.
U.S. aircraft, meanwhile, mounted four strikes in Fallujah on what the U.S. military said were safe houses used by Abu Musab Zarqawi's terror network. A Sunni Muslim clerical group demanded that the Iraqi government prevent any full-scale U.S. attack on Fallujah, hoping to muster the same public anger that forced the Marines to abandon a siege of the city in the spring.
In other violence, 11 American soldiers and an Iraqi interpreter were wounded when two car bombs exploded in Samarra. An Iraqi child was killed, and a civilian was wounded, the Army said.
A suicide bomber in Baghdad detonated his car near a U.S. patrol on the airport road, wounding two American soldiers and two Iraqi policemen. Zarqawi's terror organization took responsibility for the attack.
U.S. and Iraqi forces have stepped up operations seeking to curb insurgent violence, so that Iraqi voters throughout the country can choose a new transitional government in January.
But Mr. Zebari complained that the United Nations has not sent enough election experts to help prepare for the voting.
He said the number of U.N. workers expected to help in the election was far smaller than the 300 workers the United Nations sent for the 1999 independence referendum in East Timor.
Iraq has a population of more than 25 million, whereas East Timor's population is estimated to be between 800,000 and 1 million.
The United Nations pulled its international staff out of the country a year ago after bombings at its Baghdad headquarters killed 22 persons, including the top U.N. envoy, Sergio Viera de Mello.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has since allowed a team to return to help with elections but imposed a ceiling of 35 non-Iraqi staffers. In the meantime, the United Nations is training Iraqis outside the country, so they can return and instruct other Iraqis on how to run an election.
Mr. Annan said Tuesday in London that he had sought to form a U.N. brigade to guard U.N. workers and facilities so more staffers could be sent in, but complained that he had gotten no offers of troops.
U.N. officials in New York said yesterday that Fiji was the only nation to respond to Mr. Annan's request and would send 130 soldiers to Iraq next month to protect senior staff and U.N. offices.
Since the bombings at the U.N. headquarters a year ago, attacks on foreigners have grown worse. CARE International suspended operations in Iraq yesterday, a day after the aid group's director for Iraq, Margaret Hassan, was abducted. Her family said yesterday they have received no demands from the kidnappers.
In other developments yesterday, Staff Sgt. Ivan L. "Chip" Frederick, 38, pleaded guilty to five charges stemming from the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. Sgt. Frederick, the highest-ranking soldier charged in the abuse case, was expected to be sentenced today.
The U.S. command reported that a 26-year-old male security detainee died Tuesday at the U.S.-run Camp Bucca prison near Umm Qasr in southern Iraq. It said an investigation was under way to determine the cause of death.
The U.S. command said its warplanes struck more targets yesterday thought to be connected to Zarqawi's Tawhid and Jihad movement, which is thought to be based in the rebel bastion of Fallujah, 40 miles west of Baghdad.
"Intelligence reveals that anti-Iraqi forces have planned to use the holy month of Ramadan for attacks against the Iraqi interim government and innocent Iraqis," the command said.
It denied witness reports that U.S. aircraft attacked a female teachers college and a house where a family of six was killed. The command accused "a known Zarqawi propagandist" of "passing false reports to the media."
The Iraqi government had been negotiating with Fallujah representatives in hopes of ending the standoff in the city and allowing the Iraqi national guard to take over security duties there. But the talks broke down last week over what the Fallujah negotiators called the "impossible condition" that the city hand over Zarqawi and other foreign fighters. Fallujah leaders say Zarqawi is not there.
Yesterday, the Association of Muslim Scholars, a Sunni organization with links to some insurgents, demanded that the government persuade the Americans to refrain from a full-scale attack on Fallujah.
Meanwhile, two Egyptian mobile-telephone engineers were released by kidnappers who abducted them from their Baghdad office last month, their employer said. The company said the release was mediated by Zarqawi's organization.
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Iraqi Faults U.N. on Lack of Staff to Aid in Voting
October 21, 2004
By DEXTER FILKINS and WARREN HOGE
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/21/international/middleeast/21nations.html?pagewanted=all&position=
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Oct. 20 - The United Nations has not sent enough election workers to help monitor pivotal elections scheduled for January, Iraq's foreign minister said here on Wednesday.
Although Iraqi leaders and the United States are pushing for elections to be held as planned, signs of open campaigning are few, with preparations for the vote clouded by threats of boycotts and continuing violence in parts of Iraq.
"We feel very disappointed that the participation of the U.N. employees is not up to the required level and there is a limited number of officials, and we are at the end of October," said the foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari.
A few hours later in New York, the United Nations announced that 130 Fijian soldiers would go to Baghdad to replace the troops protecting the small United Nations contingent now in place. The United Nations portrayed the move as possibly allowing it to increase its presence in Iraq but made no commitment to do so.
Mr. Zebari noted that 35 United Nations workers had been dispatched to help monitor Iraq's elections, far fewer than the 300 sent to East Timor for a referendum there in 1999 amid conflict.
"Judging by the size of the process in Iraq and its complexity, we definitely need a larger U.N. presence in Iraq, at least to establish confidence in the electoral process," Mr. Zebari said.
Secretary General Kofi Annan has been unable to persuade many countries to contribute to a planned 4,000-member force to protect United Nations officials and workers.
"We have tried to raise a brigade to protect the U.N., but we haven't done very well," Mr. Annan said Tuesday at a news conference with Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain in London.
"And it's the same governments who are asking me to send in my civilian staff who are not going to give any troops to protect them," Mr. Annan said.
He pulled all international workers out of Baghdad a year ago after the bombing of the United Nations headquarters in August 2003 that killed 22 people, including the mission chief, Sergio Vieira de Mello.
In August, Mr. Annan sent a small group back to Baghdad to help plan the elections, but - saying he was acting on the advice of the United Nations security coordinator - he imposed a limit of 35 people.
Of the 35, only 5 are specialists from the electoral assistance unit. The activities of the seven-member Iraqi election commission and the Iraqi volunteers have appeared to be behind the schedule established by the head of the electoral assistance division, Carina Perelli.
Three months before the elections, political activity is largely invisible in Iraq. Intense negotiations have been unfolding among political parties to form coalitions and present voters with unified "lists" of candidates.
Party leaders are meeting privately with potential candidates, with some saying they are preparing to field the maximum 275 candidates for the national assembly.
But the scene in the capital is marked by an absence of campaigning and public appearances. The big political parties, like Dawa and the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, have been mostly inert. Only a handful of campaign signs have been spotted around the capital, and the Independent Iraqi Election Commission has done little to announce its presence, though voter registration is set to begin Nov. 1.
Some party leaders say they are waiting for the security situation to improve before they meet with allies, hold public meetings and campaign openly. Some say that they have long lists of candidates, from places as ridden by turmoil as Falluja, who are ready to stand for office. The bargaining and horse-trading, they say, has already begun, but behind doors.
"We have many people who are willing to run, from Baghdad, Falluja, Samarra, Tikrit, Mosul," said Saad Abdul Razak, of the Iraqi Independent Democrats, a largely Sunni Arab party. "A lot of the tribal leaders, if you promise them something - projects, positions - they will vote for you."
Many politicians seem to be waiting for the American-led military offensive to retake some of the areas lost to insurgents, like Falluja and Ramadi. The Americans and the Iraqi government have said they want to take control of those areas to allow ordinary Iraqis to feel secure enough to vote.
But a number of Iraqi politicians say the military operations are having the opposite effect, driving political activity indoors and alienating Iraqis caught in the crossfire.
"If you try to use force to make people have elections, it will fail," said Kais al-Zawi, a leader in the Socialist Arab Movement.
While United Nations officials have been talking to countries about contributing to the larger force that would permit the organization to re-establish a strong presence, the United States has taken the lead in trying to sign up participants. The country that appears closest to joining is Georgia.
"That whole process is looking good, and we're quite optimistic that Georgian troops will be going in and doing middle ring security," said a senior American official. She estimated their number at several hundred and said their responsibility would be providing protection for convoys and people like electoral registrars who would be traveling out of the Green Zone and into the country.
As for any additional contributors, she said, "We have talked to a lot of countries, and we are still talking to them. It is a very substantial list, but the talks with the Georgians are by far the most advanced."
Ms. Perelli, who led the United Nations election effort in East Timor, has declined recent requests to discuss the Iraq election effort. In an earlier briefing, she said that there would be 30,000 polling places across Iraq's 18 provinces and estimated that more than 100,000 Iraqis would have to be employed as election workers and poll watchers.
While Mr. Annan has been accused of not sending people back soon enough, he has been under contrary pressure from United Nations staff members, many of whom were critical of his decision in 2003 to let Mr. Vieira de Mello and his team go to Baghdad without adequate security.
Two organizations representing more than 60,000 United Nations employees urged him this month to pull all workers out of Iraq because of the risk to their safety. They said that in the current climate in Iraq, the United Nations was "a direct target, one that is particularly prone to attacks by ruthless extremist terrorist factions."
Dexter Filkins reported from Baghdad for this article, and Warren Hoge from the United Nations.
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Frederick Gets 8 Years in Iraq Abuse Case
October 21, 2004
By TINI TRAN
Associated Press Writer
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/I/IRAQ_PRISONER_ABUSE?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- The highest ranking soldier charged in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal was sentenced to eight years in prison for abusing inmates at Abu Ghraib during a court martial Thursday in Baghdad.
Staff Sgt. Ivan "Chip" Frederick, 38, an Army reservist from Buckingham, Va., was also given a reduction in rank, forfeiture of pay and a dishonorable discharge. The sentencing came a day after he pleaded guilty Wednesday to eight counts of abusing and humiliating Iraqi detainees. It was the longest prison sentence yet in connection with the scandal that broke worldwide in April with the publication of photos and video that showed U.S. soldiers abusing naked Iraqis in the prison on the western outskirts of Baghdad.
Frederick - a military policeman who is a corrections officer in civilian life - acknowledged his part in the scandal, admitting that he hooked up wires on hook wires on the hands of a detainee who was told he would be electrocuted if he fell off a box and that he forced prisoners to masturbate.
But Frederick also blamed his chain of command, telling the court Wednesday that military intelligence officers ordered prisoners to be publicly stripped and degraded.
He testified that he was given no training or support in supervising detainees and only learned of regulations against mistreatment after the abuses occurred between October and December last year. He said that when he brought issues up with his commanders, "they told me to do what MI told me to do," referring to military intelligence.
Defense Counsel Gary Myers on Thursday called the sentence "excessive" and said he would seek a reduction.
"Punish him yes. But please try to understand the defense's point of view that there is corporate responsiblitity," Myers said. "We discovered that he has no abhorrent tendencies."
Army Prosecutor Major Michael Holley told the court it was a simple case of right and wrong.
"He's an adult and capable of telling, as we learned, the difference between right and wrong. How much training do you need to learn that it's wrong to force a man to masturbate?" he said.
"I was wrong about what I did and I shouldn't have done it," Frederick told the judge, Army Col. James Pohl. "I knew it was wrong at the time because I knew it was a form of abuse."
He pleaded guilty to eight counts of conspiracy, dereliction of duty, maltreatment of detainees, assault and committing an indecent act.
Frederick is one of seven members of the Cresaptown, Md.-based 372nd Military Police Company charged in the scandal. One, Spc. Jeremy C. Sivits of Hyndman, Pa., is serving a one-year sentence after pleading guilty in May to three counts.
In addition, Spc. Armin Cruz, 24, a military intelligence soldier, was sentenced last month to eight months of confinement, reduction in rank to private, and a bad conduct discharge for his part in the scandal.
A report this year by Army Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba said using MPs to break down prisoners may have been a technique imported from the Guantanamo Bay prison and possibly detention centers in Afghanistan used to hold suspected terrorists.
During the proceeding, Chief Warrant Officer Kevin Kramer, a military intelligence soldier called as a witness, referred to an e-mail from the U.S. command in Baghdad telling him to order his interrogators to be tough on prisoners.
"The gloves are coming off, gentlemen, regarding these detainees," said the e-mail, which was read into evidence. It added that the command "wants the detainees broken."
Frederick, who was in charge of the night shift at the "hard site" facility at Abu Ghraib, west of Baghdad, said military intelligence soldiers and civilian interrogators told the guards how to treat the detainees.
That included stripping detainees, depriving them of sleep or taking away their cigarettes, Frederick said. Investigators wanted detainees "stressed out, wanted them to talk more," he said.
Frederick said that from his first day at the prison, he saw detainees "naked, handcuffed to their door, some wearing female underclothes." He said the first time he witnessed sexual humiliation used as an interrogation technique came late last October when he saw intelligence officers handcuff naked prisoners together.
"Nudity was to humiliate and degrade them for military intelligence purposes. It was very embarrassing for an Arabic male to be seen nude by another," Frederick said.
During an incident last Nov. 4 captured on photos transmitted around the world, Frederick said he helped hook wires on the hands of a detainee who was hooded and told to stand on a box or else he would be electrocuted. An Army investigator encouraged him to abuse the detainee, saying he didn't care what was done to the prisoner "as long as you don't kill him," Frederick said.
In a Nov. 8 incident, Frederick admitted, he joined another soldier in jumping on a pile of seven detainees accused of rioting. He also admitted to stomping on their hands and feet.
"I should have stopped it right there," he said.
But the detainees then were strip-searched and remained naked, even after female soldiers arrived on the scene - which is against military rules, he said. Frederick said he punched the ringleader in the chest so hard that the prisoner needed medical attention.
Finally, Frederick said, soldiers lined the detainees naked against a wall with bags on their heads and then forced three of them to masturbate.
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MP Pleads Guilty to Abuses at Iraq Prison
Reserve Sergeant Admits to 8 Counts
By Jackie Spinner
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 21, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A47301-2004Oct20.html
BAGHDAD, Oct. 20 -- Staff Sgt. Ivan L. "Chip" Frederick, the highest-ranking of eight soldiers charged with abusing detainees at Abu Ghraib prison last year, pleaded guilty Wednesday to taking part in the mistreatment, telling a military judge that he knew his actions were wrong at the time he committed them.
In a deal with Army prosecutors, Frederick, who was in charge of the night shift in the prison wing where detainees were abused, pleaded guilty to eight of 12 criminal counts, including a charge that he helped attach wires to a detainee with the intention of making him think he might be electrocuted. The picture of that detainee -- hooded, naked and standing on a box -- was one of several that stirred an international scandal when they surfaced six months ago.
Staff Sgt. Ivan L. "Chip" Frederick is expected to testify in the cases of other MPs who say they were ordered to abuse Iraqi detainees.
Frederick, 38, told the judge, Col. James Pohl, that he knew he should not have been trying to scare the detainee. "I was wrong about what I did, and I shouldn't have done it," the Army reservist said. "I knew it was wrong at the time because I knew it was a form of abuse."
At the court-martial, Frederick testified that military intelligence and civilian interrogators "would tell us what conditions to set for them -- keep their clothes, give them cigarettes."
"You took this as your role as an MP to set conditions for detainees?" Pohl asked.
"Yes, your honor," Frederick replied.
A former Iraqi detainee, the first to testify publicly at a court-martial about the abuse, said Frederick punched him and forced him to masturbate in front of other detainees who were "crying and screaming." Army officials asked that the man's name, which was entered into the court record, not be disclosed to protect him.
"I was crying," the former detainee said during the court-martial at Camp Victory, a large Army installation near Baghdad International Airport. "I wanted to kill myself."
He paused and put his head down on the stand for several minutes. The man, who had been detained for allegedly stealing a car and participating in a riot, said he was forced to sleep naked in a cell flooded with water.
"I felt humiliated but I had nothing to kill myself," the former detainee said.
Frederick said an Army investigator responsible for interrogations encouraged him to abuse the detainee, saying he didn't care what was done to the prisoner "as long as you don't kill him."
Seven members of the Army's 372nd Military Police Company, based in Cresaptown, Md., have been charged in the scandal. Frederick and Spec. Jeremy C. Sivits have pleaded guilty. Sivits was sentenced in May to a year in prison; Frederick is expected to be sentenced this week and faces up to 18 years in prison.
An eighth soldier, Spec. Armin J. Cruz Jr., the only military intelligence soldier charged, pleaded guilty last month and was sentenced by Pohl to eight months in prison. Cruz was a reservist with the 325th Military Intelligence Battalion, based in Devens, Mass.
All three soldiers who pleaded guilty have agreed to testify against fellow soldiers in exchange for lighter sentences.
While Frederick's plea does not have any direct impact on pending cases, his testimony could be used at future courts-martial, possibly to bolster the argument by attorneys for other charged MPs that military intelligence interrogators encouraged the behavior that resulted in abuses.
The fact that Frederick was the most senior soldier involved in the abuses and that he accepted responsibility for taking part in them could carry even more weight in the pending cases. Lower-ranking soldiers facing criminal charges -- such as Pfc. Lynndie R. England, whose court-martial is scheduled to begin in January -- are expected to argue that they did what their superiors ordered them to do. England's attorneys have also suggested that the culture at Abu Ghraib encouraged and condoned such activities.
England's lead civilian attorney, Richard A. Hernandez, said he was pleased that Frederick entered a guilty plea because it made him available to testify at England's trial. He said he believed Frederick's testimony could only help his client. England's defense team has been arguing that she was following orders from higher-ranking soldiers at Abu Ghraib.
"The orders were passed down from above," Hernandez said. "This is what we have been saying all along."
Meanwhile, the husband of a kidnapped aid official appealed to his wife's captors on Wednesday on the al-Arabiya satellite television network.
"We are in Ramadan, the holy month," said Tahseen Ali Hassan, an Iraqi who is married to Margaret Hassan, director of operations in Iraq for CARE International, a relief group carrying out health and water projects in the country. "My wife has been in Iraq for 30 years to help the Iraqis. She loves Iraq. We appeal to the kidnappers, in the name of Islam, brotherhood and humanity, we ask them to release her. She is not involved in politics. She does only humanitarian projects."
In a telephone interview, Hassan said he had not eaten or slept since his wife was kidnapped on Tuesday morning. "I'm honestly shattered since they took Margaret," he said. "I'm shaking. I don't know what to do with myself."
CARE announced Wednesday that it was temporarily suspending its operations in Iraq.
Qasim Dawood, Iraq's minister of state, condemned the kidnapping, calling it a "crime against Islam and Iraqi traditions." He said that the government was doing everything it could to secure Hassan's release.
In a statement, he called the abduction of Hassan, who holds Irish, British and Iraqi citizenship, "a clear indication of the base and bad intents of the terrorists who call themselves mujaheddin, a clear insult to Islam and Iraq. This is all the more despicable coming during the holy month of Ramadan."
Also on Wednesday, one Iraqi child was killed and 11 U.S. soldiers with the 1st Infantry Division were wounded when a car bomb exploded near the center of Samarra.
The U.S. military said the soldiers were in stable condition and that the incident was under investigation. Samarra, about 65 miles north of Baghdad, was the focus of a U.S.-Iraqi assault on Oct. 1 that military officials said broke the grip of insurgents who had taken control of the town.
Despite the continuing violence, U.S. and Iraqi officials have pledged that national elections will take place by the end of January. Hoshyar Zebari, Iraq's interim foreign minister, said at a news conference that it was critically important to keep the elections on schedule "to show our commitment to democratic change."
But he criticized the United Nations for not playing a larger role in providing specialists to facilitate the process.
Correspondent Karl Vick and special correspondents Khalid Saffar and Omar Fekeiki in Baghdad and staff writer Josh White in Washington contributed to this report.
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U.S. Soldier in Abu Ghraib Scandal Gets 8 Years in Jail
October 21, 2004
By TERENCE NEILAN
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/21/international/middleeast/21cnd-abus.html?hp&ex=1098417600&en=14febe0c799a3fb4&ei=5094&partner=homepage
The highest-ranking Army reservist accused in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal was sentenced to eight years in prison at a court-martial in Baghdad today for sexually and physically abusing detainees. The judge, Col. James Pohl, also sentenced the reservist, Staff Sgt. Ivan L. Frederick II, to a reduction in rank to private, to forfeiting his pay and to a dishonorable discharge from the Army.
Colonel Pohl first sentenced Sergeant Frederick, 38, to 10 years' imprisonment, but reduced it because of a plea bargain.
Sergeant Frederick's lawyer, Gary Myers, called the sentence "excessive" and said he intended to appeal, according to a pool report from a Reuters correspondent in the court. "We will seek to try to achieve a sentence reduction," he said.
Mr. Myers said that while Sergeant Frederick was right to be punished, a degree of responsibility had to be borne by the military establishment. "Punish him, yes," Mr. Myers said. "But please try to understand the defense's point of view that there is corporate responsibility," Mr. Myers said, adding that the hearing had shown that the sergeant "has no abhorrent tendencies."
The prosecutor, Maj. Michael Holley, showing the court photographs of naked prisoners, bound and hooded, said, "This behavior should not be
subjected or imposed on any human being.
"The enemy feeds on morale like we do and this can form a rallying point for enemies now and forever."
The major added: "He never said he is sorry. I never heard him say he's
sorry to the victims, to the United States Army or to anyone else."
Sergeant Frederick, a military police officer, is the third American soldier to be convicted for his part in the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal. Five soldiers are still due to face courts-martial.
At the first day of the hearing, on Wednesday, the sergeant admitted charges of conspiracy, dereliction of duty, maltreatment of detainees, assault, and committing an indecent act in three incidents in October and November of last year. Under the plea agreement he denied other allegations.
The three incidents included piling naked prisoners into a pyramid, which became notorious when photographs of the scene published in April caused worldwide outrage. Asked if another soldier was laughing as he stomped on the prisoners' hands and feet, Sergeant Frederick told Colonel Pohl, "Sort, of, sir."
"You could have stopped it?" Colonel Pohl asked.
"Yes, but I didn't," Sergeant Frederick replied.
Sergeant Frederick, of Buckingham, Va., a corrections officer in civilian life, said: "I was wrong about what I did and I shouldn't have done it. I knew it was wrong at the time because I knew it was a form of abuse."
In further testimony on Wednesday, Sergeant Frederick said he helped place wires in a detainee's hands and told him he would be electrocuted if he fell off a box.
The sergeant said he and another soldier took photographs of the incident. Asked why, he told the judge they were "just to take home" for personal use, not as an interrogation technique.
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Commander of Transport Unit Is Relieved of Duties
October 21, 2004
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/21/international/middleeast/21cnd-comm.html?hp&ex=1098417600&en=47bdf00680538db8&ei=5094&partner=homepage
The commander of the Army reserve unit that declined to carry out a mission to deliver fuel in Iraq has been relieved of her duties, the American military in Iraq said today.
In a statement, the military said the move came at the commander's own request. But on Wednesday, Pentagon officials described it as a disciplinary action, and one Pentagon official said the commander was being relieved for poor leadership. The action against the commander was first reported by CBS News Wednesday evening.
The action involved the head of the 343rd Quartermaster Company. Last week, officials have said, more than a dozen members of the company refused orders to drive fuel trucks from Tallil, in south-central Iraq, to Taji, about 15 miles north of Baghdad, in a zone where insurgent fire has been heavy.
The military statement said that the commander is not suspected of misconduct and that the move had nothing to do with the guilt or innocence of anyone involved. It said she would be reassigned to a post commensurate with her rank and experience. The statement did not identify the commander or her replacement.
The soldiers who refused the orders told family members that their vehicles had been poorly maintained and that they did not have armed escorts for the convoy. They also said the fuel was contaminated and had already been rejected by another base they had tried to deliver it to. The delivery was subsequently made by other soldiers.
Although a range of disciplinary action is possible for the soldiers who refused their orders, Army officials have indicated that all but about five of them will probably be returned to duty.
But some officers said that the leadership could not escape blame, noting that the unit's commanders should not have allowed discipline to deteriorate or confidence in security to drop to such a level that the soldiers felt compelled to rebel against lawful orders.
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Commander of supply company relieved of duty after soldiers refused mission
WASHINGTON (AFP)
Oct 21, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041021170132.on5ygwyb.html
The commander of a supply company whose soldiers refused to go on fuel convoy through Iraq's rebel heartland was relieved of her duties Thursday, her commanding general announced.
Brigadier General James Chambers, commander of the 13th Corps Support Command, said he had "relieved the commander of the 343rd Quartermaster Company of her duties at her (343rd Commander's) request effective October 21."
"The outgoing commander is not suspected of misconduct and the move has nothing to do with the guilt or innocence of anyone involved," the command said in a statement.
"The outgoing commander will be reassigned commensurate with her rank and experience," it said.
The command, citing privacy reasons, said it would not identify the company commander who was being relieved of duty.
The army is investigating the refusal on October 13 of 18 soldiers under her command to take a fuel convoy from Tallil, a base in southern Iraq, to Taji, north of the Iraqi capital.
Pentagon officials say the investigation is centered on five of the soldiers, but so far no one from the Rock Hill, South Carolina-based reserve unit has been charged in the incident.
The decision to relieve the commander of the company of her duties suggest that the breakdown in discipline and morale is regarded in part as a failure of leadership.
Soldiers complained through family members in the United States that the trucks were poorly maintained and insufficiently protected, making the mission a "suicide mission" run through a region notorious for roadside attacks on convoys.
The mission was carried out without incident hours later by a replacement crew, Pentagon officials said, portraying the incident as an isolated case of insubordination.
Chambers noted at a press conference in Baghdad on Sunday that 250 convoys a day are on the roads in Iraq, and that 26 soldiers have been killed in attacks and bombings in 75,000 missions performed by his command since February. But the incident has struck a raw nerve with the US public concerned about rising US casualties and reports that guard and reserve troops have not been adequately equipped for missions in Iraq.
Democratic candidate John Kerry has made the shortage of body armor and other protective gear a campaign issue.
Democrats in the House of Representatives have called for hearings on the issue, citing both the incident involving the 343rd Quartermaster Company and a letter that surfaced this week from the former US commander in Iraq complaining of supply problems.
"While we understand that the Department of Defense has taken steps to address equipment shortfalls, we are concerned that ... there are still shortages of vital, life-saving equipment urgently needed by our men and women in harm's way," a letter signed by 13 Democrats on the House Armed Services Committee said this week.
In a December 4 letter to the army leadership, Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez said a lack of spare parts for key combat systems such as tanks and helicopters was threatening his forces ability to sustain combat operations.
He also complained that shipments of protective inserts for 36,000 sets of body armor has been twice delayed.
The army said those shortfalls have since been remedied.
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Pentagon Says No Medical Draft Is Needed
October 21, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/21/politics/21draft.html
WASHINGTON, Oct. 20 (AP) - No war or other national emergency would overwhelm the military's medical care system and require a draft of civilian health care workers, a senior Pentagon official said Wednesday.
Dr. William Winkenwerder Jr., assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, told reporters that the Pentagon's own medical system and the private health care networks with which it is associated were sufficient under any situation.
"It would perform very effectively in the event of a national catastrophic event, even a large one," Dr. Winkenwerder said.
He was responding to an article in The New York Times on Tuesday that the Selective Service had updated its contingency plans for a draft of doctors and other health care workers, as required by a 1987 law. The article quoted a Selective Service spokesman as saying there were plans to deliver 36,000 health care workers to the Pentagon if and when a special-skills draft was activated.
Dr. Winkenwerder said, "There is no need for such a contingency plan," while acknowledging that such a plan was required by law.
"We have incredible capacity, so we don't see the need for any call-up of additional medical personnel," he said.
Dr. Winkenwerder's comments come amid a swirl of statements and rumors about a possible military draft. President Bush has said flatly that there will be no draft; his Democratic rival, Senator John Kerry, has suggested that a draft is a possibility under a second Bush administration.
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Pentagon says 200,000 who started anthrax-shot regimen must continue
Stars and Stripes
By Sandra Jontz,
October 21, 2004
http://stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=24198&archive=true
ARLINGTON, Va. - Troops who received some of their anthrax inoculations before the Pentagon halted it 3 years ago have until Dec. 31 to resume their six-shot regimen, no matter where they might be stationed, officials said.
About 200,000 troops need to pick up the vaccination where they left off, even if it has been three years since their last shot, said Col. Steve Jones, director of the Military Vaccine Agency.
Commanders will be responsible for working with health care providers and troops to ensure shot records are up-to-date and that those who qualify get their shots, Jones said.
The controversial vaccination program is mandatory for all personnel deploying to areas Pentagon officials have deemed "high risk," and for those who already started the process. The department will not inoculate those exempt for health reasons, though exempted personnel still are deployable.
For security reasons, Pentagon officials won't publicly define the high-risk areas, or say how many doses are available.
Anthrax vaccines were suspended in June 2001 because of a lack of vaccine when the manufacturer, BioPort, changed its manufacturing process without FDA approval. The stoppage created a stockpile shortage for the military. When the program resumed in 2002, it first started with troops deploying to the high-risk areas. With supply no longer an issue, the program can expand to include other troops, Jones said.
Some servicemembers have maintained the vaccine causes health problems and have accepted separation from service or disciplinary action for disobeying an order rather than take it
This summer, the Pentagon expanded the vaccination program in two phases. In June, as a result of an increase in supply, the Pentagon started inoculating "tens of thousands" of U.S. troops in or heading to the Pacific Command and Central Command areas.
In July, the program resumed for troops who already had received a dose before the program's halt, regardless if deployed to a combat zone or stationed in the United States, Jones said.
Stars and Stripes requested information from the Department of Defense after seeing reports on the matter.
Since the June 2002 resumption, the department has inoculated about 840,000 personnel. Since the program's inception in 1998, more than 1.2 million people have been vaccinated, he said.
In spite of the lag, troops do not have to start over with the regimen, experts said.
"We're following guidance from the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) ... on immunization practices and they recommend to one, stay on schedule as close as possible, and two, if you miss [a dose] it is not necessary to resume the entire sequence. Start where you left off," Jones said.
However, the shots are unnecessary, said Dr. Meryl Nass, a physician at Mount Desert Island Hospital in Bar Harbor, Maine, and an anthrax and bioterrorism expert who has testified repeatedly before Congress as a vocal opponent to the program.
"What is the evidence that there is a risk? There is none," said Nass. "[Presidential candidates] Bush and Kerry both are beating the drums about the risk of bioterrorism, but every credible organization that has looked into the issue hasn't found any," she said. "There are no weapons of mass destruction [in Iraq] and two groups hand-picked to find them didn't find them."
But troops need the vaccine, Jones said.
"We still feel the threat remains," Jones said. "We do not see a change in the threat and we think it is important to continue to provide a layer of protection to our troops and vaccinations is one of the primary layers of protection we can provide them."
The CDC is conducting studies to determine if the six-dose regimen can be lowered to four. It hopes to submit data to the FDA in early 2005 that could change the route of administration to intramuscular and reduce the dose schedule to five doses, with the full study to change to four doses and possibly biannual boosters in late 2007.
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The Unknown Soldiers
AlterNet.
By Lakshmi Chaudhry
October 21, 2004
http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/20254/
The reality of the suffering in Iraq has been rendered invisible by media hype and partisan battle. One doctor, who has treated some of the thousands, speaks about the war wounded.
Gene Bolles has seen more than his fair share of human suffering. Two years in Landstuhl Regional Medical Center - the U.S. military hospital in Germany that receives all injured soldiers evacuated from Iraq and Afghanistan - is no doctor's dream job, especially not if you are a neurosurgeon who specializes in brain and spinal injuries - the kind that can destroy a 19-year-old kid's life. Yet as he speaks of the shattered soldiers who were once his charge, Bolles is neither overwrought nor angry.
The soft-spoken 62-year-old civilian speaks not of politics but of humanity - the terrible toll imposed by all wars, unjust or otherwise, on all involved, soldier or civilian. He speaks not of blame but of compassion and duty - our duty as a nation to pay attention and tend to the young men and women we ask to sacrifice life or limb in battle. At a time when the reality of the suffering in Iraq has been rendered invisible by media hype and partisan battle, Gene Bolles remains a steadfast advocate for the scarred, the maimed, and the tormented - whose numbers are far, far greater than what the Bush administration would like to admit.
So how did you end up working at Landstuhl hospital?
I am a neurosurgeon and have been in the practice for 32 years. I was approached to consider working for the Department of Defense and going to Landstuhl right after 9/11. So I took a leave of absence from my hospital and became the chief of neurosurgery in Germany.
That was right at the time the war in Afghanistan began and carried through Feb. 1, 2004.
Were the 9/11 attacks part of the reason why you agreed to go to Landstuhl?
Sure, in part. I had been in the military years ago, during the Vietnam era. I'd had that experience. So when this came up, I felt honored to have an opportunity to go help out and do what I could.
What kind of cases did you treat in Landstuhl? And these were mostly kids, right?
Well, I call them that since I'm 62 years old. And they were 18, 19, maybe 21. They all seemed very young. Certainly younger than my children.
As a neurosurgeon I mostly dealt with injuries to the brain, the spinal cord, or the spine itself. The injuries were all fairly horrific, anywhere from loss of extremities, multiple extremities, to severe burns. It just goes on, and on, and on. There were just a lot of serious injuries.
As a doctor myself who has seen trauma throughout his career, I've never seen it to this degree. The numbers, the degree of injuries. It really kinda caught me off-guard.
What about the soldiers themselves?
The soldiers, initially because of how they're trained, don't think of themselves. They're thinking of the buddies they've left behind. Almost all of them don't accept the reality of what's happened to them. They're still back in the war zone. And they care about their buddies so much.
And this is what makes the soldiers do what they do so gallantly - this feeling for each other. So when they get injured, they first feel guilty that they're not still back with their buddies. But then as time goes on, they realize that the price they paid for the war and then there is anger. And then there is frustration, then sadness, then depression. They realize they may never walk again or are so disfigured that the rest of their life is going to be very difficult.
But when they're going through this depression, we don't write about them so much. We don't display them. We want to only look at those soldiers who have either recovered from it or those who are acting as though nothing has happened. It's because we want to look at them as heroes. And they are heroes. But it's a reality that is not talked about much.
One of the soldiers interviewed in a recent documentary, titled "The Ground Truth," said that post-traumatic stress disorder is going to be to the Iraq War what Agent Orange was to the Vietnam War. Do you agree?
Yes. I have talked to many people who've been in the war zone. Perhaps I had a unique relationship with these soldiers because I was not an officer but a civilian; I didn't have direct control over them. Many of them felt more comfortable in allowing themselves to talk to me. They would talk about the nervousness they constantly felt, especially after the first part of the war ended and it became more a guerilla war. And they'd get attacked while sitting around waiting for orders to come in or just driving along the road. It started driving them batty. They were afraid and unsettled - it was different from charging ahead.
Many would break down talking about seeing their buddy get hurt or killed. They would even talk about the Iraqi soldiers - how awful it was, all that carnage. One guy hadn't slept for a long time because of nightmares because of what he saw early in the war, when we were killing high numbers of Iraqis. And he saw some of them got run over by tanks. He just couldn't get those images out of his mind.
They talk about hearing screams of comrades or enemies or civilians, or children. To see it and be there creates a lot of reaction. Sometimes they might initially act really tough, but underneath it all most soldiers have a lot of humane feeling. They feel this horror very deeply - more than many are willing to admit.
Do you think that soldiers who suffer from psychological damage get enough help? Their injuries may not look as "bad," but they've suffered terrible emotional damage because of the sheer horror of war.
I've seen experienced officers break down because of what they've seen just as much as young recruits. They're covering up and carrying such deep emotions. A soldier doesn't want to show that emotion. He is fearful that if he does, others will perceive him as weak. And there is some truth to that.
So even when they are going through emotional upheaval, they won't seek out help or admit that they are having these feelings. A lot of it doesn't come out until after they're discharged.
Are they prepared to deal with or not? Probably not. But they are trying to do better than what happened during the Vietnam era.
No I don't think they receive enough help. At the same time, I don't want to be critical of the present system. All of us are learning how to deal with this. What is important is that people need to be made aware of this issue. Rather than attack the system, I would much prefer to raise awareness of this issue and how it affects the soldiers. We're going to see as much if not more as what happened after the Vietnam War. The incidences of alcoholism, substance abuse, homelessness, inability to work, marriages that crumble, and so on. So we need to do something right now.
But many of these soldiers are not included in the numbers put out by the Pentagon for soldiers wounded in action in Iraq, which is right now around 7,500. Is there an important distinction between combat and non-combat related injuries?
Well, you should probably look up a military manual to get the definitions exactly right, but here's how I understand it: Say you're on duty, something blows up or you get shot, that's what they call a combat injury. But if you get in a truck accident or a Humvee rolls over you, that's defined as non-combat. So you can get a Purple Heart for the former and not for the latter.
And yes, we don't hear about the non-combat injuries and illnesses. I've seen figures that are now upwards of 30,000. I know that at least 20,000 have been air-evacuated into the Landstuhl system. These are also people who have suffered doing what we as a country are asking of them. As to why they're not recognized, they seem to be of lesser importance in that they're not mentioned. I don't think that's fair.
The numbers are even higher when you look at the numbers once the soldiers return to the country from Iraq or Afghanistan. According to some of the veteran groups, 33,000 have sought VA care, 26,000 have filed VA disability claims, and 10,000 have sought VA counseling. When you look at these huge, huge numbers, what do they indicate?
It's just starting and it's only going to get worse. Those numbers are going to do nothing but increase. You have the physical injuries which speak for themselves. I've seen the breakdown of that 33,000 number (who've sought VA care) and they include a significant percent of spine injuries. As a neurosurgeon, I saw all the complaints in that area and I can only say that there's an overwhelming number of them.
These are people in a lot of chronic pain. They're seeking help from our VA system, which is undergoing changes and is still under-funded. So these people don't get the help they really need. There's a lot of people suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome - that number is going to go up, and up, and up as time goes on.
So what is at stake in this undercounting of the casualties in Iraq - in not making clear what the toll of the war has imposed on our soldiers?
I really don't know why it's not out there for all of us to see. The question is why isn't our news media reporting this night after night so the American people can know about it. If you know about it, then why isn't CNN or NBC pushing this stuff?
What you see on TV and what you see in reality, is like night and day. The embedding of the journalists seemed to sterilize the war. When I heard them report, it was like it was a football game. The true effects of war are just awful. I'm now hearing estimates of upward of 30,000 in terms of civilian deaths. Let alone, all the Iraqis who have been injured.
Do you get the sense with this administration that even talking about the costs of the war is equivalent to challenging it?
I think wars should be challenged because they're absolutely devastating. The way it's made out is that if you're against what's happening in Iraq, you're against the present government or against the soldiers. And no, it doesn't have to be that way at all.
Why does the government make these differentiations? Why do they not talk about the reality of war? I suspect it's because they don't want upset all of the people who may then turn against the war. This is a war that has been debatable from the beginning.
But the soldiers don't seem to be questioning the war even though the initial reasons for the war such as WMDs have crumbled. I saw a CNN report on how many of them now see the reason for doing their job is to take care of their buddies - to make sure that everyone gets to go home in one piece.
My personal feeling is that the average soldier doesn't go to war because of the country. The reality is that the reason why they fight is the community that they've been a part of in the military. They don't look at the rationale or reason for war with that degree of depth. Maybe many soldiers would argue with me, I didn't really hear that in my conversations with them. It's more about their buddies. So it makes sense that it's more so now than ever.
But maybe now we're seeing some cracks. Depending on how this ends up - maybe not if the war ends better than we expect - but I suspect we're going to see a lot of anger among the GIs and veterans when they come back.
How have these very emotional years affected you?
I think about it a lot when I go to bed at night. I can't get it out of my head. It haunted me then and it haunts me now - the horrific, horrific injuries that these young people will now have to deal with for their rest of their lives. And I don't know if I'll ever stop thinking about them. I just feel a tremendous sadness - and that's just the way it is. I just hope everything in the world can be done to make what they have left for the rest of their lives as positive as possible. I sometimes fear that once they come back - with all the injuries and damage - they'll be forgotten about very quickly.
Lakshmi Chaudhry is senior editor of Alternet.
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
-------- courts / tribunals
U.S. Loses Ruling on Monitoring of Detainees
By Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 21, 2004; Page A04
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49155-2004Oct20.html
The military must give men imprisoned at the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, speedy access to their attorneys and cannot monitor their conversations with the lawyers, a federal judge ordered yesterday.
In a scolding opinion expected to aid other detainees who argue that they have been unfairly imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay, U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly rejected the government's claim that it needs to monitor all conversations, notes and mail between lawyers and three detainee clients to protect the nation from future terrorist attacks.
Kollar-Kotelly's ruling covers only three Kuwaitis held for almost three years at the prison. But it also deals a blow to the Bush administration's position that it can dictate access rules to the 68 alleged al Qaeda and Taliban fighters who have demanded that the government justify their imprisonment or release them.
Kollar-Kotelly's decision came in a lawsuit, filed two years ago, by 12 Kuwaiti nationals, three of whom are scheduled to meet their attorneys in the near future. But her 20-page conclusion is a strong signal to other judges presiding over detainees' claims that are still wending their way through the federal court in Washington.
Kollar-Kotelly wrote that the Supreme Court clearly ruled this summer that the more than 500 Guantanamo detainees, all foreign nationals, have the right to challenge their imprisonment in U.S. courts. She concluded that the high court's ruling means they must have access to American lawyers, a position the government had fought.
The judge also wrote that allowing lawyers and their clients to speak privately is virtually guaranteed in the U.S. court system. She said government claims that the president can limit those rights because of fears that the detainees will pass along or gain information threatening national security is "thinly supported."
Attorneys for detainees applauded the ruling, saying it upholds a fundamental principle of the legal system and affirmed the ruling by the Supreme Court in June.
"It's a great decision for the detainees and for this country. . . . The judge is saying people have a right to counsel without the government being in the room with you," said Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which filed petitions for many of the detainees this summer.
Pentagon spokesman Maj. Michael Shavers said the Defense Department and its attorneys at the Justice Department need time to review the opinion before deciding whether to appeal.
"We'll look at the ruling from the judge and look at the way ahead," he said.
Army Brig. Gen. Martin Lucenti, acting commander of the military task force that runs the prison at Guantanamo Bay, has told the court in written filings that the three Kuwaitis have strong connections to al Qaeda and may try to use their conversations with their attorneys to obtain secret information about U.S. vulnerabilities and relay messages to terrorist cells.
Lucenti said that one of the detainees, Mohammed al Kandari, "may have served as a spiritual advisor to Usama bin Laden"; that Fawzi al Odah has "admitted to having Taliban connections and has admitted to being a member of al Qaida"; and that Khalid al Mutairi "has expressed his anti-American views and his desire to engage in terrorist and other violent activity against Americans."
But Kollar-Kotelly wrote that rules set by the court governing meetings between lawyers and detainees address the risk to national security. The attorneys for the detainees must obtain security clearances to visit their clients at the Cuba base, and they must get court approval to share information from their clients with the detainees' relatives or other lawyers.
The judge wrote that a government that spies on the essential, confidential relationship between a lawyer and client "would lay waste to the value of attorney-client privilege" and added: "The government attempts to erode this bedrock principle with a flimsy assemblage of cases and one regulation."
A few lawyers have met with clients at the prison under conditions set by the government. One has complained that the government listened in on their conversations and breached her client's confidentiality by releasing some information about him.
Thomas Wilner, an attorney for the Kuwaitis, said he was willing to observe some government rules to avoid any risk of security breaches, but he questioned how dangerous his clients truly are.
"It's really strange that after three years down there, none of them have been designated by the government as a terrorist or terrorist supporter," he said of his three clients. "You would think if they were so dangerous, that would have happened by now."
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Rights groups back Chile's tribal 'terrorists'
independent.co.uk
By Jen Ross in Temuco, Chile
21 October 2004
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=574392
There is not a handcuff in sight during breaks in legal proceedings when the men accused of being Chile's most dangerous terrorists joke and play their traditional trutruca horns outside the courtroom.
To Chile's big landowners, the Mapuche Indian separatists now entering their second week on trial caused a reign of terror in the countryside that forced the government to invoke Pinochet-era terrorism laws to bring them to justice.
But human rights groups say the Mapuche are guilty of nothing more than defending their way of life, without a single casualty. Jorge Haiquín, one of only eight Mapuche who actually appeared at the hearings, said it was clear they were not terrorists. "You wouldn't see this anywhere else in the world," he said. "I mean, if we are supposedly terrorists, we shouldn't be out here like this."
Sixteen of the tribal leaders of the separatist Mapuche group, Coodinadora Arauco-Malleco (CAM), have been charged with offences concerning attacks on farms and forestry companies in 2001, and could face prison terms of more than 10 years if found guilty. Their efforts to burn plantations and equipment, and reclaim land, have hurt commercial interests and put intense pressure on Chile's Socialist government to get tough.
A southern agricultural consortium estimated that in the past five years, farmers and forestry companies have suffered more than 600 Mapuche attacks. They are estimated to have resulted in damage costing more than a billion pesos (Ł10m). International human rights groups disagree with the application of an anti-terrorist law for attacks that have never killed or seriously injured anybody.
"These are crimes against property rather than crimes against people," Sebastian Brett, a Human Rights Watch researcher said. "And while there's no universal definition of terrorism, most international conventions agree terrorism involves a threat to life." The only life taken so far was that of Mapuche Alex Lemún, allegedly shot by police as he attacked a pine tree plantation.
Juan Agustín Figueroa, a former agriculture minister and local landowner, had told the court of death threats and repeated fire attacks on his pine and eucalyptus plantations over the past three years.
"It has caused fear and a lot of anxiety for us and the others who've suffered such threats," Mr Figueroa said. "And it has brought damage from an economic point of view. Who wants to insure you after so many attacks?"
The specific charges in the trial concern the burning of six homesteads and 10 forestry plantations, trespassing, property damage and illegal weapons possession. Most of the attacks have been in the indigenous heartland of the Biobío and Araucanía regions, close to Temuco.
The Mapuche say they were tricked out of their ancestral lands by false titles more than a century ago. They say large-scale agriculture and forestry has been damaging the environment and threatening their traditional way of life. The charges are the result of a year-long criminal investigation. This week, the court was shown a dozen police surveillance tapes of public speeches, media interviews, or the accused going in and out of the home of the CAM's leader.
The trial could last up to three months, with more than 250 witnesses and experts testifying. Already six witnesses have done so with their identities shielded. The use of "faceless" witnesses is also being attacked by human rights advocates. "Under international norms of due process, the defence and prosecution must have equal right to cross-examination," Mr Brett said.
-------- drug war
DEA Withdraws Its Support Of Guidelines on Painkillers
By Marc Kaufman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 21, 2004; Page A03
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A49719-2004Oct20?language=printer
The Drug Enforcement Administration has reversed its support for a set of negotiated guidelines designed to end a controversy over the arrests of hundreds of pain specialists who prescribed powerful narcotics for their patients. The agency took the document off its Web site earlier this month, less than two months after announcing it with great fanfare.
In rescinding its endorsement, the DEA wrote on its Web site that the 31-page document "contained misstatements" and "was not approved as an official statement of the agency." The agency declined to give any more specifics, saying that it hoped to issue a statement "in one or two weeks."
Worried doctors who had worked on crafting the "consensus" document -- written over the past year by DEA officials and prominent pain management specialists -- criticized the agency's unannounced decision to disavow it. They said they were given no explanation or told whether the agency had changed its position on the contentious question of when and how doctors can prescribe the popular painkillers without risking prosecution.
Advocates for aggressive pain management said the DEA's decision appears to have been triggered when defense lawyers tried to introduce the guidelines in the upcoming drug-trafficking trial of William Hurwitz, a McLean physician.
In late September, Hurwitz's defense team sought to introduce them as evidence. Several weeks later, the DEA took the document off its Web site and said it was not official policy.
Twelve days after that, U.S. Attorney Paul J. McNulty, who is prosecuting Hurwitz, filed a motion in the case asking that the guidelines be excluded as evidence, again saying that they do "not have the force and effect of law."
"It seems pretty clear that they felt they had to try to get rid of the guidelines because they supported so many parts of our case," said Hurwitz's defense attorney, Patrick Hallinan. "If the Justice Department followed the guidelines, there would be no reason to arrest and charge Dr. Hurwitz." The case is scheduled for trial Nov. 3.
DEA spokesman Ed Childress said the agency intends to rework the guidelines and publish them again. He said he could not comment on whether the decision to remove them had anything to do with any legal case.
The guidelines, which were published in August in the form of a "Frequently Asked Questions" feature prominently displayed on the DEA Web site, were described at the time as an effort to codify the "balance" that both the DEA and the pain management community have long said they are seeking.
The DEA has complained in the past that irresponsible, and possibly criminal, doctors prescribed narcotic painkillers too frequently and without enough care -- letting the valuable drugs get into the hands of people who sell them, abuse them and sometimes are harmed by them.
But many pain specialists have watched with dismay as scores of colleagues were arrested on criminal charges based on what many believe was sometimes good, aggressive treatment or, at worst, negligent prescribing practices. Many of the cases triggered mandatory sentencing guidelines that can send convicted drug dealers to prison for decades.
The introduction of long-lasting prescription opioids such as OxyContin revolutionized the treatment of pain, which doctors say is greatly under-treated in the United States.
Researchers say a small percentage of patients become addicted, but most people in pain do not. However, OxyContin and other powerful drugs became popular with drug abusers in the late 1990s, especially in rural and southern areas, and it has been linked to numerous hospitalizations and some deaths.
The consensus document was the product of more than a year of work by Russell K. Portenoy, a leading pain expert with New York's Beth Israel Medical Center, University of Wisconsin pain specialist David E. Joranson, professionals involved in the care of dying patients, and two top officials of the DEA.
When the guidelines were made public, DEA Administrator Karen P. Tandy embraced them and said in a statement: "The medical and law enforcement communities continue to work together to carefully balance the needs of legitimate patients for pain medications against the equally compelling need to protect the public from the risk of addiction and even possible death from these medications. . . . The DEA is committed to assisting the overwhelming majority of health care providers who successfully strike that balance every day, as well as the law enforcement officers investigating diversion and abuse of pain medications."
Portenoy said the group worked closely with the DEA, responding to many of its concerns and revising drafts many times to accommodate the agency. Portenoy said agency officials were active in the entire process, and he said he strongly believed that there had been "complete buy-in from the upper echelon" of the DEA regarding the guidelines.
Since word went out the guidelines had been withdrawn, he has received many calls and e-mails from worried and upset doctors, Portenoy said.
"There was a real feeling that we had made significant progress, but now we have to wonder whether that progress is all gone," Portenoy said. "If they don't fix whatever problems they might have and put the document back up, that would speak very clearly that the goal of the DEA is not to collaborate with the medical community or to reassure doctors about the proper role and use of prescription opioids in pain management."
The guidelines were also on many Web sites for pain clinics and programs. The DEA called at least one of them, the Pain & Policy Studies Group of the University of Wisconsin, and asked it to remove the document.
-------- homeland security / national intelligence
House, Senate at impasse on 9/11 overhaul
October 21, 2004
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20041020-112923-1256r.htm
House and Senate negotiators yesterday refused to give ground on a compromise on the September 11 commission's terror-fighting recommendations. The White House and victims' families appealed for a deal.
Rep. Peter Hoekstra, the Michigan Republican who as chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence is in charge of the negotiations, acknowledged that three straight days of meetings among aides to key lawmakers have proved fruitless.
The public session yesterday, the first involving the negotiators since the House and Senate passed different versions, produced no movement.
The National Commission of Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States urged Congress to create a national intelligence director to oversee 15 military and nonmilitary intelligence agencies. The hope was that such a step would prevent terrorist attacks such as the 2001 hijackings that killed about 3,000 people in New York, Northern Virginia and Pennsylvania.
But the House and Senate voted to maintain the current wall between military and nonmilitary intelligence operations, even while building some bridges over them.
The commission also called for more safeguards, including national standards for driver's licenses and other identification, improved "no-fly" and other terrorist watch lists, and greater use of biometric identifiers to screen travelers at ports and borders.
House Democrats have joined Senate negotiators in supporting the Senate version. The Senate bill omits measures included in the House version that would tighten border security and give law-enforcement agencies new authority to fight illegal immigration and identify theft.
Democrats say differences on those issues will bog down the debate and might kill the bill.
"If we try to do this on this conference committee, my friends, we are going to be here for months without producing a product," Sen. Richard J. Durbin, Illinois Democrat, said yesterday.
House Republicans defended their legislation, saying that without the measures they added, the work would be only half done.
"I strongly believe that we must not be deterred by the well-intentioned belief expressed by some that these ideas in the House bill are too controversial to be enacted," said House Judiciary Committee Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., Wisconsin Republican.
Mr. Hoekstra plans to meet with the top two supporters of the Senate bill, Sen. Susan Collins, Maine Republican, and Sen. Joe Lieberman, Connecticut Democrat, and California Rep. Jane Harman, the top Democrat on his committee.
Mr. Hoekstra said House Republicans also are putting together an offer. That brought angry rebukes from House and Senate Democrats, who said any House offer should be bipartisan. Mr. Hoekstra said any offer would not come until after he meets with Mrs. Collins, Mr. Lieberman and Mrs. Harman.
On Tuesday, the White House asked negotiators to take pieces from each bill but not include in the final package the House's language on speedy deportations and handling of immigrants seeking political asylum. The September 11 commission also called for those provisions to be removed.
"We believe that this bill is not the right occasion for tackling controversial immigration and law-enforcement issues that go well beyond the commission's recommendations," former New Jersey Republican Gov. Thomas H. Kean and former Rep. Lee H. Hamilton, Indiana Democrat, the panel's chairman and vice chairman, wrote the negotiators.
Mr. Hoekstra would not commit to having legislation finished by the Nov. 2 election, but told lawmakers to prepare for the possibility of daily, weekend and round-the-clock meetings.
Some lawmakers said the Election Day target should be junked completely.
"Nine-eleven is the mission, not Nov. 2," said Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg, New Jersey Democrat.
--------
9/11 Panel Backs Senate Plan for Intelligence Overhaul
October 21, 2004
By PHILIP SHENON
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/21/politics/21panel.html
WASHINGTON, Oct. 20 - The members of the independent Sept. 11 commission joined together on Wednesday to endorse legislation to overhaul the nation's intelligence community, telling lawmakers that "half-hearted reform would leave us worse off than we are today."
In their most important policy statement since completing their final report in July, the commission's five Democrats and five Republicans offered strong support for provisions of a bipartisan Senate bill that would enact the panel's central recommendation: creation of the job of national intelligence director to coordinate the government's 15 spy agencies.
"If the national intelligence director does not have strong authorities, then we do not believe such a position should be created," they said in a letter issued by the 9/11 Public Discourse Project, the education and lobbying group established by the commission members this fall.
The commissioners suggested that a rival Republican-authored House bill placed too many limits on the intelligence director's budget and personnel authority and that the House bill included many contentious law enforcement provisions that could derail an overall bill to overhaul the nation's intelligence agencies.
"We believe strongly that this bill is not the right occasion for tackling controversial immigration and law enforcement issues that go well beyond the commission's recommendations," the letter said. "Some provisions seem particularly inappropriate at this late moment."
On Tuesday, the White House made somewhat similar points in a letter to the negotiators favoring key elements of the Senate bill and opposing provisions of the House version making it easier to deport foreigners, but endorsing other law enforcement provisions of the House bill.
The commission's letter was addressed to Representative Peter Hoekstra, the Michigan Republican who is chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and who is leading a House-Senate conference committee to reconcile the two bills. Congressional leaders have asked that the compromise bill be ready before the Nov. 2 election.
The conference committee met Wednesday for the first time, with no clear sign of an early compromise. Some House Republicans made clear that they were determined to preserve the controversial law enforcement and immigration provisions in the House bill and that they were wary of going as far as the Senate wants in granting powers to the national intelligence director, especially on issues involving military intelligence.
The law enforcement and immigration provisions would, among other things, expand the use of the death penalty in terrorism cases, expand the government's electronic surveillance authority against terror suspects and make it easier for the government to deport foreign citizens without court review.
"They're not extraneous provisions; they're vital," said Representative F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., the Wisconsin Republican who is chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. "We must not be deterred by the well-intentioned belief expressed by some that these ideas in the House bill are too controversial to be enacted."
After opening statements in which the House and Senate negotiators called upon one another to put aside partisan differences and agree quickly on a compromise, partisan rancor arose when Representative Hoekstra announced that House Republicans had been meeting privately in hopes of preparing a "good-faith global" proposal for a bill that could be presented to the conference.
The announcement met with an angry response from Representative Jane Harman of California, the ranking Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, who said that "whatever it is that you are planning to do has not been discussed with me at all, and I object to this process." She said a "Republican House product'' would "derail what we're trying to do.''
Trying to restore a sense of bipartisanship, Mr. Hoekstra quickly agreed that House Democrats would be allowed to review any proposal before it was shared with Senate negotiators. "Before we present anything to folks on the Senate side, we will have complete due diligence on the House side," he said. "We fully recognize that this is going to be a bipartisan, fully involved conference."
In a statement issued after the meeting, another member of the conference committee, Senator Frank R. Lautenberg, a New Jersey Democrat, criticized the move by House Republicans. "Out of the gate, we saw the House Republicans use a partisan tactic to try to force the committee to only consider the House version of the bill," he said. "Thankfully, under the watchful eye of the 9/11 families, bipartisanship won in this round."
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FBI Investigates Holes In 3 US Airways Planes
By Keith L. Alexander
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 21, 2004; Page E01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49905-2004Oct20.html
The FBI is investigating the cause of several puncture holes found near the landing gear of three US Airways aircraft.
The holes, ranging in size from a pencil point to a dime, were found on a Boeing 737 and two Airbus 320s during routine inspections earlier this week. Two of the planes were at the airline's hub airport in Charlotte and one was in Orlando.
FBI spokesman David Martinez said the agency was assessing whether the damage was the result of regular operations or an intentional act.
"That's why we've opened up an investigation. We are trying to determine those various issues," Martinez said.
The holes posed no safety danger and the repaired planes are back in service, said US Airways spokesman David Castelveter.
US Airways, which is operating under Chapter 11 protection for the second time in two years, won approval from the bankruptcy court last week to cut workers' pay and benefits by 21 percent through February.
The Federal Aviation Administration automatically steps up surveillance of maintenance operations of airlines in bankruptcy. It also pays closer attention to carriers seeking pay cuts from workers. The aircraft holes were found by airline employees performing standard preflight inspections.
Castelveter said the airline has contacted the FBI in the past to investigate unexplained damage to its aircraft. "There are a variety of potential reasons for the damage," he said.
The FBI and US Airways employees familiar with the case said that gravel kicked up during landings may have penetrated the aircraft's belly. Martinez said that gravel was one possibility the FBI was investigating.
Industry observers said that disgruntled employees have rarely been known to harm aircraft.
Far more common is for employees to slow down their work, adding paperwork or spending extra time on maintenance to keep planes in the hangars longer.
Consultant Mike Boyd of the Boyd Group said that along with US Airways employees, non-company workers such as fuel operators and airport personnel have access to parked planes.
"It's unlikely a US Airways employee would do something like this," Boyd said.
--------
Intelligence Reform Hits a Hurdle
Lawmakers at Odds on Immigration, Civil Liberties Board
By Charles Babington
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 21, 2004; Page A27
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49153-2004Oct20.html
The opening round of House-Senate negotiations meant to craft a bill restructuring the nation's intelligence community ended in discord yesterday as lawmakers disagreed on whether tougher immigration rules and a new civil liberties board should be part of the package.
The nearly three-hour public meeting culminated in partisan squabbling and offered few clues as to whether negotiators can resolve the many differences in time to reconvene Congress, vote on the measure and send it to President Bush before the Nov. 2 elections. Numerous advocates have said momentum and public pressure for action will subside after the elections. Negotiators plan to meet again today.
Both chambers generally agree on the need to create a national intelligence director and a counterterrorism center in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, but they differ on how much power to give the director. More problematic, they also differ on whether to expand government powers to easily deport foreign suspects and to conduct surveillance on citizens and noncitizens.
In their first gathering, 17 members of the House-Senate conference committee gave speeches that outlined key differences in the two competing bills, each more than 500 pages. Several touted the need for a civil liberties board to safeguard citizens' privacy and rights in the face of enhanced government surveillance in the hunt for terrorists.
"We would be handing the terrorists a victory if we compromise the very freedoms that define us as Americans," said Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), head of the Senate delegation.
Supporting her position is the bipartisan Sept. 11 commission, which goaded Congress into action with its hard-hitting July report on government deficiencies in intelligence and anti-terrorism efforts. A civil liberties board is vital and its members "must be Senate-confirmed" and "have strong investigative powers," said a four-page letter sent to the negotiators yesterday by the commission's top members -- former New Jersey governor Thomas H. Kean (R) and former representative Lee H. Hamilton (D-Ind.).
The House and the Bush administration oppose the plan. They note that Bush has created a civil liberties board in the executive branch. But senators and the Sept. 11 commissioners say that board's members have little independence or power.
House negotiators, meanwhile, strongly defended several measures in their bill that would enhance border-control efforts and make it easier to deport certain categories of immigrants with little or no review by a judge. "These are not extraneous provisions," said Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.). "They are vital."
The conference committee's chairman, Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.), surprised senators and House Democrats by announcing plans to offer "a good-faith global effort" to begin reaching compromises on key points. House Republicans and White House advisers were putting final touches on the plan, he said, prompting an outcry from Democrats in both chambers.
"I would question the usefulness of a Republican House product introduced this late in the process," said Rep. Jane Harman (Calif.), the conference committee's top House Democrat.
Hoekstra agreed to start outlining his plan in closed meetings with Harman, Collins and Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.). Yesterday evening, aides to those lawmakers said little progress had been made.
Some senators urged conferees to use the Kean-Hamilton letter as a guideline for resolving differences on intelligence matters. The letter said the new national intelligence director "must have authority to approve and submit a unified budget for national intelligence . . . and a significant role in determining the budgets for intelligence agencies" in the Department of Defense. The director also "must have full authority over the non-military personnel in the intelligence community," the letter said. Those recommendations track more closely with the Senate bill than the House bill.
Negotiations on other matters may prove more difficult. The Kean-Hamilton letter said, "We believe strongly that this bill is not the right occasion for tackling controversial immigration and law enforcement issues that go well beyond the commission's recommendations."
But the White House has endorsed some provisions in the House bill. They include recommendations to limit the judicial appeal options of people facing deportation; to make visa revocation automatic grounds for being deported; and to give the secretary of homeland security the power to detain foreign suspects indefinitely under various circumstances.
Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.) urged his fellow conferees to deal only with intelligence issues, leaving contentious questions of immigration and law enforcement to the next Congress. "That's the big question of the will of the conference," he said.
Sensenbrenner said, however, "history will judge us poorly if we miss this opportunity" to give agents new weapons to track, detain and deport terrorism suspects.
--------
U.S. to Enforce Rules for Mail to Canada
(AP)
October 21, 2004
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-4565133,00.html
WASHINGTON - Most mail to Canada must bear the complete name and address of both sender and recipient or it won't be allowed into the country, the U.S. Postal Service said Wednesday. The tighter addressing requirements are in response to increased security.
Even such sender or recipient identifications as ``Grandma'' or ``Aunt Ruth'' can result in mail being rejected, the agency said.
All mail, except post cards, that does not show the complete name and address of sender and recipient - in Roman letters and Arabic numerals - is being denied entry.
Canada Post spokesman John Caines said that Canadian customs officials have become increasingly vigilant about enforcing the requirement that all international mail have a complete address for both the sender and recipient.
U.S. postal officials said addresses on mail to Canada should be printed in ink or typewritten in capital letters, and the last line of the address must show only the country name, written in full, and in capital letters. When a Canadian postal delivery zone number is included in the address, mailing requirements allow that number to appear as the last line of the address.
Mailers must also fill out necessary customs forms specifying the contents of parcels. General descriptions such as ``gift'' or ``present'' are not acceptable.
U.S. officials said Canadian Customs offices are reporting a backlog of incoming postal items with incomplete or inaccurate information. Canadian officials say these items will be returned to their points of origin as soon as practical.
Mail enters Canada at three points, Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver. Caines said the Vancouver office is experiencing a backlog of parcels which have been help up because of staffing problems.
-------- justice
Pentagon probes punishment of whistleblower
October 21, 2004
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20041020-112923-1126r.htm
The Pentagon is investigating the National Security Agency for improperly punishing an official after he reported he suspected a co-worker was a Chinese agent in the Defense Intelligence Agency.
The Pentagon inspector general's office is probing the NSA, which specializes in electronic spying, for retaliating against Russ Tice, an 18-year specialist who worked on highly classified intelligence programs. Defense officials say the agency violated rules that protect "whistleblowers" in government who report wrongdoing by federal agencies.
A defense official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Mr. Tice appears to have been punished unfairly.
"It looks like he communicated substantive concerns" to another agency outside of NSA, the official said, noting that investigators are trying to determine whether Mr. Tice was a victim of unfair reprisal by NSA.
"I'm being retaliated against because I followed the rules and reported suspicious behavior," Mr. Tice said in an interview. "I continued to report on that, and now I'm being retaliated against by having my security access denied and ultimately revoked."
Without a security clearance, Mr. Tice will be forced to end his employment at NSA. The agency formally began the termination process against Mr. Tice in August.
Prior to that, Mr. Tice was posted to the NSA motor pool at the agency's Fort Meade headquarters where he was placed on "red badge" status that prohibited him from working in his normal job.
Mr. Tice said he was one of at least 14 other NSA specialists who were sent to the motor pool as administrative punishment.
Mr. Tice also said NSA security officials forced him to undergo two evaluations by agency psychiatrists who declared him mentally unbalanced. The agency's security officials used the evaluations to suspend his clearance, he said.
Mr. Tice had been nominated to receive a medal for his intelligence work during the Iraq war. The medal was withdrawn after his clearance was suspended.
Mr. Tice said the evaluations were part of a tactic to remove him from the agency for reporting his suspicions about a spy. Three other psychiatric evaluations, including two conducted while he was at NSA, showed he was normal, he said.
An NSA spokesman said the agency does not comment on personnel matters.
Mr. Tice's case began in early 2001 while he was working for the Defense Intelligence Agency. At that time, he said, he began to suspect that an Asian-American woman working with him at DIA was linked to Chinese intelligence.
The woman voiced sympathies toward China and against Taiwan, and showed what officials say are often signs of espionage, including personal travel abroad and unusual affluence.
Mr. Tice said he alerted DIA's security office to the woman's activities and initially was told his suspicions were unfounded. He transferred to a job at NSA in November 2002 and continued to report his security concerns about the DIA analyst.
His concerns were heightened by the case of the FBI's longtime paid informant, Katrina Leung, who was arrested in April 2003 for supplying FBI counterintelligence secrets to Chinese intelligence and for having affairs with two veteran FBI counterspies.
Mr. Tice said that after Miss Leung's arrest in April 2003, he sent an e-mail message from his NSA office to a DIA security official questioning the FBI's competence in probing Chinese espionage.
Mr. Tice said during one exchange with the DIA counterintelligence official he was told there is "reason to be concerned" about the female DIA analyst being a spy.
The DIA official forwarded Mr. Tice's e-mail to NSA security, which then ordered him to take the psychiatric evaluation that led to the suspension of his security clearances.
After several months of red-badge status, Mr. Tice sought administrative help from NSA Deputy Director William Black, the office of Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski, Maryland Democrat, and several other members of Congress involved in intelligence oversight.
-------- prisons / prisoners
Afghan Prisoners Released From U.S. Base
October 21, 2004
By AMIR SHAH
Associated Press Writer
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AFGHAN_US_PRISONER_RELEASE?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
KABUL,Afghanistan (AP) -- Seventeen Afghans were released Thursday from a U.S. base at the center of an investigation into the deaths of two prisoners in custody, the international Red Cross said.
The men were freed from Bagram Air Base, north of the capital, and brought to Kabul, where Red Cross officials gave them enough money to cover their trip home. An estimated 300 prisoners remain in the base.
Several of the men said they had been picked up some four months ago and interrogated repeatedly about the activities of Taliban rebels. But they spoke of no mistreatment in the time before they were released without charge.
Up to 28 U.S. soldiers face possible criminal charges in connection with the deaths of two prisoners at Bagram in December 2002, the Army announced last week.
The army has said both victims suffered "blunt force injuries" and ruled both deaths as homicides.
Noor Wali Khan, a 37-year-old waiting at a Kabul bus station, said he was well fed in his time at Bagram and showed reporters a copy of the Quran presented to him on his release.
"I wasn't beaten or threatened in the jail, the atmosphere was OK," he said. "We had two showers a week, but unfortunately the water was cold. That was a bit uncomfortable for us."
Khan said six American soldiers had arrested him about four months earlier during evening prayers at a mosque in Khost province, a former al-Qaida stronghold on the Pakistani border.
He said he was brought via an airport - presumably that in Khost city - to Bagram where he was kept "first in a cage and then in a room."
In repeated interrogations, "they said 'You know Taliban, where are the Taliban?' We said we didn't know, that these were baseless accusations."
The military says it has made a string of changes to procedures at some 20 secretive military prisons across Afghanistan since the deaths at Bagram.
The top American commander here said recently that soldiers had stopped stripping prisoners for medical examinations - a grave humiliation in the eyes of many Afghans - and using dogs to scare them into cooperating.
An American general reviewed the prison network earlier this year, but his report has yet to be made public.
U.S. authorities are investigating several other alleged cases of prisoner abuse in military jails in Afghanistan.
One case pursued by the CIA has resulted in charges of assault being brought against a former agency contractor over the June 2003 death of an Afghan detainee in eastern Afghanistan.
Some of the soldiers who may be charged in connection with the Bagram deaths are from the 519th Military Intelligence Battalion. Some members of the 519th went from Afghanistan to Iraq in 2003 and are among those accused by Army investigators of abusing Iraqi detainees in the fall of 2003.
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Military to keep freeing prisoners
October 21, 2004
By Guy Taylor
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20041020-112925-2783r.htm
Reports of several former Guantanamo Bay prisoners returning to terrorism are unlikely to make the Defense Department less willing to free more prisoners, a spokesman said yesterday.
"I don't think it will make it more difficult to release people in the future," said Air Force Maj. Michael Shavers, a Pentagon spokesman. "We will continue to apply stringent scrutiny of the cases of these individuals."
Maj. Shavers said military officials have confirmed reports indicating about 10 prisoners released from the naval base prison on Cuba's southeastern tip have "returned to committing terrorists acts."
Their identities have not been released, but one former prisoner made his name known in Pakistan recently by claiming responsibility for the Oct. 9 kidnapping of two Chinese engineers.
Pakistan, a close ally to China, has vowed to hunt down Abdullah Mehsud, who returned to the country in March after about two years' detention at Guantanamo. Helicopter gunships attacked his suspected hide-out in the South Waziristan tribal zone yesterday, Reuters reported.
The news agency said one of the hostages and all of the kidnappers, whom Mehsud had directed from a secret location, were killed after army commandos engaged in a rescue operation last week.
U.S. military officials yesterday would not give specific details about why Mehsud, 28, was released from Guantanamo, beyond outlining the general circumstances under which any prisoner may be let go.
About 550 terror suspects are held at the prison and Maj. Shavers said a release may occur if a prisoner no longer poses a threat, no longer has intelligence value or is not a candidate for trial by military commission.
"It's a difficult balance to achieve between not wanting to hold individuals longer than is necessary and the risk to our forces if the individual returns to the fight," Maj. Shavers said.
"What people need to understand is that a number of these detainees are highly skilled in concealing the truth."
Military officials said prisoners who are freed are made to sign a pledge renouncing the fight against U.S. forces and agreeing not to take up arms against U.S. forces or allies.
More than 200 prisoners have departed the prison since its creation after the September 11 attacks. The Pentagon has said more than 150 were released, and 56 transferred to the control of other governments - 29 to Pakistan, five to Morocco, four to France, seven to Russia, four to Saudi Arabia, five to Britain and one each to Spain and Sweden.
The Associated Press reported one former prisoner, Maulvi Abdel Ghaffer, was killed about a month ago by Afghan security forces during a raid in southern Afghanistan.
The news agency said he had served as a senior Taliban commander in northern Afghanistan before his arrest in late 2001. He was released to Afghanistan after eight months at Guantanamo, and Afghan leaders believe he was heading Taliban forces in the Uruzgan province when he was killed.
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Warner gives rights back to 1,892 felons
October 21, 2004
By Christina Bellantoni
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/metro/20041020-115213-4711r.htm
Virginia Gov. Mark Warner has restored rights to 1,892 felons, more than the state's three previous governors combined.
Some Republican lawmakers are claiming the Democratic governor is approving petitions of felons without scrutiny, which the administration denies.
Mr. Warner has granted a total of 1,892 petitions since taking office in 2002, more than any other governor in Virginia in at least 30 years. Mr. Warner has about 15 months left in his term and there are currently 157 applications pending his approval.
Felons who have their rights restored are allowed to vote, run for and hold public office and serve on juries. They cannot possess a firearm or carry a concealed weapon.
So far, Mr. Warner has approved 1,100 applications this year, 150 of which he granted in September. The last day Virginia residents could register to vote in the Nov. 2 presidential election was Oct. 4.
Mr. Warner rejected 114 petitions since he took office in January 2002.
The sharp increase in approvals can be partly attributed to a backlog of 732 requests Mr. Warner inherited when he took office. Some of the requests were more than four years old.
All of the petitions granted met the eligibility criteria for consideration.
During Mr. Warner's campaign, he promised to develop a better process for reviewing the applications. Once elected, he accelerated the process for felons who were convicted of nonviolent crimes by shortening the 13-page application form to only one page.
Felons who were convicted of violent crimes must submit several documents supporting their case and complete the 13-page application, the same process used during previous administrations.
"Initial results indicate that Governor Warner's restoration pace has far exceeded what we've seen in other states," said Ryan King, research associate for the Sentencing Project, a D.C.-based nonprofit criminal justice advocacy group. "There is no one else going at the rate he's going."
Mr. King said his group is in the early stages of analyzing state-by-state numbers, but made his comments based on what he's observed.
Officials have said many ex-convicts want to vote in the upcoming presidential election.
Delegate Bill Janis said he suspects Mr. Warner is not carefully reviewing each applicant. He said his main concern is that convicted criminals will end up serving jury duty.
"The governor needs to demonstrate there is a thorough review being done before he just automatically rubber-stamps their applications for restoration of voting rights," the Goochland Republican said. "It's important we be sure they've been rehabilitated and have rejoined polite society before we put them up there in the jury box."
Warner spokeswoman Ellen Qualls said the governor takes restoration of rights "very seriously."
"It's not a rubber stamp. We go through an extensive process," she said.
In a letter, Secretary of the Commonwealth Anita A. Rimler told critics that Mr. Warner has created a system "that protects the safety of all Virginians while enabling deserving individuals to have their rights restored on a case-by-case basis."
"Constitutionally, a governor has total discretion to grant, deny or ignore requests to restore rights," Miss Rimler wrote.
Delegate Bradley P. Marrs said yesterday someone who breaks the "societal contract" should face "permanent consequences."
"It appears now that we're abandoning the process of checking and screening to separate the good eggs from the bad and we're just going to approve everyone," the Chesterfield County Republican said.
House Majority Leader H. Morgan Griffith, a Republican and usual Warner foe, defended the governor's office yesterday.
Mr. Griffith, of Roanoke County, said he requested Mr. Warner to restore the rights of at least two felons. He said past governors have been hesitant to grant restoration.
"We have lots of folks out there who have made mistakes," he said. "At some point you have to say they paid their debt to society and let them back in."
Mr. Griffith said he does not believe Mr. Warner's actions are politically motivated.
Miss Qualls said because of the looming voter registration deadline, efforts were made to speed up the process for those applications that were ready for the governor's approval.
Mr. Warner's Republican predecessor, former Gov. James S. Gilmore III, restored the rights of 238 felons. Sen. George Allen, Virginia Republican who served as governor before Mr. Gilmore, restored the rights of 460 ex-convicts.
Former Gov. Charles S. Robb, a Democrat who served from 1982 to 1986, restored rights to 1,180 persons.
Mr. Gilmore said yesterday he had a threshold test for restoration of rights. "I looked to see whether or not the person had done something good for the community or done something positive to deserve what is considered an act of executive clemency," he said.
Mr. Gilmore characterized the difference in the number of approvals as a variation of policy between him and Mr. Warner, saying he tried to be "respectful" of the state policy crafted by the General Assembly.
In Virginia, a felon loses voting rights permanently unless the governor restores them. Only a handful of states have a similar policy. Most states automatically allow felons to vote after they have completed their sentence.
There is a waiting period to petition the governor in Virginia. Felons convicted of nonviolent crimes must wait three years; those convicted of violent crimes must wait five years.
-------- terrorism
Powell removes Baghdad from terror blacklist
October 21, 2004
By Nicholas Kralev
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20041020-095958-8287r.htm
The State Department yesterday formally removed Iraq from its blacklist of state sponsors of terrorism after 14 years - and 17 months after President Bush lifted almost all sanctions linked to the designation.
"This action is a further step to cement the partnership of the United States and Iraq in combating acts of international terrorism and is an act of symbolic importance to the new Iraqi government," Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said in a notice published in the Federal Register.
The blacklisting was the last terror-related U.S. measure against Saddam Hussein's regime. It automatically imposed economic and other sanctions, including an arms embargo, ban on all nonhumanitarian aid and a U.S. veto on assistance from the international financial institutions.
Mr. Bush eased all sanctions - except for some technical ones - in May 2003, a month after the U.S.-led coalition overthrew Saddam, but Iraq remained on the blacklist.
"Existing laws provide that state-sponsor status can only be formally rescinded when the country's fundamentally changed government no longer supports international terrorism and has provided assurances that it will not support such acts in the future," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher told reporters.
Those requirements have been fulfilled by Iraq's interim government, which took office after the end of the U.S. occupation in June, he added.
"Iraq's government is not supporting acts of international terrorism [and] has provided assurances that it will not support acts of international terrorism in the future," Mr. Bush wrote in a Sept. 24 memorandum to Mr. Powell.
The secretary made the decision to take Iraq off the list on Oct. 7, but it did not go into effect until its publication in the Federal Register yesterday.
Iraq's removal leaves the list with only six countries: Cuba, Libya, Iran, North Korea, Sudan and Syria.
Iraq was a charter member of the blacklist when it was set up in 1979, but the country was removed from the list by the Reagan administration in 1982, at a time when Washington was supporting Saddam in his war with Iran.
"We thought Iraq would take a different direction" then, a senior State Department official said yesterday.
The first Bush administration added Iraq to the list again after it invaded Kuwait in 1990.
U.S. and Egyptian officials said yesterday that an international conference on Iraq will take place in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el Sheik on Nov. 22 and 23.
In addition to Iraq's neighbors, the Group of Eight major industrialized powers, China, the United Nations, the Arab League, the Organization of Islamic Conference and the European Union are expected to attend.
The United States most likely will be represented by Mr. Powell, officials said.
However, a dispute has emerged over the presence of opposition Iraqi groups.
"There are different views and visions on how to deal with issues to be discussed by the conference," said Egyptian presidential spokesman Magad Abdel Fattah.
While France and others have called for a broader meeting, the Bush administration and the Iraqi interim authorities insist that only government representatives should be allowed to attend.
"Iraqi political movements and organizations will not be taking part in this conference because the Iraqi government ... is the sovereign entity representing Iraq in this stage," said Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari.
His remarks were echoed by William Burns, assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, who met with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Cairo yesterday.
"While it is one thing to provide a strong message of support for an inclusive political process among Iraqis, this meeting, as we understand it, is focused on government representatives," Mr. Burns said.
This article is based in part on wire service reports.
--------
Terrorists in Falluja
Who are the terrorists in Falluja and how are they terrorising the civilian population? Nermeen Al-Mufti finds out
Al-Ahram Weekly
21 - 27 October 2004
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2004/713/re8.htm
Relatives of Ateka Abdel Hamid, 24, did not know that this seven-month pregnant woman was a terrorist until the day she died. As the family collected the mutilated bodies of Ateka and her family, a United States spokesman boasted that the "multinational forces" killed a number of terrorists and Al-Zarqawi supporters during an offensive in Falluja. The terrorists, it turned out, were Ateka, her three-year-old son Omar, her husband Tamer and six other members of her family.
Abdul-Rahman Abdul-Hamid, Ateka's brother, said that the only survivor of his sister's family was her nine month-old daughter, whose picture has already been flashed across television screens worldwide. Ateka and her children had fled their home in the military district in Falluja to her parents' house. On the day she died, her mother-in- law had taken her home to the "relatively-safe" Al- Jumhuriya district. At midnight, US planes bombed the area and Ateka, her family and her husband's family were killed. Ateka's parents did not know of the tragedy until the morning of the next day. Relatives buried the nine bodies. Like many others in Falluja, their former home was now but a smouldering shell. This is a charred testimony to dashed hope -- Ateka and her family did not reach safety.
Today, Abdul-Rahman is taking his family to Al- Taji, a neighbourhood of Baghdad where they have a relative. It is not an entirely safe area but it beats Falluja. Falluja inhabitants have been running away since mid-April 2003, when the first US attacks were mounted against the city. The Iraqi government has even asked the inhabitants of Falluja to evacuate the city, and yet US forces have laid siege to it, cutting it off from the highway -- the only route linking Falluja to other Iraqi cities.
Despite the government instruction to leave, the people of Falluja are finding it hard to do so. There are also those who cannot leave the city, those who are not fortunate enough to have relatives to house them elsewhere. They have stayed, alongside those who simply won't leave their homes.
Falluja was once called the city of minarets. It once echoed the Euphrates in its beauty and calm. It had plentiful water and lush greenery. It was a summer resort for Iraqis. People went there for leisure, for a swim at the nearby Habbaniya lake, for a kebab meal. The Abu Hussein restaurant was one of Falluja's best Kebab houses. But US forces, acting on an Iraqi intelligence tip, decided that Abu Hussein was a terrorist den. They destroyed the establishment, killing its two guards. The bodies of the guards were never found, only the traces of blood.
On both sides of the highway scenes of destruction abound. Mansions and tiny houses have become equal -- all were destroyed. Sometimes curiosity would bring a visitor, an adult or a child who used to know the owners, to stare at the rubble. The air is thick with tragedy. I wonder, with a lump in my throat, where are the Arab brothers? Where are the Muslim kinfolk? Where is the civilised world? What do they make of the orgy of blood in Iraq? Today, I know how the Palestinians feel, when they are slaughtered while the Arabs and the world look the other way.
Are there Arab fighters in Falluja? "Some Arab brothers were among us, but when the shelling intensified, we asked them to leave and they did," says Ahmed Al-Deleimi. He added, "Why has America given itself the right to call on UK and Australian and other armies for help and we don't have the same right? We can't call on others for help."
Kamel Mohamed, who was getting ready to leave Falluja, said that he had heard that there were Arab fighters in the city, but he never saw any of them. Then he had heard that they had left. "Regardless of the motives of those fighters, they have provided a pretext for the city to be slaughtered, exactly as the mass destruction weapons gimmick provided a pretext for Iraq to be slaughtered. It is our right to resist and it is the opponent's right to be honest, but is there such a thing as an honest occupier?"
The suffering spreads along with the destruction. This is the second Ramadan under occupation, and bloodshed is everywhere. Iyad Allawi has visited Sadr City, which has laid down its arms, and said that he is determined to uproot terror. No Iraqi or US official has yet told the Iraqis, who live in constant danger, exactly what terror is. Does the US warning people to stay away because a force with a licence to kill operates, not qualify as terror? Does murder by "friendly" fire not qualify as terror? Does occupation by a foreign force not qualify as terror?
These are all acts of terror and the Iraqis are paying a price that rises every day. Until Al-Zarqawi is apprehended, operations against the Iraqis are going to continue. These operations have bizarre code names, such as "Angry Ghost". The Angry Ghost is now screaming through Falluja. Will it ever be laid to rest?
-------- POLITICS
-------- corruption
Oil-rich countries seen most corrupt
October 21, 2004
Washington Times
From combined dispatches
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20041020-100008-2197r.htm
LONDON - Most oil-producing nations are also rife with corruption, and oil companies should provide more information about their operations to help clean up the market, a global watchdog group said in an annual report yesterday.
Angola, Azerbaijan, Chad, Ecuador, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Libya, Nigeria, Russia, Sudan, Venezuela and Yemen scored very low in clean government practices, said Transparency International Chairman Peter Eigen in releasing the "Corruption Perceptions Index" for 2004.
"In these countries, public contracting in the oil sector is plagued by revenues vanishing into the pockets of Western oil executives, middlemen and local officials," he said.
Mr. Eigen said oil companies could help stamp out corruption by publishing details of the fees, royalties and other payments made to governments and state oil companies.
On Iraq, the report said the postwar reconstruction could be ruined by rampant corruption, and that the future of the country depended on transparency in the oil sector.
"Without strict anti-bribery measures, the reconstruction of Iraq will be wrecked by a wasteful diversion of resources to corrupt elites," Mr. Eigen said.
Transparency International said 146 countries were surveyed for the report - not just oil producers - and it found that corruption was rampant in 60 nations.
The survey found that 106 scored lower than a 5, with a top score of 10 being the least corrupt. Bangladesh, Haiti, Nigeria, Chad, Burma, Azerbaijan and Paraguay were perceived to be the most corrupt, all scoring lower than 2.
The United States ranks number 17, with a score of 7.5, tied with Belgium and Ireland, better than France but worse than Canada.
The survey calculated that at least $400 billion is lost to corruption every year.
Finland, New Zealand, Denmark, Iceland, Singapore, Sweden and Switzerland were rated the least corrupt, all scoring higher than 9 out of 10 on the index.
Compared with last year's report, corruption is perceived to have become worse in Bahrain, Belize, Cyprus, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Kuwait, Luxembourg, Mauritius, Oman, Poland, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, and Trinidad and Tobago.
Improved scores were recorded for Austria, Botswana, Czech Republic, El Salvador, France, Gambia, Germany, Jordan, Switzerland, Tanzania, Thailand, Uganda, United Arab Emirates and Uruguay, Transparency International said.
The Berlin-based group, funded by grants from development agencies and foundations around the world, is made up of lawyers, economists, businessmen and academics.
The index is compiled from a series of polls on perceptions of corruption made by independent organizations. This year's report is based on 18 surveys conducted since 2002.
-------- investigations
Panel: 248 Companies Received Iraqi Oil
Associated Press
October 21, 2004
http://start.earthlink.net/newsarticle?cat=7&aid=D85S477O2_story
NEW YORK - The independent panel investigating alleged corruption in the multibillion-dollar U.N. oil-for-food program in Iraq released the names of 248 companies on Thursday that received Iraqi oil and 3,545 companies that exported goods to Saddam Hussein's government.
Former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, who was appointed in April by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to lead the inquiry, also said his probe had met some resistance in France and in Iraq.
Volcker told a news conference that some of the names on the list might be dummy or front corporations but that being on the list doesn't necessarily imply guilt.
He cited friction at the French bank BNP Paribas, where the oil-for-food program had its account, saying "they have been cooperative up to a point" with information.
"We're entitled to have the information, and I think we're going to get it, but it hasn't been volunteered quite as rapidly as we might have wished," Volcker said.
The committee has also "run into a little trouble in Baghdad" with the American accounting firm Ernst & Young, which was hired by the Iraqi Board of Supreme Audit to review more than 20,000 files from Saddam's regime related to the oil-for-food program, he said.
Lisa Miller, spokeswoman for the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said that its chairman, Rep. Joe Barton, R-Tex., will send a letter Friday to French President Jacques Chirac asking for "his country's full cooperation with the committee's oil-for-food investigation."
The panel on Thursday said it would investigate how the oil-for-food program was designed, administered and monitored.
It made clear the panel would examine not only the corruption at the U.N. agency, which ran the oil-for-food program, but also the supervision of the program by the Security Council and the Iraq sanctions committee.
Annan on Thursday said the scandal has hurt the U.N.'s reputation. "And that's why we want to get to the bottom of it and clear it as quickly as possible," he said.
Volker stressed that being on the list doesn't imply that a company is guilty of illicit, unethical or corrupt behavior. But he said it also doesn't mean "that some of those companies are not corrupt."
"We know some of them are essentially temporary companies. They may be front companies. They may (have) existed only for this purpose," Volcker said. "We don't know everything about every company on this list, and if there is information ... we would welcome it."
Among the companies listed that received Iraqi oil were four American companies: Texaco and Chevron, now ChevronTexaco Corp.; Mobil, now Exxon Mobil Corp.; and a third company listed as Phoenix International.
ChevronTexaco and Exxon Mobil have been subpoenaed by the Manhattan U.S. Attorney's office for a grand jury investigation into the oil-for-food program.
Among the thousands of companies listed as exporting goods to Iraq were a handful of American ones. They included Baker Atlas, an oil service company owned by Baker Hughes Inc.; Cargill Inc.; and Continental Grain, now owned by Cargill.
Volcker said he hoped to issue a final report in the middle of next year and possibly an interim report early in 2005.
The oil-for-food program, which began in December 1996 and ended in November 2003, was launched to help Iraqis cope with U.N. sanctions imposed after Saddam's 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
Under the program, the former Iraqi regime could sell unlimited quantities of oil provided the money went primarily to buy humanitarian goods and pay reparations to victims of the 1991 Gulf War. Saddam's government decided on the goods it wanted, who should provide them and who could buy Iraqi oil - but the U.N. committee overseeing sanctions monitored the contracts.
An accounting by the Independent Inquiry Committee showed that the 248 companies - which span the globe - paid Iraq the equivalent of $64.2 billion for oil, and that the 3,545 companies that exported goods to south and central Iraq received payments totaling the equivalent of $32.9 billion.
The committee also named a further 941 companies that had contracts to supply goods to then Kurdish-ruled northern Iraq under a separate arrangement administered by U.N.-related agencies.
Volcker repeatedly refused to discuss any allegations against individuals or companies.
Two weeks ago, the top U.S. investigator in Iraq, Charles Duelfer, made allegations of widespread corruption in the program, accusing the top U.N. official overseeing the program, Benon Sevan, of accepting bribes in the form of vouchers for Iraqi oil sales. Sevan has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.
Asked when he expected to complete the investigation of Sevan, he said called the accusation of corruption within the U.N. "a priority."
Reminded that early on he said the investigation of Sevan would take about three months, Volcker replied: "You begin turning over the leaves and you find more and more complications."
The committee said it will also investigate allegations concerning potential corruption in Iraq's former government.
Associated Press reporter Desmond Butler contributed to this report.
-------- propaganda wars
Bush Predicted No Iraq Casualties, Robertson Says
By Alan Cooperman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 21, 2004; Page A09
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49088-2004Oct20.html
The Rev. Pat Robertson said President Bush dismissed his warning that the United States would suffer heavy casualties in Iraq and told the television evangelist just before the beginning of the war that "we're not going to have any casualties."
Robertson related the conversation during an interview with CNN late Tuesday. He said he spoke to Bush before the invasion of Iraq in March 2003 and urged him to prepare the nation for heavy casualties. While Bush's response was a mistake, Robertson said, God has blessed the president anyhow.
The Rev. Pat Robertson said he warned the president about the Iraq war.
Sen. John F. Kerry's campaign pounced on the remarks yesterday.
"We believe President Bush should get the benefit of the doubt here, but he needs to come forward and answer a very simple question," Kerry adviser Mike McCurry said in a statement. "Is Pat Robertson telling the truth when he said you didn't think there'd be any casualties, or is Pat Robertson lying?" White House political adviser Karl Rove told reporters that Bush never said he did not expect casualties. "I was right there," Rove said of the president's conversation with Robertson.
In a statement yesterday, Robertson did not back away from his comments about Bush and said, "I emphatically stated that I believe 'the blessing of heaven is upon him,' and I am persuaded that he will win this election and prevail on the war against terror."
Robertson, who made a bid for the GOP presidential nomination in 1988, has repeatedly suggested on his "700 Club" cable television show that he believes God favors Bush's reelection. But he denied in Tuesday's interview with CNN's Paula Zahn that he has tried to instruct Christians on how to vote.
"I just said, I think God's blessing him, and I think it's one of those things that, even if he stumbles and messes up -- and he's had his share of goofs and gaffes -- I just think God's blessing is on him. And you remember, I think the Chinese used to say, you know, it's the blessing of heaven on the emperor. And I think the blessing of heaven is on Bush. It's just the way it is," Robertson said.
Asked about Bush's mistakes, the evangelist recalled: "I met with him down in Nashville before the Gulf war started. And he was the most self-assured man I ever met in my life." Borrowing a line from Mark Twain, Robertson said Bush looked "like a contented Christian with four aces."
"He was just sitting there, like, I'm on top of the world, and I warned him about this war. I had deep misgivings about this war, deep misgivings. And I was trying to say, 'Mr. President, you better prepare the American people for casualties,' " Robertson said.
"Oh, no, we're not going to have any casualties," Robertson quoted Bush as saying. " 'Well,' I said, 'it's the way it's going to be. . . . The Lord told me it was going to be, A, a disaster and, B, messy.' "
--------
"Soldiers Pay"
This documentary sequel to David O. Russell's "Three Kings" was dropped when Warner Bros. refused to distribute it, but you can still see it -- and you should.
salon.com
By Andrew O'Hehir
Oct. 21, 2004
http://fairuse.1accesshost.com/news2/salon38.htm
There's next to no visual imagination in David O. Russell's "Soldiers Pay," which patches together a series of interviews with veterans of the current Iraq war and various of the war's civilian defenders and attackers. There's also little attention to composition and no narrative playfulness, all of which make this 35-minute documentary seem like an abandonment of everything Russell is known for.
On another level, though, "Soldiers Pay" is a profoundly revealing document. Not so much because it offers a low-key indictment of the confused, chaotic and mismanaged Iraq conflict; no viewer of Russell's epoch-making Gulf War I comedy "Three Kings" will be surprised to learn that his views are antiwar in general and anti-Bush in particular. Rather, this film feels like a confession of sorts, an insistence that when the chips are down content trumps form and the medium is not -- at least not entirely -- the message.
"Soldiers Pay" briefly became the subject of news stories after Warner Bros., displaying that combination of moral courage and sound financial judgment unique to Hollywood studios, first gave Russell $200,000 to make a war documentary and then declined to distribute it (as part of a rerelease of "Three Kings," long planned to follow the opening of Russell's latest movie, "I Heart Huckabees"). It's hard to imagine what the company expected -- a salute to Our Troops with music by Clint Black? -- but the final product, which in fact draws no political conclusions and is about as rigorously balanced as such things get, was apparently not found pleasing. So "Soldiers Pay" was returned to Russell and you can now see it (in a half-dozen or so major cities) as the curtain-raiser for Robert Greenwald's devastating "Uncovered: The War in Iraq," which is, peculiarly, reaching theaters (in an extended form) almost 11 months after premiering on DVD. (It will now be rereleased on DVD, paired with "Soldier's Pay.")
This isn't a scientific analysis, but it seems as if more film and video footage, and more prose, has been devoted to the cause of defeating George W. Bush than has ever been expended, pro or con, on any other presidential candidate in the history of American politics. Maybe the right started this by building an entire hysterical publishing empire around Bill Clinton, who was apparently guilty of every imaginable crime up to and including the personal delivery of Pearl Harbor maps to Adm. Yamamoto. But it's the American left, pinioned between an amorphous and inscrutable populace and the soul-deadening institutional caution of the Democratic Party, that has found its Bush-era outlet by cranking out movies and books by the fistful. Whether these have had any practical effect is unknowable, but at the very least they should provide historians of the future -- if there is any more history, or any future -- with a treasure trove.
"Soldiers Pay" is not among the most memorable works in this genre, but its deliberate lack of artifice and its stitched-together quality possess an undeniable power. Russell and his younger co-directors, Tricia Regan and Juan Carlos Zaldívar, create no illusion of seamlessness: Sometimes you can hear the filmmakers' questions to the interviewees, sometimes you can't. "Mistake" shots, in which the subject is so severely backlit you can't see his face, are left in. (No one in the film is anonymous, so this wasn't deliberate.) Sound values are sometimes too loud (or "bright," in engineering terms) and sometimes too quiet.
The point of all this, as I read it, is to draw us closer to the young soldiers who tell their stories to Russell and his collaborators, and then to suggest that these true stories of real war are every bit as surreal as the Mephistophelean comic vision of "Three Kings." The protagonist of "Soldiers Pay," if you want to put it that way, is a former supply sergeant from the 3rd Infantry Division named Matt Novak, who was involved in a real-life incident that oddly echoed the plot of Russell's earlier film.
Handsome in a faintly disreputable way -- he looks like the kind of small-town guy who dropped out of high school but has read some surprising books and knows where to find Jamaican weed -- Novak is definitely a movie character in the making (perhaps to be played by Billy Zane or Jake Gyllenhaal). The filmmakers shoot him entirely in his bedroom, where he reclines to tell the tale of how he and several other soldiers came across a mysterious cache of cash in Baghdad that amounted, he says, to several hundred million dollars. As seductive as this tale is, Russell means it to be illustrative of a larger equation -- which is that the entire war was philosophically incoherent and incompetently managed, and the ordinary guys who did the fighting wound up being blamed for that.
If the film's most compelling antiwar voices are New York Observer columnist Nicholas Von Hoffman (who has a son serving in Iraq) and retired Marine Corps Maj. Gen. J. Michael Myatt, who visibly chokes up when talking about the Marines who died under his orders, Russell does not avoid the complexities of the Iraq conundrum.
His principal pro-war spokesman is Rep. David Dreier, the quasi-outed California congressman who's slicker than frozen Brylcreem. But there are also two of Russell's "Three Kings" actors, Kurdish Iraqi immigrants who now run a convenience store in the United States, who invite antiwar activists to live a month under Saddam Hussein and then report back on how they feel. Right there in front of the rack of Newports and Winstons, one of them talks about his arrest as an Iraqi student activist, after which he was hung from a ceiling fan, stripped naked and whipped with electrical cords.
In fact, the most surprising thing about "Soldiers Pay," for all its clutter and inelegance, is that it refuses to simplify or seek easy answers to a situation that offers none. More than any other work on the Iraq war, including "Fahrenheit 9/11" (which I enjoyed tremendously) and "Uncovered," this film captures the sense that the U.S. has wandered down a dark alley and now finds itself with no way out. As one antiwar activist observes in the film, Iraq is almost certainly better off without Saddam Hussein. But the world is worse off because of the half-buffoonish, half-tragic war that toppled him.
-------- us politics
Fear of Draft Affecting Election
(Inter Press Service)
by Jim Lobe
October 21, 2004
http://www.antiwar.com/lobe/?articleid=3828
With the presidential election coming down to the wire, the possibility of a revived military draft is looming as a potentially decisive factor in the outcome.
While President George W. Bush and his fellow Republicans vehemently reject any suggestion that a draft, which was eliminated by former President Richard Nixon during the last years of the Vietnam War in the 1970s, is on the way, indications that it may have to be renewed are growing and, with Democratic challenger Senator John Kerry's help, forcing their way into the campaign.
The issue is clearly having an impact on younger voters between 18 and 29, who would naturally be the most vulnerable to any new draft. That demographic group, which was already the most pro-Kerry in the general voting population before the latest rumors and reports, is also considered the most unpredictable.
Younger voters historically have abstained from voting in greater proportions than other age groups, but, aided by special campaigns such as the star-studded Rock the Vote effort, and the recent Vote for Change tour led by superstar Bruce Springsteen, that may not hold true this year. Both campaigns have cited the military draft as reasons to come out to vote.
As noted by New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, the Republican National Committee (RNC) is beginning to panic over the issue. Last week, it sent a threatening letter to Rock the Vote complaining bitterly about its use of the draft question to turn out young voters.
It came just a week after the Republican leadership of the House of Representatives hastily brought up a two-year-old Democratic proposal to reinstate the draft in order to defeat it overwhelmingly, hopefully to put the issue to rest. But because the vote was essentially meaningless in legal terms, it did not have that effect.
"This urban myth regarding the draft has been thoroughly debunked," the RNC letter to Rock the Vote said, citing Bush's continuing declarations that the "all-volunteer Army is working."
That, of course, may be his opinion, but, as noted by more than one columnist, the president has also insisted that the war in Iraq is going just fine and that the massive fiscal deficits he has piled up in his three and a half years in office can be cut in half over the next few years.
In fact, the evidence that the military is overstretched and needs significantly more manpower is growing virtually by the day.
Kerry has argued for weeks that the military has become so overstretched that the administration has resorted to a "backdoor draft" in the form of involuntary extensions of tours of duty for both career soldiers and reservists, measures that have caused rising discontent among them and their families and have reportedly contributed to declining re-enlistment rates.
Indeed, the National Guard reported just a few days ago that enlistments fell some 10 percent short of their 2004 goal.
Suggestions that a draft may once again be in the cards were boosted significantly late last month when the Defense Science Board, a panel of mainly right-wing and Republican national-security advisers to Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld, concluded, "inadequate total numbers" of troops mean that the United States "cannot sustain our current and projected global stabilization commitments."
It noted that, given current plans and commitments, Washington is likely to be engaged in significant military interventions involving some stabilization function every other year, on average.
The board further found that Rumsfeld's plans for reorganizing the Army to create more combat brigades - which he has assured Congress should solve the manpower problem - were "important, but partial, steps toward enhanced stabilization operations."
The report, which the administration tried to keep under wraps, appeared to confirm the already widespread notion that U.S. forces, particularly the Army and Marines, were stretched too thin to be sustainable.
This conclusion has been bolstered as well by the growing consensus, particularly within the military, that the administration made a major strategic error by underestimating the number of troops needed for the mission in Iraq - a judgment that goes to the heart of Rumsfeld's views about military "transformation."
A major Army survey taken last spring and released this week also found that reservists and members of the National Guard were increasingly unhappy with their "military way of life," and that their readiness to go to war had "significantly declined" over the past year - a finding that put in greater context last week's refusal by one 19-man reserve unit to obey orders to carry out a dangerous supply mission in Iraq's so-called "Sunni Triangle."
That incident, which drew major attention from the U.S. press - with major newspapers editorializing at length about the overextended state of the military - has clearly added to the impression that something needs to be done.
In recent days, several newspapers have also published investigative articles that have raised serious questions regarding the repeated assurances by Rumsfeld and Bush that they have sent all of the troops that military commanders on the ground in Iraq requested.
Echoing former Army chief, Gen. Eric Shinseki, who was summarily retired for estimating the number of troops needed to stabilize post-invasion Iraq at "several hundred thousand," unnamed brass have recently been telling reporters that they also warned of the need for more troops, but were either ignored or intimidated into silence by their superiors.
The Times reported Monday that the Selective Service, which is charged with overseeing the military draft, began updating its contingency plans for the draft of doctors, nurses and other health-care workers in the event of a national emergency just last summer.
In reacting to the report, Pentagon Spokesman Larry Di Rita repeated the Bush-Rumsfeld mantra that, despite the plans, "it is the policy of this administration to oppose a military draft for any purpose whatsoever."
All of these reports, however, have contributed to the widespread impression that the military is indeed overstretched and that something will have to be done.
Democrats and some Republicans in Congress have been lobbying hard for adding as many as 40,000 troops to the Army, a proposal the administration has fiercely resisted, particularly because it once again puts in question Rumsfeld's ideas about military "transformation," which calls for doing more with far fewer troops.
Kerry, who also opposes the draft, has proposed increasing the size of the Army and of doubling the number of Special Operations Forces (SOF) while, at the same time, abandoning Bush's doctrine of "preemptive" war against countries that do not pose an imminent threat to the United States.
It is that strategic doctrine, as well as the notion that the U.S. military, rather than NATO or the United Nations, should act as the ultimate guarantor of global stability, that, in Kerry's view, is imposing impossible burdens on the armed forces.
A new, more modest, and more multilateral strategic approach, in his view, would put all of the current concerns and speculation about a military draft to rest.
Meanwhile, Bush's conviction that preemption and unilateralism are the only way to ensure U.S. security in the 21st century could well provoke a strong turnout by younger voters to preempt a military draft and turn him out of office.
-----
Bush Predicted No Iraq Casualties, Robertson Says
Washington Post
By Alan Cooperman
October 21, 2004
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A49088-2004Oct20?language=printer
The Rev. Pat Robertson said President Bush dismissed his warning that the United States would suffer heavy casualties in Iraq and told the television evangelist just before the beginning of the war that "we're not going to have any casualties."
Robertson related the conversation during an interview with CNN late Tuesday. He said he spoke to Bush before the invasion of Iraq in March 2003 and urged him to prepare the nation for heavy casualties. While Bush's response was a mistake, Robertson said, God has blessed the president anyhow.
Sen. John F. Kerry's campaign pounced on the remarks yesterday.
"We believe President Bush should get the benefit of the doubt here, but he needs to come forward and answer a very simple question," Kerry adviser Mike McCurry said in a statement. "Is Pat Robertson telling the truth when he said you didn't think there'd be any casualties, or is Pat Robertson lying?"
White House political adviser Karl Rove told reporters that Bush never said he did not expect casualties. "I was right there," Rove said of the president's conversation with Robertson.
In a statement yesterday, Robertson did not back away from his comments about Bush and said, "I emphatically stated that I believe 'the blessing of heaven is upon him,' and I am persuaded that he will win this election and prevail on the war against terror."
Robertson, who made a bid for the GOP presidential nomination in 1988, has repeatedly suggested on his "700 Club" cable television show that he believes God favors Bush's reelection. But he denied in Tuesday's interview with CNN's Paula Zahn that he has tried to instruct Christians on how to vote.
"I just said, I think God's blessing him, and I think it's one of those things that, even if he stumbles and messes up -- and he's had his share of goofs and gaffes -- I just think God's blessing is on him. And you remember, I think the Chinese used to say, you know, it's the blessing of heaven on the emperor. And I think the blessing of heaven is on Bush. It's just the way it is," Robertson said.
Asked about Bush's mistakes, the evangelist recalled: "I met with him down in Nashville before the Gulf war started. And he was the most self-assured man I ever met in my life." Borrowing a line from Mark Twain, Robertson said Bush looked "like a contented Christian with four aces."
"He was just sitting there, like, I'm on top of the world, and I warned him about this war. I had deep misgivings about this war, deep misgivings. And I was trying to say, 'Mr. President, you better prepare the American people for casualties,' " Robertson said.
"Oh, no, we're not going to have any casualties," Robertson quoted Bush as saying. " 'Well,' I said, 'it's the way it's going to be. . . . The Lord told me it was going to be, A, a disaster and, B, messy.' "
--------
Bush's True Believers
antiwar.com
Oct 21, 2004
http://www.antiwar.com/blog/index.php?id=P1376
We've all met individuals or even groups of people like this (http://www.pipa.org/OnlineReports/Pres_Election_04/html/new_10_21_04.html#1), but to see proof of the sheer size, the vastness of the....herd....is truly astonishing.
Even after the final report of Charles Duelfer to Congress saying that Iraq did not have a significant WMD program, 72% of Bush supporters continue to believe that Iraq had actual WMD (47%) or a major program for developing them (25%). Fifty-six percent assume that most experts believe Iraq had actual WMD and 57% also assume, incorrectly, that Duelfer concluded Iraq had at least a major WMD program. Kerry supporters hold opposite beliefs on all these points.
Similarly, 75% of Bush supporters continue to believe that Iraq was providing substantial support to al Qaeda, and 63% believe that clear evidence of this support has been found. Sixty percent of Bush supporters assume that this is also the conclusion of most experts, and 55% assume, incorrectly, that this was the conclusion of the 9/11 Commission. Here again, large majorities of Kerry supporters have exactly opposite perceptions.
These are some of the findings of a new study of the differing perceptions of Bush and Kerry supporters, conducted by the Program on International Policy Attitudes and Knowledge Networks, based on polls conducted in September and October.
Steven Kull, director of PIPA, comments, "One of the reasons that Bush supporters have these beliefs is that they perceive the Bush administration confirming them. Interestingly, this is one point on which Bush and Kerry supporters agree." Eighty-two percent of Bush supporters perceive the Bush administration as saying that Iraq had WMD (63%) or that Iraq had a major WMD program (19%). Likewise, 75% say that the Bush administration is saying Iraq was providing substantial support to al Qaeda. Equally large majorities of Kerry supporters hear the Bush administration expressing these views--73% say the Bush administration is saying Iraq had WMD (11% a major program) and 74% that Iraq was substantially supporting al Qaeda.
Steven Kull adds, "Another reason that Bush supporters may hold to these beliefs is that they have not accepted the idea that it does not matter whether Iraq had WMD or supported al Qaeda. Here too they are in agreement with Kerry supporters." Asked whether the US should have gone to war with Iraq if US intelligence had concluded that Iraq was not making WMD or providing support to al Qaeda, 58% of Bush supporters said the US should not have, and 61% assume that in this case the President would not have. Kull continues, "To support the president and to accept that he took the US to war based on mistaken assumptions likely creates substantial cognitive dissonance, and leads Bush supporters to suppress awareness of unsettling information about prewar Iraq."
And here's a quote from Steve:
Gross cognitive dissonance. A mass Stepford complex among Bush's masses. Legions of people who get their news from a discredited source, who are unable to confront the fact that they are being used and manipulated (see Thomas Frank's "What's Wrong With Kansas"). These same people ascribe mainstream positions and beliefs to their leader contrary to the facts almost as if they are in denial that they fully support a man who is an extremist. As time goes on, their faith in and support of that leader grow so hardened, again stoked by a reinforcing and assistive media, that many of the masses begin imitating the characteristics of their leader, in that they believe they are infallible, more righteous than their peers, and are unwilling to admit error or facts contrary to their beliefs.
In other words, a cult.
-------- ENERGY
-------- alternative energy
Experts see solar power competitive in next decade
REUTERS
Story by Adam Tanner
October 21, 2004
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/27783/story.htm
SAN FRANCISCO - Solar energy will become economically competitive in the next decade or so and supply a significant amount of the world's power after 2020, industry experts told a conference.
Experts expressed cautious optimism at the Solar Power 2004 conference amid record oil prices and the possibility of a push for solar and other sources of renewable energy from the White House if Democrat John Kerry is elected.
"We really have not had leadership on a federal level in 20 years, since Jimmy Carter," said Thomas Leyden, vice president of PowerLight, which manufactures large solar electric systems. "This technology is sound, it's proven. It's now just a question of deployment."
Even with oil prices at about $53 a barrel, solar energy remains more expensive than conventional power and has needed large subsidies to compete. It now provides a tiny fraction of electricity, which relies mostly on fossil fuels such as coal and natural gas.
At present, solar power costs are about double the price of power generated by other energy sources, but that will change over time, said Leyden. "The two lines will meet and we believe they will meet within the next 10 years," he said in an interview.
Such a forecast expects the future price of fossil fuels to rise as well as an eventual economy of scale for solar technology as it becomes more widespread.
Takashi Tomita, the general manager of the solar systems group for Sharp (6753.T: Quote, Profile, Research) , said he expected solar power to become price competitive between 2010 and 2020 and then contribute a significant amount of the world's energy between 2020 and 2040.
Industry groups say solar power is now a $7 billion industry. So far, Japan has led the way in solar energy expansion, followed by Germany.
HOMES SLOW TO GO SOLAR
Small firms play a big role in installing private home systems, which often cost $40,000 and up, experts said.
Darryl Conklin, president of Renewable Technologies Inc. in Sutter Creek, California, said he started the firm after his local utility PG&E (PCG.N: Quote, Profile, Research) wanted $240,000 to connect his remote home to the power grid. He now equips hundreds of homes a year, but said selling to private householders was an uphill battle. "As an industry we have not been able to outreach to the consumer in a proper fashion," he said.
Several firms see economic opportunity in smaller flexible light cells. Lowell, Massachusetts-based Konarka has raised $32.5 million in funding to market its technology to integrate directly into house roof tiles, portable music devices and other objects. Among its partners is the U.S. military, which is putting solar energy cells on tents.
-----
Solvay joins fuel-cell venture capital fund
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
October 21, 2004
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/27784/story.htm
BRUSSELS - Belgian chemicals and drugs company Solvay (SOLBt.BR: Quote, Profile, Research) said this week it had joined Conduit Ventures Ltd., a London-based venture capital fund focused on fuel cells and related hydrogen technologies.
Solvay said it will contribute an undisclosed amount of capital to the fund, which includes such investors as Shell Hydrogen (RD.AS: Quote, Profile, Research) (SHEL.L: Quote, Profile, Research) , Mitsubishi Corp. (8058.T: Quote, Profile, Research) , Johnson Matthey (JMAT.L: Quote, Profile, Research) and Danfoss.
A spokesman for Solvay said the investment concerned "a few million euros".
Fuel cells convert chemical energy into electricity by combining oxygen with hydrogen gas.
Solvay says the efficient combination of both requires the use of ion-permeable membranes, which Solvay is currently developing.
Solvay shares were 0.46 percent higher at 76.15 euros.
-------- energy
BOTTOM LINE with BRIAN GOMEZ
thenational.com
October 21, 2004
http://www.thenational.com.pg/1021/column3.htm
START of work on the long delayed front-end engineering and design (FEED) for the US$2.3 billion gas project is the best development news this country has received for a long time.
After showing great hesitance over several years, apparently reluctant Australian companies have finally begun to sign conditional purchase agreement for gas from Papua New Guinea.
This has taken place in a changing energy environment with a sea change occurring in the way Australian companies need to consider future gas supplies.
The shut down of the Moomba gas hub in South Australia provided a major shock to consumers in South Australia and New South Wales and gave both state governments a lot to think about.
Even leaving that aside, there is no expectation that increased gas supplies can be made available from the Cooper Basin in South Australia in coming years. If anything, supply is likely to decline. Supplies from Bass Strait and the Otway Basin can go some way in filling some additional demand.
Australia, of course, has much more natural gas than the country needs but much of this is located off the north western coast of Western Australia and can only be provided to the eastern states via a transcontinental pipeline.
Anyhow Woodside Energy, ChevronTexaco, BHP Billiton, ExxonMobil and other big players in Western Australia are busy considering multi-billion dollar schemes to sell even greater quantities of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Japan, China and even to the US.
There are other factors at play. For example, issues surrounding the debate about greenhouse gas emissions and Australia's continuing role as one of the highest per capita emitters of carbon dioxide because of its status as a developed country and the huge amount of mineral processing that it undertakes.
One of the reasons PNG has made little market headway in recent years is because the Australian and Queensland governments have been paying lip service to the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The Queensland government has been saying for some years that it was going to promote gas-fired power generation and that this was going to be the big opportunity for PNG gas. However, it eventually scuttled hopes of an early start to the PNG gas project when it awarded a gas supply contract to a group promising to supply coal bed methane.
It will be interesting to see when the Townsville power station will actually be fired up with this fuel.
Queensland, as we know, also has vast coal resources and it is not surprising that natural gas only provides 5% of that state's power generating capacity compared with a mere one per cent in the case of New South Wales.
Despite the greater pollution caused by the burning of coal, the experts are not anticipating any significant increase in the move towards cleaner natural gas for electricity generation.
Some of the dynamics in that regard could change because, with crude oil hovering around US$50 a barrel, it will not be long before steaming coal prices also begin to climb, as they did in the 1980s.
A study by the Australian Bureau of Agricultural Economics (ABARE) has predicted that gas usage will double by 2020. Thirty per cent of this increase will be for the country's manufacturing sector, particularly the booming alumina industry.
There shape of the private sector provided additional reasons why PNG had difficulty breaking into the Australian market.
For example, three corporations, BHP Billiton and its Bass Strait partner, ExxonMobil, and Santos Ltd, account for 95% of gas supply in the eastern states.
And Australia is a relatively small market with demand centres distributed over a vast continent. Annual usage is about 930 petajoules in contrast with 23,400PJ for the US and 4,030PJ for the United Kingdom.
The ABARE study noted that although the US has 8,000 gas producers most of the infrastructure, including a 500,000 km pipeline network, had been developed in an era when the market was highly regulated.
Gas usage in Australia is highly concentrated. Five companies account for 25% of use and another 25 to 35 companies take up another 25%.
In light of these facts it could well make sense for Oil Search, as the single largest owner and supplier of gas from PNG, to consider playing a marketing and distribution role in Australia, possibly in conjunction with a partner like AGL or Energex.
It also needs to take a closer look at its earlier strategy of supplying gas to buyers over a vast expanse of the Australian continent.
It could make better economic sense, though certainly the numbers have to be studied, to concentrate on supplies into Queensland, where the alumina refineries are coming up, and possibly into northern New South Wales and maybe Sydney.
PNG has also won over some potential South Australian customers such as Western Mining Corporation's Roxby Downs copper-gold-uranium operations, but a swap arrangement with one of the Bass Strait or Cooper Basin producers could take care of that.
Basically the issue that needs to be considered is the optimum pipeline plan for a requisite supply base.
According to the ABARE study, released at the end of 2003, unless significant infrastructure investment is undertaken for gas from PNG, the Timor Sea or from Western Australia current reserves in the eastern states will be strongly depleted in the face of strong demand.
But the scenario it considered suggested that the extra supplies would only be needed between 2012 and 2020 with gas sales of 100PJ to 200PJ a year or nine to 18% of demand in 2020.
The study conclusion was possibly somewhat pessimistic since PNG gas is scheduled to head into choice customer premises, such as Comalco in Gladstone, by early 2009.
It could have got there sooner if not for distrustful customers as shown by AGL's decision last year to opt for gas from Bass Strait at a cost that was A30 to 40 cents more expensive per gigajoule than supply from PNG.
The great thing for PNG is that the way oil prices are heading, there is also only one way for gas to go.
-------- OTHER
-------- environment
Excess Mercury Levels Increasing Survey Shows
Fifth of Women of Childbearing Age Are Affected
By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 21, 2004; Page A02
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49896-2004Oct20.html
One-fifth of women of childbearing age have mercury levels in their hair that exceed federal health standards, according to interim results of a nationwide survey being conducted by researchers at the University of North Carolina at Asheville.
The study, which was commissioned by the environmental advocacy group Greenpeace, offers the latest evidence of how much mercury Americans are absorbing by eating fish. Coal-fired power plants and other sources release mercury into the air, which ends up in water and is absorbed by fish. The pollutant, which is a neurotoxin that can cause developmental problems in fetuses and young children, makes its way into the bloodstream when people eat contaminated fish.
Researchers at UNC's Environmental Quality Institute based their findings on hair samples from nearly 1,500 people, many of whom learned of the study through the Internet. Participants either paid $25 to submit hair samples with a home testing kit or got free tests at 27 hair salons across the country sponsored by Greenpeace, Aveda salons and state and local environmental groups.
Study participants were not randomly chosen, but the report's author, Richard Maas, said they were evenly distributed geographically and that he believes the results reflect overall mercury contamination levels among Americans. He said the tests showed a correlation between how much fish people ate and their mercury levels: One-third of people who ate canned tuna four or more times a week, for example, had mercury levels above Environmental Protection Agency recommendations.
"There is no other pollutant out there that has anywhere near this high a percentage of the U.S. population with exposure levels above the government's health advisory levels," said Maas, co-director of the Environmental Quality Institute. "Not lead, not arsenic, nothing."
The last major national study of Americans' mercury exposure, conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 1999 and 2000, concluded that about 12 percent of women of childbearing age had mercury levels that exceeded EPA's safety standard.
The new study found excess mercury levels in 21 percent of the 597 women of childbearing age who were tested.
The UNC researchers said they could not explain why their subjects had higher mercury levels, as 80 percent of study participants said they had no reason to think they had high concentrations of mercury in their blood. Men and women in the study had similar mercury levels.
Greenpeace officials said the survey, which will have drawn on at least 5,000 hair samples when it is completed in March, will be used to lobby for stricter curbs on mercury pollution from power plants. The EPA is drafting rules that officials predict will cut power plant emissions by 70 percent after 2018.
Greenpeace energy campaigner Casey Harrell said that Bush's proposal is too weak, and that the government should require plants to reduce mercury pollution by 90 percent "as soon as possible."
"People should not have to stop eating fish because they're afraid they'll get poisoned by mercury," Harrell said.
EPA spokeswoman Cynthia Bergman and Frank Maisano, a utilities lobbyist, said the administration's proposal would address the problem of mercury pollution.
Bergman, who called the Greenpeace study helpful, said, "We are addressing this shared concern on all fronts -- making sure consumers, particularly pregnant women or women who may become pregnant, have clear guidance about the benefits and risks of fish consumption -- as well as attacking the problem at its source -- regulating mercury emissions from power plants for the very first time. Mercury is a serious health risk."
This spring, EPA and the Food and Drug Administration recommended that young children, nursing mothers, pregnant women and women who may become pregnant should not eat more than two servings, or 12 ounces, of fish per week. David Acheson, chief medical officer at FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, said women would have to "be quite a bit above" the government's recommended safety level before they or their children would be at risk.
----
Pumpkins Can Clean Up Toxic Soils
October 21, 2004
WASHINGTON, DC, (ENS)
http://ens-newswire.com/ens/oct2004/2004-10-21-09.asp#anchor4
Pumpkins and zucchinis have the ability to remove DDT from soil, a chemist at the Royal Military College of Canada has found.
A greenhouse study by chemist Dr. Ken Reimer and his team suggests that phytoremediation with these plants is a environmentally friendly technique for cleaning up sites contaminated with DDT, PCBs and other harmful compounds.
Once they have taken up the contaminants, the pumpkins would not be eaten. The pumpkins would be allowed to ripen and then composted with their vines to reduce their volume before they are disposed of in landfills or incinerated.
"Our research has shown that members of the Cucurbita pepo species, including pumpkins, are particularly effective in this regard," Reimer says. "Phytoremediation offers a green solution to cleaning up contaminated sites."
The report is scheduled to appear in the November 15 edition of "Environmental Science & Technology," a peer-reviewed journal of the American Chemical Society headquartered in Washington, DC.
DDT was applied widely as an insecticide in North America until it was banned in 1972. Some developing nations still use DDT for protection against typhus and malaria, and it endures for long periods of time in the environment, posing a potential health threat to humans and animals.
Persistent organic pollutants like DDT, PCBs and dioxins are difficult to remove from soils because they are not water soluble, and the difficulty increases with the passage of time. To clean up contaminated sites, it has been necessary to excavate the soil and place it in a landfill or burn it in a high temperature incinerator.
Reimer and his coworkers, Alissa Lunney and Barbara Zeeb, conducted a greenhouse study of five plant species: rye grass, tall fescue, alfalfa, zucchini and pumpkin. The researchers used soil from a site in the Canadian Arctic where DDT had been sprayed to protect workers from mosquitoes.
"The cold temperatures meant that the contamination was virtually identical to the technical grade DDT mixture that had originally been used," Reimer says. The researchers were able to examine the ability of the test plants to remove DDT from soil that had been contaminated for several decades.
Pumpkins took up the largest amount of DDT, while another member of the Cucurbita pepo species, zucchini, came in second at about half the pumpkins' accumulation.
While the technique is not likely to replace traditional methods any time soon, Reimer says, phytoremediation could offer an inexpensive and environmentally friendly alternative, especially in small communities and developing countries where money is an obstacle to cleanup.
-------- ACTIVISTS
Hong Kong democrats say 'no' to power
Asia Times
By Janus Lam
Oct 21, 2004
http://atimes.com/atimes/China/FJ21Ad02.html
HONG KONG - Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa has announced the new members of Hong Kong's Executive Council (Exco), the territory's top decision-making body, and contrary to media speculation, the list did not contain a single democrat, not even the most likely candidate, Beijing critic Leong Kah-kit.
According to political experts, the pro-democracy camp deliberately chose to distance itself from the Executive Council because its members diverge greatly from the government position on many issues. In addition, outside the Exco, the camp is not restricted to strict closed-door confidentiality, but can communicate directly with Beijing, which has shown a new willingness to communicate. In the eyes of the democrats, this outweighs a toe-hold in the Tung administration, which they detest.
After the election for the Legislative Council (Legco) on September 12, rumors abounded that Tung planned to install some democrats in the Exco so as to hear Hong Kong's different voices and restore his deteriorating prestige. Some leaked news even specified that Leong Kah-kit, a newly elected legislator and member of the Article 45 Concern Group, had received an invitation from Tung. Nonetheless, the final list of new Exco members turned out to be otherwise, including incumbent legislator Bernard Chan and Laura Cha, former vice chairperson of China Securities Regulatory Commission, the mainland's top regulating body of the stock markets.
The Executive Council, which functions as Tung's cabinet, consists of 14 principal officials, appointed under the Accountability System, seven non-officials and another seven appointed members.
Declining to confirm his receiving an invitation from Tung, Leong stressed that the Executive Council is not the only communication channel between the government and democrats. Tung could also improve his governance by listening more to the voices from the Legislative Council, Leong added.
Political pundits argue that those democrats who turned down seats value much more their relationship with Beijing than membership in the Exco. The Article 45 Concern Group, composed of elites in the legal profession, is now on good terms with Beijing. The group (which takes its name from Article 45 of Hong Kong's Basic Law stating that universal suffrage is the ultimate aim) doggedly pursues direct and universal suffrage in Hong Kong - but in such a way as not to alienate Beijing. After winning the September election, four members from the group were invited to a meeting with the Chinese government's liaison office in Hong Kong. In addition, they were also invited to Beijing for this year's National Day celebrations, which in the past were always closed to Hong Kong democrats. And they had a private audience with Hu Jintao, president, Chinese Communist Party chief and head of the party's military commission.
According to experts, the vast divergence between the democrats and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government - especially their significant difference over the constitutional development - also renders the democrats reluctant to join the Exco. Beijing has said the time is not yet right for universal suffrage for the Legislative Council and for Hong Kong's chief executive, though it says that is the eventual goal.
Most important of all, the Exco is now faced with the danger of being marginalized by Beijing as the latter seems to be trying to play a larger role in the territory's affairs, lest it lose control of this former British colony. Beijing is also aware of Tung's lack of popular support, his management problems and Hong Kong's economic troubles. Tung's problems - and the public's distrust of his pro-Beijing government - have become more pronounced since July 1, 2003, when half of a million residents took to the streets protesting persistent economic hardships and what they called Tung's mediocre performance. Some maintain the Executive Council itself increasingly is deteriorating into a salesman, a mouthpiece for the government.
The best thing Tung could do under such a situation was to strengthen and broaden his ruling camp. It is widely believed that Tung absorbed Bernard Chan into the Exco for his status as part of the newly formed group, The Alliance. Evolving from a loose-coalition breakfast group, The Alliance now represents essential minority votes in the Legislative Council and virtually helped Emily Lau catch up and replace Wong Yu-hong as the new chairwoman of the Legco's finance committee in late September.
The Legislative Council has 60 seats, 30 of them democratically elected, the other 30 functional constituencies. All in all, 25 now fall into the pro-democratic camp, making the five votes from The Alliance essential for passing or blocking government bills.
Unlike the Legco, the Exco swears its members to secrecy and group responsibility. When a policy is enacted, no member is allowed to make any critical comment on the policy or the government outside the council, even though he or she might disagree. If needed, Exco members could even be required to defend the enacted policy they oppose. Obviously, Tung's hand-picking of Bernard Chan is aimed at increasing his support in the Legco, therefore facilitating the passage and enforcement of government policies.
However, political pundits warn the authorities not to count too much on The Alliance, since it is still a loose coalition that does not require unanimous voting. Its members, all from functional constituencies, stave off a thinly veiled pro-government position as some candidates in functional constituencies just lost their seats in the Legco in last month's election because they completely toed the line of the Tung administration.
With his second and last term ending in only two years, Tung is desperately trying to win the hearts of the people in Hong Kong by luring some popular politicians into the Exco, thus maintaining his authority over the territory. Nonetheless, if Tung refuses to listen to the masses and his policymaking continues to deviate from mainstream sentiment, the alignment with The Alliance cannot benefit his administration, since it might yield to the pressure from voters if the public distrust of Tung does not diminish.
In 2003, Tung had already been taught a good lesson when a key Exco member James Tien, then deemed a proponent of Tung, suddenly decided to quit the council and opposed the hasty legislation of an unpopular anti-sedition law at the time desperately pushed forward by Tung. Could Tung afford more influential opponents and more unstable political ground?
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------- Depleted Uranium Keeps On Killing!
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