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NUCLEAR
Global warming row goes nuclear as bishop quits Friends of the Earth
'Nuclear' bishop quits campaign
Iberdrola Profit Rises 13% on Nuclear, Wind Power (Update3)
Depleted uranium once used in weapons
Margaret Hassan: A personal tale
Iraqi Child Deaths
S Korean munitions violated N-accord
Killing for Christ The Destructive Power of Faith
Portugal rejects nuclear power in fight against oil dependence
Indian scientists sanctioned for assisting Iran on nukes
Iran Agrees to Consider E.U. Offer on Nuclear Program
Europeans Offers Plan to End Standoff on Iran Nuclear Program
North Korea Tops Powell's Agenda in Asia
North Korea eases tough stance against US in nuclear talks
North Korea Says Prospects Gloomy for Nuclear Talks
Brazil Fights for Right to Produce Nuclear Fuel
Taiwan shows off missile defense strength
Bush faces nuclear fallout in Nevada
MILITARY
Released Detainees Rejoining The Fight
Second-Guessing Actions in Afghanistan
Northern Uganda 'world's biggest neglected crisis'
Miami gun dealer, others charged in weapons trafficking to Colombia
No shooting please, we're British
Britain to move troops to hot spot
Deepcut Army sex attacker jailed
Firms in Iraq's Oil-for-Food Program Revealed
Halliburton may keep disputed money
U.S. to Aid Albania in Destroying Chemicals
Nervous System Anomaly Seen in Gulf War Syndrome
Estimates by U.S. See More Rebels With More Funds
Religious Leaders Ahead in Iraq Poll
CARE Official Held Hostage in Iraq Pleads for Her Life
Falluja Sheiks Demand End to Airstrikes to Save Talks
U.S., Iraqi Forces Detain Sunni Muslim Cleric
Israeli army faces a revolt from the right
Ex-ally calls Sharon 'disloyal' and warns of Israeli civil war
Israel May Have Iran in Its Sights
Bin Laden is located, says 9/11 panelist
Documents Shed Light on Iraq Prison Abuse
Russian prosecutor office rejects HR report
Russia's recruits wrecked by abuse
Goss Vows to Rebuild, Expand CIA
Aide for Times Revealed Secrets, China Charges
Pentagon Reportedly Skewed C.I.A.'s View of Qaeda Tie
DoD breaks with Bush over intel reform
U.N. hurt by scandal, Annan says
Iraqis Not Ready for Trials; U.N. to Withhold Training
Female soldiers eyed for combat
Abu Ghraib abuser sentenced
MP Gets 8 Years for Iraq Abuse
Trial Date Set for Another Reservist in Prison Abuse Case
Off to War
U.S.: Soldiers Failed to Report for Duty
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
Panelists rejected in trials at Gitmo
Panel for Detainees' Cases Cut in Half
Iraqis take contractors to court over Abu Ghraib
In Test, X-Rays Scan Cars as Part of Antiterror Effort
The new COINTELPRO
Iraq purging tens of thousands of police officers
POLITICS
A Fading 'Nader Factor'?
Bush Signs $136 Billion Corporate Tax Cut Bill
Top polls prove reliable in picking election winners
U.S. Agrees to Waivers in Hatfill Suit
Campaign spending nears $4 billion, a record level
War on Terrorism Afghanistan, Iraq: Two Wars Collide
Evangelist says Bush ought to admit error
Bizarro Bush He's the exact opposite of what a president should be
ENERGY
The Oil Factor: Behind the War on Terror
OTHER
Russian Legislators Vote to Ratify the Kyoto Protocol
Global warming cited in storms
U.N. Split on Human Cloning Ban
ACTIVISTS
Activists seek rights for felons
-------- NUCLEAR
Global warming row goes nuclear as bishop quits Friends of the Earth
independent.co.uk
By Michael McCarthy
22 October 2004
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/environment/story.jsp?story=574850
He's the nearest thing Britain has to an eco-bishop, having campaigned on environmental issues for more than 30 years.
Yet now the Right Rev Hugh Montefiore, the former Bishop of Birmingham, has been kicked off the board of Friends of the Earth (FoE), the leading environmental group, for saying publicly that the fight against global warming should involve using nuclear power.
The outspoken prelate, one of the most colourful figures in the Church of England, has been an FoE trustee for two decades, and chaired the group from 1992 to 1998. But in an extraordinary and acrimonious row, he has been forced to sever his links with the organisation because of an article on climate change which he has written for tomorrow's edition of The Tablet, the Catholic weekly.
In it, Bishop Montefiore says that the dangers of global warming are greater than any others facing the planet, and that the solution is to make more use of nuclear energy. Nuclear does not produce the carbon dioxide (CO2) that comes from coal, gas and oil-fired power stations - global warming's main cause.
In doing so he becomes the second major green figure this year to advocate a radical step that is deeply unpalatable to most of the environmental movement, which opposes nuclear power as almost an article of faith. It was first put forward in May by James Lovelock, the independent scientist and green guru behind the celebrated Gaia hypothesis (the idea that the whole earth behaves like a single living organism).
Writing in The Independent, Professor Lovelock set off an international argument when he said that climate change was now proceeding so fast that there was simply not enough time for renewable energy, such as wind, wave and solar power - the green movement's favoured solution - to take the place of conventional power stations burning fossil fuels. Only a huge expansion of nuclear energy could check a possible runaway warming which would be disastrous for the world, he said.
Bishop Montefiore's article for The Tablet comes to the same conclusion in a similar way. He goes through the renewable options and says he does not believe they can do the job in time. He writes: "The real reason why the Government has not taken up the nuclear option is because it lacks public acceptance, due to scare stories in the media and the stonewalling opposition of powerful environmental organisations. Most, if not all, of the objections do not stand up to objective assessment."
The bishop, who says he has been "a committed environmentalist for many years," makes it clear at the outset that writing the piece is costing him his long-standing place on the FoE board. "I have been a trustee of FoE for 20 years and when I told my fellow trustees that I wished to write for The Tablet on nuclear energy, I was told that this is not compatible with being a trustee," he writes. "I have therefore resigned because no alternative was open to me."
He adds stingingly: "The future of the planet is more important than membership of Friends of the Earth."
Bishop Montefiore, who is retired but is still an honorary assistant bishop in the diocese of Southwark, has impeccable green credentials. In the 1970s, when he was a suffragan bishop of Kingston-upon-Thames, he was much involved with campaigns for environmentally friendly transport, and protested against Concorde and excessive aircraft movement in and out of Heathrow. He was also anti-nuclear. As Bishop of Birmingham from 1978-87 he had an agenda of helping the poor and was regarded as being very much an anti-Thatcherite.
He comes from a famous Jewish family and converted to Christianity when he was a pupil at Rugby School. He has been a lecturer in New Testament studies at Cambridge, and dean of Gonville and Caius College.
He declined yesterday to talk in detail about his row with FoE but he said that "of course" he felt sad about what had happened. "I have great admiration for FoE in many ways," he said. "But they don't seem to think it's appropriate to have nuclear and I do. I think it's the only way to get out of this mess."
He said he had once been an opponent of nuclear power. "I was against it. I thought it wouldn't be necessary. But I've changed my view. I just don't see it [the fight against climate change] happening without nuclear."
Tony Juniper, director of Friends of the Earth, said last night: "Hugh has been a very valuable member of our board of trustees for two decades, and has made an enormous contribution to Friends of the Earth's work.
"But having analysed the energy choices and different options that we have as a society, we are firmly of the view that we can and should fight climate change without relying on nuclear power, and that has led - sadly - to a parting of the ways.
"To have us saying one thing and a member of the board of trustees saying the opposite is clearly unworkable in practice. We can't have the organisation saying two things at once."
--------
'Nuclear' bishop quits campaign
BBC
22 October, 2004
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_midlands/3944535.stm
The former Bishop of Birmingham has been forced to leave the board of a leading environmental campaign group in a dispute over promoting nuclear power.
Friends of the Earth (FoE) says Rt Rev Hugh Montefiore's support for nuclear energy to tackle global warming is not compatible with the charity's aims.
The bishop, who believes the uptake of renewable energy sources is taking too long, says he is "sad" to be resigning.
He added it was "vital" nuclear power became more acceptable in Britain.
"I'm not objecting to having to resign, although I'm very sad about it," the bishop told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
"There are organisations which stage public debates, but this is a campaigning organisation so I suppose they feel they can't do this."
The bishop, who converted to Christianity from Judaism as a schoolboy, added: "I see very little happening in terms of the reduction of CO2s.
"Exciting things are happening in terms of renewables, but they're miles away from being commercially viable.
"It's an enormous break to have to cut by 60% by 2050 to make the planet decent. And I just cannot see this happening with renewables."
FoE director Tony Juniper said the group could no longer work with Rt Rev Montefiore, who is retired but is still an honorary bishop in the diocese of Southwark.
"We offered to do a review of our policies on climate change to check their adequacy and Hugh chose instead, before we finished that review, to put his views into the public domain. That's his choice.
"The organisation is very happy to have internal debates about policies, but in practical terms, if you have two people from the organisation saying different things, they're not going to have much impact.
"But Hugh's absolutely right - renewable power is going far too slow. It needs to be boosted quickly," Mr Juniper added.
-------- business
Iberdrola Profit Rises 13% on Nuclear, Wind Power (Update3)
Bloomberg
Oct. 22. 2004
http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000086&refer=latin_america&sid=a23jtFGhG7FI
-- Iberdrola SA, Spain's second-largest power company, said third-quarter profit rose 13 percent as higher production at nuclear reactors and wind parks compensated for a drop in supplies from its hydroelectric dams.
Net income climbed to 282 million euros ($356 million), or 31 cents per share, from 248 million euros, or 27 cents per share, in the same period last year, Iberdrola said in a filing to stock market regulators. Sales at the Madrid and Bilbao-based company rose 3.3 percent to 2.62 billion euros, from 2.54 billion euros.
Chief Executive Ignacio Sanchez Galan plans to spend 11.9 billion in the seven years ending in 2008 on natural gas-fired plants and new wind farms to complement its nuclear reactors and adapt to government-mandated limits on emissions of carbon dioxide. He also is expanding in Latin America after Spain's power and gas markets opened to full competition last year.
``They are meeting their goal of increasing profit by double digits,'' said Juan Maria Soler, who manages $2.6 billion at Sabadell Banca Privada in Barcelona. ``That, plus their higher exposure to wind energy, or lower exposure to carbon emissions, makes them well-positioned among Spanish utilities.''
To help meet the Kyoto Protocol agreement to lower production of carbon dioxide, which is linked to climate change, the European Union agreed to cut emissions by 8 percent, from 1990 levels, by 2010. Almost half of Iberdrola's production capacity comes from hydro and wind farms, which don't pollute. Nuclear reactors represent another 14 percent.
Emissions Rules
Endesa and Union Fenosa SA, Iberdrola's main competitors, may have to buy emission rights, lifting their costs, because they burn coal to produce more than half of their electricity.
``Iberdrola is the safest harbor against a tough implementation of the Kyoto Protocol in Spain,'' said Javier Suarez, an analyst with ING Bank NV in Milan.
Iberdrola shares rose 7 cents, or 0.4 percent, to 17.07 euros at 11:24 a.m. in Madrid. The company has a market value of 15.4 billion euros, making it the seventh-largest power company in Europe, after Electricite de France, E.ON AG, Enel SpA, RWE AG, Endesa SA and Electrabel SA.
Third-quarter profit also rose as Iberdrola extended the life of its nuclear plants. The change adds 17 million euros to quarterly profit this year, according to Matija Gergolet, an analyst with Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization at the company's international unit accounted for 11 percent of the total, after rising 45 percent to 235 million euros in the first nine months, Iberdrola said. The increase came after Iberdrola started operating a gas-fired station in Altamira, Mexico, in the last quarter of 2003.
EBITDA at the renewable-energy unit rose by 47 percent to 178 million euros in the first nine months, or 8 percent of the company's total. Overall, third-quarter EBITDA rose 14 percent to 673 million euros, from 593 million euros last year.
More Nuclear, Less Rain
More generation from the company's nuclear stations and wind parks helped offset a decline at its hydroelectric plants on the Duero river in west-central Spain caused by lighter rain.
Nuclear reactors produced 20,019 gigawatt-hours, about a third of the total, compared with 18,502 megawatts over the same period last year. Production from wind farms increased 48 percent to 3,806 gigawatt-hours in the first nine months, or 6.3 percent of the total. Iberdrola's dams produced 12,292 gigawatt-hours, down from 16,094 gigawatt-hours last year.
Iberdrola has 21,691 megawatts of installed capacity in Spain, enough to light the homes of 21 million people, and 2,690 megawatts in Latin America.
Net income in the first nine months of the year rose 13 percent to 854 million euros, from 754 million euros over the same period last year. Analysts had predicted nine-month net of 834 million euros.
To contact the reporter on this story: Elena Moya in London moya@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Timothy Coulter at tcoulter@bloomberg.net
-------- depleted uranium
Depleted uranium once used in weapons
Joins.com
October 22, 2004
http://joongangdaily.joins.com/200410/21/200410212244327139900090409041.html
Representative Cho Seung-soo of the Democratic Labor Party and the environmental group Green Korea United said yesterday that the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute had produced anti-tank shells in the 1980s made from depleted uranium, alloyed with titanium.
They claimed that the Ministry of Science and Technology had hidden the fact. In response, the ministry said, "We applied for an inspection waiver for development of uranium armaments and received permission in 1987." The ministry said that it has discussed the production with the United States from an early stage.
The ministry said the shells were destroyed in 1989 with U.S. Embassy officials present when they no longer had commercial value. Depleted uranium is a dense, non-fissile metal.
--------
Margaret Hassan: A personal tale
BBC
22 October, 2004
By Felicity Arbuthnot
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3764692.stm
As aid worker Margaret Hassan is held by kidnappers in Iraq, freelance journalist and long-time friend Felicity Arbuthnot describes the charity boss's heroic endeavours to help the people of Iraq.
Even in the bloodshed and turmoil of post-invasion Iraq, the kidnapping of Margaret Hassan, head of Care International in Iraq, is incomprehensible.
Margaret Hassan fell in love with Iraq more than 30 years ago, when she travelled there as a young bride with her Iraqi husband Taheen Ali Hassan.
They had met while studying in London and the former Margaret Fitzsimmons, from Dublin in the "land of a thousand welcomes", fell in love for a second time with Baghdad - formerly Madinat al Salam: City of Peace - and the land known through time as "the cradle of civilisation".
She converted to Islam, learned Arabic and took Iraqi citizenship.
Terrible emergency
She never considered leaving - not during the eight year Iran-Iraq war, the 42 day carpet bombing of the 1991 Gulf war, the 13 years of the grinding deprivation of the United Nations embargo, numerous bombings by Britain and America during those years, or when last year's invasion became inevitable.
Instead, she fought for the people and country, of which she had become a part.
She went to the UN in New York in January 2003, briefing the Security Council and UN Agencies that the majority of Iraqis were staggering under the weight of the embargo and the collapse of the infrastructure, due to prohibition of imported parts.
She briefed the British Parliament: "The Iraqi people are already living through a terrible emergency - they do not have the resources to withstand an additional crisis brought about by military action."
She could have stayed overseas - but with war inevitable, she returned to Iraq.
I first met Margaret Hassan in early 1992, months after Iraq had been "reduced to a pre-industrial age for a considerable time to come" according to the then special rapporteur to the UN.
Slender, quietly spoken, she had a will and inner core of steel.
The most obstructive official, determined not to acquiesce to any request relating to one of her projects - water, clinic, school and hospital refurbishments - would find on her departure he had given her all she had requested and suggested and agreed to more.
She is a manipulative charmer on behalf of the people of Iraq.
'Madam Margaret'
It was Iraq's children who haunted her, she called the children of the embargo "the lost generation."
Half of Iraq's population is aged below 15.
Childless herself, to see her cradle infants stricken with Iraq's myriad of illnesses which have reached epidemic proportions since 1991 - linked to the destruction of water facilities and the chemically toxic and radioactive depleted uranium weapons used - one felt her passion to protect all Iraq's children as her own.
"There will be a second generation of lost children now," she told the Independent newspaper's Robert Fisk despairingly, recently.
I have a memory that encapsulates Margaret and the love she inspired.
We were filming in an area of exceptional deprivation and poverty, not without its criminal element - poverty breeds desperation.
A crowd gathered. On seeing Margaret, thin, stressed faces, broke into wide smiles, children ran and hugged her round the knees chanting: "Madam Margaret, Madam Margaret...".
Iraqis protect those who help them, love them, even to their own lives. The kidnappings of aid workers, friendly journalists, bewilder them.
When Margaret drove to work last Tuesday morning, she was reportedly flagged down by two men in police uniform, and suspecting nothing, the car stopped.
Her driver and unarmed guard were pulled out and pistol whipped by gunmen who appeared.
Margaret demanded they stop the beating and said she would go with them.
Poignant demonstration
Her last act before kidnap and this terrible silence was, as always, to defend Iraqis.
The last project Care completed at Margaret's instigation, was a rehabilitation unit for patients with spinal injuries.
On Wednesday, in a poignant demonstration, those patients that could, painstakingly wheeled themselves into the street, held up banners pleading for her release, in support of an honorary Iraqi and Iraq's quiet, unassuming, determined best friend.
Margaret's kidnap has led to Care pulling out of Iraq.
Risk taking is one thing, but moving about Iraq has now become for many a suicide mission.
Their stance is understandable, but it might be the only action that may make the redoubtable, extraordinary Margaret Hassan, put her head in her hands and weep.
-----
Iraqi Child Deaths
Media Indifferent as UNICEF Reports Worsening Catastrophe
October 22, 2004
www.dissidentvoice.org
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Oct04/MediaLens1022.htm
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)
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 immunizable 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)
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 gynecology 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)
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 defense with organizing 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.
Media Lens is a UK-based media watchdog group headed by David Edwards and David Cromwell. Visit the Media Lens website (www.medialens.org) and consider supporting their invaluable work (www.medialens.org/donate.html).
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S Korean munitions violated N-accord
October 22, 2004
The News International
http://jang.com.pk/thenews/oct2004-daily/22-10-2004/world/w7.htm
SEOUL: 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 scientists purely out of curiosity conducted those tests, 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.
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Killing for Christ The Destructive Power of Faith
counterpunch.com
By WILLIAM A. COOK
October 22 / 24, 2004
http://www.counterpunch.com/cook10222004.html
A pall hangs over this election, a shroud of darkness that oppresses the heart because its outcome guarantees no change, only the certainty of continued chaos if Bush should win and the unknown direction a Kerry victory might take, a direction that could continue the chaos America's mired in, a darkness, then, to appall. I read each day the crippling accounts of soldiers caught in a maelstrom of unseen death lurking on roof tops, in narrow alleys, behind cement walls and black windows, beneath tires littering the streets. I see pictures of burned out buses, sidewalks and curbs bathed with blood, faces twisted in pain, bits and pieces of flesh scattered about like fallen leaves, blown helter-skelter by the wind. Faces, I see suffering on so many faces, mothers weeping over their dying children, old women and men huddled in the debris left of their bulldozed home, medics carrying the lifeless body of a man whose hand rests beside his face held there by the torn shred of his sleeve, his arm gone, his body black with grime.
This is a world gone mad, a madness on all sides, the madness of greed that sees in oil the riches of Sultans and Kings, the madness of arrogant pseudo-philosophers who conjure beliefs of personal superiority that gives them license to conquer and enslave, the madness of ancient minds that dreamt of power and glory in covenants with gods, the madness of fanatics that fabricate fantasy out of indecipherable images lodged in pages of metaphors, the madness of little minds that grab onto faith as the golden ring that will bring them salvation, the madness of those born again to the child's world of impossible dreams forgoing in their new world the reality of this.
Today I read of depleted uranium, 1000 metric tons made from the deadly U238 isotope dropped on America's killing fields, that wafts on the wind like aerosol spray, a toxic death that sticks in human lungs, bringing a slow and painful death. I saw pictures of new born children bloated and bruised by scars, eyes missing, a nose of scar tissue and nostrils, no lips, the detritus of our advanced civilization scattered on hospital beds in Baghdad. I read of soldiers twisted in mind and spirit by no visible symptom except the phantom of our cursed nuclear waste that encircles them in their tank and haunts them the remainder of their lives. Our young return from this nightmare of devastation devastated themselves courtesy of our Commander in Chief.
And I read today that 24,010 Americans have been evacuated with wounds and injuries from our "war" zones, that 37,000 innocent men, women, and children in Afghanistan and Iraq have died and more than 500,000 have suffered wounds. And I hear the silence, the deafening silence of indifference that our compassionate conservative leader offers to those who suffer the consequence of his acts, and feel with them the utter helplessness of their plight. And I wait for a word from Kerry that he, too, hears their pain, that he will stop the slaughter in Afghanistan and Iraq and Palestine ... and I wait in vain; there is no condemnation, no plan to end the conflicts, no recognition that states terrorize, no acceptance of the right of people to fight the oppressor, no confession of wrong waged against the innocent that had not the intention or the means to threaten America.
I have heard these men, both Bush and Kerry, attest to their deep rooted religious principles, the depth of their faith in the teachings of Jesus, comforting the citizenry that they are fit for the White House because they believe. But I see nothing of Jesus in their behavior, nothing of the compassion that attended his ministry, nothing of the inclusiveness of his teachings, nothing of the love he proffered as the binding source of peace throughout the world.
I look in vain for this Christ in the Christianity practiced by the right wing, fanatical sects that preach the Book of Revelation, reveling in the glory they perceive to be their reward if they destroy the enemies they identify as the enemies of God. I wonder where in this acclaimed Christian land of TV Evangelists and literalist ministers is there a man who acts as Christ would act? I see none. I see only a God forsaken Tele-Evangelist land of vitriol and bigotry where none could say I "love the Lord my God with my whole heart and mind and soul, and my neighbor as myself." They have buried the teachings of Jesus in the quagmire of a malevolent and malicious God of the Old Testament, a God that would order one Semitic tribe to exterminate another. We have not moved beyond the racist hatred that blotted the landscape 2500 years ago.
I would have thought the founding fathers' voices would have turned us against such barbarity, for they knew that such religions were anathema to the rights of the people and to the fledgling Democracy they desired to create. They expunged such organized zealots of religion from civil discourse precisely because they knew its inherent destructive nature. But, no, we have the airwaves turned into streams of venom that flow from the mouths of the heralded self-worshipers whose mantra is hatred for their fellow man, the likes of Pat Robertson, Pastor John Hagee, Franklin Graham, Hal Lindsey, and, now, even our blessed generals who defile the houses of worship not with coins but with cursed bigotry in the person of General Boykin.
I wonder how any person can stand against the tribes that follow these accursed men? What voice can reach the soul of men, if soul they still have after their life of crime, that has been lodged deep in their bloody wallets made fat with their racist hatred for their fellows whose only sin is their belief in a God different from their own? They mount their campaigns on fear, fear lodged in a word that defies definition because it slips and slides, nay, it slithers through meaning like molten lava over rock burying it beneath layers of hot and passionate rhetoric, a word without substance or sense, a word seething with diffidence, anxiety, suspicion, even horror, the word is faith. No word evokes more fear and mistrust; no word has caused more chaos and wanton destruction, as the Crusades and the Conquistadors, rampaging through Central America, attest; no word can put people in such a state of doubt that they acquiesce to prophets of doom century after century; no word has been and continues to be more destructive in the mouths of fanatics. That is the destructive power of blind faith!
Fanatics have a way, whether they be the Imams guiding Hamas or the robed ministers of Robertson's TV Club or the ultra right Zionists in Israel, with those who abdicate responsibility to think for themselves, those who hand over their minds and conscience to them as they thunder their prophetic curses in dramatic tirades, bathing their flocks in fear and loathing. These fanatics in America, who exist through the courtesy of a democratic secular system that tolerates their presence if not their message, fetter the minds of their laity with absolute truths generated out of myths, negating thereby the very semblance of democratic thought that is premised on individual responsibility; and the lambs they lead to slaughter do not know it. These fanatics defy the laws of the secular state by determining for their congregations what political party they must support, what candidates they must vote for, and what policies they must accept. And for this defiance they pay no taxes!
But it's worse than that. These same fanatics literally compel their congregants, on fear of eternal damnation in Hell's fire, to strap themselves in the swaddling clothes of death and bring that gift to all around them, to support terrorists in the occupied territories of Palestine, to proclaim an enemy identified in the Book of Revelation, an Arab enemy who worships in the Islamic faith. And for this incitement to murder they pay no taxes and suffer no incarceration. What else do we call it but killing for Christ, killing for Allah, killing for Yahweh!
This is our dilemma. We Americans pay the bill; they act in our name. How can we, who speak with the conviction of our conscience, hope to remove the hatred a Hagee or a Robertson breeds against God's creatures? The pictures I saw today of dead and dying children in Iraq, pictures too horrific to be put in main stream newspapers or shown on TV, pictures that cry to the human soul that the pain and suffering must stop also cry out to every true Christian that Jesus' teachings never allowed for such wanton slaughter. Yet these are the innocent victims of our fanatical dependence on the preaching of these men who sit safely ensconced on their splendid chairs amidst tall vases of flowers, smiling beatifically for the cameras.
How can we witness Bush's acceptance, indeed his encouragement, of Ariel Sharon's savagery and not condemn his acts as anathema to the teachings of the Christ he proclaims as his God? How can we suffer in silence the ferociousness of Sharon as he spreads his hatred and nihilism over the bloodied landscape of the unholy lands of ancient Palestine? Our indifference, our silence blessed the rape of Rafah in May, God's month of renewal; our indifference and our silence blessed a summer of slaughter in the season of God's increase; and today, our indifference and our silence acquiesce to a season of harvest that gathers in the dead and maimed in Gaza.
Where is the voice of America that should cry against these killing fields, these American supported killing fields, these murderous rampages that defile the love Jesus begged we have for our neighbor, a love equal to that we have for ourselves?
Where are the Priests, the Rabbis, the Imams, the quiet Buddha monks, all who claim to love humankind? Why does silence reign? Whose voice are we afraid of? Where are the voices of our leaders, where is Kerry, where is Dean, where is Edwards? Why do we hear words of condemnation when we witness the wanton slaughter in Beslan of children in school yet hear not a word when the IDF slaughters the children in the kindergarten in Jabaliya or our missiles miss their intended target and destroy the lives of innocent people? Does one mother's weeping reach our ear and another goes unheard? I would that every mother's cry would reach our ears as it rents the sky that we might know what Christ meant when he said, "Love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart and mind and soul, and thy neighbor as thyself."
William Cook is a professor of English at the University of La Verne in southern California. His new book, Psalms for the 21st Century, was published by Mellen Press. He can be reached at: cookb@ULV.EDU
-------- europe
Portugal rejects nuclear power in fight against oil dependence
LISBON (AFP)
Oct 22, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041022135218.g3pai1u9.html
Portugal's centre-right government said Friday it had ruled out using nuclear energy to reduce the nation's high dependency on oil.
A government report outlining options for Portugal's energy future, which was analyzed by the cabinet Thursday, proposed using nuclear power and reviving a giant dam project in northern Portugal.
But both options were unanimously rejected, the government said in a statement.
Portugal currently does not produce any nuclear energy. The country is one of the most oil-dependent members of the European Union along with Spain, Ireland and Greece.
Earlier Friday daily newspaper Publico reported that the government was still considering recommendations contained in the report that it use nuclear energy and resume work on a large-scale dam at Foz Coa to reduce the nation's oil dependency.
The planned dam was abandoned in the 1990s after pre-historic cave art was found in the region that would be submerge if it was built.
Earlier this week France announced it will build the first of a new generation of pressurised water nuclear plants.
-------- india / pakistan
Indian scientists sanctioned for assisting Iran on nukes
October 22, 2004
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20041021-113330-3749r.htm
The Bush administration has imposed sanctions on two Indian scientists for selling nuclear technology to Iran and is planning additional arms-related sanctions, U.S. officials said.
The two scientists were identified by the Bush administration as Shri Ch. Surendar and Y. Sivaraman Prasad, both former directors of the Nuclear Power Corp. of India, the state-run utility.
The scientists were among 14 persons and companies that were listed in the Federal Register for their role in transferring nuclear weapons-related technology to Iran in violation of U.S. counterproliferation laws.
Officials said additional sanctions have been approved and could be imposed on India in the near future in response to other Indian transfers of weapons-related goods to Iran.
The additional sanctions were slated to be discussed in New Delhi during meetings this week between senior Indian leaders and Christina Rocca, assistant secretary of state for South Asia.
Miss Rocca is in India as part of a program known as Next Steps in Strategic Partnership. The talks are focused on ways of loosening controls on the transfer of U.S. high-technology goods to India, which have been restricted because of India's nuclear arms program and its 1998 underground nuclear tests.
The sanctions on the scientists, which were listed in the Federal Register Sept. 29, are largely symbolic. They bar the scientists from doing business with the U.S. government or acquiring U.S. goods requiring export licenses.
Officials said the Indian scientists were involved in helping Iran's nuclear program. Tehran has refused to halt production of highly enriched uranium, which can be used for weapons.
However, public identification of the scientists and their role in arms proliferation can be a deterrent that will make further exchanges more difficult, the officials said.
Officials compared the Indian scientists to Pakistan's Abdul Qadeer Khan, who ran a covert network that provided weapons equipment, namely centrifuges, to Iran, Libya and North Korea. But officials said the Indians' activities were not as damaging as Mr. Khan's.
U.S. plans for expanding cooperation with India in the area of high-technology and defense goods have been made more difficult by India's trade with Iran, the officials said.
India and Iran signed an agreement in January 2003 that called for science and technology and defense cooperation. Last month, India's state-owned Bharat Electronics Ltd. announced that it sought government permission to sell Iran several upgraded Super Fledermaus air-defense radars.
The Bush administration is opposing the radar transfer as it could be used to guard Iranian nuclear facilities.
A U.S. trade official said the technology dialogue with India has produced assurances that New Delhi will not provide weapons-related technology to Iran. Also, the government has agreed to allow a U.S. export-control official to be posted at the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi, to monitor sensitive U.S. technology transfers.
The official said the two scientists' activities did not appear to be sanctioned by the Indian government. "There are problems and we're trying to address them in our dialogue," the official said.
U.S. officials said evidence of the scientists' involvement in the Iranian nuclear program comes from intelligence information.
Officials would not provide details on the pending sanctions against India but said they involved weapons-related technology transfers to Iran.
U.S. and Indian officials reported making progress in the talks on advanced technology cooperation yesterday. The two nations are hoping to cooperate on civilian nuclear and space technology, high-technology trade and missile defense, a State Department official said.
-------- iran
Iran Agrees to Consider E.U. Offer on Nuclear Program
By Louis Charbonneau
Reuters
Friday, October 22, 2004; Page A18
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52699-2004Oct21.html
VIENNA, Oct. 21 -- Iran will consider a European Union proposal under which the Islamic republic would receive civilian nuclear technology and fuel if it abandons its uranium enrichment program, an Iranian official told reporters Thursday.
"It is just at the initial stage. The matter has to be considered on both sides," said Sirus Naseri, a member of the Iranian delegation that heard the proposal at a meeting here with senior French, British and German officials.
European governments depicted the offer as a last chance for Iran to avoid escalation of a months-long dispute over its nuclear program. If Iran rejects the offer, diplomats said, most European governments will back U.S. demands that the International Atomic Energy Agency report Iran to the U.N. Security Council for possible economic sanctions. That action could come at a meeting of the IAEA in November.
Asked if Iran was afraid of being reported to the Security Council, Naseri said, "We are not threatening each other."
Diplomats said the three E.U. countries had the reluctant blessing of the United States in making the offer to Iran, despite U.S. officials' belief that Iran was using talks with the Europeans to buy time to work toward building nuclear bombs.
"At this point Iranian compliance doesn't seem likely . . . based on Iran's history and their current expressions and the things that they're saying and doing right now," the State Department spokesman, Richard Boucher, said on Wednesday.
Iran has said its nuclear program is only for electric power generation and that it will never give up uranium enrichment, a process that can make fuel for nuclear reactors or material for bombs.
The IAEA, the U.N. atomic monitoring body, has been investigating Iran's nuclear program for more than two years. It has uncovered many hidden activities that could be related to a weapons program but no positive proof that one exists.
President Mohammad Khatami said on Wednesday that if Iran was guaranteed the right to develop peaceful nuclear technology, it would "present everything necessary to prove that Iran will not produce an atomic bomb. But we will not give up our rights."
Former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani reinforced the message on Thursday as the talks were beginning, saying: "We have announced our stance repeatedly. It is irreversible."
Some diplomats said Iranian officials had never clearly explained why their oil-rich state needs nuclear energy or why they are so intent on producing nuclear fuel, years before any Iranian atomic power facilities would need such fuel.
Khatami said on Wednesday, "We cannot rely on other countries to supply our nuclear fuel, as they can stop it any time due to political pressures."
A Western diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said acceptance of the E.U. offer could protect Iran from Security Council action. "If Iran accepts it, it could strengthen their hand in November" at the IAEA meeting, he said. The Europeans are offering to support construction of light-water reactor systems, which are less suited to developing fissile material for nuclear weapons, if Iran will scrap plans to build a heavy-water research reactor. Other incentives in the European offer include resumption of talks on a trade pact and guarantees of Russian fuel.
--------
Europeans Offers Plan to End Standoff on Iran Nuclear Program
October 22, 2004
By CRAIG S. SMITH
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/22/international/22CND-IRAN.html
PARIS, Oct. 22 - Britain, France and Germany are working to give Iran a last chance to avoid confrontation with the West over its nuclear program by offering incentives to curtail its most sensitive activities.
But Iran, which the United States believes is using its nuclear program as a cover to develop nuclear weapons, has given no indication that it would accept the plan.
"The two sides are now engaged in a dialogue with a view to identifying an agreed way forward through diplomatic means," a French foreign ministry spokeswoman said today.
Representatives from the three European countries and the European Union pressed their case with Iran's representatives in Vienna Thursday. The spokeswoman said the Europeans and Iranians had agreed to meet again soon, probably next week.
Last month, the International Atomic Energy Agency's 35-member board of governors urged Iran to suspend all activities related to the enrichment of uranium - a process for making nuclear reactor fuel that can be adapted for making weapons - or face unspecified action at the agency's next board meeting, Nov. 25.
At that meeting, the United States will push the board to refer Iran's past breaches of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to the United Nations Security Council, which could decide to impose sanctions.
So far, European board members, led by the three countries that met with Iran Thursday, have favored dialogue and negotiation, fearing that a confrontation with Iran could trigger its withdrawal from the nonproliferation treaty and end the country's cooperation with the U.N. nuclear agency.
Many people believe the country will wait at least until after the American presidential elections before giving the Europeans a concrete response, believing that if there is a new administration, the transition in Washington will buy it more time.
"My understanding from talking to Iranian officials is that anything that requires indefinite suspension is unacceptable," said Gary Samore, a non-proliferation expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. He doubts the Iranians will do more than offer to broaden the temporary suspension of their activities, arguing that the Iranians feel that they are in a strong position with the United States bogged down in Iraq, oil prices high and the Iranian government's domestic political situation stronger than it was before.
"In particular, they think the Russians and Chinese will protect them because of those countries dependence on Iranian oil and gas," Mr. Samore said, adding that even if the United States does succeed in referring Iran's case to the Security Council, the Iranians seem confident that the council won't be able to agree on any serious sanctions.
While details of the European offer have not been disclosed, diplomats in Vienna say they include resumption of trade talks and support for Iran's acquisition of a light water research reactor. The European offer also includes some guarantee that Iran will receive a supply of low-enriched uranium to fuel the power-generating reactors it is building.
It is this last point that has split the international community and led to a diplomatic standoff between Iran and the West.
Iran, which is pursuing a 30-year-old plan to develop nuclear power, insists that it cannot rely on Western fuel guarantees, pointing to the embargo that followed the country's 1979 Islamic revolution. The country says the embargo forced it to breach its obligations under the non-profliferation treaty by secretly enriching small amounts of uranium on its own in an effort to develop nuclear self-sufficiency.
Iran suspended uranium enrichment after Britain, France and Germany offered it a similar deal a year ago. But it has continued with some enrichment-related activities, like preparing the uranium feedstock for enrichment, and resumed others, like the assembly of high-speed centrifuges used to enrich uranium.
The atomic energy agency has urged Iran to stop all of those activities, and Thursday's European proposal seeks to win its compliance in order to avoid a showdown at the agency's November meeting.
-------- korea
North Korea Tops Powell's Agenda in Asia
Trip's Aim Is to Convince Allies of Bush's Commitment to Talks Over Pyongyang's Nuclear Programs
By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 22, 2004; Page A16
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52579-2004Oct21.html
Four years ago this weekend, then-Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright visited North Korea, in what appeared to be a breakthrough in U.S. relations with the reclusive Stalinist government. Today, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell leaves on what may be his last official visit to East Asia -- hopping through Japan, China and South Korea over three days -- with the crisis over North Korea's nuclear ambitions at the top of his agenda.
Since President Bush took office four years ago, a deal to keep North Korea's nuclear materials under international inspection collapsed -- after the administration discovered a clandestine nuclear program -- and the government in Pyongyang appears to have produced enough weapons-grade plutonium to build at least six more nuclear weapons. Meanwhile, senior members of the Bush administration have been deeply split over its policy toward North Korea, limiting U.S. diplomatic flexibility.
Powell, despite misgivings by other senior officials, who wish to confront and isolate North Korea, has tirelessly promoted a six-nation negotiating track. But the talks appear to have reached a stalemate, with North Korea refusing to attend another meeting -- at least until after U.S. presidential election yields a winner.
Powell's trip, his first in the region in 18 months, represents an effort to convince allies that the Bush administration is committed to a negotiated approach, even in a second term. Powell does not appear to be bringing a new proposal, but he clearly hopes that other countries in the region, such as China, will prod North Korea to return to the negotiating table before the momentum of the talks, last held in June, dissipates.
The Bush administration's handling of the North Korean threat was the subject of sharp exchanges during the first presidential debate, with Democratic challenger John F. Kerry harshly criticizing Bush for allowing North Korea to become more dangerous while he was preoccupied with Iraq. For Powell, North Korea has been the Moby Dick of foreign policy, with his preferred approach often tempered by his detractors in the president's Cabinet.
On North Korea, "I would say the administration has constructed a railroad track headed for a cliff," said Charles "Jack" Pritchard, until August 2003 Powell's special envoy for the North Korea talks. "The train is going down a steep slope, 80 miles an hour, and Powell has gotten the train down to 40 miles an hour. But it's still going off a cliff."
During the first presidential debate, Kerry noted that in the early months of the Bush administration, Powell suggested that Bush would follow the approach of the Clinton administration, which believed that it had been close to a deal limiting North Korean missiles. But "the president reversed him publicly," Kerry said, leaving the president of South Korea "bewildered and embarrassed."
The episode was indicative of the conflicting signals the Bush administration has sent about its policy toward North Korea.
In April, Vice President Cheney visited the region and told an audience in Shanghai that "time is not necessarily on our side." He asserted that North Korea, given its past behavior, could peddle nuclear technology to terrorist groups. Moreover, he warned that, as North Korea's neighbors face the reality that it has a stockpile of nuclear weapons, "we [may] have a nuclear arms race unleashed in Asia."
While Cheney expressed clear frustration with the pace of diplomacy, Powell said this week that "this is an area where you have to have patience and determination."
Aides close to Powell insist that, notwithstanding interagency squabbles, the president has privately made it clear that he supports a diplomatic approach. Powell said that publicly this week, in a Far Eastern Economic Review interview released yesterday. "All I know is what the president has decided," he said. "And he's the only one I'd listen to. And he's decided this: He's decided it repeatedly over the last year that we would try to solve this diplomatically."
Powell added: "We'll have to be patient. We will not change our policy."
While Bush had initially blocked talks with North Korea after he came into office, U.S. officials reached a consensus in early 2002 that representatives of the two countries should meet. But over the summer of 2002, U.S. intelligence determined that North Korea had a secret program to enrich uranium, in violation of a 1994 deal to freeze its nuclear programs, which had been reached with President Bill Clinton.
That discovery ended the prospect of any improvement in U.S.-North Korean relations. Bush's foreign policy advisers quickly agreed that the discovery amounted to a "material breach" of the 1994 deal, and that they needed to confront the North Koreans.
During an October 2002 meeting with U.S. officials in Pyongyang, North Korea unexpectedly acknowledged the clandestine program. The United States cut off deliveries of fuel oil provided under the 1994 agreement, and in response, North Korea kicked out international inspectors and restarted a nuclear facility that had been shuttered by Clinton's deal -- giving Pyongyang access once again to a key ingredient of nuclear weapons.
Democrats have charged the Bush administration with dropping the ball by allowing North Korea to produce the weapons-grade plutonium -- an act that Clinton had warned would prompt a military attack. But administration officials say the clandestine program demonstrated that the 1994 agreement was already worthless. "The fact of the matter is that things had deteriorated before this administration came in, but they didn't know it," Powell said in the magazine interview.
The first two rounds of the six-nation talks, held in Beijing, did not produce much movement. In June of this year, the Chinese and the South Koreans began to press for a more concrete U.S. proposal. On June 15, Powell outlined to Bush's senior foreign policy advisers a plan seeking "points of flexibility" in the next round of talks.
Under the proposal, if North Korea agrees to terminate its nuclear programs, South Korea and other U.S. allies could provide immediate energy assistance to North Korea, which would have three months to disclose its programs and have its claims verified by U.S. intelligence. The United States would then join its allies in giving written security assurances and participate in a process that might ultimately result in direct U.S. aid.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld won Bush's approval for one significant change: Powell had proposed to immediately offer security assurances to North Korea as South Korea starts fuel shipments, but instead the security assurances would be offered after the North Korean declaration is verified.
North Korea rejected the offer. In recent weeks, South Korean officials have pressed the United States to modify the proposal to include some sort of symbolic commitment to assisting with the fuel oil shipments, such as paying the administrative expenses. But U.S. officials have opposed that idea.
--------
North Korea eases tough stance against US in nuclear talks
SEOUL (AFP)
Oct 22, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041022133828.yy2amsh5.html
North Korea on Friday eased its tough stance against the United States, saying it is willing to resume stalled six-way talks on its nuclear weapons if Washington is ready to consider its demands.
A North Korean foreign ministry spokesman demanded Washington drop its hostile policy towards Pyongyang and provide rewards for having frozen its nuclear activities.
The resumption of talks depended on whether Washington was "ready to fully consider" Pyongyang's demands, he said in a statement published by Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency.
"(North Korea) is approaching the six-party talks strictly in its interests. In other words, it will attend the talks if they prove helpful to it as it realized them to settle the nuclear issue."
The spokesman also demanded South Korea's past nuclear experiments be discussed "before anything else" at the six-nation talks.
Seoul revealed in September that its scientists secretly enriched a tiny amount of plutonium in 1982 and uranium in 2000 just for scientific research. It opposes bringing its own nuclear issue to the six-way talks.
The North's statement followed a three-day trip by North Korea's second-ranking leader Kim Yong-Nam to China this week.
North Korea took park in three inconclusive rounds of the talks which also involved the United States, South Korea, Russia, China and Japan.
But the Stalinist country boycotted a fourth round of six-party talks scheduled to open in September.
The nuclear stand-off flared in October 2002 when Washington accused Pyongyang of operating a nuclear weapons program based on enriched uranium in violation of a 1994 agreement.
North Korea has offered to freeze its nuclear activities in return for various concessions including its removal from the list of terrorism sponsors.
Washington says North Korea must offer to scrap its nuclear weapons drive before concessions can be discussed.
-----
North Korea Says Prospects Gloomy for Nuclear Talks
REUTERS
October 22, 2004
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/27805/story.htm
SEOUL - The prospects for more six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear programs are gloomy because the United States has pushed the negotiations to a stalemate, the North's official KCNA news agency said yesterday.
China, Japan, the two Koreas, Russia and the United States have held three rounds of talks and agreed to a fourth in September, but that meeting failed to materialize because Pyongyang said Washington should drop its hostile policy first.
"Its prospect remains gloomy," KCNA said of the proposed fourth round.
"The Bush administration deliberately laid a stumbling block in the way of settling the nuclear issue and pushed the talks to a stalemate as it had no willingness to seek a negotiated peaceful settlement of the issue," it said in an analysis marking the 10th anniversary of the bilateral Agreed Framework deal.
South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon said this week more six-way talks could be held soon after the Nov. 2 U.S. presidential election.
South Korea and the United States have told the North not to wait for the result of the election because a win by Democratic candidate John Kerry over President Bush would bring little change in U.S. policy.
KCNA said Bush's administration had made previously agreed deals worthless, sparked off another nuclear crisis and driven "bilateral relations to catastrophe."
The 1994 Agreed Framework froze the North's nuclear plans in return for fuel but Pyongyang later secretly restarted its atomic program and the accord subsequently collapsed.
This week, North Korea's parliamentary leader and nominal head of state wrapped up a rare trip to China during which he said Pyongyang would stay engaged in the stalled talks on its nuclear ambitions.
Kim Yong-nam, the reclusive North's second-most senior figure after leader Kim Jong-il, came under heavy pressure from China's leaders to re-engage in the talks. KCNA said China pledged aid to the North, a tactic diplomats in Seoul say Beijing has used in the past to sweeten the pill.
The latest nuclear crisis erupted two years ago when U.S. diplomats said North Korea had said it was running a covert uranium enrichment program. Pyongyang has since denied this.
KCNA said the new North Korean Human Rights Act, signed into law by Bush on Monday, was part of Washington's hostile policy to "realize its wild ambition for regime change" in the North.
The law earmarks $24 million a year to bolster human rights and market reforms in North Korea.
-------- latinamerica
Brazil Fights for Right to Produce Nuclear Fuel
(Inter Press Service)
by Mario Osava
October 22, 2004
http://www.antiwar.com/ips/osava.php?articleid=3834
RIO DE JANEIRO - The publicity stirred up around the inspection of a Brazilian uranium enrichment plant is a "fabricated controversy" that could be aimed at hindering the national development of the nuclear power industry.
This allegation, put forward by physicist Aquilino Senra Martínez, is based on his contention that the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) could monitor Brazil's production of nuclear fuel without visually inspecting all of the equipment involved in the process.
At the moment, Brazil's refusal to allow inspectors access to certain equipment in the plant could prevent it from receiving the IAEA approval it needs to move forward with its nuclear power program.
Past experience has also contributed to these suspicions. Martínez, a graduate school professor of engineering at the University of Sao Paolo, told IPS about the difficulties faced by Brazil in the 1980s in purchasing supercomputers, due to claims that they could be used for the production of long-range nuclear weapons.
The U.S. ban on the sale of this technology to Brazil seriously hampered the development of the South American nation's aeronautical industry. The country was also forced to install the headquarters of its meteorological forecasting center outside Sao José dos Campos, the Brazilian aerospace technology capital, 100 km (62 mi.) from Sao Paolo, in order to have access to a supercomputer.
Brazil has developed new technology for enriching uranium that is still at the pilot, not commercial, stage, Martínez stressed. In order to produce enough fuel to supply all of the country's nuclear power plants, thousands of the new Brazilian-designed centrifuges would be needed, and this would require importing a great many components, he added.
The doubts raised as to the purely peaceful objectives of Brazil's nuclear program could hinder its ability to import the necessary equipment and components, and this, Martínez believes, is the whole reason behind the "fabricated controversy."
Three IAEA inspectors concluded a three-day visit to Brazil's nuclear facilities on Wednesday. They held meetings with the country's National Nuclear Energy Commission, and spent over six hours on Tuesday at the plant in Resende, 160 km (99 mi.) from Rio de Janeiro, where uranium is enriched to produce fuel.
The Brazilian government, however, would not allow a visual inspection of the centrifuges used in the enrichment process, arguing the need to protect industrial secrets. The innovative, cost-reducing technology was hidden behind panels during the inspectors' visit so as not to reveal the number, size and shape of the machines.
Now the IAEA will have to decide, based on the inspectors' report, whether it will accept the restrictions imposed by Brazil and move on to the next stage, a more detailed inspection two weeks from now to fully determine that the plant is used solely to produce energy, and not for nuclear weapons.
Brazil has been refusing an unrestricted inspection since April, and this has led to speculation over possible irregularities, such as the illegal acquisition of "black market" components from Pakistan. The government hopes that the small concessions made to the inspection team will be enough to satisfy the UN agency.
Without IAEA approval, which the government hopes to receive next month, Brazil would not be able to produce fuel for its two nuclear power plants.
Edson Kuramoto, the director of the Brazilian Nuclear Energy Association, which represents 1,200 technicians from this sector, told IPS that Brazil has the right to protect its technology. The country has never opposed an inspection, he explained, but is simply negotiating the procedures involved, something that is perfectly normal in the case of new facilities.
The initial goal for Brazil's uranium enrichment program is to achieve self-sufficiency in supplying fuel for its own nuclear power plants, which would allow it to save the $14 million annually that is currently spent on importing fuel.
The construction of a third nuclear power plant, currently under study by the government, would increase domestic demand to a scale that would make it economically viable to carry out the entire nuclear cycle, from mining to enriching the uranium for use as fuel, right in Brazil. This has long been a goal of the sector, Kuramoto noted.
Brazil has been insisting on the right to keep its new technology a secret because it claims that the centrifuges it has developed are more efficient and consume less energy.
There are currently only five countries in the world - the United States, Canada, France, the United Kingdom and Russia - that produce nuclear fuel, Kuramoto noted, and their plants have been in operation for many years.
Because Brazil's uranium enrichment plant is much more recent and uses brand new technology, it is only natural that it would be more efficient, he asserted.
For his part, Martínez paraphrased, "He who does it last does it best," whether in computers or any other industry. As a result, the entry of a new competitor like Brazil into this exclusive club poses a threat to those who currently control the market, and will obviously meet with resistance, he added.
Given its large uranium deposits, Brazil has the potential to be a major player in the world nuclear fuel market, he said.
-------- missile defense
Taiwan shows off missile defense strength, highlights China's threat
Oct 22, 2004
WANLI, Taiwan (AFP)
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041022085031.9fpixqz6.html
Taiwan showed off its missile defense system to the media for the first time Friday, but said it badly needed more advanced weaponry to counter a military threat from rival China.
The defense ministry opened one of its three Patriot missile bases to reporters in a rare move apparently aimed at trying to win parliament's support for a controversial 18 billion US dollar special defense budget.
"The missiles can be used to shoot down incoming enemy aircraft, ballistic and cruise missiles," General Ku Feng-tai, head of Taiwan's missile command, told reporters.
The military said it was confident in the ability of the three PAC-2 anti-missile batteries but it needed more advanced versions to match the increasing number of ballistic missile that China had targeted at the island.
"The foremost threat from the Chinese communists is their some 600 ballistic missiles," said Admiral Chen Pang-chih, head of the political warfare bureau.
The ministry estimated the number of China's ballistic missiles aiming at Taiwan would amount to 800 by the end of 2006.
Taiwan plans to acquire six PAC-3 batteries to protect the central and southern parts of the island, and to upgrade the existing PAC-2s.
Each PAC-3 will be able to track 18 targets simultaneously and cover a defense area of 400 square kilometers (160 square miles), Ku said.
The PAC-2s in place are designed to track nine targets simultaneously and cover an area of 225 square kilometers.
They have successfully destroyed mock targets in two live-fire drills since they were put into service in 1996 to protect the northern greater Taipei area.
Friday's display came as Taiwan debates whether to spend 18 billion US dollars on an arms package made up of eight conventional submarines, 12 P-3C submarine-hunting aircraft and the six PAC-3 missile systems.
The cabinet on June 2 approved the special budget to buy weaponry from the United States. It needs final approval by parliament.
Critics of the deal warn the hefty spending could further provoke China. Others say the government would be forced to incur more debt or cut social welfare and education budgets.
US President George W. Bush approved the arms package in April 2001 as part of Washington's most comprehensive arms package to the island since 1992.
Tensions between Taiwan and China have been growing following the re-election of President Chen Shui-bian, from the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party.
China claims Taiwan as its territory and has threatened to invade the island should it take further steps towards formal independence.
-------- us nuc waste
Bush faces nuclear fallout in Nevada over £60bn mountain of radioactive waste
The Guardian
Dan Glaister
October 22, 2004
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections2004/story/0,13918,1333145,00.html
Roadworks slow progress along the strip in Las Vegas. In the distance, poking between the mock Eiffel Tower and the mock pyramid at Luxor, cranes stand out against the autumn sky, building the next phase of America's seemingly permanent boom town.
But 95 miles north-east of this city, the powerhouse of Nevada with 36 million visitors a year, lies another construction site.
Yucca Mountain, projected to cost around $60bn (£32.8bn), has been chosen by the Bush administration to be the nation's nuclear waste repository, set to hold the existing 40,000 tons of waste produced to date by the country's nuclear power stations.
"This material is the deadliest substance known to mankind," said Peggy Maze Johnson, executive director of Citizen Alert, a local group that has campaigned against the repository. "It's one million times more radioactive when it comes out of the reactor core than when it went in."
In February 2002, just over a year after taking office, President Bush recommended the Yucca Mountain site to Congress. But many voters remembered that, as a candidate in September 2000, Mr Bush promised not to approve the site until it had been "deemed scientifically safe", a formulation that is credited with helping him win the state.
Four years on, and with the project stalled by legal challenges to its scientific justification, those words may come back to haunt the president in what has become a swing state. A recent poll showed that Yucca Mountain was the top issue for 3% of registered voters. "Given what's going on in this country, 3% is huge," said Ms Maze Johnson.
The polls in Nevada have ranged between a 10% lead for Mr Bush to a 1% lead for Mr Kerry. In 2000 Mr Bush won the state by 3.5%, or 22,000 votes, but Nevada has changed since then. The fastest-growing state in the US in 2003, its population has risen by 300,000 in the past four years to reach 2.4 million. For this election, there will be 1.1 million registered voters, 66,000 of them Hispanics, who traditionally lean toward the Democratic party. The increase in population means that Nevada now contributes five votes to the electoral college, one more than in 2000. Accordingly, the state has become an increasingly important and hard-fought battleground in this year's electoral race.
"In 2000 there was no campaign here; the Democrats conceded," said David Damore, assistant professor of political science at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas. "But this year there's been a strong effort to get new voters registered. The electorate looks very different to the way it did four years ago."
While voters in the state are likely to be swayed by the same big issues as the rest of the country - the economy, the war in Iraq - Nevada is one swing state where the debate about the environment, thanks to Yucca Mountain, is being aired.
John Kerry has been swift to side with opponents of the plan. In an article published in the Las Vegas Review-Journal in May, Mr Kerry accused Bush of "placing the profits of the nuclear power industry above the safety of Nevada families ... I voted against the plan to dispose of waste at Yucca Mountain," he wrote, "and as president I will fight against it."
Republicans chose to use the Yucca Mountain issue as an opportunity to depict Mr Kerry as a "flip-flopper", pointing out that he had voted in favour of a 1987 bill, nicknamed the Screw Nevada bill, which authorised consideration of Yucca Mountain as the nation's repository for nuclear waste.
In August Mr Kerry defended his position, saying: "Back in 1987 the idea of a national repository seemed like a reasonable thing ... [but] the more I have looked at the issue, the more I have learned about it, the less safe, the less comfortable I am with the possibility."
Also in August, Mr Bush told a rally in Las Vegas: "I said I would make a decision based upon [sound] science, not politics ... and that's exactly what I did."
Ms Maze Johnson said: "The president called it sound science. I call it botched science. We're not partisan, but Kerry has been with us when we've needed his vote, which isn't easy for someone from the north-east."
The north-east of the US is home to the bulk of the country's nuclear energy industry. At present nuclear waste is stored on site: across the US, 161 million people live within 75 miles of temporarily stored nuclear waste.
Local residents and politicians are keen to see it moved as far away as possible, and the sparsely-populated deserts of Nevada seemed as good an idea as any. Those opposed to the repository are also concerned about the transport of waste. It is, critics say, a disaster waiting to happen, mobile Chernobyls offering the perfect terrorist target.
"We are a one-industry state," said Ms Johnson, referring to Nevada's dependence on tourism. "If something stopped people coming, what would that do to the economy?"
At the Yucca Mountain Information Centre, videos and wallcharts trumpet the efforts to ensure that the site is safe.
No mention is made of the native American name for the mountain, Moving Hill, nor scientists' nickname for it, Old Leaky. Nor is there space for a Geological Society of America report which warned that should moisture enter the mountain where nuclear waste is stored in bundles of rods, "radioactive volcanoes could form on the surface".
-------- MILITARY
-------- afghanistan
Released Detainees Rejoining The Fight
By John Mintz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 22, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52670-2004Oct21.html
At least 10 detainees released from the Guantanamo Bay prison after U.S. officials concluded they posed little threat have been recaptured or killed fighting U.S. or coalition forces in Pakistan and Afghanistan, according to Pentagon officials.
One of the repatriated prisoners is still at large after taking leadership of a militant faction in Pakistan and aligning himself with al Qaeda, Pakistani officials said. In telephone calls to Pakistani reporters, he has bragged that he tricked his U.S. interrogators into believing he was someone else.
Another returned captive is an Afghan teenager who had spent two years at a special compound for young detainees at the military prison in Cuba, where he learned English, played sports and watched videos, informed sources said. U.S. officials believed they had persuaded him to abandon his life with the Taliban, but recently the young man, now 18, was recaptured with other Taliban fighters near Kandahar, Afghanistan, according to the sources, who asked for anonymity because they were discussing sensitive military information.
The cases demonstrate the difficulty Washington faces in deciding when alleged al Qaeda and Taliban detainees should be freed, amid pressure from foreign governments and human rights groups that have denounced U.S. officials for detaining the Guantanamo Bay captives for years without due-process rights, military officials said.
"Reports that former detainees have rejoined al Qaeda and the Taliban are evidence that these individuals are fanatical and particularly deceptive," said a Pentagon spokesman, Navy Lt. Cmdr. Flex Plexico. "From the beginning, we have recognized that there are inherent risks in determining when an individual detainee no longer had to be held at Guantanamo Bay."
The latest case emerged two weeks ago when two Chinese engineers working on a dam project in Pakistan's lawless Waziristan region were kidnapped. The commander of a tribal militant group, Abdullah Mehsud, 29, told reporters by satellite phone that his followers were responsible for the abductions.
Mehsud said he spent two years at Guantanamo Bay after being captured in 2002 in Afghanistan fighting alongside the Taliban. At the time he was carrying a false Afghan identity card, and while in custody he maintained the fiction that he was an innocent Afghan tribesman, he said. U.S. officials never realized he was a Pakistani with deep ties to militants in both countries, he added.
"I managed to keep my Pakistani identity hidden all these years," he told Gulf News in a recent interview. Since his return to Pakistan in March, Pakistani newspapers have written lengthy accounts of Mehsud's hair and looks, and the powerful appeal to militants of his fiery denunciations of the United States. "We would fight America and its allies," he said in one interview, "until the very end."
Last week Pakistani commandos freed one of the abducted Chinese engineers in a raid on a mud-walled compound in which five militants and the other hostage were killed.
The 10 or more returning militants are but a fraction of the 202 Guantanamo Bay detainees who have been returned to their homelands. Of that group, 146 were freed outright, and 56 were transferred to the custody of their home governments. Many of those men have since been freed.
Mark Jacobson, a former special assistant for detainee policy in the Defense Department who now teaches at Ohio State University, estimated that as many as 25 former detainees have taken up arms again. "You can't trust them when they say they're not terrorists," he said.
A U.S. defense official who helps oversee the prisoners added: "We could have said we'll accept no risks and refused to release anyone. But we've regarded that option as not humane, and not practical, and one that makes the U.S. government appear unreasonable."
Another former Guantanamo Bay prisoner was killed in southern Afghanistan last month after a shootout with Afghan forces. Maulvi Ghafar was a senior Taliban commander when he was captured in late 2001. No information has emerged about what he told interrogators in Guantanamo Bay, but in several cases U.S. officials have released detainees they knew to have served with the Taliban if they swore off violence in written agreements.
Returned to Afghanistan in February, Ghafar resumed his post as a top Taliban commander, and his forces ambushed and killed a U.N. engineer and three Afghan soldiers, Afghan officials said, according to news accounts.
A third released Taliban commander died in an ambush this summer. Mullah Shahzada, who apparently convinced U.S. officials that he had sworn off violence, rejoined the Taliban as soon as he was freed in mid-2003, sources with knowledge of his situation said.
The Afghan teenager who was recaptured recently had been kidnapped and possibly abused by the Taliban before he was apprehended the first time in 2001. After almost three years living with other young detainees in a seaside house at Guantanamo Bay, he was returned in January of this year to his country, where he was to be monitored by Afghan officials and private contractors. But the program failed and he fell back in with the Taliban, one source said.
"Someone dropped the ball in Afghanistan," the source said.
One former detainee who has not yet been able to take up arms is Slimane Hadj Abderrahmane, a Dane who also signed a promise to renounce violence. But in recent months he has told Danish media that he considers the written oath "toilet paper," stated his plans to join the war in Chechnya and said Denmark's prime minister is a valid target for terrorists.
Human rights activists said the cases of unrepentant militants do not undercut their assertions that the United States is violating the rights of Guantanamo Bay inmates.
"This doesn't alter the injustice, or support the administration's argument that setting aside their rights is justified," said Alistair Hodgett, a spokesman for Amnesty International.
--------
Second-Guessing Actions in Afghanistan
Friday, October 22, 2004; Page A15
Barton Gellman
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A53187-2004Oct21.html
Soon after arriving as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on Oct. 1, 2001, Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers raised doubts about the war plan -- days from execution -- to topple the Taliban government in Afghanistan. Gen. Tommy R. Franks, then chief of U.S. Central Command, planned a single thrust toward the Afghan capital from the north.
Franks anticipated, correctly, that resistance from Taliban and al Qaeda fighters would collapse. He did not, however, position a blocking force to meet them as they fled. Some Bush administration officials now acknowledge privately they consider that a costly mistake.
In the presidential campaign, Democrat John F. Kerry has revived a debate on whether U.S. forces missed a chance to catch Osama bin Laden and his top aides at the battle of Tora Bora. Kerry accuses President Bush of "outsourcing" the job to Afghan tribal leaders. Recent interviews with military participants shed new light on the period beginning two months earlier, before bin Laden left Kabul for Tora Bora.
Myers urged Franks, in a series of discussions that have not been reported before, "to look at opening a southern front . . . to cut off the withdrawal of the Taliban and al Qaeda," according to a senior flag officer who participated in the debate. A brigade of the Army's 10th Mountain Division in Uzbekistan and two Marine Expeditionary Forces in the Arabian Sea "were prepared to go in there -- they'd done the planning, the load preps," said the flag officer, whose account was confirmed by a second participant. Neither agreed to be identified because of political sensitivity.
Franks did not accept the advice. Kabul fell on Nov. 13. Bin Laden and Mohammad Omar, the Taliban leader, took their best fighters southeast, largely unscathed. Three weeks later, most escaped a second time from a warren of manmade tunnels at Tora Bora. "It was the difference between defeating the enemy and destroying the enemy," said a subordinate describing Myers's views.
Franks said later, without referring to Myers, that he sought to avoid estranging Afghanistan's Pushtun majority by allowing its militias to take the lead in the south. He also said, more recently, that he would have needed months to dispatch enough U.S. forces to make a decisive difference.
Al Qaeda's consecutive escapes from Kabul and Tora Bora marked the last time the Bush administration had so large a concentration of jihadists in its sights. The subsequent global manhunt has often sought men believed to have been at one of those battles, or both.
A high-ranking war planner likened the result to throwing a rock at a nest of bees, then trying to chase them down, one by one, with a net.
-------- africa
Northern Uganda 'world's biggest neglected crisis'
Associated Press
October 22, 2004
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1333363,00.html
Northern Uganda, where around 20,000 children have been kidnapped and many forced to serve as combatants, is the world's biggest neglected humanitarian crisis, the head of UN humanitarian affairs said yesterday.
Jan Egeland, the under-secretary general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief, said he had rhetorically asked the UN security council where else in the world 80% of the fighters in a rebel movement were children, and where else 90% of the population had been displaced from their homes.
"Northern Uganda to me remains the biggest neglected humanitarian emergency in the world," he told journalists after briefing the 15-member council on Uganda and Sudan. "For me, the situation is a moral outrage, but I'm heartened that the security council devoted so much time to northern Uganda."
Britain's UN ambassador, Sir Emyr Jones Parry, speaking after the meeting, described Uganda as "one of the great crises out there which is not recognised enough".
He called on the international community to support the African Union's peace efforts and respond to UN appeals for donations, and said the council planned to meet in Nairobi, Kenya, between November 18-19, where it would discuss the conflicts in southern and western Sudan and peace efforts in the region.
Sir Emyr said there were positive signals from Uganda's government - including forces helping to protect humanitarian efforts - and recognition of the scale of the problem.
"We hope, on the humanitarian side, that we are now seeing a beginning of an end to this 18-year endless litany of horrors where children are the fighters and the victims in northern Uganda," he said.
His hopes, he said, rested on increased international attention and efforts to resolve the two decades of conflict in southern Sudan that have spilled into northern Uganda.
Since 1986, the Lord's Resistance Army has waged a brutal insurgency in northern Uganda, targeting civilians and abducting children for use as fighters, labourers or sex slaves. The rebels are believed to have bases in southern Sudan, and in recent months have launched attacks on Sudanese civilians, reportedly killing dozens.
Meanwhile, the Sudanese government and southern rebel movements have been making progress towards peace in the conflict.
Speaking about western Sudan's Darfur region, Mr Egeland said relief efforts were bringing food, water and sanitation to well over one million people.
"We're exceeding many of the goals we set ourselves two months ago," he said. "However, the goalposts have been put miles ahead of us because so many more people have been affected. We thought we would need to feed one million people by now, but we have to feed two million people ... there are hundreds of thousands in desperate need," he added.
Insecurity has become the biggest constraint on humanitarian efforts, he said, adding that aid workers had been kidnapped and killed.
Mr Egeland said donations to the relief efforts in Darfur were around £120m short of what was needed, and that the international community needed to provide more logistical support to the African Union in the deployment of forces in the conflict area.
At least 70,000 people have died, and more than 1.5 million have been forced from their homes, in the Darfur crisis. It began in February last year, when two rebel groups took up arms over what they regarded as unjust treatment by the government and ethnic Arab countrymen.
The pro-government Janjaweed militia responded by unleashing attacks on Darfur villages. Peace talks between the Sudanese government and representatives of the rebels yesterday reopened briefly in Abuja, Nigeria, after a month's suspension, but were again suspended until Monday.
-------- arms
Miami gun dealer, others charged in weapons trafficking to Colombia
MIAMI (AFP)
Oct 22, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041022185136.9fkyb2l5.html
A Miami gun dealer was charged Friday with supplying large quantities of military-type weapons and ammunition to a ring that sold them to left-wing rebels and right-wing paramilitary fighters in Colombia.
The 13-count indictment returned by a grand jury in Miami comes on top of other charges issued earlier this year against gun store owner Joseph Ruiz and six members of an alleged weapons trafficking ring.
The indictment alleges that Ruiz used his business to supply military-type weapons and ammunition to traffickers, the US Attorney's Office in Miami said.
The ring then sent the weapons by sea to Venezuela, where many of them were sold to buyers acting on behalf of the left-wing Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the right-wing United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC.) Both groups are on the US list of international terrorist organizations.
Ruiz was arrested in late September after authorities seized 200 weapons and more than 700,000 rounds of ammunition at a Miami warehouse.
Another defendant, Rodney Sharp, remains at large.
-------- britain
No shooting please, we're British
The storm over the movement of Black Watch troops in Iraq suggests the British elite is happy to support a war so long as it doesn't have to fight one.
spiked-online.com
by Brendan O'Neill
22 October 2004
http://www.spiked-online.com/Articles/0000000CA74E.htm
'Just say no.' That was the Guardian's considered advice to the UK government over the redeployment of British Black Watch troops from Basra to central Iraq to take the place of Americans who have to go off and fight insurgents. Defence secretary Geoff Hoon confirmed yesterday that 500 troops and 350 support personnel will move to the US sector, freeing up US soldiers to (allegedly) launch a new offensive against Fallujah (1).
But it wasn't only sceptical-about-war newspapers that urged a 'no' to the movement of Brits to a reportedly riskier part of Iraq; so did many of those who said 'yes' to invading Iraq in the first place, including members of parliament who voted for the war and military officials who have overseen much of the war. Some in the British establishment seem happy to support a war, so long as they don't have to fight in it.
The stink over the Black Watch redeployment reveals far more about the state of mind in Westminster than it does about the state of affairs in Iraq. Ministers, officials and journalists complain that the Brits will be at greater risk in central Iraq than they were down south - but what is the job of a soldier if not to take risks in a war setting, especially one that his own leaders helped to create? It is a profound uncertainty about the war at home, rather than any real rise in danger in Iraq, that has caused such consternation about the Black Watch movement.
The Black Watch troops are not being asked to do anything especially hairy, at least not by wartime standards. For all the talk of being dragged into a quagmire or, in the words of one report, being 'sucked into a Vietnam-style war' (2), in fact the soldiers are making a temporary move, expected to last around two months, to patrol an area 25 miles south of Baghdad. The US sector may be less pleasant than Basra, but the Black Watch are unlikely to come up against anything they haven't been trained for.
One reason why such standard postwar ugliness - whether it's insurgents firing at US troops in Fallujah or British troops being asked to patrol hostile territory south of Baghdad - can be discussed in such apocalyptic terms is because the coalition thought Iraq would be a walk in the park. They prepared for a war without much fighting or bloodshed or military engagement at all, with a strategy that stressed avoiding risky action and hand-to-hand combat. As a result of such wishful thinking, any kind of danger can come across as terrifying.
Consider Basra, where most of the Brits have been based for the past 18 months. Before the war coalition officials talked about Basra as a pushover. They hoped that the city's Shias would welcome Western forces with 'open arms', allowing the coalition to 'capitalise on any scene of liberation and beam it to a sceptical world' (3). The reality - a sometimes hostile and disgruntled population, with pockets of resistance here and there - now appears overbearing, not because these forces are any match for the British, but because the British didn't expect to encounter many hostile forces at all.
Indeed, the British response to hostility in Basra has been to retreat to barracks. In August and September, when there were clashes between British troops and supporters of Moqtada al-Sadr, the Daily Telegraph reported that 'after three [British] deaths in as many weeks, the British army has stopped patrolling the streets of Basra'. They took to moving around in armoured vehicles, 'on patrols not more than 100 yards from base'. When Basra residents demanded the expulsion of 'al-Sadr's people', British Major Ian Clooney said: 'I can understand what the Iraqis are saying, but confronting violence with violence is not going to work....' (4)
President Bush apparently said before the war started that 'we're not going to have any casualties' One American general has reportedly denounced the British approach as 'risk-averse' and 'institutionalised cowardice' (5). Yet for all the claims that US forces are imposing their imperialist will on Iraq, their campaign too has appeared faltering and defensive. Much of America's occupation has been conducted from behind high walls or from helicopter gunships.
One report describes how hundreds of American troops spend their time in Saddam's old palaces or guarding the 'Green Zone' in Baghdad, a cordoned-off part of the city centre, massively guarded and for the exclusive use of coalition officials, only occasionally venturing out. Earlier this year a poll asked Iraqis what they thought of coalition forces - 77 per cent said they had never had an encounter with a soldier from the coalition (6). Indeed, it is striking that the supposedly more gung-ho Americans should need 850 Brits as back up. The Americans have 135,000 troops in Iraq. Where are they all? What are they doing?
In both the American and British camps, the talk of quagmires, of new Vietnams, of unacceptably risky redeployments, is not a rational response to what's happening on the ground, which is not any more grisly than what has occurred in other wars. Rather it's a product of the coalition's misguided belief that it could fight a war with the war bit taken out. This week the Los Angeles Times reported that President Bush apparently told televangelist Pat Robertson in private before the war started that 'we're not going to have any casualties' in Iraq; if this is true, it is hardly surprising that casualties, or injuries or risky redeployments, are seen as both unexpected and unacceptable.
The fuss over the Black Watch redeployment also points to deep divisions within the British elite over the war in Iraq. It appears that news of the redeployment was leaked by the military itself to the BBC, a week before the government planned to make an announcement, because military commanders are concerned about the 'prospect of a movement of [British] forces into the Sunni triangle', or of a 'sharp increase in military fatalities' (7). (Perhaps they also believe, like Major Ian Clooney in Basra, that violence solves nothing.)
Behind the Black Watch controversy lurks a clash between the government and the military. According to John Kampfner, political editor of the New Statesman: 'For all the public show of agreement between officers and their political masters, rarely in the recent history of the British armed forces can the disdain of the top brass towards ministers have been so open as it is now.... What exercises them more than anything is the idea that they are seen as willing tools of a prime minister who uses the military as the vehicle for his "delusions of international grandeur". These last words are not mine.' (8)
This is a quite extraordinary state of affairs - a government that apologetically redeploys troops while its apparently anti-violence military tries to scupper the plan. This shows the extent to which it was doubt and uncertainty at home that made the movement of a few hundred troops abroad into the storm of the month.
--------
Britain to move troops to hot spot
October 22, 2004
By Ed Johnson
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20041021-105234-7861r.htm
LONDON - Britain agreed yesterday to send 850 of its soldiers from relatively peaceful southern Iraq to a volatile area near Baghdad, freeing U.S. troops to step up attacks on insurgent strongholds west of the capital.
The move is part of a coalition effort to bring order to Iraq before elections in January. But British lawmakers, many of whom opposed the war, are angry, fearing a major increase in British casualties. And some are grumbling that London is "bailing out" President Bush in his bid for re-election next month.
The Bush administration welcomed the redeployment, with White House spokesman Scott McClellan saying, "We appreciate the contribution," and State Department spokesman Richard Boucher praising Britain's key role in the U.S.-led coalition.
"It just demonstrates, once again, the kind of role that Britain is prepared to play in a matter that affects their security and our security, the security of all of us, and that is stabilizing Iraq and helping the people of Iraq take control of their destiny and reconstruct their country," Mr. Boucher said.
Meeting a request from U.S. commanders, Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon said an armored battle group from the 1st Battalion Black Watch would move from its base around the southern port city of Basra into a U.S.-controlled sector close to the capital. Sunni insurgents have been carrying out daily attacks on U.S. troops and Iraqis in the area.
The battalion, complete with support units of medics, signalers and engineers, would stay for a limited time, "weeks rather than months," Mr. Hoon said. Britain's chief of defense staff, Gen. Michael Walker, later said the deployment would last a maximum of 30 days.
Mr. Hoon declined to give further details of the "location, duration or specifics of the mission," citing security reasons, and did not say when the move will take place.
The American military wants the British to assume security responsibility in areas close to Baghdad so U.S. Marines and soldiers can be shifted to insurgency strongholds west of the capital, including Fallujah.
U.S. and Iraqi officials want to restore government control to Fallujah, Ramadi and other Sunni Muslim cities in that area and have warned that they will use force if negotiations with community leaders there fail.
Yesterday, Fallujah leaders called on the interim Iraqi government to pursue a peaceful solution to the military standoff around the city and order a halt to frequent U.S. air strikes. But clashes erupted last night between Marines and insurgents in the rebel bastion.
In Baghdad, gunmen ambushed a bus carrying Iraqi women working for Iraqi Airways to their jobs at Baghdad International Airport, killing one and wounding 14. Three persons who worked in Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's office were killed, and one was wounded in an ambush in western Baghdad.
In Mosul in the north, several mortar shells fell about two blocks from Mr. Allawi's convoy during a visit, setting off a small blaze and plumes of smoke. No casualties were reported.
The redeployment of British troops is politically sensitive for Prime Minister Tony Blair, whose popularity has plummeted because of his support for the Iraq war.
Britain's 8,500 troops are based around Basra, and sending British soldiers into the more dangerous U.S.-controlled sector carries a risk of higher casualties. Sixty-eight British soldiers have died in Iraq since the war began last year, the Defense Ministry said.
Fifty-eight lawmakers from Mr. Blair's 407-strong Labor Party have signed a motion demanding a House of Commons vote on whether the troop repositioning should go ahead.
--------
Deepcut Army sex attacker jailed
BBC
22 October, 2004
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/southern_counties/3634474.stm
A former training instructor at Deepcut Army barracks in Surrey has been jailed for four-and-a-half years for sex attacks on young male soldiers.
Leslie Skinner, 46, of Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, pleaded guilty at Kingston Crown Court last month.
Skinner, who served with the Royal Logistics Corps, admitted five indecent assaults between 1992 and 1997 on four male soldiers.
Deepcut features in the ongoing row over the deaths of four recruits.
'Vulnerable young men'
The Army maintains the recruits all committed suicide, but their families have demanded a public inquiry.
The separate police inquiry into Skinner's crimes began when one of his victims watched a discussion on the BBC's Kilroy programme which prompted him to speak about the abuse for the first time.
Skinner's victims were aged between 17 and 21. Three victims were at Deepcut while the fourth victim was at Arnhem Barracks in Aldershot.
Skinner, who kept canes and a riding crop in his locker which he used for sexual kicks, had been due to stand trial at Kingston Crown Court in September facing nine charges of indecent assault and one of male rape.
But he changed his plea and admitted five counts of indecent assault. The outstanding charges were quashed by the judge on Friday.
The married father of two, who is no longer in the Army, was a training instructor when he served at Deepcut with the Royal Logistics Corps.
He was sent to Deepcut and reduced to the rank of private after being convicted by a court martial for indecently exposing himself in a car park in Lisburn, Northern Ireland.
'Swept under carpet'
Judge Charles Tilling told Skinner on Friday: "For some reason best known to itself the Army then placed you in a position where you were in contact with and had influence over young recruits.
"Far from heeding the warning that your reduction in rank should have given you, you proceeded to indecently assault another three young vulnerable soldiers."
The court heard that following the incidents for which he was sentenced on Friday he was also court martialled for a further indecent assault and jailed for six months before being discharged from the Army.
Outside court on Friday, the victim of that further assault said: "After being court martialled and demoted he should never have been put in a place of authority and a training regiment with young men and women."
'Sexual predator'
Diane Gray, the mother of Geoff Gray, 17, from Durham, one of the four recruits who died at Deepcut, said outside court on Friday that the Army needed to make changes.
"The Army knew what was going on with Skinner and it was all swept under the carpet," she said.
"Public confidence needs to be restored."
A spokesman for the Ministry of Defence said: "This has been a traumatic case and the Army fully condemns any case of abuse.
"All complaints are thoroughly investigated.
"The Army fully co-operated with Surrey Police as soon as the allegations were received."
He said the Army had subsequently changed its procedures to ensure soldiers convicted of a similar offence were not posted to training establishments.
Surrey Police welcomed the sentence.
"Skinner was a sexual predator who preyed on young men in his care," said Det Ch Insp Peter O'Sullivan.
"We hope that the justice achieved today enables the victims to move on and acts as a closure to these dramatic events in their lives."
-------- business
Firms in Iraq's Oil-for-Food Program Revealed
Corruption Probe Names 4,734 Companies That Traded Under U.N. Arrangement
By Colum Lynch
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 22, 2004; Page A21
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52682-2004Oct21.html
UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 21 -- A U.N.-appointed investigator probing corruption in the world body's oil-for-food program in Iraq published today a list of all 4,734 companies that traded with Saddam Hussein's government through the arrangement. The 300-page list provides the most comprehensive public account to date of Iraq's business dealings under the former program, under which Iraq was allowed to sell oil to purchase humanitarian supplies.
Paul A. Volcker, the former U.S. Federal Reserve chairman who heads the investigation, said he hoped the list would provide governments and investigators the data required to pursue their own evaluations of the program. He also noted that it was legal for the companies listed to trade with Iraq through the program.
Volcker also said his team is preparing to begin discussions with former U.S. weapons inspector Charles A. Duelfer, whose recent report on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction detailed Iraq used the oil-for-food program to take in more than $1.7 billion in kickbacks from companies. Duelfer alleged that Iraq demanded that firms exporting Iraqi oil after September 2000 were required to deposit kickbacks in Iraqi bank accounts in Jordan and Lebanon.
Volcker said his investigators had made "substantial progress" in tracking down and "assessing the allegations of maladministration and corruption" in the program, but he declined to provide any details. He would not produce a substantial report until the fall of 2005, he said.
U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan said revelations of misconduct in the program had damaged the United Nations. "That's why we want to get to the bottom of it and clear it as quickly as possible," he said.
Volcker said the French bank BNP, which handled most of the U.N. oil-for-food business, has not cooperated adequately with his investigators, but he said he expected that the dispute will be resolved. He also said the accounting firm of Ernst & Young, which is conducting its own probe for the Iraqi Board of Supreme Audit, had withheld vital information.
Robert S. Bennett, who is acting as BNP's lead counsel, said the French bank was "fully cooperating" with Volcker's panel. "I really think there must be this disconnect, because we have from time to time had difficulty clearly understanding what they want," he said. Charles Perkins, a spokesman for Ernst & Young, said, "All parties involved are in continuing discussions to work out the sharing of documents."
The latest data provide the most authoritative account to date of Iraq's business dealings. Firms based in Russia, France, Switzerland, Britain and Turkey purchased about $32 billion of Iraqi crude through the U.N. oil-for-food deal, about half of all oil sold by Hussein's government under the U.N. program, according to the list. Four U.S. companies are listed as having purchased $482 million worth of Iraqi crude.
Russian oil traders captured nearly one-third of Iraq's oil export market. Three Russian companies, Zarubezhneft and J.S.C. Alfa Eco and an unnamed company, bought more than $7.3 billion in oil. Two French firms, Total International Ltd. and SOCAP International Ltd., bought more than $3 billion. And a London-based Chinese firm, Sinochem International Oil London Co., bought $2.2 billion in crude.
The list includes direct sales to Texaco, which bought $28.3 million in oil, and Mobil Export Corp., which paid $152 million. Purchases by Chevron Products Co. and Phoenix came to $140.2 million and $162.25 million, respectively. The overall U.S. stake in Iraq's oil market was far greater. But U.S. oil companies, which consumed more than 40 percent of Iraq's exported oil, were forced to purchase through foreign traders.
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Halliburton may keep disputed money
Army may let company retain billions of dollars from Iraq work, despite auditors' questions.
(Reuters)
October 22, 2004
http://money.cnn.com/2004/10/22/news/fortune500/halliburton.reut/index.htm?cnn=yes
NEW YORK - The Army is laying the groundwork to let Halliburton Co. keep several billion dollars paid for work in Iraq that Pentagon auditors say is questionable or unsupported by proper documentation, according to a report published Friday.
According to Pentagon documents reviewed by the Wall Street Journal, the Army has acknowledged that the Houston-based company might never be able to account properly for some of its work, which has been probed amid accusations that Halliburton's Kellogg Brown & Root unit overbilled the government for some operations in Iraq.
The company has hired a consulting firm to estimate what Halliburton's services should cost, the report said.
The newspaper, citing the documents and internal memorandums, said that officials are considering using the estimate to serve as the basis for "an equitable settlement,'' under which the Pentagon could drop many of the claims its auditors have made against the company.
But the Journal added that some disgruntled Pentagon officials see the effort to broker an outside settlement with the company as unusual because the contract is so large.
According to the report, Kellogg Brown & Root has so far billed about $12 billion in Iraq, and about $3 billion of that remains disputed by government officials.
The Journal also cited Pentagon records showing that $650 million in Halliburton billings are deemed questionable. An additional $2 billion is considered to have insufficient paperwork to justify the billing, the report said.
A representative for Halliburton (Research) did not immediately return a call seeking comment early Friday.
-------- chemical weapons
U.S. to Aid Albania in Destroying Chemicals
By Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 22, 2004; Page A16
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52695-2004Oct21.html
A 16-ton cache of material for chemical weapons left behind by Albania's former Communist government will be destroyed beginning next year with U.S. help, Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.) announced yesterday, describing the move as a breakthrough in the elimination of such stockpiles around the world.
A U.S.-Albanian agreement to destroy the chemicals marks the first expansion of a key U.S. nonproliferation program -- the Cooperative Threat Reduction initiative -- into a country outside the former Soviet Union, Lugar said. The program already has destroyed or dismantled more than 6,400 nuclear warheads and hundreds of other weapons in Russia and other former Soviet republics.
"We now have latitude to work with other countries who will know we have the willingness and the funds to cooperatively eliminate weapons of mass destruction," said Lugar, who co-founded the program 12 years ago with Sam Nunn, then a Democratic senator from Georgia. "If we do not continue to pursue this avenue . . . accidents and misappropriations will occur."
Late Wednesday, the Bush administration formally authorized the release of $20 million to fund the destruction of the Albanian cache, which consists of barrels of an unspecified chemical stored in a small brick depot in a rural area.
U.S. officials declined to divulge details about the cache for security reasons, but said the chemicals were acquired more than 15 years ago by the leaders of what was once Europe's most isolated and rigidly Marxist government. Albania became a multi-party democracy following the overthrow of communism in 1990, and its leaders have since sought close ties with the United States.
In theory, the Albanian chemicals could be loaded into bombs or artillery shells for use in a military conflict, or dispersed by terrorists in an attack against civilians, weapons experts said. The presence of such a cache in Albania was a violation of the country's commitments under the Chemical Weapons Convention, which Albania ratified in 1994.
Albanian leaders have said they discovered the chemicals while surveying the country for hidden small-arms caches placed in remote areas by the former government. The United States has already helped Albania install fences and surveillance gear, and will now provide money and technical support for the destruction of the chemicals over the next two years, Lugar said.
Nunn, now chief executive of a nonproliferation advocacy group, Nuclear Threat Initiative, said the case underscored the need for the global expansion of U.S. nonproliferation efforts approved by Congress last year. "We need to use this and other tools to move faster to keep dangerous weapons and materials out of the hands of the most dangerous people," Nunn said. "We are in a race between cooperation and catastrophe."
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Nervous System Anomaly Seen in Gulf War Syndrome
REUTERS
by Anne Harding
October 22, 2004
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/27804/story.htm
NEW YORK - Veterans with Gulf War syndrome appear to have subtle damage to the involuntary part of the nervous system, likely caused by low-level exposure to the chemical warfare agent sarin, according to a new study.
The findings tie together past research in both animals and humans on the syndrome, and neatly explain its symptoms, Dr. Robert Haley of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas told Reuters Health. "This study is sort of the missing link," he said.
The parasympathetic nervous system works in balance with the sympathetic nervous system to control many body functions, from heart rate and blood pressure to digestion. While the sympathetic nervous system kicks in during emergencies, activating the "fight or flight" response, the parasympathetic nervous system is active during rest, digestion and other restorative activities.
During sleep, activity of the parasympathetic nervous system increases. But in Gulf War vets with the syndrome it does not activate properly, Haley and his colleagues report in the American Journal of Medicine.
Haley's team followed 19 healthy vets and 22 with Gulf War syndrome over a 24-hour period, measuring several indicators of nervous system function. While the healthy vets showed a normal increase in parasympathetic activity during sleep, resulting in a decline in heart rate, the ill vets did not. Sick vets' nighttime heart rates were, on average, eight beats per minute faster than those without the syndrome.
Symptoms of Gulf War syndrome include chronic diarrhea, night sweats, unrefreshing sleep, fatigue and sexual dysfunction, all of which could be caused by inadequate parasympathetic nervous system activation, Haley explained.
People with diabetes who have this type of nerve damage develop a similar constellation of symptoms, he added.
Studies in animals by Haley and his colleagues have shown that low-level sarin exposure injures the parasympathetic nervous system. Many vets were exposed to the nerve gas at low levels during the first Gulf War, the Department of Defense has confirmed, generally by Allied destruction of chemical weapons depots and ammo dumps.
Studies of the vets themselves have found that those with lower levels of paraoxonase, an enzyme that detoxifies sarin and similar nerve poisons, are much more likely to have Gulf War syndrome than those with high levels of the protective enzyme. And imaging studies of the brains of sick vets have shown areas of nerve damage within the basal ganglia, which control parasympathetic nervous system activity.
"The study clearly indicates consistent abnormal nighttime cardiac regulation in veterans who are ill," Dr. Philippe van de Borne of Erasme Hospital in Brussels, Belgium, writes in an accompanying editorial.
Haley and his colleagues are now working on a study to confirm the findings in a random sampling of Gulf War veterans.
-------- iraq
REBELS
Estimates by U.S. See More Rebels With More Funds
October 22, 2004
By ERIC SCHMITT and THOM SHANKER
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/22/international/middleeast/22insurgents.html?pagewanted=all
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Oct. 21 - Senior American officials are beginning to assemble a new portrait of the insurgency that has continued to inflict casualties on American and Iraqi forces, showing that it has significantly more fighters and far greater financial resources than had been estimated. When foreign fighters and the network of a Jordanian militant, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, are counted with home-grown insurgents, the hard-core resistance numbers between 8,000 and 12,000 people, a tally that swells to more than 20,000 when active sympathizers or covert accomplices are included, according to the American officials.
These estimates contrast sharply with earlier intelligence reports, in which the number of insurgents has varied from as few as 2,000 to a maximum of 7,000. The revised estimate is influencing the military campaign in Iraq, but has not prompted a wholesale review of the strategy, officials said.
In recent interviews, military and other government officials in Iraq and Washington said the core of the Iraqi insurgency now consisted of as many as 50 militant cells that draw on "unlimited money'' from an underground financial network run by former Baath Party leaders and Saddam Hussein's relatives..
Their financing is supplemented in great part by wealthy Saudi donors and Islamic charities that funnel large sums of cash through Syria, according to these officials, who have access to detailed intelligence reports.
Only half the estimated $1 billion the Hussein government put in Syrian banks before the war has been recovered, Pentagon officials said. There is no tally of money flowing through Syria to Iraq from wealthy Saudis or Islamic charities, but a Pentagon official said the figure is "significant."
Unclassified assessments by some private analysts have recently sounded some of the same warnings. This week, the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, in releasing its annual global military survey, said perhaps 1,000 Islamic jihadists have entered Iraq to join the fight, and it estimated that it would take five years for the American military to prepare Iraqi forces to take over fully from the forces of the United States and its allies.
American military and Pentagon officials continue to hold that as Iraqi security forces increase in numbers and effectiveness, they will be able to gather even more detailed and timely information, an important consideration if the insurgency is to be stifled. Perhaps the most important variable, these officials note, is that a large segment of the Iraqi population still has not decided whether to give active support to the new government.
Despite concerns about foreign fighters, American officials said the most significant challenge to the stabilization effort came from domestic Iraqi insurgents, and not from foreign terrorists, despite the violence of attacks organized or carried out by foreigners.
These officials said that in many places, secular Sunni Muslim insurgent leaders - mostly Hussein-era supporters - were being challenged and even surpassed in authority by militant Sunni activists from inside Iraq. This development presents fresh concerns to Ayad Allawi, the interim prime minister, as he tries to negotiate a political solution to stalemates in places like Falluja, where Pentagon and military officials say the insurgency increasingly is taking on a radical Islamic face.
Throughout the occupation of Iraq, American officials have struggled to construct an accurate portrait of the insurgency they have been fighting. In discussing this most recent intelligence, the officials appeared to present a fuller picture of the security problems than has been provided in previous interviews or other public statements.
But just as some earlier intelligence estimates before the war have proved incorrect, specialists acknowledge that the current assessments, too, are inevitably imperfect.
"What makes it more difficult is that you're dealing with an insurgency without a single face," said a senior Army intelligence officer with nearly a year's experience in Iraq. "It's not just one group of insurgents rallying under one cause. It's multiple groups with different causes loosely tied together by the threads of anti-U.S. sentiment, some sort of Iraqi nationalism, Muslim-Arab unity or greed."
Another officer, Brig. Gen. John DeFreitas III of the Army, the senior intelligence officer in Iraq, said in an interview in Baghdad, "It's detective work, and it's very difficult work." General DeFreitas called it "a challenge for the U.S. military to use tools, well designed for maneuver warfare, against an insurgency,'' adding, "Insurgents don't show up in satellite imagery very well."
According to data assembled by the military, about 80 percent of the violent attacks are criminal in nature - kidnappings for ransom or hijackings of convoys - with no political motivation. Of the other 20 percent, which include the most violent attacks on Iraqi security forces, the American military and international organizations, about four-fifths are attributed to domestic insurgents rather than to foreign terrorists.
The Ramadan holy season that began this month has prompted a 25 percent increase in daily attacks, according to Pentagon officials, but they see no indication yet of a major insurgent offensive. They did express concerns that such an offensive could come in November or December, as voter registration gets under way in earnest, or could be timed to the elections in January.
"What we don't see yet is a unifying leader of the insurgency," General DeFreitas said.
One Pentagon official said that the insurgency was now organized regionally, and that evidence pointed to some planning across regional boundaries. But there is no national insurgent network, the official said.
Even the Zarqawi organization, which can plan and carry out attacks outside its base in Falluja and the broader Sunni triangle north and west of Baghdad, has no sustained operations or base outside that area, this Pentagon official said.
Even as American attacks are killing dozens of fighters and some leadership figures every week, officials said, insurgents in many parts of Iraq have been able to promote lieutenants into higher leadership roles and are able to attract a steady stream of recruits. But some of the new leaders are not as qualified as their predecessors, military officers said, in particular those filling spots in the Zarqawi network in Falluja.
Senior military and Pentagon officials said the new information was being developed because of the growing role of the Iraqi police and other security forces, who are more adept than American forces at spotting insurgents or people who might come forward with tips. Iraqis are setting up centralized operations centers to share information and coordinate anti-insurgent activities.
But a Pentagon official noted evidence that even the new Iraqi security forces had been penetrated by insurgents, or at least by people willing to share information with them.
One example of that penetration is the Tuesday attack on an Iraqi National Guard base north of Baghdad, which killed 4 and wounded 80. The attack came at the exact time guardsmen were mustering for a ceremony, which is seen by experts as an indication that those firing off the mortars held inside information.
Military officials say they are getting a clearer view of the major financial backers of the insurgencies, and of the main operatives and their cell networks inside Iraq. The financial leadership is said to number about 20 people, mostly operating outside Iraq.
Among the most influential militant financiers are members of the Majid family, particularly three cousins of Mr. Hussein, who are actively involved in the smuggling of weapons, fighters and money into Iraq, and who live in Syria. Another key organizer is Muhammad Yunis al-Ahmed, a former Baath Party leader and aide to Mr. Hussein, officials say.
These former Baathists are helping to arm and equip cell leaders in the Sunni heartland, who in turn run local teams. Many turn to unemployed and disaffected Iraqi men, eager to earn money. The going rate in parts of Baghdad for planting roadside bombs is $100 to $300 for each explosive, a senior military officer said.
Military and Pentagon officials say there is no shortage of funds for the insurgency, though the counterinsurgency campaign has slowed the delivery of money to some areas. That prompted a Pentagon official to say guerrilla activities diminish when the money runs low between deliveries.
Pentagon officials said there appeared to be no official Saudi government support for the financial network, but expressed dissatisfaction with the level of Saudi efforts to block the money transfers. A spokesman for the Saudi Embassy in Washington said his country had strict banking regulations, and would examine any evidence of Saudi citizens' supporting the Iraqi insurgency.
Earlier this week, in Mahmudiya, American marines said they had discovered the leader of the financing network for Mr. Zarqawi among the detainees at a military camp there. The marines said the man, Mahmud Abdel Aziz al-Harami al-Janabi, was captured along with other suspected militants in a raid on Sunday. And Pentagon officials say that some members of the Zarqawi network have fled Falluja, and that those still inside are setting up military-style defenses in anticipation of a ground attack.
And Mr. Zarqawi is being challenged by local tribal and religious leaders, who likewise are seizing the initiative from former government leaders in the area.
Senior military officials said the recent American-led offensives in Najaf, Tal Afar and Samarra, followed by economic and reconstruction aid, had created a more stable security environment that is leading to more information on the location of insurgents.
Marine intelligence officers responsible for operations in western Iraq said there were at least five major insurgent leaders of the groups operating in Falluja, whose aim is to undermine the fledgling Iraqi government, drive out the American troops and make money through smuggling and extortion rackets.
Marine officers said that in addition to Mr. Zarqawi, a Sunni extremist named Omar Hadid and a sheik named Janabi, a radical Sunni cleric, were both influential anti-American militants.
They said Mr. Hadid ran a gangland-style operation, making money through car smuggling and hostage-for-ransom operations, as well as from tithes collected by sympathetic mosques.
Former members of the Baath Party and of Iraqi security services and criminal gangs also operate in Falluja.
"It's a loose confederation of interests as well as marriages of convenience,'' Col. Ron Makuta, the chief intelligence officer for the First Marine Expeditionary Force, said in an interview on Thursday at its headquarters at Camp Falluja, outside the city itself.
Eric Schmitt reported from Baghdad and Falluja for this article, and Thom Shanker from Washington.
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Religious Leaders Ahead in Iraq Poll
U.S.-Supported Government Is Losing Ground
By Robin Wright
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 22, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A52674-2004Oct21?language=printer
Leaders of Iraq's religious parties have emerged as the country's most popular politicians and would win the largest share of votes if an election were held today, while the U.S.-backed government of interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi is losing serious ground, according to a U.S.-financed poll by the International Republican Institute.
More than 45 percent of Iraqis also believe that their country is heading in the wrong direction, and 41 percent say it is moving in the right direction.
Within the Bush administration, a victory by Iraq's religious parties is viewed as the worst-case scenario. Washington has hoped that Allawi and the current team, which was selected by U.S. and U.N. envoys, would win or do well in Iraq's first democratic election, in January. U.S. officials believe a secular government led by moderates is critical, in part because the new government will oversee writing a new Iraqi constitution.
"The picture it paints is that, after all the blood and treasure we've spent and despite the [U.S.-led] occupation's democracy efforts, we're in a position now that the moderates would not win if an election were held today," said a U.S. official who requested anonymity because the poll has not been released.
U.S. officials acknowledge that the political honeymoon after the handover of political power on June 28 ended much earlier than anticipated. The new poll, based on 2,000 face-to-face interviews conducted among all ethnic and religious groups nationwide between Sept. 24 and Oct. 4, shows that Iraqi support for the government has plummeted to about 43 percent who believe it is effective, down from 62 percent in a late-summer poll.
A senior State Department official played down the results. "When the interim government took over, the [poll] numbers were artificially high. It's very difficult to meet expectations when they're sky-high," he said on the condition of anonymity because the data are still being analyzed.
But in another blow, one out of three Iraqis blames the U.S.-led multinational force for Iraq's security problems, slightly more than the 32 percent who blame foreign terrorists, the poll shows. Only 8 percent blame members of the former government.
"We had convinced everyone -- Americans and Iraqis -- that things might change with the return of sovereignty, but, in fact, things went the other way," a congressional staff member said. "What's particularly damning is that the multinational force gets more blame than the terrorists for the problems in Iraq. It's all trending in the wrong way . . . and it's not likely we'll be able to change public sentiment much before the election. "
In positive news for the administration, the poll found that 85 percent of Iraqis want to vote in the January election.
Despite the current strife, about two-thirds of Iraqis do not believe civil war is imminent, the poll found. Asked if their households had been hurt by violence, injuries, death or monetary loss over the past year, only 22 percent of those questioned said yes -- a figure that surprised pollsters and U.S. officials.
With voter registration due to begin Nov. 1, the poll found that 64 percent of Iraqis are still unwilling to align with any party, which U.S. officials attribute to the legacy of the Baath Party. The most valuable indicators, officials say, may be the data on Iraq's politicians.
The poll found the most popular politician is Abdel Aziz Hakim, leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). The group was part of the U.S.-backed opposition to Saddam Hussein and is now receiving millions of dollars in aid from Iran, U.S. officials say.
Hakim had 80 percent name recognition among Iraqis, with more than 51 percent wanting to see him in the national assembly, which will pick a new government.
Allawi had the greatest name recognition of any politician, with 47 percent of Iraqis supporting him for a seat in the new parliament. But rebel Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr came in a very close third, with 46 percent backing him for an assembly seat.
Ahmed Chalabi, once favored in Washington as a possible successor to Hussein, had wide national recognition, but only 15 percent want him in parliament -- and more than half oppose him.
The one factor that skews the poll, analysts said, is that Ibrahim Jafari, the Dawa Party chief and current vice president, was not included. He had the highest popularity rating in previous polls.
That may still be the case, since almost 18 percent of Iraqis surveyed by IRI said they were most likely to vote for Dawa candidates -- the largest backing among the top 11 parties listed. Dawa is another former U.S.-backed group supported by aid from Iran, U.S. officials say.
U.S. officials and Iraqi analysts believe candidates aligned with the Supreme Council and with Dawa are likely to capture the highest percentage of votes, giving religious parties an edge in forming a new government.
Iraqi President Ghazi Yawar, a Sunni leader of the country's largest tribe, was also omitted from the poll.
In an interview with Abu Dhabi television, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said yesterday that Iraqis want democracy and are unlikely to go "from one form of totalitarian state to another form of totalitarian state." Both U.S. officials and Iraq experts note that the rise of Islamic parties does not necessarily mean creation of an Islamic government or theocracy such as Iran's.
President Bush said Tuesday that he would be "disappointed" if free and fair elections in Iraq led to the seating of an Islamic government, but that the United States would accept the results. "Democracy is democracy," he said. "If that's what people choose, that's what the people choose."
The IRI, founded in 1983, is a private, nonprofit organization that has worked in more than 60 countries to advance democracy worldwide. With U.S. grants, it has been in charge of public opinion polls in advance of the election.
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CARE Official Held Hostage in Iraq Pleads for Her Life
October 22, 2004
By EDWARD WONG
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/22/international/middleeast/22CND-HOSTAGE.html?hp&ex=1098504000&en=2ab67cdea108b896&ei=5094&partner=homepage
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Oct. 22 - A British-Iraqi aid worker held hostage by a militant group made a tearful televised plea for her life today, begging the people of England and British Prime Minister Tony Blair to save her by withdrawing troops from Iraq.
The worker, Margaret Hassan, a long-time resident of Iraq, appeared in a grainy videotape given to Al Jazeera, the Arab satellite news network. Ms. Hassan is the director of CARE International in Iraq and was abducted on Tuesday as she rode to work in her car. In the poorly shot video, Ms. Hassan talked of her dire situation in between sobs.
"Please help me, please help me," Ms. Hassan said, her face drawn and haggard. "This might be my last hours. Please help me. Please, the British people, ask Mr. Blair to take the troops out of Iraq, and not to bring them here to Baghdad."
Ms. Hassan was referring to an announcement by the British Defense Ministry on Thursday that 850 British troops would be moved from the south to volatile central Iraq to allow American soldiers more time to prepare for an invasion of Falluja, the insurgent stronghold 35 miles west of Baghdad.
Ms. Hassan's kidnapping came less than two weeks after the beheading of Kenneth Bigley, a British engineer, who was also shown in a videotape plea asking Mr. Blair to release any women held prisoner by the occupation forces, a demand made by his captors. The incident raised a furor in England, where residents of Liverpool, Mr. Bigley's hometown, and antiwar advocates assailed Mr. Blair for his support of the American-led occupation. Mr. Bigley was killed by One God and Jihad, a group led by a Jordanian, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Two American civilians seized with Mr. Bigley were slain in similar fashion earlier.
No foreign woman who has been abducted has been killed. Last month, insurgents kidnapped two female Italian aid workers and released them weeks later. More than 150 foreigners have been taken captive, most of them by bandits seeking ransoms, but a few by fighters looking to use the hostages as propaganda tools in the guerrilla war.
It is unclear what group is holding the 52-year-old Ms. Hassan. A video was released just after Ms. Hassan's abduction showing her looking disoriented and frightened. In that tape and the one released today, no militants appear - the only image is of Ms. Hassan in a white shirt, framed from her shoulders up, her back against a wall.
At one point, the video cuts to close-up shots of identification cards belonging to Ms. Hassan.
Mr. Zarqawi's group, which recently posted an Internet message saying it had changed its name to Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, typically shoots its videos with black-clad militants standing behind the hostages, who are invariably dressed in orange jumpsuits, reminiscent of clothing worn by American-held detainees.
Before Mr. Bigley was beheaded, two Internet videos showed him pleading with Mr. Blair to release all women prisoners.
The fate of Mr. Bigley had clearly upset Ms. Hassan.
"That's why people like Mr. Bigley and myself are being caught," Ms. Hassan said of the presence of British troops. "And maybe we will die like Mr. Bigley."
Born in Dublin, Ms. Hassan has lived in Baghdad for more than 30 years and maintains dual British-Iraqi nationality. She is widely respected here, a fluent Arabic speaker and is married to an Iraqi man, Tahseen Ali Hassan.
Ms. Hassan began working for CARE after the Persian Gulf War of 1991, though she has been involved in relief work for a quarter-century. She leads a staff of about 60 people who distribute medicine and medical supplies to hospitals and help restore access to clean water. Ms. Hassan was an outspoken critic of the sanctions imposed on Iraq by the United Nations after the 1991 war.
Separately today, the Macedonian government confirmed that two Macedonian construction workers taken captive by militants had been killed. Al Jazeera said on Monday that it had received a videotape showing the beheadings of the men. The militants had accused the hostages of spying for the United States, Al Jazeera reported.
National Guard soldiers raided the mosque and home of one of the group's prominent officials, Sheik Abdul-Sattar Abdul-Jabbar, and arrested him, one of his sons and a neighbor. The group, the Muslim Scholars Association, which has been steadfast in its opposition to the occupation, said through a spokesman that it did not know why the sheik had been arrested. Its members protested the arrest at Friday prayers.
A military spokeswoman, Sharon Walker, said she did not have information on any operation involving the sheik's arrest.
The Muslim Clerics Association said this week that it would call for a Sunni boycott of elections scheduled for January if the Americans invaded Falluja.
The American military said marines fought with insurgents on the outskirts of Falluja for the second day in a row. The marines were attacked with small-arms fire and mortars from within the city, the military said. The statement added that the marines had countered with "substantial and proportionate ground fires."
--------
INSURGENCY
Falluja Sheiks Demand End to Airstrikes to Save Talks
October 22, 2004
By EDWARD WONG
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/22/international/middleeast/22iraq.html?pagewanted=all
CAMP FALLUJA, Iraq, Oct. 21 - Tribal sheiks and clerics in the insurgent stronghold of Falluja met Thursday to discuss reopening negotiations with the interim Iraqi government to forestall an expected American invasion.
The leaders released a statement demanding that the interim government led by Prime Minister Ayad Allawi arrange a halt to the almost daily American airstrikes in the city and to help families who have fled Falluja return to their homes. If the government met those conditions, the leaders said they would continue talks.
But around 4 p.m., witnesses said explosions were heard in the southern districts of Falluja as aircraft flew overhead. The attack lasted about an hour. No casualties were reported immediately.
Violence also flared in Baghdad, 35 miles to the east, as gunmen opened fire on a bus carrying female employees of Iraqi Airways to the airport, killing at least one person and injuring 14 others, a hospital official and an airline employee said.
The attack took place in the morning on the highway to the Baghdad airport, one of the most dangerous stretches of road in Iraq. The sound of a nearby explosion caused the driver of the bus, which was carrying two dozen women, to stop. Men wearing scarves over their faces then pulled up in a Toyota sedan and opened fire.
After being grounded for 14 years because of economic penalties and war, Iraqi Airways resumed commercial service last month, flying to Damascus, Syria, and Amman, Jordan, with a single Boeing 737-200. Executives have said they intend to expand the fleet and add routes to Dubai and Tehran, Iran. Despite the morning attack, the airline did not cancel flights.
The American military said that the commander of the 343rd Quartermaster Company, some of whose members refused orders to transport fuel through a dangerous area last week, had been relieved of duty. A statement said she had asked for the change, but Pentagon officials described it as a disciplinary action. The military declined to name the commander, citing privacy.
The sheiks and clerics met in Falluja just three days after the lead negotiator for the city, Khalid al-Jumali, said his team had broken off talks with the Iraqi government and the American military, in part because of the continuing American airstrikes. Dr. Allawi's recent demand that city leaders turn over the Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had also chilled the talks, he said, maintaining that Mr. Zarqawi was not in the city.
"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 leader of the mujahedeen council in Falluja, said in an interview broadcast by Al Jazeera, the Arab satellite network.
Marines aboard a transport helicopter that landed Thursday morning here at Camp Falluja, the main American base in the area, said they were ready to take the fight to the mujahedeen. The marines withdrew from the city last May after turning over control to an Iraqi militia that later dissolved. Since then, militants have built up defenses and allowed groups like One God and Jihad, led by Mr. Zarqawi, to thrive.
Dr. Allawi, who was holding talks with city leaders in the northern city of Mosul, 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, according to a pool report. "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 said. "We are determined that this happens across the country."
An Iraqi reporter for The New York Times contributed reporting from Falluja for this article.
--------
U.S., Iraqi Forces Detain Sunni Muslim Cleric
(Reuters)
By Lin Noueihed
Oct 22, 2004
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=6583667&pageNumber=0
BAGHDAD - U.S. and Iraqi forces detained a leading member of the Muslim Clerics' Association on Friday in what the influential Sunni group described as a campaign against opponents of the U.S. presence in Iraq.
Sheikh Abdel-Sattar Abdel-Jabbar, his two sons and a neighbor were arrested in a raid on the mosque compound where they live in the Tunis area of Baghdad around 1:30 a.m., association officials said.
"This arrest is part of a campaign not just against the Muslim Clerics' Association but all opposition voices," spokesman Mohamed Bashar al-Faidhi told Reuters.
The officials said they did not know why Abdel-Jabbar was detained. Witnesses said hundreds protested for his release after noon prayers outside the Najib mosque where he preached.
The U.S. military said it had no reports of any Iraqi cleric being arrested in Baghdad.
But Faidhi said several clerics affiliated with the group, which has played a role in hostage negotiations and in bringing about a truce in the rebel-held city of Falluja, had been detained in recent days.
He said Sheikh Maher al-Sharji had been detained in the northern city of Samarra, Sheikh Bassem al-Samarraei in the eastern Diala province and five clerics in Qubayssa in the west.
Those areas fall in Iraq's central Sunni Muslim heartland, where insurgents have battled to push out U.S. troops.
UNDER FIRE
On Friday, Iraqi forces backed by U.S. troops left a mosque they were raiding in a hunt for suspected bomb-makers in the northern city of Mosul, after coming under fire.
The preacher of that mosque, Sheikh Rayan Tawfik, is the Muslim Clerics' Association representative for that region.
In August, U.S. forces detained Muthanna Harith al-Dhari, a leading member of the Muslim Clerics Association and son of the group's secretary-general. He was later released.
Gunmen killed two members in Baghdad last month.
Faidhi said pressure on the group had increased since clerics held a conference this week to discuss daily clashes in Falluja and a widely expected U.S. assault on the rebel-held town aimed at crushing an insurgency ahead of elections scheduled for January.
The conference blamed the Iraqi government for continued violence in the western town, which the United States blames on foreign fighters led by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
The association played a major role in talks in April and May to end fighting in Falluja. It has also sometimes been a mediator for the release of foreign hostages kidnapped in a wave of hostage-taking that has swept Iraq since April.
-------- israel / palestine
Israeli army faces a revolt from the right
October 22, 2004
By Ben Lynfield
The Christian Science Monitor
http://csmonitor.com/2004/1022/p01s03-wome.html
JERUSALEM - As a 25-year reservist of Israel's army, Boaz Haetzni is used to following orders. Soon he could be asked to help remove some 8,000 Israeli settlers from the Gaza Strip and the northern West Bank.
It's an order he will not obey.
For Mr. Haetzni, a garage owner from the Kiryat Arba settlement in the West Bank, Israel's planned withdrawal flouts Jewish history and religion.
"Chasing someone from their home constitutes a criminal act even if the Knesset [Israel's parliament] approves it," he says. "The moment the army does this, it will no longer be my army, it will be an army of the left."
His view makes him part of a growing dissident movement opposed to Israel's planned withdrawal on religious and nationalist grounds.
This unprecedented challenge is pitting orthodox rabbis opposed to the withdrawal against the cohesion of the army - and the political will of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who crafted the plan.
Israel is accustomed to the so-called refuseniks, hundreds of left-wingers who equate military service in the occupied territories with oppressing Palestinians. But during the past week, the country has been grappling with a very different type of disobedience, one based largely on rabbinical rulings stressing God's promise to Abraham to give the land that now includes Israel and the occupied territories to his descendants.
Observers suggest that the rabbis could cause greater harm to the army than the left-wingers did because of their role as community leaders. Moreover, there are thousands of religious soldiers potentially receptive to their views.
"When it comes to the crunch these rabbis are saying there is a higher law than the law of state," says Yossi Alpher, former director of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies in Tel Aviv. "This is a very serious challenge not only to the military but to the rule of law."
During the past two decades, soldiers from religious-Zionist backgrounds have played an increasingly important role in the army, especially in combat units. Many officers are graduates of hesder programs which combine military service with religious studies. Now rabbis heading hesder seminaries are leading the call to disobey orders to evacuate settlers.
The army has moved quickly to limit the damage. In remarks Tuesday, army chief of staff Moshe Yaalon, termed disobedience "a danger to Zionism" and called on religious leaders "not to place the army and its commanders in an impossible situation."
But the rabbis say that those pushing the withdrawal are the ones threatening the army's cohesion. "The person tearing the army asunder is Sharon," Rabbi Yitzhak Brand told Israelii TV.
A West Bank hesder seminary student, who asked not to be named, says, "This is a very complex matter and there are a lot of mixed feelings. There is a collision of two values: on the one hand, there is the Land of Israel and the Torah [the five books of Moses], and on the other, obedience to the law. Even those who decide to refuse to serve will do so in pain because they love the army."
Last week, Rabbi Avraham Shapira, likened dismantling settlements to desecrating the Sabbath. The rabbis who supported him cited Genesis 15:18, which says: "In the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates:"
But there are Orthodox rabbis who differ with their stance. Rabbi Shlomo Riskin, who opposes the Gaza withdrawal, nevertheless issued a statement saying, "Refusing an order given by the government constitutes a giant step towards civil war."
"There is no absolute prohibition on giving up sections of the land of Israel," he added, citing King Solomon's transfer of twenty cities to Hiram, King of Tyre, in the first book of Kings. Some religious soldiers have launched a petition stating they will follow any orders to evacuate.
Captain Haetzni rejects any similarity between himself and the dovish soldiers who shun being part of the occupation. "The left-wingers refuse to take part in defending our lives, which is exactly what the army's job is," he says. "It is not the army's job to throw citizens of our country out of their homes."
-----
Ex-ally calls Sharon 'disloyal' and warns of Israeli civil war
22 October 2004
independent.co.uk
By Donald Macintyre in Jerusalem
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=574822
The political instability triggered by Ariel Sharon's decision to withdraw 8,000 settlers from the Gaza Strip deepened yesterday when one of his closest erstwhile allies told activists in the ruling Likud Party that Mr Sharon was "not loyal to the land of Israel" and warned of a potential "civil war".
The calculated attack by Reuven Rivlin, the Speaker of the Knesset, came as Tommy Lapid, the Justice Minister, hinted that rabbis urging soldiers to refuse orders to evacuate settlers could face prosecution for sedition. Mr Lapid said: "I fear there is a risk of bloodshed. I hope it does not spill over into civil war."
In his implicit invitation to the Likud Central Committee to reconsider the Israeli Prime Minister's fitness to lead his party, Mr Rivlin declared in a letter to its 3,000 members that the plan to disengage from Gaza "arouses horror" and warned of the "delegitimisation" of "the Zionist, pioneering public".
Mr Rivlin, for many years a friend as well as a loyal supporter of Mr Sharon, accused him and other ministerial proponents of the disengagement plan of betraying the "principles of Likud" by his planned evacuation of settlers from part of the territory seized by Israel in the Six Day War in 1967.
The ferocity of the argument had earlier intensified when Mr Lapid attacked senior rabbis who have recommended insubordination by religious soldiers commanded to evacuate settlers who refuse to leave Gaza. "We have reached the outer limits of our patience with statements that could pose a danger to public security," he said.
The remarks by Mr Lapid followed an address to lawyers the previous night in which he issued a warning to "those who spread sedition among the religiously observant and risk bringing about civil war".
Asked whether prosecutions were possible, he said that after the murder of the prime minister Yitzhak Rabin in November 1995, which was preceded by similar calls, "we must observe the boundary between acceptable and criminal statements". Mr Lapid is leader of the secular Shinui Party, but moderate rabbis have also come out strongly against the call on soldiers to disobey orders.
The Likud Central Committee is the body that selects party candidates before the country goes to the polls. Mr Sharon and others have hinted that the turbulence in Israeli politics may lead to elections. Normally endorsement of an incumbent leader would be a formality, but the committee could be asked to remove Mr Sharon, with Benjamin Netanyahu, the Finance Minister and a disengagement opponent, a likely alternative.
Mr Sharon is widely expected to win next Tuesday's Knesset vote on the plan, but Mr Rivlin's remarks underline the deepening divisions within Likud. Some of Mr Sharon's advisers, while predicting that he will succeed in forming a coalition of Likud with Labour to bypass his rebels, have not ruled out the possibility that if the ruling party of the right were to be irrevocably split, he could head a breakaway group of what would be the Israeli political centre, appealing to the majority of the Israeli public who back withdrawal from Gaza.
Tzipi Livni, the Immigration Minister and a close ally of Mr Sharon, said that Mr Rivlin's comments served to exacerbate the split in Likud. Mr Rivlin and other opponents of disengagement in the party "are starting a snowball that I don't think they'll be able to stop".
The newspaper Ha'aretz recently carried a leaked report showing ministries and the army have spent large sums sustaining the settlements that Mr Sharon plans to dismantle.
--------
Israel May Have Iran in Its Sights
Oct 22, 2004
Los Angeles Times
By Laura King Times Staff Writer
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=2026&ncid=2026&e=1&u=/latimests/20041022/ts_latimes/israelmayhaveiraninitssights
JERUSALEM - Increasingly concerned about Iran's nuclear program, Israel is weighing its options and has not ruled out a military strike to prevent the Islamic Republic from gaining the capability to build atomic weapons, according to policymakers, military officials, analysts and diplomats.
Israel would much prefer a diplomatic agreement to shut down Iran's uranium enrichment program, but if it concluded that Tehran was approaching a "point of no return," it would not be deterred by the difficulty of a military operation, the prospect of retaliation or the international reaction, officials and analysts said.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (news - web sites) and his top aides have been asserting for months that a nuclear-armed Iran would pose a clear threat to Israel's existence. They have repeatedly threatened, in elliptical but unmistakable terms, to use force if diplomacy and the threat of sanctions fail.
Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz told the Yediot Aharonot newspaper last month that "all options" were being weighed to prevent Iran from achieving nuclear weapons capability. The army chief of staff, Moshe Yaalon, declared: "We will not rely on others."
Iran presents "a combination of factors that rise to the highest level of Israeli threat perception," said analyst Gerald Steinberg of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies.
"Nuclear weapons in a country with a fundamentalist regime, a government with which we have no diplomatic contact, a known sponsor of terrorist groups like Hezbollah and which wants to wipe Israel off the map - that makes stable deterrence extremely difficult, if not impossible," Steinberg said.
Israel's concerns are magnified by the fact that Iran already possesses the medium-range Shahab-3 missile, which is capable of reaching Israel with either a conventional or non-conventional warhead. Iran said this week that it had test-fired an upgraded, more accurate version of the missile.
Preemptive strikes have always been an essential element of Israel's military doctrine. Perhaps the most pertinent example is the air raid that destroyed Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s Osirak nuclear reactor in June 1981.
Experts are divided, however, on whether that precedent should be viewed as a window into Israel's thinking on Iran.
"The comparison to 1981 is of the utmost relevance because the decision-making is based on the same factors," said army reserve Col. Danny Shoham, a former military intelligence officer who is now a researcher at Bar-Ilan University. "Those are: What is the reliability of the intelligence picture? What would be the response of the opponent? What is the point of no return in terms of nuclear development, and what would be the international response?"
But he and others also noted key differences that could weigh against a military strike. Iran's nuclear development sites are widely scattered, in many cases hidden underground and heavily fortified, so Israel would have far less opportunity to deal the Iranian program a single devastating blow.
"It would be a complicated operation. In order to undermine or disrupt the Iranian nuclear program, you would have to strike at least three or four sites," said Ephraim Kam, the deputy head of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University.
"Otherwise the damage would be too limited, and it would not postpone the program by more than a year or two, and this could in the end be worse than doing nothing."
Few believe, however, that logistical challenges alone would hold back the Jewish state if it determined that a strike was necessary.
To reach Hussein's nuclear reactor in 1981, Israeli warplanes were over hostile territory for most of their 90-minute, 680-mile flight. All the while, they held to a tightly clustered formation that resembled the radar signature of a commercial jet. When the Israelis reached their target, they destroyed the Iraqi reactor in less than a minute and a half.
The raid, which was preceded by months of rehearsals using mock-ups of the targeted reactor, is still regarded in military and aviation circles as a model of planning, operational discipline and innovation - qualities that analysts familiar with Israel's military capabilities say could be drawn upon again.
"I wouldn't want to speculate about exactly how the present-day objective might be achieved, but I will say this: The Israeli air force is extremely, extremely creative in its problem-solving approach," said Dan Schueftan, a senior fellow at the National Security Studies Center at Haifa University and the Jerusalem-based Shalem Center.
In its arsenal, Israel has the first of more than 100 sophisticated, American-built F-16I warplanes, which come with extra fuel tanks to increase their range. It also has signed a deal with Washington to acquire 500 "bunker buster" bombs that can blast through more than six feet of concrete - the kind of fortification that might be associated with Iranian nuclear sites.
In 1981, Sharon was a Cabinet minister and among the circle of confidants around then-Prime Minister Menachem Begin who took part in deliberations over the Osirak attack. Sharon later called it "perhaps the most difficult decision" ever faced by an Israeli government.
Some of the language being used by Israeli officials now is reminiscent of statements leading up to the strike on the Iraqi reactor. Military historians recount that Rafael Eitan, then army chief of staff, dispatched the corps of elite fighter pilots on its mission with the grim words, "The alternative is our destruction."
At the time, Begin feared for the stability of his government and thought that if he did not act swiftly, he might lose the opportunity to act at all. Sharon, under heavy pressure from opponents of his initiative to relinquish settlements in the Gaza Strip (news - web sites), also faces the almost daily risk that his minority coalition will collapse.
Still, any action against Iran seems unlikely to take place before the end of the year.
Israeli analysts differ somewhat in their assessment of when Iran would be seen as irrevocably on the road to developing nuclear weapons.
Steinberg said the probable "red line" would be the ability to produce kilogram-level quantities of highly enriched, bomb-grade uranium. He and others said that could be anywhere from six months to three years away.
Israeli officials and diplomats say their preferred solution is diplomacy through the efforts of the International Atomic Energy Agency or sanctions imposed by the United Nations (news - web sites) Security Council.
"We don't want to give the impression that this entire burden rests on Israel's shoulders," said lawmaker Yuval Steinitz, the head of Israel's parliamentary foreign affairs and defense committee.
But Israeli officials are also telegraphing that they do not consider the diplomatic process open-ended.
"There may be a few months when the international community can still act and place upon Iran the kind of pressure that would compel it to stop its program," said Avi Pazner, a veteran diplomat who serves as an advisor to Sharon. "But there's not much time - there's not much time."
Opinion polls suggest that although there is little appetite in Israel for a confrontation with Iran, a substantial minority of citizens thinks one could be on the horizon. In a recent poll commissioned by the Maariv newspaper, 54% said diplomatic efforts to contain Iran's nuclear program should continue, with 38% saying their country should consider a preemptive attack.
The idea of responding militarily to any perceived external threat tends to unite Israelis across the political spectrum. For example, Labor Party leader Shimon Peres has long been an advocate of a negotiated settlement with the Palestinians - but is also among those who strongly believe that a nuclear-armed Iran would pose an intolerable peril to Israel.
A complicating factor in the debate over Iran is Israel's own status as an undeclared nuclear power. Israeli officials insist that their country's presumed nuclear status enhances regional stability by serving as a deterrent but say Iran's possession of atomic weapons would almost certainly trigger an arms race with rival Muslim states.
"It would break the dam, so to speak, and spill over into the whole Middle East," said Uzi Arad, director of the Institute of Policy and Strategy at Herzliya's Interdisciplinary Center. "There would be tremendous danger arising from this."
Arad and others said that if Iran became a nuclear power, it would spur even relatively moderate countries such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia to achieve similar status and embolden more radical regimes - for example, pushing Moammar Kadafi's Libya to abandon its recent conciliatory stance toward international regulators.
A Western diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Israel was well aware that even if it acted alone against Iran, the United States, as its closest ally, would inevitably be seen as complicit. That would virtually guarantee an outburst of antagonism across the Muslim world that America could ill afford at a time of bitter feelings over the war in Iraq (news - web sites).
Still, George Perkovich, who studies nuclear proliferation issues at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, said it would be "hard to imagine a strong negative American reaction" to an Israeli strike if diplomatic efforts failed.
Another U.S. analyst said that Iran's program was further along and more dispersed than Iraq's was in 1981. "The comparisons between Osirak and the situation in Iran today are simply wrong," said Anthony H. Cordesman, a military expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
He said Israel's attack slowed, but did not terminate, Iraq's effort to develop nuclear weapons and probably encouraged Hussein to try to develop biological and chemical arms.
Israel's military establishment regards the United States, with its large concentration of troops in the region and its long-range air power, as far better equipped than Israel to mount a strike against Iran or to provide assistance and support for one.
"If it comes to a military move, it should be in concert," said analyst Kam of the Jaffee Center. "Israel isn't the only country that's affected. And it's not for a local power like Israel to act - it's a question for a superpower."
Times staff writers Sonni Efron and John Hendren in Washington contributed to this report.
-------- pakistan / india
Bin Laden is located, says 9/11 panelist
Arizona Daily Star
10.22.2004
http://www.dailystar.com/dailystar/dailystar/44654.php
CLAREMONT, Calif. - The Pentagon knows exactly where Osama bin Laden is hiding in Pakistan, it just can't get to him, John Lehman, a member of the 9/11 Commission, said Thursday.
Lehman's remarks echoed those made Tuesday by Secretary of State Colin Powell, who said the al-Qaida leader was alive and operating in the western part of Pakistan.
Bin Laden is living in South Waziristan in the Baluchistan Mountains of the Baluchistan region, Lehman told the San Bernardino Sun after delivering a keynote speech on terrorism at Pitzer College in Claremont.
In the interview, Lehman noted, "There is an American presence in the area, but we can't just send in troops. If we did, we could have another Vietnam, and the United States cannot afford that right now."
When pressed on why the United States couldn't send troops into the region to capture the world's No. 1 terrorist, Lehman said the Baluchistan region of the country is filled with militant fundamentalists who do not recognize the legitimacy of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, a close ally of the United States.
"That is a region filled with Taliban and al-Qaida members," he said, acknowledging that Pakistan's security services also are filled with many who agree with bin Laden's beliefs and would aid him if U.S. Special Forces entered the region.
"Look," he said, "Musharraf already has had three assassination attempts on his life. He is trying to comply, but he is surrounded by people who do not agree with him. This is not like Afghanistan, where there was no compliance, and we had to go in.
"We'll get (bin Laden) eventually, just not now."
Asked how bin Laden was surviving, Lehman said he was getting money from outside countries, such as the United Arab Emirates, and high-ranking ministers inside Saudi Arabia.
"He is not a wealthy man," Lehman said. "We ran that information into the ground, and discovered he only receives about $1 million a year from his family's fortune. The rest of what he gets comes from radical sympathizers."
Department of Defense spokeswoman Capt. Ronnie Merritt confirmed the U.S. military believes bin Laden is in Pakistan. However, she would not comment on Lehman's remarks, except to say that he normally didn't speak about these issues, and she was surprised he had.
Lehman, secretary of the Navy under President Ronald Reagan, was one of the 10 members of the bipartisan commission that examined the terrorists attacks on the United States.
He also is the author of three books about military tactics.
-------- prisoners of war
Documents Shed Light on Iraq Prison Abuse
Associated Press
By PAISLEY DODDS,
Oct 22, 2004
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=589&ncid=734&e=3&u=/ap/20041022/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/us_abuse_allegations
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - Poor living conditions for U.S. soldiers and an immersion in an unfamiliar culture may have contributed to abuses at U.S. detention facilities in Iraq (news - web sites), according to government documents released to the American Civil Liberties Union (news - web sites) on Thursday.
The New York-based group received 6,000 pages of documents, one of which said that because of an "atmosphere of danger, promiscuity and negativity, the worst human qualities and behaviors came to the fore and a pervasive dominance came to prevail, especially at Abu Ghraib."
Abu Ghraib is the prison on the western outskirts of Baghdad where U.S. soldiers are accused of having abused Iraqi prisoners.
The same document cited instances where U.S.-contracted interpreters raped a male juvenile detainee and said military personnel operated in a "conspiracy of silence."
The document, prepared by an Air Force psychiatrist, was part of a previously unreleased annex to a report released earlier this year by Army Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba. His report found that some soldiers had committed "sadistic, blatant and wanton" criminal acts at Abu Ghraib.
The 6,000 pages were received about a year after the ACLU filed a Freedom of Information Act request, said Amrit Singh, a staff attorney.
"After more than a year of stonewalling, the government has finally released some documents, though many are heavily redacted," Singh said. "The records confirm the abuse was widespread."
The documents stated that in certain areas of the prison abuse was commonplace. One platoon leader, whose name was redacted, allowed guards to carry illegal weapons.
Certain psychological factors for U.S. soldiers could have contributed to the abuse, the documents said, including poor living conditions at the prison, the physical danger in Iraq, the lack of command structure and the lack of understanding and respect for Islamic culture.
The report said U.S. troops were immersed in the Islamic culture, "a culture that many were encountering for a first time. Clearly there are major differences in worship and beliefs and there is the association of Muslims with terrorism. All these causes exaggerate difference and create misperceptions that can lead to fear or devaluation of a people."
The documents also said there needed to be a new support system for a new "psychological battlefield," where military personnel are faced with factors that include "negativity, anger, hatred and desire to dominate and humiliate."
Some of the documents were posted on the ACLU's Web site, and the group said the remaining documents would be posted soon.
Other documents cite details of abuse at other U.S. detention facilities including outposts in Afghanistan (news - web sites) and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Staff Sgt. Ivan "Chip" Frederick, the highest-ranking U.S. soldier charged in the Abu Ghraib prison case, was sentenced Thursday to eight years in prison. He admitted he forced one group of detainees to masturbate publicly and later piled them into a naked, human pyramid.
His lawyer, Gary Myers, called the sentence "excessive" and argued that the military command was at fault for failing to train his client - a veteran military policeman and a corrections officer in civilian life - and for failing to address the horrid conditions at Abu Ghraib.
-------- russia / chechnya
Russian prosecutor office rejects HR report
October 22, 2004
The News International
http://jang.com.pk/thenews/oct2004-daily/22-10-2004/world/w15.htm
MOSCOW: Russia's main military prosecutor's office said Thursday that a Human Rights Watch report was wrong to characterize hazing in the Russian military as widespread and said Russia had already made serious efforts to combat the problem.
In a report released Wednesday, the US-based rights group said dozens of conscripts are killed in hazing incidents every year and that the practice drives hundreds to commit suicide. It pressed Russia to take action.
The prosecutor's office said that interviews with 100 conscripts from 50 units "could hardly reflect an objective picture.'' It said that no hazing crimes had been registered in 80 percent of the units.
``The representatives of Human Rights Watch cannot not know that neither the command nor prosecutors have ever tried to avoid solving this problem. Just the opposite: over recent years we have undertaken massive work with this phenomenon in the army,'' the prosecutor's office said in a statement.
It noted that hotlines, regular checks of military units and constant cooperation with civic groups had been established.
The prosecutor's office said that many of the cases raised in the Human Rights Watch report had already been brought before the courts.
Some 3,200 servicemen, including more than 400 officers, have been convicted of hazing, it said. Human Rights Watch proposed making officers accountable for preventing hazing in their units. It also suggested creating a task force to put forward a strategy to fight hazing, and proposed appointing a deputy human rights ombudsman to investigate hazing incidents.
-----
Russia's recruits wrecked by abuse
October 22, 2004
The Australian
Jeremy Page in Moscow
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,11141602%255E2703,00.html
THEY told Aleksei Andrushchenko that joining the Russian Army would make a man of him. Instead, it turned him into a physical and mental wreck.
After less than a year of systematic abuse at the hands of older conscripts, he took his own life. His final humiliation was being forced to simulate sexual acts with another conscript.
Mr Andrushchenko was one of hundreds of thousands of recruits who suffer appalling abuse every year as part of initiation rites to Russia's underfunded armed forces, according to a report released yesterday.
New York-based Human Rights Watch said ritual abuse, or "hazing", killed dozens of conscripts every year and caused hundreds to commit suicide. Thousands more desert their units.
Ahead of the report's release, Russia's chief military prosecutor, Alexandr Savenkov, revealed that 25 soldiers had died as a result of hazing in the first half of this year alone.
During the same period, 109 committed suicide, 60 of them because of hazing, he said. Experts say the real death toll is higher, as official statistics include only cases that reach the courts.
"This is not just a few bad apples, it is entirely systematic," Human Rights Watch spokesman Steve Crawshaw said.
Hazing is now considered one of Russia's most serious human rights problems as it brutalises the 800,000 conscripts in the armed forces, creating a culture of violence that spills into the conflict in Chechnya and Russian society itself.
It is also a threat to national security as it creates an army of malnourished, unfit and psychologically disturbed soldiers, according to Human Rights Watch.
Tens of thousands of parents try to keep their sons out of the military because of hazing, the report says.
As wealthier families are more successful, recruits generally come from poorer segments of society and many suffer from malnutrition, alcoholism or drug addiction even before they join.
The Russian Defence Ministry said it was aware of the problem, but declined further comment.
Under a system known as "rule of the grandfathers", second-year conscripts force new recruits into a year of servitude, enforced through brutal punishments, the report found.
In turn, they avenge themselves on the next generation of conscripts.
Human Rights Watch urged President Vladimir Putin to appoint a deputy ombudsman under Vladimir Lukin, the Russian human rights commissioner, to investigate hazing.
Mr Putin has said he is determined to transform the 1.3million-strong military into a more professional outfit by 2008.
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Goss Vows to Rebuild, Expand CIA
Director Tells Agency of Plans to Upgrade Spying Operations Overseas
By Dana Priest
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 22, 2004; Page A02
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52675-2004Oct21.html
CIA Director Porter J. Goss, in a private address to CIA employees last month, pledged to overhaul and enlarge the section of the agency that spies and conducts operations overseas, according to a transcript of his speech.
"I think we need to rebuild a true global capability," with "more eyes and ears everywhere," Goss told employees at the CIA's Langley headquarters Sept. 24, the day he took over. He said the Directorate of Operations should take more risks, leave people in positions around the world longer, improve its language capabilities and "have the ability to understand what is actually going on."
Goss's address, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Post, offers the most extensive insight into his plans for the agency since he took over and all but shut down CIA communications with the public.
Goss has dealt with top managers at the agency the same way, several former and current CIA employees said. They said he often sits quietly at staff meetings and conducts much of his business with a second group of managers -- the handful of longtime former aides, many of them viewed at the CIA as partisan Republicans, who he brought from the House intelligence committee, which he chaired.
Goss's management style has left some officials suspicious that he plans to carry out a wholesale purge of top executives after the elections. This belief is creating angst at the CIA at a time of intensive counterterrorism operations.
The agency also has been under heavy criticism for missing clues leading up to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and misjudging Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capability before the war.
"Now, before making any more judgments about me, sit back, relax, and I will tell you briefly who I am, what I believe and where I plan to take the intelligence community," Goss told the gathered employees, referring to reaction to his new staff. ". . . I am not necessarily the person you have been reading about or hearing about . . . unless of course you're reading and hearing good things. I may be that person."
Goss promised to bring the CIA back to "our core business" of gaining "close-in access" to "mischief-makers" and political leaders and influencing their actions.
"When you go back to core access, you go back to words I remember, like 'spot, assess, recruit, train,' " Goss said, using the tradecraft terms he learned as a CIA operative in the 1960s. "Very hard stuff to do in what is now the DO [Directorate of Operations]. The message is clear: We have to do it."
The CIA has been criticized by the Sept. 11 commission and two lengthy Senate intelligence committee investigations for not having enough "humint," or CIA officers or foreign agents working in Iraq and in other places where al Qaeda terrorists have been operating for years.
Goss, like other new directors before him, is in the awkward position of having to win support among a highly insular -- and by profession, sneaky -- group of people, while trying to change its culture and practices. His predecessor, George J. Tenet, worked hard to stay in good graces with the DO and its retired cadre.
In his remarks, Goss promised to allow intelligence officers to work longer on one "target" and said he would stop "shuffling people around on an artificial schedule," which intelligence experts said mainly referred to the six-month rotation of hundreds of employees into and out of Iraq and onto counterterrorism operations and analysis.
"Being the jack of all trades and the master of none is not the right formula," he said. ". . . Time on target is part of this, and that matters."
Goss said he would give operatives and analysts more autonomy, encourage them to take greater risks and, "when it goes wrong," offer his full support for their efforts. "I believe this very wholeheartedly," he said. "We need to take risks."
He also said, "We must collapse bureaucratic layers. I say this with fervor" -- a directive many intelligence experts believe could become problematic if Congress passes bills that would create another supervisory layer in a national intelligence director and a new counterterrorism center in addition to the one operating at the CIA.
"Our nation is at war. It's a cold fact," he said. "I wake up every morning thinking that. . . . I go to bed every night thinking, 'What did I do today to help us advance the war?' I hope it's the same kind of thought you have. I think you are performing exceptionally."
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Aide for Times Revealed Secrets, China Charges
October 22, 2004
By ERIK ECKHOLM
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/22/international/asia/22china.html?pagewanted=all
The Chinese authorities have formally arrested a researcher in the Beijing bureau of The New York Times on charges of revealing state secrets to foreigners.
The researcher, Zhao Yan, who was detained Sept. 17 on suspicion of that crime, has not been allowed to see his lawyer or relatives. Charges under the stringent state security law were filed Wednesday, according to a notice received by Mr. Zhao's family, but no details of his misdeeds he has been charged with have been disclosed. Formal arrest on security charges, in the Chinese criminal system, is a major step toward a secret trial and virtually certain conviction, with a long prison sentence possible.
Mr. Zhao has been employed by The Times since May of this year.
Senior editors of The Times have condemned the arrest and called for his immediate release. "To our knowledge, Mr. Zhao has not been involved in any way in disseminating state secrets," Susan Chira, foreign editor of The Times, said in New York. "We are deeply, deeply concerned, and we are doing all we can to help him."
The State Department expressed public concern about Mr. Zhao's detention, and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell raised it with China's foreign minister, Li Zhaoxing, during a recent meeting in Washington.
Mr. Powell will be visiting China later this week, and The Times has asked that he again raise the case at the highest levels.
The Times has not received any communications from the Chinese Government about Mr. Zhao's case.
Some of Mr. Zhao's acquaintances have speculated that his arrest was linked to the appearance on Sept. 7 of a New York Times article that predicted - accurately - the imminent resignation of Jiang Zemin, the former president, as chairman of China's Central Military Commission. Beijing treats its leadership deliberations as a major secret.
Ms. Chira said The Times does not comment on its sources but added, "We can categorically deny that Mr. Zhao has provided state secrets to our newspaper."
For the last several years, Mr. Zhao has worked as a freelance journalist to expose corruption and bureaucratic abuses. Such journalistic muckraking is a recent and risky practice in China, where the authorities still control the news media and chafe at open criticism.
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INTELLIGENCE
Pentagon Reportedly Skewed C.I.A.'s View of Qaeda Tie
October 22, 2004
By DOUGLAS JEHL
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/22/politics/22intel.html?pagewanted=all
WASHINGTON, Oct. 21 - As recently as January 2004, a top Defense Department official misrepresented to Congress the view of American intelligence agencies about the relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda, according to a new report by a Senate Democrat.
The report said a classified document prepared by Douglas J. Feith, the under secretary of defense for policy, not only asserted that there were ties between the Baghdad government and the terrorist network, but also did not reflect accurately the intelligence agencies' assessment - even while claiming that it did.
In issuing the report, the senator, Carl M. Levin, the senior Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, said he would ask the panel to take "appropriate action'' against Mr. Feith. Senator Levin said Mr. Feith had repeatedly described the ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda as far more significant and extensive than the intelligence agencies had.
The broad outlines of Mr. Feith's efforts to promote the idea of such close links have been previously disclosed.
The view, a staple of the Bush administration's public statements before the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, has since been discredited by the Sept. 11 commission, which concluded that Iraq and Al Qaeda had "no close collaborative relationship.''
The 46-page report by Senator Levin and the Democratic staff of the Armed Services Committee is the first to focus narrowly on the role played by Mr. Feith's office. Democrats had sought to include that line of inquiry in a report completed in June by the Senate Intelligence Committee, but Republicans on the panel postponed that phase of the study until after the presidential election.
In an interview, Mr. Levin said he had concluded that Mr. Feith had practiced "continuing deception of Congress.'' But he said he had no evidence that Mr. Feith's conduct had been illegal.
Mr. Levin began the inquiry in June 2003, after Republicans on the panel, led by Senator John W. Warner of Virginia, declined to take part. He said his findings were endorsed by other Democrats on the committee, but complained that the Defense Department and the Central Intelligence Agency had declined to provide crucial documents.
In a statement, the Pentagon said the Levin report "appears to depart from the bipartisan, consultative relationship" between the Defense Department and the Armed Services Committee, adding, "The unanimous, bipartisan Senate Select Committee on Intelligence report of July 2004 found no evidence that administration officials tried to coerce, influence or pressure intelligence analysts to change their judgments."
Senator Warner said, "I take strong exception to the conclusions Senator Levin reaches." He said his view was based on the Intelligence Committee's "analysis thus far of the public and classified records."
Among the findings in the report were that the C.I.A. had become skeptical by June 2002, earlier than previously known, about a supposed meeting in April 2001 in Prague between Mohamed Atta, a leader of the Sept. 11 attacks, and an Iraqi intelligence official. Nevertheless, Mr. Feith and other senior Bush administration officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, continued at least through the end of 2002 to describe the reported meeting as evidence of a possible link between Iraq and the Sept. 11 attacks.
Mr. Levin's report drew particular attention to statements by Mr. Feith in communications with Congress beginning in July 2003 about such a link.
A classified annex sent by Mr. Feith to the Senate Intelligence Committee on Oct. 27, 2003, which was disclosed two weeks later by The Weekly Standard, asserted that "Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein had an operational relationship from the early 1990's to 2003,'' and concluded, "There can no longer be any serious argument about whether Saddam Hussein's Iraq worked with Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda to plot against Americans.''
In a Nov. 15 news release, the Defense Department said the "provision of the classified annex to the Intelligence Committee was cleared by other agencies, and done with the permission of the intelligence community.'' But Mr. Levin's report said that statement was incorrect, because the Central Intelligence Agency had not cleared release of Mr. Feith's annex.
The Levin report also disclosed for the first time that the C.I.A., in December 2003, sent Mr. Feith a letter pointing out corrections he should make to the document before providing it to Senator Levin, who had requested the document as part of his investigation.
Perhaps most critically, the report says, Mr. Feith repeated a questionable assertion concerning a Jordanian, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Qaeda ally whose presence in Iraq was cited by the Bush administration before the war as crucial evidence of Mr. Hussein's support for terrorism.
In his Oct. 27 letter, Mr. Feith told Congress that the Iraqi intelligence service knew of Mr. Zarqawi's entry into Iraq. In recommending a correction, the C.I.A. said that claim had not been supported by the intelligence report that Mr. Feith had cited, the Levin report says. Nevertheless, the report says, Mr. Feith reiterated the assertion in his addendum, attributing it to a different intelligence report - one that likewise did not state that Iraq knew Mr. Zarqawi was in the country.
A reassessment completed by American intelligence agencies in September concluded that it is not clear whether Mr. Hussein's government harbored Mr. Zarqawi during his time in Iraq before the war, intelligence officials have said.
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DoD breaks with Bush over intel reform
(UPI)
Oct. 22, 2004
http://washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20041022-070719-3101r.htm
Washington, DC, -- The most senior U.S. military official has publicly broken with the White House in the ongoing controversy over reforming U.S. intelligence.
In a letter to Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Gen. Richard Myers makes it clear that he does not support the White House-backed proposal to give a new national spy chief budgetary control over three key intelligence agencies inside the Department of Defense.
"The budgets of the combat support agencies should come up from the agencies through the secretary of defense," reads the letter, signed Thursday by Myers and obtained by United Press International.
"For appropriations," the letter continues, "it is likewise important that the appropriations are passed from the national intelligence director through the Department (of Defense) to the combat support agencies."
"Combat support agencies" encompasses the three bodies that build and run the United States' spy satellites and other eavesdropping equipment. They absorb more than 75 percent of the intelligence budget.
Myers says he supports the House version of the intelligence reform package currently being debated, but the White House -- in a letter to lawmakers signed by national security advisor Condoleezza Rice earlier this week -- and the Sept. 11 Commission support the Senate version.
Reformers are adamant that without budgetary control over the agencies inside the Pentagon, the new spy chief will be toothless.
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U.N. hurt by scandal, Annan says
October 22, 2004
By David R. Sands
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20041021-113333-6873r.htm
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said yesterday the world body's reputation had been damaged by a furor over its oil-for-food program in Iraq, as investigators released the fullest accounting to date of the scandal-plagued program.
Russian and French companies were the most active buyers and sellers under the program, according to figures released yesterday by an independent U.N. investigating panel headed by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker.
"There is no doubt that the constant campaign and discussions [over the scandal] have hurt the U.N.," said Mr. Annan, who was given a private briefing in New York by Mr. Volcker. "That's why we want to get to the bottom of it and clear it as quickly as possible. It has done damage, yes."
In the most comprehensive survey to date, Mr. Volcker's panel released a list of some 248 companies that bought Iraqi oil and another 3,545 firms that sold food, medical supplies and other humanitarian goods to Saddam Hussein's regime under the seven-year program that closed in 2003.
The U.N. program was set up to allow Saddam's regime, laboring under heavy international sanctions, to use oil sales to buy a tightly restricted list of food and humanitarian supplies.
But a U.S. Government Accountability Office study this summer estimated that Saddam stole more than $10 billion through illegal oil sales and kickbacks under the program, with companies, government officials and even a senior U.N. official accused of accepting bribes and other favors.
Mr. Volcker, who met separately with reporters in New York, said yesterday's 300-page listing of all known oil-for-food contractors was not meant to imply guilt or to identify abuses of the program.
"This was not a report on what went wrong and is not a report on what went right," he said. "That is our mission but that is not what we are reporting today."
The Volcker panel, in a statement released yesterday, said the new report does not address widespread charges of oil smuggling and deals cut by Saddam with foreign vendors outside the oil-for-food framework.
Investigators are "concerned with determining the extent to which smuggling was known to the members of the Security Council, other U.N. authorities and U.N. contractors," it said.
In his report to Congress earlier this month, the CIA's chief weapons inspector for Iraq, Charles A. Duelfer, said Saddam systematically undermined the purpose of the oil-for-food program to acquire banned goods and curry international favor to end sanctions.
Particularly targeted, Mr. Duelfer said, were companies and prominent officials in Russia, France and China, all with vetoes on the U.N. Security Council.
According to the new figures, Russian companies purchased $19.2 billion in Iraqi oil under the program, while Russian vendors received $3.3 billion in humanitarian contracts. French energy interests bought just under $4.4 billion in oil and French contractors received $2.9 billion in humanitarian aid sales.
The United States, bitterly hostile to Saddam's regime throughout the period of the program, was a relatively minor player, according to Mr. Volcker's figures.
Just four U.S. oil firms are listed in the U.N. data - Chevron, Texaco, Phoenix International and Mobil Export Corp. - and the United States ranked 26th out of the 64 countries who sold goods to Iraq under the program.
The merged ChevronTexaco and Exxon Mobil Corp., the successor company to Mobil Export, have been subpoenaed by the Manhattan U.S. Attorney's office for a grand jury investigation into the oil-for-food scandal.
The 19 American firms listed as selling food, medical stock and other humanitarian aid ranged from grain giant Cargill to an Oakland, Calif., contractor specializing in ventilation systems for medical facilities.
At least four congressional committees and three U.S. federal probes are looking into aspects of the troubled program.
Mr. Volcker told reporters that BNP Paribas, the French bank used for oil-for-food transactions, had been cooperating only "up to a point" with his investigators, though he expected any obstacles to be resolved.
"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," Mr. Volcker said. The French bank said it was cooperating with investigators.
Mr. Annan said he did not believe governments such as France and Russia had been influenced by suspected kickbacks from Saddam from the oil-for-food program.
Critics say Mr. Annan, whose son worked for a Swiss contractor that helped monitor the oil-for-food program, has yet to acknowledge the conflicts of interest in the oil-for-food probe.
Nile Gardiner, a policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation, said Mr. Annan's blanket dismissal of the charges of influence-buying "undermines his credibility and impartiality."
"Kofi Annan cannot be seen as an impartial figure with regard to this program," Mr. Gardiner said. "It is in the interest of the U.N. as an institution that he step aside from his duties while this investigation is under way."
The secretary-general yesterday said that France and Russia did not oppose the U.S.-led war in Iraq to protect their business interests.
"If governments were to sell their votes because some of their companies ... were to do business with Iraq or elsewhere, I think it would be a very sad state for the Security Council and for the world. I do not believe it," Mr. Annan said.
• This article is based in part on wire service reports.
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THE LEGAL SYSTEM
Iraqis Not Ready for Trials; U.N. to Withhold Training
October 22, 2004
By MARLISE SIMONS
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/22/international/middleeast/22saddam.html?pagewanted=all&position=
LONDON, Oct. 18 - A weeklong training session for the Iraqi judges and prosecutors chosen to try Saddam Hussein and his top associates ended in London on Monday with both the Iraqis and their Western advisers agreeing on one thing: The Iraqis are unprepared to tackle full-fledged trials any time soon.
It was equally troubling to many participants that despite invitations to top lawyers and judges from the United Nations war crimes tribunal in The Hague to join the sessions, the United Nations secretary general, Kofi Annan, barred their participation and raised concerns about the tribunal in general.
A letter from Mr. Annan's office expressed "serious doubts" that the Iraqi Special Tribunal could meet "relevant international standards." It reiterated his view that the United Nations should not assist national courts that can order the death penalty and said that the organization had no legal mandate to assist the tribunal.
The two developments suggest that despite assertions by the interim Iraqi prime minister, Ayad Allawi, that the trials would begin as early as November, the likelihood of an early start seems remote. American officials here said that some pretrial hearings might take place in December.
The London training session was organized by American lawyers who work with the Iraqi investigators and judges in Baghdad, assisting them in setting up courtrooms and preparing trials. Britain also lent its support, with England's chief justice, Lord Woolf, and a leading human rights lawyer, Judge Geoffrey Robertson, among those addressing the group.
The event was not publicized because of security concerns for the 42 Iraqis - almost the entire Iraqi Special Tribunal - who returned home on Monday. Organizers granted a reporter access to the gathering on condition that any article appear after the Iraqis had arrived home.
Gabrielle Kirk McDonald, an American who served both as judge and president of the tribunal in The Hague until 1999, said she had come because she felt a duty to help. She called the hands-off order from the United Nations "a travesty," saying, "This is about judges helping judges, this is not about politics."
But some human rights lawyers agree with Mr. Annan. Richard Dicker, a director of Human Rights Watch, said by telephone that there were still "glaring human rights shortcomings" in the statute of the Iraqi tribunal. For example, confessions obtained through coercion would be admissible as evidence.
"In a fair trial, the accused's rights must be respected," Mr. Dicker said, adding, "The first group of accused, including Saddam Hussein, had no access to defense lawyers when they were interrogated nor when they were brought to court on July 1."
At the London meetings, several Western experts said the Iraqis appeared well-informed about their national laws but were unacquainted with the complexities of international law used to deal with mass killing and genocide.
The Iraqi judges themselves, in numerous conversations, concurred. Some said they had little grasp of what one called "this whole new body of law."
"This has been very beneficial because these crimes are very new to Iraqi judges," said Raid Juhi al-Saadi, 35, the youngest lawyer here, who became famous when he presided at Saddam Hussein's arraignment on July 1. "We would like more international expertise to assist us," he said. "The literature available to us in Arabic is very limited."
The American organizers of the event said that because of strict security rules the names of other judges could not be revealed. But in private they were willing to discuss their concerns.
Judges and prosecutors repeatedly said they wanted more practical training and asked for more material, including samples of investigations and key rulings from The Hague, translated into Arabic.
In one conversation, three judges, who had long careers as military and civilian lawyers, talked about feeling caught between international public opinion and the opinion of Iraqis. They want experienced judges from other nations to sit on the bench with them but fear that many Iraqis will see this as humiliating. "The public will say that outsiders are deciding the process," one of the judges said.
Several participants said that involving other countries, and preferably the United Nations, would provide greater legitimacy to the tribunal. "It would stop the impression that the whole thing is run by Americans," said one prosecutor.
Supporters of Saddam Hussein and Arab media, he added, "are regularly attacking us on this."
The model for the Iraqi tribunal, conceived in Washington, is to have Iraqi-led trials with American support and foreign advisers. But human rights groups had urged Washington to create a mixed model with international, even United Nations-approved, judges from the start.
There were lively discussions here about Iraq's death penalty, because the judges were aware that the United Nations and many European countries have said they had problems helping a tribunal that could impose capital punishment.
"I myself would rather see Saddam go to jail for many years so that future generations can see this," said one Baghdad prosecutor, speaking through a translator. "But we cannot suddenly abolish the death sentence now. The people would be outraged."
The judges and prosecutors grappled with the notion of plea-bargaining, a concept that was foreign to them.
After one session, Joanna Korner from Britain, a former senior prosecutor at the war crimes tribunal in The Hague, said she was pleased because "I actually managed to get my judges to understand there is more than one crime against humanity." She was describing the crimes that involve systematic and widespread attacks against a civilian population, which include murder, persecution, mass rape, torture and deportation.
Another workshop dealt with the protection of witnesses, both for the prosecution and the defense, clearly an enormous challenge if trials begin in Iraq while the violence continues.
A longtime strategy for the Iraqi Special Tribunal was proposed by Pierre-Richard Prosper, the United States ambassador for war crimes issues, in a closing address. He urged the group to focus on the leadership and send midlevel suspects to ordinary courts in order to lighten their own case load. He also suggested creating a truth commission allowing victims to speak. "Victims badly need to be heard," he said. He told the judges to communicate with the public. "Let the Iraqi people know what you are doing," he said, "and make the public your allies."
Judge Kirk McDonald offered some solace to the group, some of whom seemed awed by the tasks ahead. "Ten years ago, we were exactly where you were, starting a tribunal, with no experience," she said. "You'll design your own court as you want it. My advice is: Transparency, transparency, transparency."
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Female soldiers eyed for combat
October 22, 2004
By Rowan Scarborough
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20041022-120846-1796r.htm
The Army is negotiating with civilian leaders about eliminating a women-in-combat ban so it can place mixed-sex support companies within warfighting units, starting with a division going to Iraq in January.
Despite the legal prohibition, Army plans already have included such collocation of women-men units in blueprints for a lighter force of 10 active divisions, according to Defense Department sources.
An Army spokesman yesterday, in response to questions from The Washington Times, said the Army is now in discussions with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's staff to see whether the 10-year-old ban in this one area should be lifted. The ban prohibits the Army from putting women in units that "collocate" with ground combatants.
"When that policy was made up, there was a different threat," said Lt. Col. Chris Rodney, an Army spokesman at the Pentagon. "We imagined a more linear combat environment. Now, with the nature of asymmetrical threats, we have to relook at that policy."
Col. Rodney cited the fighting in Iraq as typifying the new threat whereby all soldiers, support or combat, face attack by rockets, mortars, roadside bombs and ambushes.
"Everybody faces a similar threat," he said. "There is no front-line threat right now."
Since the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, the Army has suffered 793 combat deaths, including 24 female soldiers.
The Army is not seeking to lift the ban on women in direct combat units, such as infantry or armor.
What is being examined is the part of the exclusion rule that says mixed-sex support companies may not be positioned with ground combat teams.
In the disputed instance, the transformation plan of Gen. Peter Schoomaker, the Army chief of staff, calls for creating Forward Support Companies, which are made up of men and women. These companies would collocate with reconnaissance squadrons, which are combat units and are part of larger brigade "units of action."
The problem is a 1994 ban signed by then-Defense Secretary Les Aspin that excludes women from land combat units. Mr. Aspin added an additional restriction. Women could not serve "where units and positions are doctrinally required to physically collocate and remain with direct ground combat units that are closed to women."
Some Pentagon officials, who asked not to be named, said the proposed Forward Support Companies are at the least "skirting" the existing ban if not violating it. They suspect the new units are a way to inch women closer to land combat despite Congress' prohibition against it.
Elaine Donnelly, who leads the pro-military Center for Military Readiness, says Congress needs to be informed of the Army's plans.
"There is a law requiring notice to Congress that has not happened, and there are regulations that forbid the Army from taking infantry units and collocating gender-integrated units with them," said Mrs. Donnelly, who opposes women in combat. "If they are doing this, putting women in land combat units would be a violation of law and policy."
The Pentagon long has banned women from combat roles. In the early 1990s, the new Clinton administration changed the rules by allowing women for the first time to serve on combat ships and pilot combat aircraft, such as jet fighters and helicopters.
But the Pentagon retained the ban on women participating in direct combat and issued the new Aspin rules.
Mr. Aspin said in a January 1994 memo to the services that "women should be excluded from assignment to units below the brigade level whose primary mission is to engage in direct combat on the ground." The policy then defined direct combat as "engaging an enemy on the ground with individual or crew-served weapons, while being exposed to hostile fire and to a high probability of direct physical contact with the hostile force's personnel. Direct combat takes place well forward on the battlefield while locating and closing with the enemy to defeat them by fire, maneuver, or shock effect."
Mr. Aspin then went further in denying collocation of mixed-sex and combat units. The Army accepted the limitation, documents show.
The 3rd Infantry Division, which played a major role in the fall of Baghdad in April 2003, is scheduled to return to Iraq early next year. It would be the first division to be reconfigured into "units of action" that would contain the new mixed-sex Forward Support Companies.
In all, Gen. Schoomaker is increasing the number of combat brigades from 33 to 48, and naming them "units of action." The brigades are being married up permanently with support units so they can move out more quickly to war zones, instead of waiting for the additional personnel to arrive.
Early in the Bush administration, Mrs. Donnelly successfully persuaded the Pentagon to restrict female soldiers from certain reconnaissance units after Army planners had penciled them into those new units.
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Abu Ghraib abuser sentenced
October 22, 2004
By Tini Tran
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20041021-105235-1019r.htm
BAGHDAD - The highest-ranking soldier charged with abusing inmates in the Abu Ghraib prison was sentenced to eight years in prison at a court martial in Baghdad yesterday.
Staff Sgt. Ivan "Chip" Frederick, 38, an Army reservist from Buckingham, Va., also was given a reduction in rank, forfeiture of pay and a dishonorable discharge. The sentencing came a day after he pleaded guilty to eight counts of abusing and humiliating Iraqi detainees.
It was the longest prison sentence to date in connection with the scandal that broke worldwide in April with the publication of photos and video footage that showed U.S. soldiers abusing naked Iraqis in the prison on the western outskirts of Baghdad.
Frederick - a military police officer who is a corrections officer in civilian life - acknowledged his part in the scandal, admitting that he hooked up 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 up issues with his commanders, "they told me to do what MI told me to do," referring to military intelligence.
Defense counsel Gary Myers yesterday 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 responsibility," Mr. Myers said. "We discovered that he has no abhorrent tendencies."
Army prosecutor Maj. 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.
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MP Gets 8 Years for Iraq Abuse
By Jackie Spinner
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 22, 2004; Page A20
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A51044-2004Oct21.html
BAGHDAD, Oct. 21 -- Staff Sgt. Ivan L. "Chip" Frederick II, the highest-ranking of eight soldiers charged with abusing detainees at Abu Ghraib prison, was sentenced Thursday to eight years in prison, the stiffest punishment handed out so far in the scandal.
Frederick, 38, who pleaded guilty on Wednesday to eight counts of abusing and humiliating detainees in U.S. military custody, received the sentence under a plea deal with Army prosecutors in which he agreed to testify against other soldiers charged with abusing detainees at the prison last fall. Col. James Pohl, the military judge presiding over the court-martial, sentenced Frederick to 10 years in prison, but the lighter sentence negotiated with prosecutors is the one that the Army Reservist from Buckingham, Va., will serve.
Frederick also received a reduction in rank to private, forfeiture of pay and a dishonorable discharge.
Gary Myers, Frederick's civilian defense attorney, who helped negotiate the plea deal, called the sentence "excessive." Frederick had faced up to 18 years in prison.
The mistreatment by U.S. soldiers guarding and interrogating detainees at Abu Ghraib late last year was documented in photographs and videos that came to light six months ago. Frederick is one of seven soldiers from the Army's 372nd Military Police Company, based in Cresaptown, Md., to be charged with committing abuses at Abu Ghraib. He and Spec. Jeremy C. Sivits both have pleaded guilty. Sivits received a one-year prison sentence in May.
An eighth soldier, Spec. Armin J. Cruz Jr. of the 325th Military Intelligence Battalion, based in Devens, Mass., pleaded guilty last month and was sentenced to eight months in prison.
Frederick, who was in charge of the night shift at the prison wing where the abuses occurred, acknowledged in court Wednesday that he had hit, threatened and sexually humiliated detainees. He also told the judge that he knew his actions were wrong.
Frederick admitted forcing detainees to masturbate and helping attach wires to a detainee with the intention of making him think he might be electrocuted. He also pleaded guilty to punching a detainee in the chest so hard that a medic was called.
During the sentencing hearing on Thursday, Myers blamed the military for setting the conditions that allowed the abuse to take place and for failing to train Frederick properly. "Yes, this one individual has committed crimes. But there are essentially aiders and abettors who got him to that point," Myers said, apparently referring to Frederick's superiors.
But Maj. Michael Holley, the Army prosecutor, asked, "How much training do you need to learn that it's wrong to force a man to masturbate?" Holley 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."
On Wednesday, Frederick testified that some of his actions came at the direction of two interrogators employed by CACI International Inc., an Arlington-based government contractor.
He alleged that Steven A. Stefanowicz, a CACI interrogator, ordered him in mid-November to use dogs to threaten prisoners, telling him in one instance: "Treat 'em like [expletive]. Put the dog on this one if you can."
Stefanowicz had been named in an internal Army report as one of four people "directly or indirectly" responsible for abuses at the prison. Stefanowicz's attorney, Henry E. Hockeimer Jr., said all his client's actions were "appropriate and authorized."
"Mr. Stefanowicz vehemently denies the statements by Mr. Frederick regarding the use of dogs," he said. "These statements are made by someone who has admitted to serious and outrageous criminal wrongdoing and is desperately attempting to deflect attention from his own gross misconduct."
Frederick also testified that another CACI employee, whom he called "Mr. Johnson," ordered him to apply pressure under "the jaw, behind the ear or on the cheek" of Iraqi prisoners as they were being interrogated.
CACI released a statement that noted the denials by Stefanowicz's lawyer and said the "other individual is no longer employed by CACI."
Staff writer Ellen McCarthy in Washington contributed to this report.
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Trial Date Set for Another Reservist in Prison Abuse Case
October 22, 2004
By EDWARD WONG
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/22/international/middleeast/22CND-TRIAL.html?oref=login
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Oct. 22 - An American military judge today ordered an Army reservist to stand trial on Jan. 7 in Baghdad on charges related to the Abu Ghraib prison abuse case.
The judge, Col. James A. Pohl, set the date for Charles A. Graner Jr.'s appearance in court. Among the charges against him are conspiracy to maltreat subordinates, dereliction of duty, adultery, maltreatment of detainees and obstruction of justice, according to a pool report quoting the charge sheet. Specialist Graner, who served in the 372nd Military Police Company, has emerged as a central figure in the abuse scandal involving Abu Ghraib.
During the hearing today, Judge Pohl also ruled out a defense request to grant immunity to witnesses who otherwise would not testify for fear of self-incrimination.
The defense said they wanted to call as a witness Colonel Thomas Pappas, the head of the military intelligence brigade assigned to Abu Ghraib at the time of the incidents last fall, according to a pool report on the hearing today. Specialist Graner's lawyer, Guy Womack, said that his client believed he had been acting lawfully, the pool report said.
"The orders had been given to him by his superiors in the military police chain of command, military intelligence and civilian intelligence," Mr. Womack said.
Investigators have called Specialist Graner a ringleader of the seven military police officers accused of torturing prisoners and photographing them. Among other things, he is accused of ordering prisoners to masturbate in front of each other and of punching an Iraqi so hard in the head that he lost consciousness. If found guilty, he faces a maximum sentence of up to 24 and a half years in prison and a dishonorable discharge.
On Thursday, the military court handed down the harshest sentence yet in the abuse hearings On Thursday, the military court handed down the harshest sentence yet in the abuse hearings when it sentenced Staff Sgt. Ivan L. Frederick II when it sentenced Staff Sgt. Ivan L. Frederick II to eight years in prison for abusing Iraqi prisoners last year at Abu Ghraib. Two others have been convicted.
JudgePohl also reduced Sergeant Frederick's rank to private, and ordered him dishonorably discharged.
The sergeant had originally been sentenced to 10 years in prison, but that term was reduced to eight years through a plea bargain that also calls for forfeiture of pay. The bargain requires Sergeant Frederick to cooperate in the pending cases.
Sergeant Frederick pleaded guilty to eight counts of abusing detainees at Abu Ghraib prison, 15 miles west of Baghdad, in October and November of 2003. In court, he described in graphic detail how he had forced Arab prisoners to masturbate, punched a hooded prisoner and attached wires to another standing on a flimsy box who was made to believe he would be electrocuted if he fell off.
Prosecutors considered Sergeant Frederick, 38, an Army reservist who worked as a corrections officer back home, a ringleader of the soldiers charged in the case. They insisted, however, that they were acting under guidance from military intelligence officers, and that commanders had created an environment where detainee abuse was encouraged in order to get information.
The incidents first became public at the end of April, after photographs of the abuse were shown on a CBS News program. The abuse inflamed the already widespread resentment of the American occupation throughout Iraq and the Arab world.
Also on Thursday, the Army said it began an Article 32 hearing - the equivalent of a civilian pretrial hearing - in the case of Staff Sgt. Jonathan J. Alban, who is being investigated for premeditated murder and conspiracy to commit murder.
An Army investigator testified that, based on eyewitness accounts, Sergeant Alban, his platoon leader and another staff sergeant in the platoon were reported to have decided to kill a severely injured Iraqi man in a burning truck on Aug. 17.
The victim was at the site of a firefight between soldiers of the First Cavalry Division and Iraqis supposedly trying to plant roadside bombs in the hostile Baghdad neighborhood of Sadr City, the prosecutor said.
Sergeant Alban and his two colleagues decided to put the Iraqi "out of his misery," the investigator said, and eyewitnesses testified they saw the sergeant fire multiple rounds into the man with his rifle.
Sergeant Alban is a member of Company C, First Battalion, 41st Infantry, of the First Cavalry Division, which is charged with controlling Baghdad. Another soldier faces the same charges.
The court will decide if the case will go to trial. If convicted, Sergeant Alban would receive a minimum sentence of life in prison and a maximum sentence of death.
In the case of Sergeant Frederick, the defendant's lawyer, Gary Myers, said he intended to appeal the sentence, calling it "excessive."
He said the military had created a culture where prisoner abuse was fully accepted.
"Punish him, yes," Mr. Myers said. "But please try to understand the defense's point of view that there is corporate responsibility."
The prosecutor, Maj. Michael Holley, argued that the case was fairly clear-cut.
"He's an adult capable of making decisions," Major Holley said. "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?"
In Mountain Lake Park, Md., the mother of Sergeant Frederick, Joann Frederick, said her son had called her from Camp Victory, in western Baghdad, where the trial was held.
"Twenty years in the military, and he's lost it all," she said. "He didn't ask for the transfer to that prison. At the time he was transferred there, he told them, 'I'm not qualified for this job in rank or experience.' They said that's O.K. Do the best you can."
Christine Hauser reported from New York and Lisa A. Bacon contributed reporting from Richmond.
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Off to War:
The Story of a National Guard Unit's Journey From Rural Arkansas to Baghdad
democracynow.org
October 22nd, 2004
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/10/22/143225
In April 2004, 57 citizen soldiers from Clarksville, Arkansas left their jobs and their families to serve in Iraq as members of the 239th Infantry of the Arkansas National Guard. Embedded with them is the brother filmmaking team of Brent and Craig Renaud who tell their story in a new documentary, "Off to War" featuring on the Discovery Times Channel. [includes rush transcript] Last week, 19 members of a U.S. Army Reserve platoon were placed under arrest for refusing to obey orders to go on what they considered a "suicide mission."
Stationed at Tallil Air Base south of Nasiriyah, members of the 343rd Quartermaster Company were ordered to drive a fuel supply convoy up to Taji, north of Baghdad. The soldiers had previously only focused on local missions in safer parts of southern Iraq and had never driven through Baghdad more than 200 miles away, where U.S. forces regularly come under fire. On average, American soldiers were attacked 87 times a day in August. Over 1,100 U.S. soldiers have been killed in Iraq since the war began.
The platoon refused the order considering their trucks to be extremely unsafe. They said the convoy tankers lacked bullet-resistant armor and were not able to travel faster than 40 miles an hour. Some of the supply trucks were in disrepair and prone to breakdown. And while the armed escort of Humvees and helicopters normally provided, was not available. One the soldiers later described the mission as a "death sentence."
After refusing the orders, the U.S. Army placed the men and women of the platoon under arrest.
The place the soldiers refused to travel to, Taji, is just north of Baghdad. That is the headquarters of members of the 39th Infantry Brigade of the Arkansas National Guard deployed in Iraq. On Saturday, the third installment of a documentary series following those National Guard soldiers will air on Discovery Times at 10 PM Eastern Time. It's called "Off to War: From Rural Arkansas to Baghdad."
The soldiers are stationed at Camp Cooke in Taji. It is the first time since World War II that this many Arkansas National Guard soldiers have been deployed to a combat zone. Many of these soldiers have never traveled beyond the borders of Arkansas and now face an entire year away from home. Back in Arkansas, their families grow more fearful that these guardsmen, who work in sales, farming and other non-military jobs, could become the targets of Iraqi insurgents bent upon attacking Americans.
The soldiers arrived to Iraq in April of 2004, as the security situation in the country begins to deteriorate. Camp Cooke is being mortared on a daily basis, and the Arkansas National Guard begins suffering casualties the very first day that they arrive in Iraq. Embedded with them are the filmmaker brothers Craig and Brent Renaud, our colleagues here at the firehouse from Downtown Community Television. In a moment, we will be joined by them in our studio. But first, here is an excerpt of this Saturday's installment of Off to War.
- "Off to War: From Rural Arkansas to Baghdad," excerpt of Part 3 of the series.
- Craig Renaud , producer of the documentary series, "Off to War: From Rural Arkansas to Baghdad" which follows members of the Arkansas National Guard as they deploy to Iraq. On Saturday, the third installment of the series will air on Discovery Times.
- Brent Renaud , producer of the documentary series "Off to War: From Rural Arkansas to Baghdad", which follows members of the Arkansas National Guard as they deploy to Iraq. On Saturday, the third installment of the series will air on Discovery Times.
RUSH TRANSCRIPT
AMY GOODMAN: As the security situation in the country begins to deteriorate, Camp Cook is being mortared on a daily basis, and the Arkansas National Guard begins suffering casualties, the first day they arrived in Iraq. Embedded with them are the filmmaker team, brothers Craig and Brent Renault. Our colleagues here at the Firehouse at Downtown Community Television, DCTV. In a moment, we will talk to them in our studio. But first, we go to an excerpt of Saturday's installment, Off To War.
SERGEANT SHORT: I believe the Brigade is up to eight K.I.A. now and pretty close to 20 wounded. You might think we're dropping like flies. It's looking pretty bad as far as numbers go, but keep your head in this game. We will win this fight. They will calm down out there, or we're going to kill them. I think they think that we're going to run scared. Negative.
SOLDIER: : This will make a good National Guard commercial right here, you know. Except that we're not building a dam for a flood. We're - you know, filling the sand bags to put around our houses. These sandbags will stop - well hopefully, they will stop the shrapnel from going through your trailer and killing you while you are asleep.
SOLDIER: : I wish it could have been earlier, maybe saved a life or two.
SOLDIER: : There's trailers over there that the shrapnel went all the way through, two whole trailers, so I don't think sandbags are going to help.
SOLDIER: : The mortars - I don't care how good they make them - if they land anywhere in here, they're going to get somebody.
SERGEANT SHORT: Let me go ahead and put you this directive out: Body armor and Kevlar will be worn 24 hours a day, seven days a week. If you are outside of that trailer, it will be on. Whatever it takes to keep you guys alive, I'm committed to do. If any one of our guys that died had this stuff on, they would probably still be with us. Just for wearing something. Let's not lose anymore. Wear it. It's not an option. All hell has broken loose and it's right outside that gate.
SERGEANT SHORT: Getting ready to suit up and go out on a mission today. What we're supposed to be doing is security and stability operations, which we basically have just tossed that out the window. There's no security here and there's no stability here. You know it's basically a full-fledged very hot combat zone.
SERGEANT SHORT: All right, guys. Let's go ahead and move on out. Another wonderful day.
SOLDIER: : Whoo-hoo.
VOICE ON TWO-WAY RADIO: Situation is: A vehicle a pulled up to a U.S. checkpoint, military aged male dismounted from the van produced what appeared to be a weapon. That weapon turned out to be a toy gun cigarette lighter. A gunner from the Diamond element opened fire with 50 caliber fire.
SERGEANT SHORT: A .50 cal. You don't get shot with a .50 cal anywhere and not be seriously wounded.
VOICE ON TWO-WAY RADIO: The ensuing fire resulted in three Iraqis killed and seven seriously wounded.
SOLDIER: : The evil that getting touched off [inaudible] It is an evil.
SOLDIER: : Any children or women?
SERGEANT SHORT: I think there was a woman in the rear vehicle who went into labor.
SOLDIER: : I think this stuff is crazy. Man, I really don't want to be here.
SERGEANT SHORT: Unfortunate, but they got to know that we're serious about this. We're getting our people killed and somebody wants to jump out with a toy pistol and start brandishing it like he's a big boy. He's going to get treated like a big boy.
SERGEANT SHORT: Lock and load, gentlemen.
SERGEANT SHORT: Okay. Let the good times roll.
SERGEANT SHORT: Every time we leave this gate in this truck, it's a terrifying experience..
SERGEANT SHORT: Okay, gentlemen, today we're going to Psalms 4: "But know that the lord has set apart for himself him who is godly. The lord will hear when I call to him. Offer the sacrifices of righteousness and put your trust in the Lord. For you, alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety."
SERGEANT SHORT: So strange being here, I have always heard about the holy land. This is not what I expected. It doesn't feel very holy. The garden of Eden was in Iraq. I can promise you, this is no garden of Eden.
SERGEANT SHORT: Where we're at right now is extremely, extremely hostile.
SOLDIER: : It's also comforting to know none of this stuff is even on the map.
SERGEANT SHORT: I think this is part of Sadr City. Not being able to read a single sign that's out here is also frustrating. We don't know one lick of Arabic. I don't know if they're advertising Taco Bell or if they're advertising lets hey, kill all of the Americans that you can see. And then I know we were told that 98% of the people are glad to see us here. I'm to the point right now where I think 98% of the people don't want us here... Now to the checking of boots... We won't stay here very long. We'll keep moving because we don't want to set up any one place very long, because all that does is give them a chance to call up ahead and set up an ambush for us.
SOLDIER: : Well there's a compartment of some kind... It's welded. Do you want to look through it or no?
SERGEANT SHORT: That's alright
SERGEANT SHORT: I'm not into going out and meeting the people, you know, pressing the flesh, trying to help them out and see what their needs are. They haven't given me time to see what their needs are, because they won't quit attacking me long enough for me to find out what their needs are. I really wish we would have trained more for combat operations. Train for the worst, expect the best. Well, we trained for the best and the worst happened.
AMY GOODMAN: An excerpt of the documentary Off To War: From Rural Arkansas to Baghdad. We'll speak with the filmmakers, Brent and Craig Renault when we come back from our break.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, and we are joined by the filmmakers who are doing a six-part series for Discovery Times called, Off To War: From Rural Arkansas To Baghdad. Brent and Craig Renault, we welcome you both to Democracy Now!
BRENT RENAULT, CRAIG RENAULT: Thank you, Amy.
AMY GOODMAN: It's pretty astounding footage, very honest, the soldiers talking about what they're going through now. In light of this latest news from Iraq, of the unit that has said no, they wouldn't go to Taji, which is where the unit you have been covering is -
BRENT RENAULT: That's right.
AMY GOODMAN: They wouldn't go re-fuel them. Now, the top officer there has been relieved of her duty. Had this ever happened in your unit?
BRENT RENAULT: Well, we arrived in Baghdad with the National Guard unit with Arkansas National Guard in these same sort of unarmored vehicles. Right away in April, which was one of the bloodiest months of the war, when we arrived, there were right off the bat, a lot of injuries and deaths, particularly with Echo Troop, who you just saw in the clip. Within that group, there were a number of guys who refused to go out on missions almost immediately. After they had seen their friends and their fellow soldiers die right in front of them. Fortunately for them, Sergeant Short, who you see in the clip, the one talking in the Humvee, handled it internally, gave them time off, allowed them to get it together, and to get back on the job, but I would say right off the bat, I witnessed about three to four guys who were just saying, "It's too dangerous to go out there. We're dropping like flies," as you also heard it in the clip, and this is a pretty widespread sentiment.
AMY GOODMAN: Has anyone who refused, who then ultimately did go out, get killed or injured?
CRAIG RENAULT: No, not that I'm aware of. The specific guys that Brent is referring to are all back out on missions. A couple of them were actually in the vehicles that you see there in the clip. So, they have gone back out and none of them have died.
AMY GOODMAN: Why are they allowing you to film this? I mean, the soldiers are making some pretty damning comments about what they are being forced to do to the Iraqis, about alienating the Iraqis?
CRAIG RENAULT: Well, Brent and I both grew up in Little Rock, Arkansas. So we are from Arkansas. When we first found out that this Brigade was going to Arkansas [sic], we went to the National Guard, the 39th Brigade in Arkansas and basically said, "We really want to do the film. This is sort of a hometown story for us." This is the largest Brigade since World War II that's going into Iraq, and we wanted to cover the story. So our promise to them was that we would not use any voiceover narration and no music in the body of the show, and we've kept that promise. That's how we have approached this film. We allow the soldiers to speak for themselves, and they have spoken very candidly as we have gone through the documentary.
BRENT RENAULT: Some things like the issue of the armored vehicles, the National Guard themselves have complained about these sorts of things. They would like to bring it to the public's attention to understand they are not as well equipped as the regular Army is.
AMY GOODMAN: How does it work? Explain that. I think it's something new to the American public when these National Guardsmen are saying we're not going to go because we don't have the armored vehicles. What do they mean?
BRENT RENAULT: Well, the way it works is that the units when they go over to Iraq, bring their home vehicles from their home state. Most of them were never in combat. They were doing things like, you know, helping people after floods, cleaning up after tornadoes. They didn't have combat-ready vehicles. But since every unit brought their vehicles with them into Iraq, at least initially, that's the vehicles they had to do their missions with. And the regular Army, by and large, took their vehicles back to the United States with them.
AMY GOODMAN: The documentary airs when?
CRAIG RENAULT: Saturday night, tomorrow night, October 23rd, at 10:00 p.m. Eastern time.
AMY GOODMAN: And Discovery Times is also going to air the first two before it, parts one and two?
CRAIG RENAULT: That's correct.
AMY GOODMAN: Then you're doing four, five and six. Final question, one of the officers saying, we have managed to do almost everything we did not want to do. Repeat that sequence. What did they do?
CRAIG RENAULT: I believe you're referring to Lieutenant Mason. They came into a mission where they had to tear down a fence where they were being shot at. Their convoys were being shot at from behind a fence. So the Lieutenant in the unit had to go out and basically - inform a farmer that they were tearing his fence down. He said there were three things that he hoped not to do that day. One of those things being upsetting Iraqis. He said that was one thing that they definitely did. Another thing was disrupting their water supply for their house. That was broken as well. And so, that - you know, it's one of those missions that you will see in the documentary that presents a challenge for these soldiers. Because they're going out and having to do these type of missions on a daily basis.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want thank you both very much for being with us, watching on tomorrow night on Discovery Times.
BRENT RENAULT, CRAIG RENAULT: Thank you.
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U.S.: Soldiers Failed to Report for Duty
Associated Press
ROBERT BURNS
Oct. 22, 2004
http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/news/politics/9990136.htm
WASHINGTON - More than 800 former soldiers have failed to comply with Army orders to get back in uniform and report for duty in Iraq or Afghanistan, the Army said Friday. That is more than one-third of the total who were told to report to a mobilization station by Oct. 17.
Three weeks ago the number stood at 622 amid talk that any who refused to report for duty could be declared Absent Without Leave. Refusing to report for duty normally would lead to AWOL charges, but the Army is going out of its way to resolve these cases as quietly as possible.
In all, 4,166 members of the Individual Ready Reserve have received mobilization orders since July 6, of which 2,288 were to have reported by Oct. 17. The others are to report in coming weeks and months.
Of those due to have reported by now, 1,445 have done so, but 843 have neither reported nor asked for a delay or exemption. That no-show rate of 37 percent is roughly in line with the one-third rate the Army had forecast when it began the mobilization to fill positions in regular and Reserve units. By comparison, the no-show total of 622 three weeks ago equated to a 35 percent rate.
Of the 843, the Army has had follow-up contact with 383 and is seeking to resolve their cases, according to figures made public Friday. For the 460 others, "We are still working to establish positive contact," the Army said. Some may not have received the mailed orders.
Members of the Individual Ready Reserve, or IRR, are rarely called to active duty. The last time was 1990, when nearly 20,000 were mobilized. IRR members are people who were honorably discharged after finishing their active-duty tours, usually four to six years, but remained in the IRR for the rest of the eight-year commitment they made when they joined the Army. They are separate from the reserve troops who are more routinely mobilized - the National Guard and Reserve.
The Army anticipated, based on past experience, that about one-third of the IRR people it called up would be disqualified for medical or other reasons. The trend so far bears that out.
The Marine Corps, meanwhile, said Friday that a Marine killed in western Iraq earlier this week, Sgt. Douglas E. Bascom, 25, of Colorado Springs, Colo., was a member of the Individual Ready Reserve. He was the first IRR Marine to die in Iraq, according to Gunnery Sgt. Kristine Scharber, a spokeswoman at Marine Corps headquarters in the Pentagon.
There are about 400 IRR Marines deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to Shane Darbonne, a spokesman for the Marine Corps Mobilization Command.
Army officials said they were uncertain whether any of their Individual Ready Reserve members have been killed in Iraq.
That the Army has had to reach so deeply into its store of reserve soldiers is a measure of the strain the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns have put on the active-duty Army. When the American invading force toppled Baghdad in April 2003, the Army thought it would be sending most of its soldiers home within months. Instead, it has kept 100,000 or more there ever since.
While the number of IRR Army soldiers who have failed to comply with their mobilization order has increased this month, so has the number who have asked for a delay or to be excused from serving.
The number who have requested delays or exemptions has grown from 1,498 (out of a total of 3,899 mobilization orders) in late September to 1,671 (out of a total of 4,166 orders) as of Oct. 17. A little over one-third of the requests have been acted on, with 584 approved and 21 denied.
The Army said some withdrew their requests even after they had been approved. It did not say how many.
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
-------- courts / tribunals
Panelists rejected in trials at Gitmo
October 22, 2004
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20041021-113332-5366r.htm
The retired Army general overseeing the trials of at least four accused al Qaeda supporters at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has dismissed three of the six officers who would pass judgment in those cases, after defense lawyers argued potential bias.
The dismissal of the officers came a day after a federal judge ruled that suspects held at Guantanamo must be allowed to meet with lawyers and that their conversations cannot be monitored.
The trials, called commissions by the military, will go ahead on schedule, the Pentagon said yesterday.
Because they need at least three panel members, proceedings will move on for Australian David Hicks and Yemeni Salim Ahmed Salim Hamdan on Nov. 1. Hicks is accused of fighting alongside the Taliban. Hamdan is accused of being one of Osama bin Laden's drivers.
The appointing authority for the commission, retired Army Maj. Gen. John D. Altenburg Jr., upheld the challenge to the three commissioners, but denied requests to dismiss two other panelists. A sixth commissioner was not challenged.
The military did not identify which commissioners had been dismissed.
The presiding officer over the commission, Army Col. Peter E. Brownback, will retain his post. Col. Brownback had been challenged by both prosecutors and defense lawyers over his relationship with Gen. Altenburg.
Gen. Altenburg and Col. Brownback had worked together in Fort Bragg, N.C., and Col. Brownback spoke at Gen. Altenburg's retirement roast and attended the wedding of Gen. Altenburg's son. Col. Brownback's wife also worked in Gen. Altenburg's office.
Replacement commissioners will be appointed for the cases of Ali Hamza Sulayman al-Bahlul, a Yemeni accused of crafting propaganda for al Qaeda, and Ibrahim Ahmed Mahmoud al-Qosi, a Sudan national accused of being an al Qaeda paymaster.
Last month, Col. Brownback recommended the dismissal of two commissioners, including the only alternate, and the retention of two others challenged by defense lawyers.
The two men who Col. Brownback said should step aside were Air Force Lt. Col. Timothy K. Toomey, an intelligence officer who was involved in capture of suspects in Afghanistan, and the alternate, Army Lt. Col. Curt S. Cooper, who acknowledged calling Guantanamo prisoners "terrorists."
Col. Brownback recommended keeping Marine Col. Jack K. Sparks Jr. and Marine Col. R. Thomas Bright.
In a Wednesday ruling on detainees' rights to confidential legal representation, U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly said administration "attempts to erode this bedrock principle" of attorney-client privacy were backed by "a flimsy assemblage" of arguments.
The Supreme Court ruled in June that the 600 foreign-born men then held in the Navy-run prison camp could challenge their captivity in American courts.
Judge Kollar-Kotelly, a former Justice Department lawyer named to the bench by President Clinton, said that would be impossible without legal help.
"They have been detained virtually incommunicado for nearly three years without being charged with any crime. To say that [detainees'] ability to investigate the circumstances surrounding their capture and detention is 'seriously impaired' is an understatement," she wrote.
Wednesday's decision came in the case of three Kuwaiti nationals who have been held since shortly after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.
Government lawyers had agreed to let the men see attorneys, but argued that such permission was not legally required. The government also wanted to monitor the meetings and review attorneys' notes and mail, which Judge Kollar-Kotelly said would infringe on the detainees' attorney-client privilege.
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Panel for Detainees' Cases Cut in Half
By Josh White
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 22, 2004; Page A12
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52680-2004Oct21.html
Half the members of a military commission scheduled to hear the first two cases against Guantanamo Bay detainees were removed from the panel for potential bias after challenges by defense attorneys, the Pentagon announced yesterday.
The move by retired Army Maj. Gen. John D. Altenburg Jr., who supervises the commissions, reduced the panel to three military officers, who will act as judge and jury in the upcoming trials of Australian David Hicks and Yemeni Salim Ahmed Hamdan. The suspects are accused of supporting the Taliban and Osama bin Laden, respectively.
Altenburg denied requests to remove the panel's presiding officer and one other officer who remains on the commission. The sixth member of the panel was not challenged.
Altenburg ruled that the three officers he removed -- a Marine colonel, and lieutenant colonels from the Air Force and the Army -- were not appropriate for the commission because they either were connected to anti-terrorism operations in Afghanistan or had personal beliefs that might have affected their objectivity.
While giving in to the defense requests, Altenburg may also have made it more difficult for Hicks and Hamdan to win their cases. With three panelists remaining, prosecutors and defense attorneys must persuade two to prevail.
When the panel comprised five members and an alternate, prosecutors needed four votes to secure a guilty verdict, according to Navy Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift, Hamdan's defense attorney.
"The relief we've been granted is completely illusionary," Swift said, arguing that the scales have now been tipped against his client. "It only looks good if you don't look close."
Swift said he had expected anyone dismissed from the panel to be replaced, but Pentagon officials said in a statement yesterday that Altenburg had decided to go with a three-member panel, the minimum, for the cases against Hicks and Hamdan.
In a 28-page ruling released yesterday, Altenburg wrote that the testimony of the three dismissed officers in preliminary hearings revealed the potential for bias. Though Altenburg did not identify the officers by name in his ruling, sources confirmed that Marine Col. R. Thomas Bright, Army Lt. Col. Curt Cooper and Air Force Lt. Col. Timothy Toomey were excused from the commission.
Defense attorneys had challenged the appointments of Bright and Toomey because of their connections to the global war on terrorism. Toomey served as an intelligence officer in Afghanistan and Iraq. Bright helped plan the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, supervised the processing of Taliban detainees to the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and likely handled the transfer of both Hamdan and Hicks.
"Both officers were actively involved in planning or executing sensitive operations in both Afghanistan and Iraq and are intimately familiar with the operations and deployments in support of these two campaigns, campaigns that resulted in the capture of the detainees who will appear before these commissions," Altenburg wrote.
"These experiences create a reasonable and significant doubt as to the ability of these two members to decide these cases fairly and impartially."
Altenburg ruled that Cooper had expressed strong opinions about the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and once said that all detainees held at Guantanamo Bay were terrorists. Altenburg said that was enough to preclude him from serving on the panel.
Defense attorneys first lodged their complaints during hearings in August, and prosecutors ultimately dropped their opposition to the removal of the three commission members whom Altenburg removed.
Proceedings against Hamdan and Hicks are scheduled to continue Nov. 1.
--------
Iraqis take contractors to court over Abu Ghraib
PRISON ABUSE: In an attempt to hold civilian contractors responsible for torture, 13 people have filed suits against firms contracting services to American forces in Iraq
AP
Oct 22, 2004
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2004/10/22/2003207960
Weeks before anyone published the now-infamous photographs of prisoner abuse in Iraq, Shereef Akeel, an Egyptian-American lawyer working outside Detroit, received a strange visitor. The caller, an Iraqi with Swedish citizenship, walked into Akeel's office one day in March to tell a horrible story: He had been tortured by Americans at Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad.
"Abu what?" Akeel asked.
The visitor, whom Akeel will identify only as "Saleh," explained he had been held at Abu Ghraib, Saddam Hussein's most notorious prison, not once, but twice.
The first time, he said, was for opposing Saddam's regime. After his release, he fled to Sweden. But in September of last year, he said, he returned to Iraq, answering the US' call for expatriates to come home and rebuild their country.
He crossed the border from Jordan in a Mercedes loaded with US$70,000 in cash, he said. He was stopped by Americans who took his car, his cash, and threw him into Abu Ghraib, he said. There he remained for three months, he said, and he never saw his car or his money again.
His story is among the worst told by 13 Iraqis who have filed two unusual lawsuits -- longshot attempts to hold American civilian contractors responsible for torture in Iraq, allegations that they strongly deny.
According to Saleh, his second stay at Abu Ghraib was his worst. While being held by American civilians working at the prison, Saleh claimed:
His genitals were beaten with a stick and then tied by rope to the genitals of other prisoners. A guard pushed one man down, causing the others to fall like dominoes.
He was beaten, shocked with electricity, forced to masturbate before others, dragged by a belt tied around his neck, and pistol-whipped.
He heard the screams of an Iraqi woman being raped by a US guard.
He saw other male prisoners beaten and watched a guard shoot into a crowd of detainees, killing at least five men, including one he had befriended.
After the Americans released him, Saleh again fled to Sweden. In March, he traveled to Michigan to visit his mother. It was there he heard about Akeel, who had gained prominence after Sept. 11, 2001, for filing anti-discrimination lawsuits on behalf several members of Detroit's large Arab-American community.
After Akeel accepted Saleh's case, word spread. Relatives of other detainees began calling, Akeel said, and he soon had more clients than he could handle. The case was getting too big.
He sought help from The Center for Constitutional Rights, a New York-based organization dedicated to racial equality. In June, they filed a lawsuit in San Diego, California, on behalf of eight Iraqis -- including Saleh and a widow who said her husband was killed at Abu Ghraib -- and a potential class of more than 1,000 people. The suits were filed not against the US military but against giant American firms providing interrogators and translators to occupying forces in Iraq.
One month later, on the other side of the country, other lawyers filed a similar lawsuit in Washington, DC, on behalf of five people, former prisoners and, again, a woman who said her husband was killed in custody.
The 13 Iraqis all claim they were imprisoned and interrogated by Americans, but never charged with any crime. Some were held for days, some for months. The federal lawsuits allege prisoners were killed, raped and tortured at prisons including Abu Ghraib, an adjacent facility at Camp Ganci and Camp Bucca in Southern Iraq.
The defendants are Virginia-based CACI International Inc and Titan Corp of San Diego, suppliers of thousands of interrogators and translators to military units in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Also named as defendants are three civilian employees: interrogator Stephen Stephanowicz of CACI, and translators John Israel and Adel Nakhla of Titan. Israel worked for a Titan subsidiary. All three, the suits claim, committed acts of torture.
The private companies deny the allegations, which CACI called in a statement "a malicious and farcical recitation of false statements and intentional distortions."
-------- homeland security / national intelligence
In Test, X-Rays Scan Cars as Part of Antiterror Effort
October 22, 2004
By IVER PETERSON
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/22/nyregion/22detect.html
CAPE MAY, N.J., Oct. 21 - The Department of Homeland Security has deployed a mobile X-ray truck here in an experimental program of peeking into the unoccupied cars of drivers waiting to board the ferry to Delaware.
The program, which began a testing period Thursday, uses a van that previously has been deployed in border cargo searches to take X-ray pictures of parked cars. The low dosage X-ray shows any organic material, including explosives and drugs, as a dense white mass on a computer screen, while steel and other materials appear in ghostly outline.
The van snaps pictures as it moves along a line of cars at the pace of a stroll, but the manufacturer says the unit can scan when moving at up to six miles per hour.
Federal officials said that because the scans would be voluntary, no privacy issues were involved. Edward L. Barocas, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey, said he could not discuss the new surveillance program in detail until he became familiar with it, but said drivers generally have an expectation of privacy for those parts of their cars that are not visible to those outside.
He said the United States Supreme Court ruled in 2001 that it was illegal for authorities to search homes from outside using infrared scanning without a search warrant, but also noted, "Obviously in border searches the government is given a much broader leeway than elsewhere."
The cars scanned Thursday were rental cars used by government workers participating in a demonstration. It took less than a minute for the van to pass each car.
For now, the scan at the Cape May-Lewes Ferry will be voluntary, said Carol DiBattiste, deputy director of the Transportation Security Administration, which is under the Department of Homeland Security. Drivers who agree to have their car scanned during the 30-day testing phase will be asked to leave their cars, and to remove pets. The X-ray dosage is not harmful to photographic film, food or any other contents of the car, officials said.
Ms. DiBattiste said a decision to make the inspections compulsory had not been made. She said the X-ray unit eventually could be deployed to scan cars in any setting.
"Right now our focus is on ferries," Ms. DiBattiste said, "but eventually this technology could be used for any vehicle security information." Ms. DiBattiste said the ferry vehicle scanning program was part of an effort to use advanced technology in the government's crime prevention and antiterror efforts, including iris scans and fingerprint readers to confirm the identities of workers at airports and other security areas.
The $600 X-ray unit is called the Z Backscatter Van, and was developed and built by American Science & Engineering Inc. of Billerica, Mass. The company says about 60 vans have been sold to various governments.
--------
The new COINTELPRO
The feds are spying on - and harassing - political activists with a fury not seen since the 1960s
San Francisco Bay Guardian
By Camille T. Taiara
Oct. 22 - Oct. 28, 2003
http://www.sfbg.com/39/03/cover_anniversary_cointelpro.html
EARLY THIS MONTH the federal government launched the latest crude offensive in its so-called war on terror. Titled the October Plan, the program called for "aggressive - even obvious - surveillance" of a wide range of individuals (regardless of whether or not they're suspected of any criminal wrongdoing) until the Nov. 2 presidential election, according to an internal document leaked to the press.
The plan - a collaboration between the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and other agencies - involves renewed scrutiny of mosques and interrogations of people whose national origin, religious faith, or political leanings might, in the eyes of the feds, indicate even the most far-flung relationship to "terrorism."
Immigrants and others interviewed by the FBI have been "questioned about immigration status - theirs and others' - and about their political and religious views," the National Lawyers Guild's Stacey Tolchin said at an emergency press conference called by the San Francisco branch of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, the Bay Area Association of Muslim Lawyers, the NLG, and the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California.
For staffers at these organizations, responding to these kinds of crackdowns has become alarmingly routine. This is the fifth round of FBI "informal interviews" targeting immigrants based on their national origin, religion, and, increasingly, their political views.
No one knows just how many have been deported as a result of the interviews or of the various dragnets conducted over the past three years. Local NLG attorney Nancy Hormachae reported that at least 13,000 people were forced into deportation hearings as the result of the notorious Special Registration program alone. And the fact that none of these campaigns has proffered a single al-Qaeda operative hasn't deterred the Bush administration a bit.
So far, immigrant Muslims and those from the Middle East and Central Asia have suffered the brunt of the Bush administration's attacks on civil liberties. But as NLG immigration attorney Mark Van Der Hout told me, "Going after immigrants is just the first step towards going after U.S. citizens."
Indeed, a look at the past three years shows that Attorney General John Ashcroft's offensive has widened to include a range of citizens whose only real crime is their opposition to the Bush administration's policies. The FBI comes calling
President George W. Bush, Aschroft, and company have made it easier to spy on everyday citizens without probable cause of criminal activity, even allowing for the indefinite detention of Americans dubbed "enemy combatants," without charges or access to a lawyer. They've eviscerated laws meant to keep a wall between the CIA and the FBI and erected an extensive domestic-spying infrastructure, enlisting private citizens and relying on private industry to a degree never seen before. Today federal agencies are maintaining a grand total of 10 domestic watch lists.
The Bush administration has shifted federal funding away from traditional law enforcement and toward domestic spying, explained John Crew, an attorney with the ACLU of Northern California specializing in police practices and surveillance issues. "A lot of this activity is, in fact, being carried out by local police working with the Joint Terrorism Task Force," he told me, explaining that those agents are considered "federalized." They report to the FBI. Local city officials - even local police chiefs - are often not aware of what these "special officers" are doing.
As the Bush administration loosened professional standards for law enforcement, it simultaneously increased financial incentives for conducting surveillance, Crew continued. "To qualify for grants, [local law enforcement] must have organizations in their locale that are threats," he said. "They have to justify their own budget by amplifying the threat factor."
Here in San Francisco, the FBI was to assign 27 special agents - two with supervisory powers - to the San Francisco Police Department, according to a November 2002 agreement between the two agencies. The SFPD was to assign one investigator from its Intelligence Unit to coordinate supervision of the special agents alongside the FBI's two supervisory special agents.
"We don't usually don't know what they're really up to until many years later, if ever," Crew said.
Details of just how law enforcement is making use of its expanded powers remain clouded in secrecy. But one thing is clear: it doesn't take much to earn a surprise visit from federal agents these days.
Just ask San Francisco resident Denver Duffer. Duffer was questioned by a state trooper and a cop in Blair, Neb., during a three-week road trip last month. He had stopped to admire "a beautiful old railroad bridge over the Missouri River," wrote former roommate and Daily Journal staff writer Peter Blumberg in the Daily Journal, and had taken a few photos on his point-and-shoot. The officers had received several calls from concerned citizens reporting that a bearded Arab had been photographing the bridge's foundations.
After grilling Duffer and rifling through his car and luggage, the officers let him go. But three weeks later, two FBI special agents appeared at Duffer's home.
The G-men let him off the hook after questioning him and Blumberg for 20 minutes and looking at the panoramic photos Duffer had shot during his trip. But the visit raised a disturbing question: how did a false tip, checked out and then dismissed by local cops in Nebraska, wind up on the desk of FBI agents in San Francisco?
Just a week before Duffer's Nebraska run-in, 19-year-old Derek Kjar of Salt Lake City had also found himself being grilled by two agents - at least one from the Secret Service - after a neighbor called the feds to report a bumper sticker on Kjar's car that read, "King George - Off with his head."
"They said it was 'borderline terrorism,' " Kjar told Matthew Rothschild, a reporter for the Progressive's online McCarthyism Watch.
Media reports have documented dozens of such incidents over the past three years.
Viewed piecemeal, these episodes are troubling enough. But when considered alongside other disturbing patterns, they point to a much more insidious, Machiavellian offensive against everyday activists who dare to organize in opposition to the Bush administration's draconian policies.
These patterns provide evidence that, despite official claims to the contrary, law enforcement may be directing much of its domestic antiterrorism efforts into COINTELPRO-style programs - keeping tabs on activists and otherwise assaulting legitimate dissent.
"If you're going to start focusing on people not because they're engaged in violent activity - if the focus of your approach is going to be because of the political views that they hold - then inevitably that's going to lead to the kind of political disruption that was used in COINTELPRO," Center for Constitutional Rights legal director Jeff Fogel told me. "To me, that's the logical result." The criminal Quakers
A rash of scandals involving sinister, new intelligence outfits corroborate Fogel's suspicions.
In March 2002, the Denver ACLU filed a class action suit against the local police department that eventually uncovered proof that Denver cops had been monitoring and keeping files on more than 3,200 individuals and 208 organizations - the vast majority of whom posed no threat - despite a city policy prohibiting intelligence gathering not directly associated with criminal activities. Among what became know in the local press as the "Denver spy files" were documents labeling the American Friends Service Committee, an 85-year-old pacifist Quaker group, as one of numerous "criminal extremists."
"We got, through discovery, documents indicating that the [FBI's] Joint Terrorism Task Force was also collecting information about people's peaceful activities - activities that solely involve political views, not criminal activity," Mark Silverman, legal director for the Denver ACLU, told me.
One year after the "Denver spy files" scandal and closer to home, internal documents originally released in response to a public records request by the Oakland Tribune revealed that the California Anti-Terrorism Information Center - launched just two weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks - had been monitoring protest activities throughout the state and had "issued 30 special advisories that mention political groups in the Bay Area alone," reporters Ian Hoffman and Sean Holstege wrote in a July 15, 2003, article. Included among the groups: the International Action Center, Direct Action to Stop the War, Not in Our Name, Critical Mass, Black Bloc, the Ruckus Society, the Bay Area Independent Media Center, and various environmental, animal rights, peace, and nuclear disarmament organizations.
The exposé prompted state attorney general Bill Lockyer to issue a series of guidelines banning California law-enforcement agencies from monitoring political and religious groups without reasonable suspicion of a crime.
New guidelines didn't come soon enough for members of Peace Fresno. On Sept. 1, 2003, members of the antiwar group were surprised to find an obituary in the Fresno Bee for Aaron Stokes, a man they'd thought was part of their organization - but whom the paper identified as a local sheriff's department officer. As it turned out, Stokes (who'd died in a motorcycle accident) had belonged to the Fresno County Sheriff Department's Anti-Terrorism Unit. He'd infiltrated Peace Fresno and conducted undercover surveillance of the group and its members for six months.
"What they do with that information ... who knows," Denver ACLU's Silverstein cautioned.
Meanwhile, the FBI continues to issue secret Intelligence Bulletins similar to CATIC's on a weekly basis. The FBI requires law-enforcement agencies nationwide to keep an eye on "possible indicators of protest activity and report any potentially illegal acts to the nearest FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force," according to a leaked FBI Intelligence Bulletin issued Oct. 15, 2003. Preemptive strikes
Paul Bame, a 45-year-old software engineer in Fort Collins, Colo., returned from his lunch break on July 23 to find a security guard waiting at his desk. The guard escorted him to the building lobby, where FBI agent Ted Faul was waiting for him.
As it turns out, Faul had looked for Bame at home the evening before and spoken to one of his neighbors, then left Bame a phone message. Bame had called back the agent in the morning and left a message on his voice mail.
Faul appeared at Bame's work, unannounced, anyway.
The agent wanted to know if Bame - a pacifist who'd been arrested on minor infractions at the 2002 anti-World Bank and International Monetary Fund protest in Washington, D.C., and at the anti-Free Trade Area of the Americas demonstrations in Miami last November - had knowledge of any plans to disrupt the Republican National Convention taking place a month later.
Faul warned the activist that it's a crime to have such knowledge and not disclose it. He came equipped with a thin folder bearing Bame's name.
"I was shaking with terror," Bame told me in a phone interview. "To visit my home, call, and visit me at work, all within an eight-hour work day, shows a sense of urgency, like he was tracking down a criminal."
Faul decided not to push for an interview after Bame told him he wouldn't speak without a lawyer present. But "his role was done when he came to the door," Bame said. "My feeling is that they wanted to make it known that they were watching.
Bame was just one of numerous activists approached by special agents in different parts of the country prior to the RNC. But the campaign didn't end with these interviews.
Just a couple of weeks earlier, on Aug. 15, the New York Times broke the story - leaked by someone inside the FBI - that six-person teams of federal agents had been assigned to trail 56 activists from around the country, beginning immediately and continuing until the end of the anti-RNC protest activities.
This reporter experienced the joys of being followed by what appeared to be undercover cops while in New York for the anti-RNC activities too. (They denied being officers.) I'd met up with a small group of activists who'd called saying they were being followed for the third time. The undercovers stalked the group everywhere we went, for hours. They'd mention details of where some of the activists were from and where they'd been. They harangued us - creating suspicion about us to people on the street and trying to instigate a confrontation (see "The Intimidators," 9/8/04).
In fact, the campaign against activists that preceded the RNC was just one of the recent preemptive strikes in the weeks and months leading up to major demonstrations in the United States.
Three university students from Kirksville, Mo., were among the targets prior to the Democratic National Convention in Boston. They reported being trailed 24 hours a day and interrogated by the FBI in late July and "were then subpoenaed to appear before a grand jury on the very day they were planning to be in Boston for [the protest]," Matthew Rothschild reported for The Progressive's McCarthyism Watch Web site. Agents also questioned their parents.
Of course, the government practice of keeping tabs on dissenters is nothing new. In June 2000, Bay Area anti-globalization activist David Solnit was stopped by Canadian officers after arriving in Windsor. They had a printout about him provided by the FBI, Solnit told Bay Guardian reporter A.C. Thompson at the time. Solnit wound up spending four days in the brink before being released without charges and warned to leave the country (see "Big Brother Was Watching," 10/18/01).
Other outspoken advocates of nonviolent civil disobedience have had similar experiences while trying to travel to Canada or returning to the United States from abroad. Their experiences indicate that the feds have been sharing intelligence on U.S. activists with other countries for some time now.
Starhawk and a friend were stopped by immigration agents when they flew into Ottawa, Canada, in 2001. She was allowed to enter the country after officials questioned her and checked her bags, but her friend was detained. Records turned up as part of a lawsuit later filed by her friend showed that the Canadian officials had stopped Starhawk based on information about her arrest during the 1999 World Trade Organization demonstrations in Seattle, she said. (She'd been arrested for obstructing a pedestrian and spent five days in jail before the charges were dropped. "I was never convicted of anything," she told me.)
Starhawk, a 40-year-old veteran of progressive movements, reported being stopped every time she flies into Canada now.
Five customs agents greeted her in Los Angeles as she exited a plane returning from the WTO protests held in Cancun little more than a year ago.
"There's definitely been a dramatic escalation in these kinds of activities since [the anti-WTO protests in] Seattle, and particularly since Sept. 11," Solnit told me. "They're criminalizing the concept of protest."
I've spoken with and received e-mails from numerous activists - in northern California, the Los Angeles region, Boston, New York, and New Jersey - over the past month detailing similar experiences. They describe being approached by federal agents asking them to reveal protest plans and names of other activists, and being trailed.
"The only things we know about the October Plan is what's been leaked," Crew of the ACLU of Northern California said, adding that there are no guarantees that U.S.-born activists aren't being targeted as part of that surveillance scheme too. Media mouthpieces
During the week of the RNC protests in August, the New York-based Daily News published an article titled "Anarchists Hot for Mayhem," cautioning New Yorkers about 50 activists in town to create havoc. The New York Post published an equally scandalous report on some of the very same protesters. "Finest Prep for Anarchy," screamed the headline.
Solnit, Starhawk, and other prominent (and avowedly nonviolent) political organizers were on the list, their photos displayed prominently in the Daily News' pages.
Solnit and Starhawk said nobody from the News or the Post ever called them for comment.
That kind of sensational behavior might be typical (if inexcusable) for the scandal-loving New York tabs - but it didn't end there. ABC's eminently respectable Nightline followed suit, in a segment titled "Vote 2004: Protecting the Republican National Convention" featuring officers of the NYPD and the Secret Service.
On Aug. 31, the same evening President Bush officially accepted the Republican Party's nomination at Madison Square Garden, viewers across the nation watched Ted Koppel warn Americans about more than two dozen activists whom he referred to as "particularly troublesome, even dangerous anarchists who infiltrate other groups and then try to provoke violence."
The segment included mug shots of the suspects, fed to the media by local authorities. Solnit's photo from when he'd been arrested at the FTAA protests in Miami was among them.
"That's as serious as it gets," CCR's Fogel said. "The same way they use the word '9/11' in connection with Iraq, without ever saying 'Iraq caused 9/11,' in the hopes that people will believe that there's a connection between 9/11 and Iraq - it's the same as the association of the word 'terrorism' and protest activity. The equation of the word 'anarchism' with violence is an extraordinary equation. I don't know where that comes from except their desire to paint particular people with a particular viewpoint as being violent. Because there is no connection between those two things."
(Interestingly, Solnit doesn't even describe himself as an anarchist.)
The consequences are two-fold, he said: to "discourage people from attending such demonstrations" and to "negate the impact the protest may have" by casting it in a negative light and characterizing organizers as thugs feeding into the terror threat.
The spoon-feeding of damaging material to the press is eerily reminiscent of what happened to Stanford University professor H. Bruce Franklin in the late 1960s (see "They're Watching," page 19).
Meanwhile, the feds continue to launch assaults against antiwar, grassroots media activists who try to get the other side of the story out. At the behest of the Secret Service - the agency charged with coordinating the law-enforcement response for special security events - the Justice Department subpoenaed New York City's Indymedia Center's Internet service provider in August for records associated with a posting that included the names of RNC delegates.
Authorities subpoenaed San Antonio-based Rackspace, another IMC Web-hosting provider, demanding access to another of the group's servers two weeks ago. Rackspace handed over the data and shut down a second server used to stream various electronic radio programs, without a word to the IMC.
Both servers were situated in London, where Rackspace operates an affiliate company. The move affected approximately two dozen IMC sites throughout the world. Feeling safer?
Civil liberties watchdog groups obviously worry about the chilling effect these kinds of surveillance and crackdowns have on our faltering First and Fourth Amendments. But they also insist that Ashcroft and company's approach isn't making us any safer.
When law enforcement fails to distinguish between violent criminal activity and legitimate dissent - and when it favors collecting as much information on as many people as possible rather than useful intelligence resulting from bona fide criminal investigations - it's "choosing quantity over quality," Crew said. "You develop good leads by generating trust, not by disrespecting people's rights.... [And] if you're looking for a needle in a haystack, adding more hay doesn't help any."
The bills that have recently passed through the House and Senate in response to the 9-11 Commission's findings, reorganizing intelligence gathering and expanding Big Brother's reach even further into our everyday lives, just promise more of the same.
"It's during times of fear when civil liberties are most at risk," Crew said.
Research assistance provided by A.C. Thompson.
E-mail Camille T. Taiara
-------- police
Iraq purging tens of thousands of police officers for corruption, dereliction of duty or loyalty to insurgents
Knight Ridder Newspapers
By Patrick Kerkstra
Oct. 22, 2004
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/9990009.htm
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraq's interim government has purged tens of thousands of unfit officers from the national police force in recent months, but the housecleaning is far from over, U.S. and Iraqi officials said this week.
Widespread reports of corruption and dereliction of duty among the police have prompted the Interior Ministry, with American assistance, systematically to review each officer.
The reviews and purges suggest that much-touted efforts to hand off responsibility for security to Iraqi forces in order to put an Iraqi face on the U.S. occupation were deeply flawed and ineffective.
Those hired by the American-led Coalition Provisional Authority during the chaotic months after Saddam Hussein's regime collapsed are subject to particularly close scrutiny. As the United States scrambled to fill the security void, applicants were poorly screened, and legions of illiterates, convicted criminals and officers sympathetic to the insurgency were given uniforms and guns, Iraqi officials said.
Many of them have drawn paychecks for months while rarely appearing for work.
"The coalition forces made big mistakes after the fall of the regime when they dealt with our security systems. They didn't understand our culture and our needs. They kept hiring Iraqi police officers randomly, without checking their political and social backgrounds," said Qassim Daoud, the minister of state for national security.
Iraqi officials declined to discuss in detail how they were choosing which officers to expel, and they classified the employee reviews as a normal, ongoing process. But senior U.S. officials in Iraq said the review of police, particularly the force's leadership, was accelerating.
"There have been a variety of ongoing efforts since June to figure out what was wrong with the Iraqi forces and to strengthen them, starting with a sharper focus on leadership first and foremost," said a senior American official, speaking on condition of anonymity. "Out of that focus we're starting to see some correcting action."
The police purging is providing a clearer picture of Iraq's security capabilities. The national force stood at a seemingly robust 91,000 in May. But a majority of those officers were either phantoms who never showed up for work or were grossly unqualified. Revised figures put the force at just 40,000.
U.S. and Iraqi officials said recent hires had been subject to more rigorous screening. Training has improved as well, they said.
"We are being more careful; we are investigating people more," said Sabah Kadhim, a spokesman for the Iraqi Interior Ministry. "When you are hurriedly trying to recruit a force, you are obviously going to have a lot of problems, especially if you are an occupying power. We are doing it differently."
He described the vetting of recruits as a simple matter.
"It's very easy in Iraq. Everybody knows everybody's business. So we rely on local people to tell us what they know. If we hear any rumors about a person then we investigate them more," Kadhim said.
Though they acknowledged that more careful hiring and beefed-up training would lengthen the time it took to put police officers on the streets, Iraqi and American officials said they'd learned the perils of rushing ill-prepared and ill-chosen recruits onto the job.
"We are focusing on quality, not quantity," Daoud said. "The process of reviewing the police continues, and at the same time we are feeding our system with battalions of new IP (Iraqi Police)."
Prominent critics in the Iraqi government said the selection of police officers still wasn't thorough enough. Tawfiq al-Yassery, the chair of the Iraqi National Assembly committee on internal security, said hiring and training were rushed.
However, he praised the Interior Ministry for weeding out problem officers, and suggested that other departments in the government should do the same.
"It's a positive step which should have happened a long time ago," he said. "It's time to clean out all the ministries."
(Special correspondents Yasser Salihee and Huda Ahmed contributed to this article.)
-------- POLITICS
A Fading 'Nader Factor'?
Consumer Advocate Has Been Stripped of Much of His Support
October 22, 2004
Washington Post
By Manuel Roig-Franzia and Jonathan Finer
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52671-2004Oct21.html
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla., Oct. 21 -- In a state where he has been vilified by Democrats for siphoning votes from Al Gore in the 2000 presidential election, Ralph Nader was typically unstinting in his criticisms of President Bush and Sen. John F. Kerry on Thursday, referring to the choice facing voters as one between "heart disease and cancer."
It was the final swing through Florida before the Nov. 2 presidential election for the independent candidate, who drew several hundred people to a speech at the University of South Florida here in Pinellas County, the area where he received the most votes in 2000. But even in this bedrock of his small political following, Nader's prospects are bleak.
"This year's tough for him," said Mark Kamleiter, a St. Petersburg lawyer and longtime supporter. "They've turned on him. They're so afraid of Bush."
Nader's dwindling support is no accident. Democrats and left-leaning groups have mounted a months-long legal and public relations campaign to keep the consumer advocate off ballots and otherwise minimize his impact. While independent pollsters and some Kerry strategists say Nader could still have an impact in a number of very closely contested states, Democratic officials seem less concerned that he will influence the 2004 election as they believe he did in 2000.
A survey conducted this month for the Democratic National Committee by pollster Stanley Greenberg showed Nader averaging 1.5 percent of the vote in a dozen battleground states where his name appears on the ballot, compared with about 3 percent in the summer. It also showed that most of the support Nader lost had shifted to Kerry and indicated that his remaining backers would be as likely to vote for Bush as for the Massachusetts Democrat, if Nader were not running.
Speaking about what has become known in the news media as the "Nader factor," Leslie Dach, a senior adviser at the DNC, said: "He is less of a threat to us, clearly, than he was in 2000, less of a threat than he was last summer and less than he was even a few weeks ago."
Four years ago, Nader received about 2.8 million votes nationwide, and Democrats charged that his presence on the ballot handed Bush victories in New Hampshire and Florida. Had the Republican lost either of those states, he would not have become president.
But since that time, legions of Nader's most prominent backers, including his 2000 running mate Winona LaDuke and filmmaker Michael Moore, have urged him to abandon his campaign and asked his followers to support Kerry.
Nader did not secure the endorsement of the Green Party, which nominated him in the past two presidential elections. Democrats and affiliated groups filed a series of lawsuits to keep him off the ballot in key states and starve his campaign of resources. As a result, Nader registers at around 1 percent in most national polls. In the latest sign of his struggles, he disclosed in a Federal Election Commission filing this week that he had lent his cash-strapped campaign $100,000.
Nader has qualified for at least 33 state ballots plus the District's, 10 fewer than he appeared on four years ago. Evidence of fraud on Nader petitions has been found in several states. Judicial processes related to his ballot access in battlegrounds Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania are still playing out.
On Thursday, Nader accused Democrats and Republicans of "political bigotry, dirty tricks and constitutional crimes" aimed at keeping him off presidential ballots.
Speaking to reporters before a campaign address at the University of South Florida at St. Petersburg, Nader said he will push for more information about efforts to undermine his candidacy until "the pus, the mucus and the ooze pours forth."
Some Democrats acknowledge privately that if Kerry loses to Bush it will be harder to portray Nader as a spoiler -- as they did in 2000, or as Republicans did with independent candidate H. Ross Perot in 1992. Polls show that the 2004 election could produce the smallest number of votes for third-party presidential candidates since 1988, when representatives of 17 minor parties earned fewer than 1 million votes.
Groups seeking to minimize Nader's impact are focusing on at least seven states -- Iowa, Florida, Wisconsin, New Mexico, Minnesota, Maine and New Hampshire -- where Bush and Kerry are in a virtual dead heat. In all of those but Minnesota, according to aggregates of nine recent polls compiled by the Web site RealClear Politics, Nader's share of the vote exceeds the thin margin separating Bush and Kerry.
"Yes, we've peeled a lot of votes away over time, but unfortunately we still have many states so close that even a half-percent could matter," said Robert Brandon, who worked with Nader at the activist group Public Citizen in the 1970s and coordinates former associates to oppose Nader's candidacy in battleground states.
In Florida, for example, where Nader received more than 97,000 votes (2 percent) in 2000, and Bush won by 537 votes, the state Supreme Court put Nader on the ballot last month after a lower court ruled him off. He is polling at about 1 percent and has campaigned often in the state.
Predicting the voting behavior of Nader supporters, pollsters say, is extremely difficult, because the sample size is so small. They tend to be younger and slightly less conservative than the voting population as a whole, and are more likely to oppose the Iraq war, said Scott Keeter, director of survey research at the Pew Research Center, which has tracked 125 Nader supporters since August.
Throughout Nader's Florida swing on Thursday, including a 45-minute live interview broadcast on the al-Jazeera television network in which Nader flawlessly delivered several answers in Arabic, he referred to Bush and his brother Jeb Bush, the governor of Florida, as "the Bush Boys and the Bush Gang." The brothers, he said, are responsible for turning Florida into a "political Disneyland."
"Disneyland should open up a new sector which is to show how unscrupulous corporatist politicians fool voters," Nader said at a news conference in Orlando.
Both candidates, he said, are "corporatist politicians" controlled by the large companies that Nader believes hold the true power in the United States. He described Bush as "a giant corporation in the White House disguised as a human being."
Nader will also campaign in closely contested Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Minnesota and New Hampshire before the Nov. 2 election.
The conventional wisdom -- reinforced by GOP efforts in key states to provide signatures for Nader's ballot drives and assist with his litigation -- has long been that Nader's supporters would otherwise back Kerry. A Zogby International survey conducted between March and September showed that nearly three times as many Nader backers prefer the Democrat to the president.
But evidence suggests that anti-Nader efforts have mitigated some of the potential that his candidacy will hurt Kerry. Frank Newport, editor in chief of the Gallup Poll, said his research has shown for months that when Nader is removed from poll questionnaires, the margin separating the two major candidates is unaltered.
Other studies indicate that Nader supporters are unlikely to support either major-party candidate. Pew's Keeter said the majority of the Nader voters he has tracked do not identify with either major political party. Richard Bennett of the New Hampshire-based American Research Group said: "Especially since the debates, where Kerry shored up his base, it does not appear that many of the remaining Nader voters would vote for either Bush or Kerry."
Scott Rasmussen, president of Rasmussen Reports, which offers political analysis to corporate clients, said Nader's supporters are further from the mainstream of the Democratic Party than they were in 2000. "In 2000, if you lined up the characteristics of Nader's supporters and Gore's supporters, they essentially looked the same, in terms of issues and ideology, with the exception being that the Nader people did not like Al Gore."
Democrats and other groups are publicly pressing ahead with their efforts to whittle away Nader's remaining support by claiming that a vote for Nader is akin to a vote for Bush. DNC Chairman Terence R. McAuliffe this week renewed his call for Nader to withdraw from the race, "so that George Bush doesn't get another four years to lead us down the wrong path."
An anti-Nader organization called the Democratic Action Team reinforced that message by running a new television ad this week in Wisconsin, Iowa and New Mexico. Its message: "Ralph, don't do this to us again." A separate print ad campaign against Nader also began this week in 11 swing states, focusing on alternative newspapers.
Democratic officials said that, between now and Nov. 2, they have no plans to send surrogates, such as former Vermont governor Howard Dean, to battleground states to appeal to Nader supporters. Still, one DNC official said, "we don't want to draw too much attention to his candidacy."
-------- budget
Bush Signs $136 Billion Corporate Tax Cut Bill
October 22, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Corporate-Taxes.html?hp&ex=1098504000&en=15c04746668f9e36&ei=5094&partner=homepage
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush showered $136 billion in new tax breaks on businesses, farmers and other groups Friday, quietly signing the most sweeping rewrite of corporate tax law in nearly two decades.
Announcing the action without fanfare aboard Air Force One, the White House said the new law is good for America's workers because it will help create jobs here at home.
The election-year measure is intended to end a bitter trade war with Europe and supporters said it provides critical assistance to beleaguered manufacturers who have suffered 2.7 million lost jobs over the past four years.
The legislation also includes about $10 billion in assistance for tobacco farmers. A Senate provision that would have coupled the assistance with regulation of tobacco by the Food and Drug Administration was dropped by the conference committee that ironed out differences between the two chambers.
Though the legislation provides new tax breaks, Congress' Joint Committee on Taxation says it has no impact on the deficit because it also closes corporate tax loopholes and repeals export subsidies.
Opponents disagree, saying it will swell the nation's huge budget deficit with a massive giveaway that will reward multinational companies that move jobs overseas and add to the complexity of the tax system.
The centerpiece of the tax legislation is $76.5 billion in new tax relief for the battered manufacturing sector. Manufacturing in the law is broadly defined to include not just factories but also oil and gas producers, engineering, construction and architectural firms and large farming operations.
John Kerry's presidential campaign says the assertion that the new law is revenue-neutral is bogus because many of the tax breaks are for only one or two years and probably will be extended by Congress, while revenue-saving offsets are for 10 years.
The law will ``shut down corporate tax abuses -- without increasing the federal deficit,'' insisted House Ways and Means Committee chairman Bill Thomas, R-Calif.
There was no signing ceremony.
``This legislation will end the European sanctions on American exports, and it will help promote the competitiveness of American manufacturers and other job creators, and help create jobs here in America,'' White House spokesman Scott McClellan said on the campaign trail in Wilkes-Barre, Pa.
Kerry missed the vote on the corporate tax breaks. Kerry spokesman Phil Singer said that ``in his first budget, John Kerry will call for the repeal of all the unwarranted international tax breaks that George Bush included in this bill.''
The handling of the corporate tax bill stood in contrast with Bush's action on Oct. 4 when he sat before television cameras on a stage in Des Moines, Iowa, to sign three tax-cut breaks popular with middle-class voters and revive other tax incentives for businesses.
The original purpose for the legislation was to repeal a $5 billion annual tax break provided to American exporters that was ruled illegal by the Geneva-based World Trade Organization. Repeal of the tax break was needed to lift retaliatory tariffs on more than 1,600 American manufactured products and farm goods exported to Europe.
The tariffs now stand at 12 percent and are rising by 1 percentage point a month.
The measure is the most sweeping overhaul of corporate tax law since 1986. It replaces a 10-year, $49.2 billion export tax break with $136 billion in new tax breaks for a wide array of groups from farmers, fishermen and bow and arrow hunters to some of America's largest corporations. Among the beneficiaries: native Alaskan whalers, importers of Chinese ceiling fans and NASCAR race track owners.
Within hours of the bill's signing, the Bush campaign issued news releases tailored to individual battleground states such as Pennsylvania and Ohio praising the new law as a jobs creation act for manufacturers and small businesses.
Among the beneficiaries: military contractors General Dynamics and Northrup Grumman and some Houston companies that have reincorporated in foreign tax havens.
-------- propaganda wars
Top polls prove reliable in picking election winners
October 22, 2004
By Guy Taylor
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20041021-113330-9305r.htm
Several major polling organizations have impressive track records of accurately predicting the outcomes of presidential elections, even though it might have been impossible to predict the chaos of November 2000.
Although the Harris Poll was the lone organization to predict an exact tie in that election, a Zogby poll and one by Gallup/CNN/USA Today both came within two percentage points: Zogby had Al Gore winning, Gallup had George Bush winning, each by two points.
Be it Gallup, Zogby, Harris, Pew Research Center for the People and the Press or any of the myriad major news organization polls, on average they've gotten it right within three percentage points of the real election results since 1984.
And, there's no evidence of any systematic bias toward Republicans or Democrats during that time.
Voters are hesitant to rely on polls, said Harris Poll chairman Humphrey Taylor, which serve as the backbone of most of the punditry filling newspapers and airtime in the lead up to the one poll that actually counts.
"People are skeptical," Mr. Taylor said. "It's counterintuitive to many people that you can interview 1,000 people and get an accurate cross-section of the population."
The main reason that people don't trust polls, he said, is that "most Democrats talk mostly to Democrats, and Republicans talk mostly to Republicans. ... Both sides think the polls are against them."
Lee Miringoff, president of the National Council on Public Polls (NCPP), said somehow, the polls "are perceived as being something different than collections of people's attitudes."
Mr. Miringoff said a similar phenomena can be seen in the way "people watch news and read newspapers, but don't trust the media."
"They read their newspaper religiously and they watch their news shows and they participate in polls and are interested in poll results; they just don't like reporters or pollsters," he said.
Mr. Miringoff said the general public sees reporters and pollsters as filters that have the potential to somehow skew the truth.
But, he said, there is "no evidence" that polling organizations intentionally do that because "accuracy is what puts food on the table."
The pre-2000 election polls were the most accurate in recent history, with several organizations predicting that Mr. Gore and Mr. Bush would end up within two percentage points of each other.
By contrast, 1996 was one of the least accurate. Although every major poll predicted that Bill Clinton would defeat Bob Dole, most were off by more than three percentage points in predicting how much of the vote each candidate would get.
Meanwhile, 1996 and 2000 saw an increase in the number of major polls conducted, with nine in 1996 and 10 in 2000, according to the NCPP.
The oldest is Gallup, which has delivered predictions since 1936, when Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt beat Republican challenger Alfred M. Landon. George Gallup had begun conducting polls after founding the American Institute of Public Opinion in 1935.
Mr. Gallup was the only major pollster until the Harris organization conducted its first before the 1964 face-off between President Lyndon B. Johnson and Barry M. Goldwater. By 1980, major networks and newspapers had joined the mix, which today includes more than a dozen major polls.
--------
U.S. Agrees to Waivers in Hatfill Suit
Officials Could Free Reporters From Confidentiality Promises
By Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 22, 2004; Page A09
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52780-2004Oct21.html
Attorneys for former Army scientist Steven J. Hatfill won the federal government's agreement yesterday to a plan that could speed the questioning of journalists about the source of leaks in the massive anthrax investigation.
The Justice Department agreed to present "voluntary" waivers to specific Justice and FBI employees, who can then choose whether to release reporters from their promises of confidentiality so they can talk to Hatfill's attorneys.
Steven J. Hatfill says he has been defamed in the anthrax probe.
Hatfill's attorneys have been attempting to track the reporters' sources as part of a lawsuit accusing Attorney General John D. Ashcroft and other federal officials of defamation. The suit accuses federal authorities of tarnishing Hatfill with public statements and private leaks that described him as a "person of interest" in the investigation into the anthrax-laced mailings that killed five people and sickened 17 others in late 2001.
U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton said Hatfill deserves a thorough investigation of his claim that top federal law enforcement officials illegally leaked information about him. Hatfill, a physician and bioterrorism expert, has not been charged with a crime and has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.
Although the lawsuit was filed last year, it has been stalled by the judge, who agreed to Justice Department requests to delay the questioning of federal officials. The government has argued that the questioning would jeopardize the sensitive and ongoing anthrax investigation.
Walton agreed in February to permit the questioning of reporters. But Hatfill's attorneys said they did not make an effort to do so because, without waivers freeing reporters of confidentiality agreements, they expected an expensive legal battle with news organizations. The judge urged the government to strike a compromise on that issue with Hatfill's attorneys.
Justice Department attorney Elizabeth Shapiro told the judge that the government was making an "extraordinary concession" and said she wanted to be sure employees knew that they were under no obligation to sign the waivers, which are expected to be presented to them in November.
Even without the waivers, Hatfill's attorneys could press to question reporters. And journalists could challenge any bid to force them to name their sources.
Journalists and free-speech advocates yesterday decried the maneuver as an attack on the public's right to know and news organizations' right to gather information from confidential sources. They said government employees who choose not to sign the waivers would have reason to fear being fired or viewed as suspect. They maintained that reporters should be questioned only as a last resort in a civil suit about government leaks and that, in this case, the government should be answering questions.
"There's a full frontal assault on the First Amendment and the press," said Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. "The government is saying, 'We won't give you what you want, but we'll make it possible for the media to violate all of their fundamental principles.' There's something wrong with this picture."
The Hatfill case marked the third time in a year that a judge at the federal courthouse in Washington has ordered or approved the questioning of journalists.
Chief Judge Thomas F. Hogan ordered several reporters in recent months to answer a special prosecutor's questions about whether Bush administration officials knowingly leaked the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame. Hogan found two journalists in contempt of his order, and they face jail time. They are appealing.
Some reporters ultimately agreed to answer limited questions about their private talks with one senior official, Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, after he waived their confidentiality agreements as they related to questions about Plame.
In a separate civil suit, Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson ordered journalists last year to answer questions concerning their conversations with government officials about a spy investigation targeting former Los Alamos Nuclear Laboratory scientist Wen Ho Lee. Jackson ruled that reporters were a last-resort option, after dozens of government officials questioned under oath denied knowing anything about leaks of private information about Lee or his family.
-------- us politics
Campaign spending nears $4 billion, a record level
October 22, 2004
By Jennifer Harper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20041021-113328-4826r.htm
Make that billions not millions: Campaign spending is off the chart.
At $1.2 billion, this is the most expensive presidential election in history. Add congressional races and the total reaches almost $4 billion - a 30 percent increase from four years ago, according to an analysis of campaign finance figures released yesterday by the District-based Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan research group.
Intense interest and the pocketbooks of generous private citizens could hold the key.
"The 2004 presidential and congressional elections will shatter previous records for spending, and the biggest reason is the increase in giving by individuals to campaigns and parties," said Larry Noble, the center's director.
Indeed, individual contributions to both federal candidates and political parties ultimately will total about $2.5 billion, based on current figures from the Federal Election Commission and the Internal Revenue Service.
Four years ago, the figure was $1.5 billion.
Women in particular are more generous, the study found, contributing almost 30 percent of party donations exceeding $200 this year. In the previous election, they gave just more than 23 percent; in 1996, the figure stood at 21 percent.
Election Day looms in a little more than a week, but frantic fund raising continues. Though he continues to recuperate from heart bypass surgery, former President Bill Clinton went to bat for Sen. John Kerry and the Democratic National Committee, calling for contributions from party loyalists in an e-mail message Wednesday.
"The future of our country is at stake," Mr. Clinton stated.
Since Oct. 1, political action committees and other organizations - from the American Nurses Association to the Marijuana Policy Project - shelled out almost $43 million on campaign spots and contributions for President Bush, Mr. Kerry and other candidates.
The "527 groups," named after a section of the tax code, continue to be generous. The analyses estimated that groups such as the pro-Bush Swift Boat Veterans and POWs for Truth or Kerry loyalists at MoveOn.org eventually will contribute $187 million to their respective favorites when all is said and done.
"This is a conservative figure," the study noted.
Mr. Bush and Mr. Kerry each ended September with about $37 million in their campaign war chests, according to an Associated Press estimate yesterday.
The Republican National Committee, meanwhile, had $71 million at the beginning of this month, after spending almost $57 million but also raising $34.5 million in September. The Democratic National Committee began October with $42 million, spent $77 million last month and raised $63 million.
Although critics charge that costly negative or misleading campaign blitzes alienate a weary public from politics and elections, University of Wisconsin political scientist John Coleman believes they do the country some good.
"Studies indicate that campaign spending does not diminish trust, efficacy, and involvement," Mr. Coleman wrote in his own analysis earlier this year. "Spending increases public knowledge of the candidates, across essentially all groups in the population. ... Getting more money into campaigns should, on the whole, be beneficial to American democracy."
--------
THE BUSH RECORD:
War on Terrorism Afghanistan, Iraq: Two Wars Collide
By Barton Gellman and Dafna Linzer
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, October 22, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52673-2004Oct21.html
In the second half of March 2002, as the Bush administration mapped its next steps against al Qaeda, Deputy CIA Director John E. McLaughlin brought an unexpected message to the White House Situation Room. According to two people with firsthand knowledge, he told senior members of the president's national security team that the CIA was scaling back operations in Afghanistan.
That announcement marked a year-long drawdown of specialized military and intelligence resources from the geographic center of combat with Osama bin Laden. As jihadist enemies reorganized, slipping back and forth from Pakistan and Iran, the CIA closed forward bases in the cities of Herat, Mazar-e Sharif and Kandahar. The agency put off an $80 million plan to train and equip a friendly intelligence service for the new U.S.-installed Afghan government. Replacements did not keep pace with departures as case officers finished six-week tours. And Task Force 5 -- a covert commando team that led the hunt for bin Laden and his lieutenants in the border region -- lost more than two-thirds of its fighting strength.
The commandos, their high-tech surveillance equipment and other assets would instead surge toward Iraq through 2002 and early 2003, as President Bush prepared for the March invasion that would extend the field of battle in the nation's response to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Bush has shaped his presidency, and his reelection campaign, around the threat that announced itself in the wreckage of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Five days after the attacks, he made it clear that he conceived a broader war. Impromptu remarks on the White House South Lawn were the first in which he named "this war on terrorism," and he cast it as a struggle with "a new kind of evil." Under that banner he toppled two governments, eased traditional restraints on intelligence and law enforcement agencies, and reshaped the landscape of the federal government.
As the war on terrorism enters its fourth year, its results are sufficiently diffuse -- and obscured in secrecy -- to resist easy measure. Interpretations of the public record are also polarized by the claims and counterclaims of the presidential campaign. Bush has staked his reelection on an argument that defense of the U.S. homeland requires unyielding resolve to take the fight to the terrorists. His opponent, Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), portrays the Bush strategy as based on false assumptions and poor choices, particularly when it came to Iraq.
The contention that the Iraq invasion was an unwise diversion in confronting terrorism has been central to Kerry's critique of Bush's performance. But this account -- drawn largely from interviews with those who have helped manage Bush's offensive -- shows how the debate over that question has echoed within the ranks of the administration as well, even among those who support much of the president's agenda.
Interviews with those advisers also highlight an internal debate over Bush's strategy against al Qaeda and allied jihadists, which has stressed the "decapitation" of the network by capturing or killing leaders, but which has had less success in thwarting recruitment of new militants.
At the core of Bush's approach is an offensive strategy abroad that Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said complements the defensive efforts he oversees at home. In an interview, Ridge said Bush's priority is to "play as hard and strong an offense as possible," most of it "offshore, overseas."
Published and classified documents and interviews with officials at many levels portray a war plan that scored major victories in its first months. Notable among them were the destruction of al Qaeda's Afghan sanctuary, the death or capture of leading jihadists, and effective U.S. demands for action by reluctant foreign governments.
But at least a dozen current and former officials who have held key positions in conducting the war now say they see diminishing returns in Bush's decapitation strategy. Current and former leaders of that effort, three of whom departed in frustration from the top White House terrorism post, said the manhunt is important but cannot defeat the threat of jihadist terrorism. Classified government tallies, moreover, suggest that Bush and Vice President Cheney have inflated the manhunt's success in their reelection bid.
Bush's focus on the instruments of force, the officials said, has been slow to adapt to a swiftly changing enemy. Al Qaeda, they said, no longer exerts centralized control over a network of operational cells. It has rather become the inspirational hub of a global movement, fomenting terrorism that it neither funds nor directs. Internal government assessments describe this change with a disquieting metaphor: They say jihadist terrorism is "metastasizing."
The war has sometimes taken unexpected turns, one of which brought the Bush administration into hesitant contact with Iran. For a time the two governments made tentative common cause, and Iran delivered hundreds of low-level al Qaeda figures to U.S. allies. Participants in Washington and overseas said Bush's deadlocked advisers -- unable to transmit instructions -- closed that channel before testing Iran's willingness to take more substantial steps. Some of al Qaeda's most wanted leaders now live in Iran under ambiguous conditions of house arrest.
Twenty months after the invasion of Iraq, the question of whether Americans are safer from terrorism because Saddam Hussein is no longer in power hinges on subjective judgment about might-have-beens. What is not in dispute, among scores of career national security officials and political appointees interviewed periodically since 2002, is that Bush's choice had opportunity costs -- first in postwar Afghanistan, then elsewhere. Iraq, they said, became a voracious consumer of time, money, personnel and diplomatic capital -- as well as the scarce tools of covert force on which Bush prefers to rely -- that until then were engaged against al Qaeda and its sources of direct support.
'What Does It Mean to Be Safer?'
Bush conducts the war on terrorism above all as a global hunt for a cast of evil men he knows by name and photograph. He tracks progress in daily half-hour meetings that Richard A. Falkenrath, who sometimes attended them before departing recently as deputy homeland security adviser, described as "extremely granular, about individual guys." Frances Fragos Townsend, who took the post of White House counterterrorism and homeland security adviser in May, said in an interview that Bush's strategy -- now, as in the war's first days -- is to "decapitate the beast."
The president is also focused on states that sponsor terrorism. The danger he sees is a "great nexus," thus far hypothetical, in which an enemy nation might hand terrorists a nuclear, biological or chemical weapon. That danger is what Bush said drove him to war in Iraq.
Bush emphasizes force of will -- determination to prosecute the enemy, and equally to stand up to allies who disapprove. Bush and his aides most often deflect questions about recent global polls that have found sharply rising anti-U.S. sentiment in Arab and Muslim countries and in Europe, but one of them addressed it in a recent interview. Speaking for the president by White House arrangement, but declining to be identified, a high-ranking national security official said of the hostility detected in surveys: "I don't think it matters. It's about keeping the country safe, and I don't think that matters."
That view is at odds with the view of many career military and intelligence officials, who spoke with increasing alarm about al Qaeda's success in winning recruits to its cause and defining its struggle with the United States.
Retired Army Gen. Wayne A. Downing, who was summoned to lead the White House Office for Combating Terrorism a few weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, said the war has been least successful where it has the highest stakes: slowing the growth of jihadist sympathies in populations that can provide the terrorists with money, concealment and recruits. Bin Laden has worked effectively to "convince the Islamic world the U.S. is the common enemy," Downing said. He added, "We have done little or nothing. That is the big failure."
Townsend, who inherited Downing's duties this spring, said the best evidence of Bush's success "is every day that goes by that America doesn't suffer another attack."
"By any measure, to me, we're winning, they're losing," she said. "We know for a fact that it's very difficult for them to raise money and move money around. We've made it increasingly difficult to communicate. It is harder for them to travel without risk. . . . Is there something that they absolutely, 100 percent guaranteed, can't do? I'm not going to say that. The point is we have degraded their capability to act across the board."
John A. Gordon, Townsend's immediate predecessor, said in his first interview since leaving government in June that those measures of tactical success are no longer enough.
"People in the business would say, 'We've done all this stuff, we know we've pushed back some attacks,' but what does it mean to be safer?" he asked. "You decrease the probability of a major attack, but you haven't pushed it to anywhere near zero. If it happens, nobody's going to care whether we 'significantly affected' [the threat] or not."
'A Manageable Problem'
Two years ago, Gordon thought better of the strategy. He helped direct it.
Born in Jefferson City, Mo., Gordon spent a career in the Cold War Air Force, rising to four-star general in the missile and bomber force. Bush tapped him in June 2002 as chief of the Office for Combating Terrorism, with a rank just below that of national security adviser Condoleezza Rice.
From his vantage in Room 313 of the Old Executive Office Building, Gordon saw a colossal mismatch of strength between the global superpower and its stateless enemy. He sat down for an interview, after six months on the job, in a cautiously optimistic frame of mind.
With al Qaeda's Afghan training camps demolished and its troops dispersed, he said in 2002, the network's deadliest capabilities relied on "fewer than three dozen" uniquely dangerous men. "Where we're focusing is on the manhunt," he said. "That's still job number one, to break down and capture and kill . . . the inner core of Osama and his very, very closest advisers."
At the CIA's Counterterrorist Center in Langley, which then as now maintained wall-size charts of al Qaeda's global network, the approximately 30 names at the top were known as "high-value targets." At the time, a year into the manhunt, many of Gordon's peers agreed that "leadership targets," in the argot of U.S. military and intelligence agencies, were a "center of gravity" for al Qaeda -- a singular source of strength without which the enemy could be brought to collapse.
Hunting al Qaeda's leaders cut them off from their followers, Gordon said then, and "layers of interdiction" stood between would-be attackers and their targets. Some could be stopped in their country of origin, others as they crossed the U.S. border, and still others as they neared the point of attack. Each defensive measure, in theory, created U.S. opportunities to strike.
"If I can cut him in half every time he comes through," he said, "now I can give the FBI and local law enforcement a manageable problem."
'The Same People, Over and Over'
That did not happen. On its own terms -- as a manhunt, measured in "high-value" captures and kills -- the president's strategy produced its peak results the first year.
Classified tallies made available to The Washington Post have identified 28 of the approximately 30 names on the unpublished HVT List. Half -- 14 -- are known to be dead or in custody. Those at large include three of the five men on the highest echelon: bin Laden, his deputy Ayman Zawahiri and operational planner Saif al-Adel.
More significant than the bottom line, government analysts said, is the trend. Of the al Qaeda leaders accounted for, eight were killed or captured by the end of 2002. Five followed in 2003 -- notably Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the principal planner of the Sept. 11 attack. This year only one more name -- Hassan Ghul, a senior courier captured infiltrating Iraq -- could be crossed off.
"I'll be pretty frank," Gordon said this fall after leaving the administration. "Obviously we would have liked to pick up more of the high-value targets than have been done. There have been strong initiatives. They just haven't all panned out."
As the manhunt results declined, the Bush administration has portrayed growing success. Early last year, the president's top advisers generally said in public that more than one-third of those most wanted had been found. Late this year it became a staple of presidential campaign rhetoric that, as Bush put it in the Sept. 30 debate with Kerry, "75 percent of known al Qaeda leaders have been brought to justice."
Although some of the administration's assertions are too broadly stated to measure, some are not. Townsend, Bush's homeland security and counterterrorism adviser, said "three-quarters" of "the known al Qaeda leaders on 9/11" were dead or in custody. Asked to elaborate, she said she would have to consult a list. White House spokeswoman Erin Healy referred follow-up questions to the FBI. Spokesmen for the FBI, the National Security Council and the CIA did not respond to multiple telephone calls and e-mails.
Whatever its results, the manhunt remains at the center of Bush's war. He mentions little else, save the Taliban's expulsion from power, when describing progress against al Qaeda. According to people who have briefed him, Bush still marks changes by hand on a copy of the HVT list.
"This is a conversation he's been having every day, more or less, with his senior advisers since September 11th," Falkenrath said. It covers "the same people, over and over again."
When Townsend was asked to describe the most important milestones of the war, she cited individual captures and kills. She named Khalid Sheik Mohammed; Abu Issa al Hindi, accused of surveying U.S. financial targets for al Qaeda in 2000 and 2001; Riduan Isamuddin, the alleged Southeast Asia coordinator; Abu Bakar Bashir, the spiritual leader of an al Qaeda affiliate in Indonesia; and Yazid Sufaat of Malaysia, who led efforts to develop a biological weapon.
Each of those men had significance "in a greater sense than just the individual," Townsend said, because they had "unique expertise, experience or access." Al Qaeda may replace them, "but does that person have the same strength and leadership and capability? The answer is no. Maybe he acquires it on the job, but maybe not."
Unlikely Allies
Days after Bush declared an "axis of evil," one of its members dispatched an envoy to New York. Javad Zarif, Iran's deputy foreign minister, arrived at John F. Kennedy International Airport in the first week of February 2002 with a thick sheaf of papers. According to sources involved in the transaction, Zarif passed the papers to U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, who passed them in turn to Washington.
Neatly arranged inside were photos of 290 men and copies of their travel documents. Iran said they were al Qaeda members, arrested as they tried to cross the rugged border from Afghanistan. Most were Saudi, a fact that two officials said Saudi Arabia's government asked Iran to conceal. All had been expelled to their home countries.
"They did not coordinate with us, but as long as the bad guys were going -- fine," a senior U.S. national security official said.
Diplomats from Tehran and Washington had been meeting quietly all winter in New York and Bonn. They found common interests against the Taliban, Iran's bitter enemy. Iranian envoys notified their U.S. counterparts about the 290 arrests and proposed to cooperate against al Qaeda as well. The U.S. delegation sought instructions from Washington.
The delegation's room to maneuver, however, was limited by a policy guideline set shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks.
In late November 2001, the State Department's policy planning staff wrote a paper arguing that "we have a real opportunity here" to work more closely with Iran in fighting al Qaeda, according to Flynt Leverett, a career CIA analyst then assigned to State, who is now at the Brookings Institution and has provided advice to Kerry's campaign. Participants in the ensuing interagency debate said the CIA joined the proposal to exchange information and coordinate border sweeps against al Qaeda. Some of the most elusive high-value targets were living in or transiting Iran, including bin Laden's son Saad, al-Adel and Abu Hafs the Mauritanian.
Representatives of Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld fought back. Any engagement, they argued, would legitimate Iran and other historic state sponsors of terrorism such as Syria. In the last weeks of 2001, the Deputies Committee adopted what came to be called "Hadley Rules," after deputy national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley, who chaired the meeting. The document said the United States would accept tactical information about terrorists from countries on the "state sponsors" list but offer nothing in return. Bush's State of the Union speech the next month linked Iran to Iraq and North Korea as "terrorist allies."
Twice in the coming year, Washington passed requests for Tehran to deliver al Qaeda suspects to the Afghan government. Iran transferred two of the suspects and sought more information about others.
Iran, in turn, asked the United States, among other things, to question four Taliban prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay. They were suspects in the 1998 slayings of nine Iranian diplomats in Kabul.
Participants said Bush's divided national security team was unable to agree on an answer. Some believe important opportunities were lost.
"I sided with the Langley guys on that," Downing said. "I was willing to make a deal with the devil if we could clip somebody important off or stop an attack."
Back to Afghanistan
Two months ago, a team of soldiers from a highly classified special operations squadron arrived in the southeastern mountains of Afghanistan, along the Pakistani border. They were back to hunt bin Laden, many of them after a two-year gap. "We finally settled in at our 'permanent' location 8 days ago after moving twice in three weeks," one team member wrote to a friend. "New territory, right at the border, up in the mountains. Interesting place. We need to start from scratch, nothing operational in place. Guess we'll spend our whole time developing a basic structure for our ops."
At the peak of the hunt for bin Laden and his lieutenants, in early 2002, about 150 commandos operated along Afghanistan's borders with Pakistan and Iran in a top-secret team known as Task Force 5. The task force included a few CIA paramilitaries, but most of its personnel came from military "special mission units," or SMUs, whose existence is not officially acknowledged. One is the Army squadron once known as Delta Force. The other -- specializing in human and technical intelligence operations -- has not been described before in public. Its capabilities include close-in electronic surveillance and, uniquely in the U.S. military, the conduct of "low-level source operations" -- recruiting and managing spies.
These elite forces, along with the battlefield intelligence technology of Predator and Global Hawk drone aircraft, were the scarcest tools of the hunt for jihadists along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. With Bush's shift of focus to Iraq, the special mission units called most of their troops home to prepare for a new set of high-value targets in Baghdad.
"There is a direct consequence for us having taken these guys out prematurely," said Leverett, who then worked as senior director for Middle Eastern affairs on Bush's NSC staff. "There were people on the staff level raising questions about what that meant for getting al Qaeda, for creating an Afghan security and intelligence service [to help combat jihadists]. Those questions didn't get above staff level, because clearly there had been a strategic decision taken."
Task Force 5 dropped in strength at times to as few as 30 men. Its counterpart in Iraq, by early 2003, burgeoned to more than 200 as an insurgency grew and Hussein proved difficult to find. Late last year, the Defense Department merged the two commando teams and headquartered the reflagged Task Force 121 under Rear Adm. William H. McRaven in Baghdad.
"I support the decision to go into Iraq and topple Saddam Hussein's regime," said Downing, a former U.S. Special Operations Command chief. "But in fact it was a gamble of sorts because Iraq did take focus and energy away from the Afghanistan campaign."
"It's been extraordinarily painful, very frustrating," said a member of one elite military unit who watched what he considered the main enemy slip away. Even now, with a modest resurgence in U.S. efforts in Afghanistan, the task force "is not getting as much attention from the home office as Iraq."
Much the same drawdown took place in the CIA.
With the closing of forward bases, the remaining case officers formed mobile teams of four or five, traveling in SUVs with translators, a medic and tribal allies they recruited. In some posts with former full-time presence, according to an operations officer who served there, they left empty safe houses for "almost a circuit riding thing -- just bring your communications equipment in" for each visit. Others shut down altogether.
In 2002, the CIA transferred its station chief in Islamabad, Pakistan, to lead the new Iraq Issue Group. At least 30 case officers, a knowledgeable official said, joined the parallel Iraq Operations Task Force by mid-2002. By the time war came in Iraq nearly 150 case officers filled the task force and issue group on the "A Corridor" of Langley's top management. The Baghdad station became the largest since the Vietnam War, with more than 300.
Early this year, the CIA's then-station chief in Kabul reported a resurgence of Taliban and al Qaeda forces in three border provinces. He proposed a spring intelligence offensive in South Waziristan and in and around Kunar province farther north. The chief, whose first name is Peter, estimated he would need 25 case officers in the field and an additional five for the station. A national security official who tracked the proposal said CIA headquarters replied that it did not have the resources to make the surge. Peter finished his year as station chief in June.
'A Lot of Little Cancers'
Townsend, the White House terrorism and homeland security adviser, gives two framed courtroom sketches from a former life a place of honor on her West Wing wall. The color portraits, from 1990, depict her as lead prosecutor in a case against New York's Gambino crime family. When she took her White House job in May, she told the Associated Press that the transition from organized crime to terrorism "actually turns out not to be that big a leap." She added, "Really in many ways you're talking about a group with a command-and-control structure."
Jihadist terrorism has always posed what strategists call an "asymmetric threat," capable of inflicting catastrophic harm against a much stronger foe. But the way it operates, they said, is changing. Students of al Qaeda used to speak of it as a network with "key nodes" that could be attacked. More recently they have described the growth of "franchises." Gordon and Falkenrath pioneered an analogy, before leaving government, with an even less encouraging prognosis.
Jihadists "metastasized into a lot of little cancers in a lot of different countries," Gordon said recently. They formed "groups, operating under the terms of a movement, who don't have to rely on al Qaeda itself for funding, for training or for authority. [They operate] at a level that doesn't require as many people, doesn't require them to be as well-trained, and it's going to be damned hard to get in front of that."
Bruce Hoffman of the government-funded Rand Corp., who consults with participants in the war in classified forums, said U.S. analysts see clearly that "you can only have an effective top-down strategy if you're also drying up recruitment and sources of support."
Marc Sageman, a psychologist and former CIA case officer who studies the formation of jihadist cells, said the inspirational power of the Sept. 11 attacks -- and rage in the Islamic world against U.S. steps taken since -- has created a new phenomenon. Groups of young men gather in common outrage, he said, and a violent plan takes form without the need for an outside leader to identify, persuade or train those who carry it out.
The brutal challenge for U.S. intelligence, Sageman said, is that "you don't know who's going to be a terrorist" anymore. Citing the 15 men who killed 190 passengers on March 11 in synchronized bombings of the Spanish rail system, he said "if you had gone to those guys in Madrid six months prior, they'd say 'We're not terrorists,' and they weren't. Madrid took like five weeks from inception."
Much the same pattern, officials said, preceded deadly attacks in Indonesia, Turkey, Kenya, Morocco and elsewhere. There is no reason to believe, they said, that the phenomenon will remain overseas.
Such attacks do not rely on leaders as the Bush administration strategy has conceived them. New jihadists can acquire much of the know-how they need, Sageman and his counterparts still in government said, in al Qaeda's Saudi-published magazines, Al Baatar and the Voice of Jihad, available online.
Townsend acknowledged in an interview this month that "as you put more pressure on the center" of al Qaeda, "it pushes power out." That does not change the strategy, she said: "While you want to decapitate the beast, you also want to be able to cut the tentacles off. . . . Do we find there are others who emerge on the screen as leaders of their operational cadre? Of course. We capture and kill them, too."
'Test of Wills'
Downing, Bush's first counterterrorism adviser after Sept. 11, said in a 2002 interview that hunting down al Qaeda leaders could do no more than "buy time" for longer-term efforts to stem the jihadist tide. This month he said, "Time is not on our side."
"This is not a war," he said. "What we're faced with is an Islamic insurgency that is spreading throughout the world, not just the Islamic world." Because it is "a political struggle," he said, "the military is not the key factor. The military has to be coordinated with the other elements of national power."
Many of Downing's peers -- and strong majorities of several dozen officers and officials who were interviewed -- agree. They cite a long list of proposals to address terrorism at its roots that have not been carried out. Among them was a plan by Wendy Chamberlin, then ambassador to Pakistan, to offer President Pervez Musharraf a substitute for Saudi funding of a radical network of Islamist schools known as madrasas. Downing backed Chamberlin in the interagency debate, describing education as "the root of many of the recruits for the Islamist movement." Bush promised such support to Musharraf in a meeting soon after Sept. 11, said an official who accompanied him, but the $300 million plan did not survive the White House budget request.
The formal White House strategy for combating terrorism says that the United States will "use every instrument of national power -- diplomatic, economic, law enforcement, financial, information, intelligence, and military" to triumph. A central criticism in the Sept. 11 commission's report is that the efforts at nonmilitary suasion overseas lack funding, energy from top leaders and what the commission's executive director, Philip D. Zelikow, called "gravitas."
Most officials interviewed said Bush has not devised an answer to a problem then-CIA Director George J. Tenet identified publicly on Feb. 11, 2003 -- "the numbers of societies and peoples excluded from the benefits of an expanding global economy, where the daily lot is hunger, disease, and displacement -- and that produce large populations of disaffected youth who are prime recruits for our extremist foes."
The president and his most influential advisers, many officials said, do not see those factors -- or U.S. policy overseas -- as primary contributors to the terrorism threat. Bush's explanation, in private and public, is that terrorists hate America for its freedom.
Sageman, who supports some of Bush's approach, said that analysis is "nonsense, complete nonsense. They obviously haven't looked at any surveys." The central findings of polling by the Pew Charitable Trust and others, he said, is that large majorities in much of the world "view us as a hypocritical huge beast throwing our weight around in the Middle East."
When Bush speaks of al Qaeda's supporters, he refers to the leaders, not the citizens, of foreign nations. In a May 2003 speech about the Middle East, he said the "hateful ideology of terrorism is shaped and nurtured and protected by oppressive regimes." His approach centers not on winning support for U.S. values and policy, but on confronting evil without flinching.
Citing two governments he toppled by force and promising to "confront governments that support terrorists," Bush said in a speech on Oct. 6: "America is always more secure when freedom is on the march, and freedom is on the march in Afghanistan and Iraq and elsewhere."
Thomas W. O'Connell, who is assistant defense secretary in charge of special operations and low-intensity conflict, said Rumsfeld sometimes gathers Pentagon leaders to discuss the nature of the threat. After one such discussion recently, O'Connell concluded that "battle of ideas" is a poor term for the conflict underway.
"Perhaps the term 'test of wills,' " he said, "is more like what we're up against." Battles, he said, are "short, sharp events" against an external enemy. A test is "something that's internal" and "more reflective of a long, drawn-out ordeal."
Staff writer Craig Whitlock and researchers Robert Thomason and Julie Tate contributed to this report.
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Evangelist says Bush ought to admit error
The New York Times
By David D. Kirkpatrick
October 22, 2004
http://www.iht.com/bin/print_ipub.php?file=/articles/2004/10/21/news/robertson.html
NEW YORK The evangelical broadcaster Pat Robertson set off a partisan firefight after telling a television interviewer that President George W. Bush had serenely assured him that, "Oh, no, we're not going to have any casualties" in the invasion of Iraq.
In an interview on CNN broadcast Tuesday night, Robertson said Bush's comment was made during a meeting in Nashville, Tennessee, in February 2003, at which he warned the president before the invasion to prepare the public for casualties.
Robertson, a former marine who ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 1988, said that he had had "deep misgivings" about the war but that the president looked "like a contented Christian with four aces," as Robertson put it, using a quotation from Mark Twain.
"I mean, he was just sitting there like, 'I am on top of the world,"' Robertson said.
"The Lord told me it was going to be A, a disaster, and B, messy," Robertson continued, adding that he wished Bush would acknowledge his mistake.
The White House disputed Robertson's recollections and Democrats pounced on the chance to make Bush contradict the televangelist, a prominent supporter.
"Is Pat Robertson telling the truth when he said you didn't think there'd be any casualties, or is Pat Robertson lying?" Mike McCurry, a spokesman for Senator John Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee, asked on the campaign trail in Waterloo, Iowa.
"I think given the prominence of Reverend Robertson's remarks today, it would be important for the president to indicate whether in fact he told Pat Robertson that he did believe there'd be casualties in Iraq," McCurry said.
A chorus of White House officials denied that Bush had ever uttered the remark. Karl Rove, Karen Hughes and Scott McClellan all told reporters in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, on Wednesday that Robertson had been mistaken.
"Of course the president never made such a comment," said McClellan, the White House press secretary.
"The president both publicly and privately was preparing the American people for the possibility of a military conflict and the possibility that sacrifices may be necessary."
Rove, the president's chief political adviser, said that he attended Bush's meeting with Robertson in Nashville in February 2003 and that he had not heard those remarks. "I was right there," Rove said.
Some political and theological allies quickly dismissed Robertson's account. "I think he speaks for an ever-diminishing group of evangelicals on most issues," said Dr. Richard Land, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberties Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention.
Robertson had developed a habit of recounting what he says God has told him on matters of public interest, and Land said he was out of step with most evangelicals in his doubts about the war.
In the same interview on CNN, Robertson reversed himself on a previous prophecy. On a broadcast of his "700 Club" television show in January, Robertson declared that Bush would win the election "in a walk," adding, "I really believe I'm hearing from the Lord it's going to be a blowout election in 2004."
On CNN on Tuesday, however, Robertson conceded, "I thought it was going to be a blowout, but I think it's razor-thin now." Still, he said, he believed Bush would win an Electoral College victory.
Pollsters say that Robertson's views of the war reflect a growing skepticism among evangelical Protestants about the invasion of Iraq, but they still support both the invasion and the president much more strongly than other groups.
In a New York Times/CBS News poll conducted in mid-September - after the conventions but before the debates - a majority of evangelical Protestants said they think that Bush is not being honest about the way things are going in Iraq. Forty-eight percent said Bush was mostly telling the truth but hiding something about the way things are going in Iraq, and another 15 percent said he was lying. Thirty-four percent said he was telling the entire truth.
Still, in a Pew Research Poll released Wednesday, 67 percent of white evangelicals said the United States had made the right decision in invading Iraq.
Twenty-four percent said the decision was wrong. Ten percent did not know or refused to answer. Seventy percent said they plan to vote for Bush and 22 percent for Kerry.
In contrast, 46 percent of the general public thought the invasion had been the right decision, while 42 percent thought it was wrong.
The support for each of the two candidates was roughly even.
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Bizarro Bush He's the exact opposite of what a president should be
Antiwar.com
by Justin Raimondo
October 22, 2004
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=3830
The somewhat fanciful theory that 9/11 blasted a hole in the space-time continuum and propelled us all into an inverted alternate universe - Bizarro World - where up is down, right is left, and the President of the United States is the most uninformed person on earth, was only supposed to be a joke on my part, a literary device designed to make the point that American society, or most of it, has been thrown off kilter. But I fear that it has become quite literally true, and the evidence, I submit, is Pat Robertson's recent statement to CNN's Paula Zahn:
"I met with [George W. Bush] down in Nashville before the Gulf war started. And he was the most self-assured man I ever met in my life.... 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.'
"'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.'"
Compared to Bush, Robertson is a member of the "reality-based community" so disdained by this White House. But since both Robertson and the president claim to have a direct line to the Almighty, perhaps one of them has gotten his wires crossed. In any case, it isn't readily apparent whether the fundamentalist preacher - who also claims some degree of control over the weather and recently threatened to start a third party if Bush messes with his plans for the Holy Land - is all that credible. Except that Robertson's claim not only fits in perfectly with what we already know about George W. Bush - his incoherence, his invincible ignorance, the cocoon-like environment in which he operates - it also seems to confirm my Bizarro World thesis.
In Bizarro World, water flows up, bad news is celebrated, clocks tick backwards - and the least qualified person in the nation is routinely picked to be its chief executive.
In the real world - home base for those of us still stuck in the "reality-based community" - the most qualified people to advise the president and make policy are centered in and around the White House: the president has all the best, most updated information because he is surrounded by the Best and the Brightest.
But that was then, this is now. We are living in the Bizarro Era, a time when only obscure bloggers and other lone voices in the wilderness can predict the disastrous consequences of throwing a lighted match into the volatile Middle Eastern oil patch. The president, and his advisors, knew better.
Casualties? What casualties?
After all, the neocons had been whispering in the presidential ear that it was going to be a "cakewalk." The Iraqi people would pour into the streets of Baghdad and hail us as their "liberators," just as the French had lined the boulevards of Paris when the Allies took the city. In very short order we would find Saddam's "weapons of mass destruction," uncover Iraq's links to al-Qaeda, and obtain irrefutable evidence that the administration was right all along. The only American casualties of this war would be the dire predictions of the antiwar movement and its few supporters in the "mainstream" media, who would be shamed into silence in the victorious aftermath.
Except it didn't turn out that way.
The theory that 9/11 ripped a hole in the space-time continuum, and that this tear is expanding, and coming to envelop much of the United States and other parts of the world, may need to be amended. When even a wingding like Robertson begins to notice that there's something screwy going on in the Bush White House, it is time to question the basic premises of the ever-expanding Bizarro universe. The shock of 9/11 was very great, but perhaps not so traumatic as to permanently impair our ability to perceive reality. Or it could be that the Bizarro Effect has impacted different people in diverse ways, or that, in most cases, the effects were only temporary. Now that the initial shock is beginning to wear off, and people are coming back to their senses, many are beginning to raise the question of whether the president is all there.
Quite aside from partisan attacks coming from the Kerry camp, the most biting critique has come from Brent Scowcroft, who mused to Britain's Financial Times the other day that while the transatlantic relationship is "in general bad," George W. Bush's attention is elsewhere:
"[Israeli Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon just has him wrapped around his little finger. I think the president is mesmerized. When there is a suicide attack [followed by a reprisal] Sharon calls the president and says, 'I'm on the front line of terrorism', and the president says, 'Yes, you are. . . ' He [Mr. Sharon] has been nothing but trouble."
The colorful history of mesmerism and the recent evolution of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East do exhibit certain similarities. While Dr. Franz Anton Mesmer went around eighteenth century Paris bilking society matrons out of their money and the credulous out of their reason, convincing his patients to engage in all sorts of unlikely acts and attributing his quack "cures" to a superior knowledge, so our modern mesmerists - otherwise known as neocons - bilked the Bushies and a thoroughly propagandized American public, convincing the nation - including the Democratic nominee for president - that the decision to go to war was the right one.
That, at least, is what several conservative Republicans, and not only Scowcroft, have been telling us: Robert Novak and Pat Buchanan would have us believe that the high tide of empire has been reached, and the troops will start coming home after Iraq's January elections. "This is a man who's really driven to seek re-election and done a lot of things with that in mind," says Scowcroft, but "I have something of a hunch that the second administration will be quite different from the first." Simon Jenkins, writing in the London Times, agrees.
"Even the most severe critic of the occupation must accept the need for an exit plan. This involves half-decent elections in January, a declared 'victory for democracy' and withdrawal, with the winner left to cut his own deals with the local militias. For this to be plausible, the holding of some sort of election in Sunni territory is vital. Fallujah was turned anti-American by Paul Bremer's mass public sector dismissals and by the 82nd Airborne's brutal patrolling. Ninety per cent of the population has apparently fled the nightly bombardment. If the Americans can now take and hold Fallujah for just a few weeks, a swift post-election exit is at least possible."
So that explains why they're blasting Fallujah to smithereens: they're in a hurry to get out. I tend toward an alternate explanation: that Fallujah is a symbol of Arab defiance that must not be allowed to stand, and that the same hard-liners in the Pentagon who brought us Abu Ghraib - and lied us into this mess to begin with - are firmly in control. Jenkins, however, is more optimistic:
"No sensible person on either side of the Atlantic wants this occupation to continue much longer. The only debate concerns the degree of indignity attaching to departure. Iraq is not 'getting better' under Western occupation. Wherever politics matters, Iraq south of Kurdistan is getting worse: worse for women, worse for the middle classes, worse for slum-dwellers, worse for local minorities, worse for Christians, worse for aid agencies and worse for their beneficiaries. Only a fool could see Iraq as being on its way to the tolerant, pro-Israeli, secular democracy of neoconservative fantasy. There are no fools left within a thousand miles of Baghdad."
I am not quite sure of the distance between Washington and Baghdad, but it's surely more than a mere thousand miles. The point is that the Bizarro Effect seems to have had a much less severe impact across the Atlantic: the shockwaves did not totally deprive the Brits of their reason. Although they allowed themselves to be bullied by the more neocon-ized New Labourites into the role of fleas on Bush's poodle, the British people are beginning to wonder why their own troops must be used as mercenaries in America's political wars.
As the Bizarro Effect begins to fade, Americans are starting to wake up to the reality that their own troops were rushed into war to shore up the political fortunes of Israel's Likud party. The Sharon government could not have long survived without the political support of George W. Bush, and the systematic reduction and elimination of Israel's regional enemies: including not only the invasion of Iraq but U.S. sanctions imposed on Syria, U.S. approval of the "security wall," and a looming confrontation with Iran. Israeli extremists, along with the Iranian mullahs and Osama bin Laden, have been empowered as never before. Prime Minister Sharon, seen abroad as an uncompromising hardliner, is denounced by members of his own party as a "traitor" for abandoning Gaza, which is, according to radical Zionist dogma, part of "Greater Israel" by rights. The result is that Sharon's life is in danger.
Some pretty weird stuff is going on in Israel, which has been suffering from the Bizarro Effect practically since the day of its birth. The country we are supposed to believe is a citadel of democracy holding out against a wave of medieval darkness regularly engages in a campaign of lies and disinformation that would do justice to any totalitarian state. The latest example: a video shot by an Israeli spy drone, unveiled with great fanfare by the Israeli government, which purportedly showed a terrorist stocking up a UN ambulance with homemade missiles. In New York, Israel's ambassador to the UN demanded the resignation of the head of the UN relief agency, and this grainy black-and-white footage was added to the litany of proof that global anti-Semitism is on the rise.
The whole story began to unravel when a closer look revealed that the object depicted in the video was too thin and too light to be a missile. The next day, the UN agency produced the driver of the ambulance, who turned out to be no suicide bomber and explained that the object was a rolled up stretcher: the crew had just returned from a false alarm. The IDF and Israeli foreign ministry websites quickly deleted the video "evidence" of UN-Palestinian perfidy, and, as the Sydney Morning Herald reports:
"The Israeli security establishment was in disarray, with some anonymous 'senior officials' briefing journalists that the UN's version was probably correct. Officially, a defense forces spokesman would yesterday only say that 'we are reviewing the analysis because of the questions asked.' He insisted that even if the defense forces has been wrong this time, it knew for a fact that the UN often helped terrorists in smuggling weapons and carrying out their missions."
Facts don't matter. Objective reality doesn't exist. Governments create reality, and the purpose of intelligence-gathering is to confirm what we already know. This is how we were bamboozled into war in Iraq, and it is how the Israeli people are being lied to by their own government in order to perpetuate the Israeli Right's politics of hate.
I have warned, in the past, about the rising danger of ultra-Zionist right-wing extremism in Israel, and, in view of incidents like this one, it seems somehow ironic that all too many American Christians of Pat Robertson's ilk are encouraging the growth of this dangerous phenomenon.
Of course, Robertson "knew" that our intervention in Iraq would be a "disaster," as he puts it, since his theology holds that the "end times" will be prefigured by Israel's war against a Satanic Middle Eastern power, the whole thing will end catastrophically - and that's when Jesus comes back to save the world.
So, you see, a war Robertson describes as a "disaster" in his theology is really a good thing. Disaster brings us closer to the "end times," the Iraq war is hastening Armageddon, and that's a good thing, too, according to the Bizarro theology of Robertson and his mesmerized flock.
Get ready for the Rapture, my friends, and make sure you pull that lever and vote Republican - because if you don't, then we'll be spared the fulfillment of all those dire Biblical prophecies, and the Second Coming will be delayed. Yes, the Rapturists are crazed enough to believe that human intervention can have an effect on the timing.
It's like a Bizarro World remake of that infamous television ad attacking Barry Goldwater, the one with the little girl pulling petals off a daisy as the countdown sounded, ending in a nuclear explosion. Originally meant to underscore a dire threat to the peace, in the Bizarro world of Robertson and his followers it amounts to an endorsement - because we just know that little girl is going to Heaven.
I keep hearing that things can only get better. Bruce Bartlett assures us "If Bush wins, there will be a civil war in the Republican Party starting on Nov. 3." Ron Suskind's much talked about piece in last Sunday's New York Times Magazine opens with the complaints of "libertarian Republican" Bartlett,
"Just in the past few months, I think a light has gone off for people who've spent time up close to Bush: that this instinct he's always talking about is this sort of weird, Messianic idea of what he thinks God has told him to do.
''This is why George W. Bush is so clear-eyed about al-Qaeda and the Islamic fundamentalist enemy. He believes you have to kill them all. They can't be persuaded, that they're extremists, driven by a dark vision. He understands them, because he's just like them. . . .
'''This is why he dispenses with people who confront him with inconvenient facts' Bartlett went on to say. 'He truly believes he's on a mission from God. Absolute faith like that overwhelms a need for analysis. The whole thing about faith is to believe things for which there is no empirical evidence.' Bartlett paused, then said, 'But you can't run the world on faith.'"
Buchanan and Novak are pushing this same meme, and I even wrote a piece speculating on the possibility that it just might be true: the president will pull a U-turn in Iraq if he's reelected, and more interventions are off the table. On second thought, however, this scenario seems oddly counterintuitive. If Bush wins, the Republican party and the "mainstream" conservative movement are going to be confirmed in their interventionism. The neocons will hail his reelection as a mandate for war, and a fresh wave of triumphalism will sweep through the GOP and embolden the War Party. The Republican civil war Bartlett predicts is not likely to break out until and unless Bush is defeated.
In which case, it won't be confined to the GOP. If Kerry wins, the peaceniks who stopped demonstrating against the war to devote all their energies to getting him elected are going to demand he start delivering. That's when a civil war is going to break out in the Democratic party that will make Bartlett and his fellow libertarian Republicans green with envy - or am I giving antiwar Democrats too much credit?
Will an immoral war that was started and continues to be fought on Israel's behalf - one that has turned into our very own West Bank - become Kerry's war, and therefore a holy crusade for the American liberal-left, just as the war to destroy Yugoslavia was a Clintonian jihad? It's not too hard to imagine.
Bizarro Kerry will assure his "antiwar" followers that we have to "win" before we withdraw, and that a war we should never have started must be fought to the bloody finish. Will they swallow it?
They'll do it because they have faith in their leader, their party, and their emotional attachments that transcend human reason. Absolute faith overwhelms the need for analysis, and dispenses with empirical facts - like that Israeli spokesman who insisted that even if the evidence wasn't what it was purported to be, still it illustrated an intrinsic truth. It's all perfectly logical - in Bizarro World.
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The Oil Factor: Behind the War on Terror
democracynow.org
October 22nd, 2004
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/10/22/143233
The new documentary "The Oil Factor: Behind the War on Terror" examines the link between oil interests and current U.S. military interventions. It includes original footage shot over a four-month period in Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan as well as many interviews with a large array of personalities including Bush administration officials. [includes rush transcript] It has been just over 3 years since the Bush administration began it's large scale bombing of Afghanistan, kicking off the so-called war on terror. Osama bin Laden remains at large, tens of thousands of innocent civilians have been killed in both Afghanistan and Iraq.
More than 130,000 US troops are on the ground in Iraq and the body bags continue to come back to US soil. While the invasion and occupation of Iraq dominates the political discussions and debates ahead of the November 2 election, both major candidates have vowed to "win the war in Iraq."
Against the backdrop of the US election campaign, a new documentary has just been released that examines what many see as the key US motive for the war. That motive is oil.
The documentary is called "The Oil Factor: Behind the War on Terror." It examines the link between oil interests and current U.S. military interventions. It includes original footage shot over a four-month period in Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan as well as many interviews with a large array of personalities including Bush administration officials. The film was produced by Gerard Ungerman and Audrey Brohy of Free-Will Productions.
"The Oil Factor: Behind the War on Terror"
RUSH TRANSCRIPT
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AMY GOODMAN: As we turn now to a documentary, a new documentary that examines the link between the oil industry and military invasions. It's called The Oil Factor: Behind the War on Terror, and it is a documentary that, well, it's been just over three years since the Bush administration began its large scale bombing of Afghanistan, kicking off the so-called war on terror. Osama bin Laden remains at large. Tens of thousands of innocent civilians have been killed in both Afghanistan and Iraq. So, we felt it was critical to look at what many feel is the key factor behind it. Again, we bring you, The Oil Factor: Behind the War on Terror, produced by Gerard Ungerman and Audrey Brohy of Free-Will Productions.
MARC GARLASCO: During the war, the Americans had a group of targets that they called "high value targets." These were the Iraqi leaders. They were bombing them in the cities. The problem with this is that you've got thousands of kilos of weapons going into civilian areas. They took 50 shots at the Iraqi leadership and they did not hit a single one. While in this zero for 50 shooting at the Iraqi leaders, they're killing many, many civilians.
DR. MOHAMED ASSAN: We have to receive many, many injured patients from the bombs, so it's a big job for five doctors in this hospital to receive all of the injured patients in an area like this. At that time the hospital was filled with bodies. The garden was the only place to keep these bodies.
ED ASNER: After a brief and easy campaign, George Bush lands on the aircraft carrier "USS Lincoln" off the coast of San Diego, California.
GEORGE W. BUSH: The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on September 11, 2001. America is grateful for a job well done.
MARC GARLASCO: Now, George Bush said this was the most humane war ever thought, but civilians still died. Their deaths were not humane.
ED ASNER: After hearing so much from Washington about how dangerous Saddam Hussein was, the total lack of resistance of the Iraqi military in and around Baghdad comes as a real surprise.
ANDREW SHLAPAK: The resistance that we had wasn't very high at all. The only major threat we had was the guerrilla warfare, and at times that wasn't much at all. Some accidents -- we had a hummer roll over into a ditch at night. That's basically the only real threat we had going into Iraq.
LT. COL. KAREN KWIATKOWSKI: The information that was being put out about the danger that Saddam Hussein posed to the United States or the United State's interests was being grossly exaggerated. The sanctions had weakened Saddam Hussein. The long war with Iran, he never really recovered from that war. And, frankly, he had been bombed by us with the enforcement of the no-fly zones for a dozen years, basically eliminating any possibility that he would be able to reconstitute his military.
ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI: The fundamental problem is that the central justification for going to war is that Iraq possesses -- I emphasize the word possesses -- weapons of mass destruction, which pose a grave danger to the United States as of now. Obviously, that's turned out not to have been true. And that's a very serious problem that damages American global credibility.
LT. COL. KAREN KWIATKOWSKI: The political perspective that Saddam Hussein must go was not based on intelligence. It was formulated and developed and articulated very publicly during the Clinton administration years, and even somewhat during Bush I, the predecessor to Bill Clinton. It was articulated through various organizations like the Project for a New American Century, American Enterprise Institute, and others who built their case that Saddam Hussein needed to go.
ED ASNER: Instrumental in planning the removal of Saddam Hussein is the Project for the New American Century, based in Washington, D.C., this think tank includes such members as Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Defense Adviser Paul Wolfowitz, and the Florida Governor Jeb Bush. Politically close to the Israeli Likud Party, the group openly advocates the cause of American leadership, the need to increase defense spending significantly, challenging regimes hostile to our interests and values, extending an international order friendly to our security, our prosperity, and our principles. While traditional American conservatives are more focused on taking care of problems at home, these self-proclaimed neoconservatives focus on promoting U.S. Economic and military domination over the world.
GARY SCHMITT: I think that the American public very quickly came to the conclusion after 9/11 not that Iraq was simply or somehow involved in 9/11, but they quickly came to the same conclusion that President Bush did, which was that if you thought through the full ramifications of 9/11, that is a state that harbored terrorists, a state that harbored terrorists who wanted weapons of mass destruction to use, and a state that was potentially producing weapons of mass destruction -- or had produced weapons of mass destruction, the American public very quickly joined the President in his judgment that Iraq was as much a part of the problem after 9/11 as other states like Afghanistan
LT. COL. KAREN KWIATKOWSKI: I got a clear sense that what we were doing in The Pentagon, or what the neoconservative group was doing in The Pentagon as far as a middle east policy was to not just fabricate falsehoods for the Defense Department, but to push that into the mainstream of American media.
ED ASNER: Seeking any valid or fabricated evidence against Saddam Hussein, the Bush administration allies with an internationally wanted felon. The self-proclaimed Iraqi opposition leader, Ahmed Chalabi.
RANDA HABIB: Ahmed Chalabi has been living in Jordan. He ran away from this country on the 11th of August, 1989. He was the chairman of a bank, the Petrol Bank, and that -- and he was accused of embezzlement. He has been condemned in absentia by a military court in Jordan for 22 years of prison, and he is responsible for over $1 billion of losses. This is what the court has said.
LT. COL. KAREN KWIATKOWSKI: The main thing that happened was the influence of Ahmed Chalabi. In the office that I was at, I saw Ahmed Chalabi. He would come in to visit Bill Luti. There was a military officer working in the Office of Special Plans whose job was described to me as the Ahmed Chalabi's handler. He would set up meetings downtown. They traveled to London to meet with members of the I.N.C. Ahmed was a key source of a lot of the stories that Saddam Hussein had vast quantities of undetermined weapons of mass destruction, that he was going to either use directly against U.S. interests or give to terrorists who would do the same thing.
ED ASNER: In June of 2004, accused this time of counterfeiting Iraqi money, Ahmed Chalabi runs again from justice. He flees from Iraq where he had been appointed by the Bush Administration to the so-called Iraqi Governing Council. For President Bush this comes as the latest embarrassment surrounding the war in Iraq. In April of 2004, State Secretary Colin Powell himself publicly admits that had he known that Iraq didn't really pose a threat to peace, he wouldn't have supported the war. He blames the C.I.A. headed by George Tenet for providing faulty intelligence, but he quickly adds that President Bush was right in his decision to remove what he calls a terrible despotic leader. John Negroponte was appointed U.S. ambassador to the U.N. by President Bush in 2001, and as such became the U.S. Salesman of the war on Iraq at the United Nations. In the 1980's while John Negroponte was Ambassador to Honduras, the C.I.A. was involved in covert operations in Central America, including the training of local death squads responsible for the disappearance of many Central American leftist opponents. In June of 2004, Negroponte is appointed U.S. Ambassador to Iraq. Given the Bush Administration's apparent concern for dictatorship in Iraq, John Negroponte's appointment comes as a surprising choice.
LT. COL. KAREN KWIATKOWSKI: We are not too worried about dictators as long as they're on our side and they do what we tell them. Democracy is not the reason we went in there. The main reason is geo strategic regional dominance, which is the one that relates to energy supplies. Another reason for this invasion-occupation at the time that we did it, had to do with the pressure to lift sanctions. There was a huge pressure building to lift sanctions on Iraq. Had sanctions been lifted or partially lifted, Iraq could have been filled with Europeans, Russians, Chinese, Japanese, all kinds of folks. No American or British folks, but we and the U.K. had been bombing Iraq for 12 years. Had sanctions been lifting with Saddam Hussein still in charge, we would have gotten no contracts and no opportunities to invest in Iraq, but furthermore, we would have lost the ability to attack Iraq at any time, because Iraq would have been filled with foreigners. The other aspect to me is a smaller one, but it has to do with Saddam Hussein's decision in November of 2000 to switch to the Euro for all of his oil for food exports. He had been on the dollar for decades. He decided to switch to the euro. He had gone into full production of his oil capability and had he continued to trade oil on the Euro and not the Dollar, this would have actually had a financial impact on the United States in that Central Banks in the world would be more favorable towards the Euro and less to the Dollar.
GARY SCHMITT: The idea that the United States needed to go to war with Iraq over the issue of oil, I think is just wrong-headed. There was no push, you know, to get more oil by getting rid of Saddam. The truth is, we had plenty of oil in the world, and supplies were enough.
ED ASNER: In June 2004, just one day's worth of oil consumption would represent a line of barrels long enough to encircle the earth. With almost half used for fuel and the other half used for plastics and chemicals, oil is indispensable in every single aspect of our modern, everyday lives. The world population has been able to increase in the course of one century from about 1.5 billion to 6.5 billion, only because oil has allowed for more food to be grown and distributed than ever before.
MICHAEL C. RUPPERT: World food production is so dependent upon hydrocarbon energy. All commercial fertilizers are made out of natural gas that produces ammonia. All pesticides are made out of oil. Now, with agribusiness, you drive an oil-powered machine to plow, you drive an oil-powered machine to plant, and then you fertilize it with "natural gas," then you irrigate it with water that's pumped by electric pump where the electricity comes from burning natural gas or oil, in most cases. Then you spray it with "oil pesticides," then you harvest it with an oil-powered vehicle and -- the bottom line is this we eat ten calories of hydrocarbon energy for every calorie of food consumed on the planet.
ED ASNER: All around the world, oil consumption is exploding. New gigantic markets such as those in India and China have opened up to modern consumerism, and have driven the global need for oil through the roof.
MICHAEL C. RUPPERT: China, with its red-hot economy, just passed Japan as the second largest importer of oil on the planet. China's economy has had like a 10% growth rate. It's on fire. The Chinese people are demanding more computers, automobiles. Chinese auto sales went up 100% in one year. GM sales in China, up 300% in one year. That keeps the American economy going.
GEN. PIERRE-MARRIE GALLOIS: The United States, the only superpower uses 20 million barrels of oil every day, and it is estimated that it will need 25 million barrels per day around 2020. While its own reserves are dwindling, the U.S. only produce 5 to 6 million barrels per day and imports almost three-quarters of the oil it needs.
ED ASNER: Satellite imaging applied to oil exploration has confirmed a stark reality. With increasing consumption, and diminishing reserves, the world is rapidly running out of oil. At the current rate of production, the west will be first to hit the zero mark by 2010. At this point, both the United States and Europe will depend entirely on outside sources for their oil. Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, while self-sufficient today are next, and due to run out by 2013. With this exploding oil consumption, Asia will run dry in 2018. The reality, however, is that major conflicts are likely to erupt before any of these players actually runs out of oil.
AMY GOODMAN: An excerpt of The Oil Factor we'll be back with it in a minute.
AMY GOODMAN: As we resume with the documentary that is produced by Gerard Ungerman, and Audrey Brohy, narrated by Ed Asner, called The Oil Factor: Behind the War on Terror.
ED ASNER: A year and a half after the start of George Bush's controversial war on Iraq, the Iraqi population has grown increasingly hostile to its U.S. occupants. Sporadic violence has given way to organized resistance. Sabotage of pipelines has disrupted the flow of Iraqi oil. As a result, the price of oil on the international market has been driven to record highs. The seeds of chaos, however, were planted at the very time of the U.S. invasion, when G.I.'s did nothing to stop hoards of looters from destroying Iraqi institutions.
ANDREW SHLAPAK: In regards with the looting, we were watching looters, it was very interesting. They were grabbing anything and everything they could. They were grabbing doors, screws from doors, air conditioners, chairs, couches, anything that they could get their hands on, they took.
DATHAR AL KAHAR: The looters, they -- after the war, they started coming in with weapons, so it was a fight, you know, a crossfire between us, the U.S. army in this area. They were able to talk to them, to the commander to give us protection.
DAVID MULHOLLAND: One of the things that's interesting, and the focus of what the troops did when they invaded, they immediately seized the oilfields, but the focus on seizing the oilfields right away seemed to distract the forces from seizing other very important sites, for instance securing the nuclear facilities.
ED ASNER: While the U.S. military quickly secures Iraqi oil assets, the well-known al-Tuwaitha nuclear research center, some 15 miles south of Baghdad, is left totally unattended. As a result, local villagers make off with radioactive barrels they empty on the ground and recycle for storing food and water. Made aware of it, the U.S. authority fails to take proper action to protect the civilian population. Greenpeace steps in and after surveying the entire area, offers the villagers a brand new replacement barrel for every contaminated barrel returned. The dangerous containers are quickly recovered and evacuated.
DAVID MULHOLLAND: The focus on seizing the oilfield forgot many, many other sites that in reality pose a much greater threat of terrorism, which was supposedly what this was about.
ED ASNER: But in Iraq, radiation comes in other forms as well. Like during the 1991 Gulf War, and the war in Kosovo, depleted uranium rounds were used again by the U.S. military, this time including the center of Baghdad. They lie around for anyone to see and touch. A Geiger counter will give a reading of between 5 and 15 pulses per minute in a typical environment. This depleted uranium round will trigger 10,000 pulses in about 40 seconds. This type of ammunition is radioactive because it is made of nuclear waste, referred to as Uranium 238, or depleted uranium. This material is left over from the processing of Uranium 234, used for atomic bombs, and Uranium 235, used in nuclear power plants. Long considered toxic garbage, it found an extremely controversial application in the making of cheap, high perforation shells. Uranium 238 remains radioactive for 4.5 billion years, and its toxicity reveals itself as soon as particles are inhaled or ingested. Cancer and birth defects are the most common side effects.
SCOTT PETERSON: The United States military forces used 320 tons of depleted uranium in the first Gulf War in 1991. The difference between the first Gulf War and the second Gulf War is very significant, and that is that in the second war, we have seen a lot more depleted uranium used in populated areas, in urban centers. American planes, A-10 Warthog planes that used D.U. rounds, the 30 millimeter D.U. rounds fired at targets in cities.
ED ASNER: These particular rounds were found inside the compound of one of Saddam Hussein's palaces in Baghdad. This compound is now guarded by American soldiers who are totally unaware of the contamination. Ironically this particular palace was chosen by U.S. authorities to house their so-called coalition provisional authority. As its boss, the White House appointed the former managing director of consulting firm Henry Kissinger and Associates, Mr. Paul Bremer.
PAUL BREMER: The other key task of the coalition is to help build the democratic institutions to safeguard Iraq's newfound freedom. We want to insure that the governing council which emerges is truly representative of all Iraqis, Shia and Sunni, men and women, Kurds and Arabs, secular and religious, tribal and urban. Democracy is on the move in Iraq.
RANDA HABIB: Free elections would mean, whether in Iraq or any other Arab country, that Islamists will take power, because they are the majority, but particularly in Iraq, it will most definitely be a Shiite who will win because they represent 60% of the population.
ABDEL AZIZ AL-HAKIM: [interpreted] We didn't welcome the invasion, because our viewpoint was that war must not occur. The responsibility of changing (Iraq) is on the Iraqi people.
NOAM CHOMSKY: The Shiite majority, of course, would play a role in any democratic government. Suppose they decided to improve relations with Iran, as in fact the countries of the region have been trying to do over strong U.S. objections for years, will the U.S. tolerate that?
ABDEL AZIZ AL-HAKIM: [interpreted] Relations between the Iraqi people and the Iranian people is a historical relation. We try the relationship to be good, to have brotherhood with Iran and other countries.
ED ASNER: Since 1979, when the U.S. Embassy personnel in Tehran were taken hostage by the Islamic revolution of Ayatollah Khomeini, the U.S. government has kept Iran in its gun sites. The American's hatred for the Shia regime of Tehran grew even stronger when the Iranians became the sponsors of the Hezbollah, a violent Lebanon-based militant group responsible for many attacks on Israel since the 1980s. Free elections today in Iraq would mean the immediate victory of a potentially pro-Iranian Shia majority, something that Washington and Israel would never tolerate. Instead, the U.S.-led coalition provisional authority appointed a council of so-called Iraqi representatives.
IRAQI WOMAN: I don't know the new government.
INTERVIEWER: Do you think it will represent the Iraqi people?
IRAQI WOMAN: No. No.
IRAQI MAN: It will represent the Americans, not the Iraqis.
IRAQI MAN: We want Iraqis who lived under the torment of Saddam's regime to represent Iraq. We don't want those who lived safely abroad.
IRAQI MAN: The council, I don't know who are they, but I don't think it is representing a broad (spectrum) of the Iraqi people.
ED ASNER: The discrepancy between what the Iraqis want for their country and how Washington sees freedom and democracy is again illustrated by the appointment at the Iraqi governing council of such a corrupt individual as Ahmed Chalabi. Installing officials more loyal to money than to Iraq seems to be Washington's first step in opening up opportunities for U.S. corporations.
ERIK LEAVER: American corporations stand to win a huge amount of money in the current reconstruction process in Iraq, and many of those people are in corporations who have close ties to the administration. Many contracts so far were given without any sort of bidding process that was done.
WILLIAM HARTUNG: So you have got U.S. companies like MCI in line to run the telephone system. As I said, you have got a company like DynCorp that's helping them redo their justice system. You have got companies like APT Associates, a U.S. consultant working on educational issues. You have already got American companies writing the textbooks in Iraq. You have got essentially a privatized occupation where Paul Bremer, the head of the provisional authority, a U.S. government appointee, is make all of the decisions.
PAUL BREMER: On the question of privatization, there is no reason at all why the service sector, as well, cannot be brought up and become a source of economic activity, and therefore, in the end, also of revenues. But realistically over the next 18 months, we are looking more or less at revenues from the oil sector.
DAVID MULHOLLAND: What we have seen was a very quiet plan to privatize Iraq's oil. This is not really surprising from an administration that is run by former oil executives.
WILLIAM HARTUNG: The first companies that were allowed to buy Iraqi oil post-occupation included Chevron, Condoleezza Rice's former company. She was a board member; they named a tanker after her.
GARY SCHMITT: Just recently, the president has decided to take more direct control over the reconstruction of Iraq by having Condi Rice essentially create a national security council entity that will allow her to sort of manage the reconstruction from the N.S.E.
CHARLES HEATLY: In terms of refurbishing the existing oil production facilities and potentially bringing on new fields online, I imagine that a number of those contracts will go to American firms.
ED ASNER: Halliburton is a multibillion dollar American corporation specializing in building U.S. military bases and oil infrastructures worldwide. In May of 2004, Halliburton is awarded the contracts to refurbish Iraq's oil infrastructures, including wells, pipelines and refineries.
WILLIAM HARTUNG: I mean, how does it look to the rest of the world when the first big contract for rebuilding Iraq goes to Halliburton, Cheney's ex-company. He is still getting money from that firm. He's getting $150,000-$200,000 a year in deferred compensation. He still owns stock options that he can exercise when he chooses. So he still has financial ties to this company even as it is the biggest company profiting not only in Iraq, but from the whole war on terrorism, because they're running the bases in Afghanistan, in Uzbekistan. They built the prison at Guantanamo, where they're putting the suspects incommunicado and so forth. The second big contract goes to Bechtel, which George Shultz and other major republican figures are a part of.
TERRY VALENZANO: Our contract with U.S. Aid is actually quite broad. We have the responsibilities for infrastructure reconstruction in seven different sectors. First of all, the port of Umm Qasr. The second sector is roads, bridges and railroads. The third area is the buildings and facilities. And these primarily are schools, medical facilities like clinics, and some ministerial buildings. The next sector is power. Another sector is water and wastewater, including irrigation. The final sector is aviation. Oh, and excuse me. One area I forgot to mention, one sector was the communications.
ED ASNER: American defense contractors made a fortune selling to the U.S. military the weapons and the bombs that destroyed Iraq. Now Bechtel, Halliburton, and the many other American contractors will make a fortune off contracts to rebuild Iraq's infrastructures. Regardless if the work is really done or not, the Iraqis will eventually be forced to pay for it with their oil revenues. In the meantime, not only did U.S. taxpayers pay for the war, but they will also have to front the money for the reconstruction as well.
AMY GOODMAN: The Oil Factor: Behind the War on Terror, narrated by Ed Asner, produced by Gerard Ungerman and Audrey Brohy of Free-Will Productions.
-------- OTHER
-------- environment
Russian Legislators Vote to Ratify the Kyoto Protocol
October 22, 2004
By STEVEN LEE MYERS
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/22/international/asia/22CND-KYOTO.html
MOSCOW, Oct. 22 - Russia's lower house of Parliament voted overwhelmingly today to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, clearing another hurdle for the international treaty aimed at reducing emissions blamed for global warming.
The vote was widely expected after President Vladimir V. Putin's government endorsed the long-delayed treaty late last month, ending years of internal debate over its potential effects on Russia and its economy. Nevertheless, environmental groups hailed Russia's latest step as a landmark in environmental diplomacy.
"The vote really does change the geopolitical landscape," the president of Environmental Defense in New York, Fred Krupp, said in a telephone interview, expressing the hope that it would accelerate efforts by treaty nations to begin reducing emissions.
Russia's upper house, the Federation Council, and Mr. Putin must still approve the treaty to make Russia's ratification final, but that is considered a formality. Once the process is completed and Russia delivers its signed papers to the United Nations, the treaty's provisions aimed at accounting for and reducing emissions of gases go into effect with 90 days - probably early next year.
After the United States, Australia and others rejected the treaty, Russia's ratification became essential for its passage. Although 126 nations have already ratified the treaty, it could only take effect if supported by enough nations to represent at least 55 percent of industrialized countries' emissions in 1990, and Russia was the only country left that produced enough to clear the threshold.
In 1990, Russia accounted for 17.4 percent of emissions, the United States for 36.1 percent.
Parliament voted 334 to 73 for the protocol after only an afternoon's debate. Although some officials in Russia have vigorously criticized the treaty's limitations, deputies cited the potential boon for Russia from one of its key provisions: the trading system that would allow countries that produce excess gases to buy credits from those beneath their quotas or to earn credits by investing in emission-reducing projects.
Since Russian industry has withered since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the country emits some 30 percent fewer gases than it did in 1990. One deputy, Anatoly G. Aksakov, told the Interfax news agency that the trade in emission credits could earn Russia $20 billion to $40 billion in investments. A potential beneficiary could be Russia's energy monopoly, United Energy Systems, which is eager to modernize its power plants.
The Federation Council's chairman, Sergei M. Mironov, told Interfax that the upper house would vote next Wednesday, although he cited political concerns, rather than economic or environmental ones. His remarks suggested a widely held belief that Russia endorsed the treaty to improve relations with the European Union, whose members represent the core of the treaty's signatories.
"The government is acting on the basis of political pragmatism," he said.
--------
Global warming cited in storms
October 22, 2004
By Heather J. Carlson
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20041021-105221-2472r.htm
At least 66 persons have died in Japan's 10th typhoon of a record-breaking season, prompting some climatologists to question whether global climate changes are responsible for deadly storm seasons in both Japan and Florida.
Tokage, Japanese for "lizard," is the latest in a series of typhoons to batter Japan. The storm hammered the country on Wednesday, damaging more than 23,000 homes and forcing more than 13,000 people to seek temporary shelter.
Some climate researchers are warning that storms like Tokage and the series of hurricanes that battered Florida this year could be an example of how rising ocean temperatures are causing severe storms.
"This year's unusually intense period of destructive weather activity, with four hurricanes hitting the U.S. in a five-week period, could be a harbinger of even more extremes to come," said Paul Epstein, associate director of Harvard's Center for Health and the Global Environment.
Mr. Epstein spoke at a press conference yesterday sponsored by the center about how global warming could be fueling more destructive storms.
Scientific data show that ocean temperatures are rising gradually, said Kevin Trenberth, head of the Climate Analysis Section of the National Center for Atmospheric Research. A rise in sea-level temperatures increases the amount of water vapor, which, he said, can lead to more severe storms.
"Of course, this is the fuel for the hurricanes, and it also means that the hurricanes end up dropping a lot more precipitation and rainfall as a result," Mr. Trenberth said.
He attributes the global warming to increased concentrations of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
Not everyone agrees global warming is the problem.
Chris Landsea, a research meteorologist at the Hurricane Research Center at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said there is no evidence that global warming is causing the latest spike in hurricane activity.
"As far as we can tell, the activity we have seen now has nothing to do with global warming," Mr. Landsea said.
He attributed the slew of hurricanes that hit Florida this year to a consistent cycle for Atlantic hurricanes, in which a 20-year period of little hurricane activity is followed by two decades of increased storms.
"What we have seen this year in the Atlantic was very busier, but it fits right in with what we've previously diagnosed as cycles of hurricane activity," Mr. Landsea said.
• This article based in part on wire service reports.
-------- genetics
U.N. Split on Human Cloning Ban
Total Restriction Backed by U.S. Is Opposed by Some Allies
By Colum Lynch
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 22, 2004; Page A22
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A53083-2004Oct21.html
UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 21 -- Britain, Japan, South Korea, India and scores of other close U.S. allies sought to head off the Bush administration's campaign to seek a global ban on all forms of human cloning, saying it would undercut scientific efforts to develop cures for cancers, diabetes and a host of other diseases.
The administration is leading diplomatic efforts to rally international backing for a Costa Rican resolution that would outlaw all forms of human cloning, including the use of human embryos in stem cell research. The initiative, which President Bush promoted during his Sept. 21 address to the U.N. General Assembly, goes beyond the restrictions imposed on cloning by U.S. law. It would increase pressure on governments to adopt a total ban.
The current dispute revives a highly acrimonious debate on human cloning at the United Nations for the third consecutive year. It mirrors the dispute on human cloning that has played out in the U.S. presidential campaign. President Bush and Sen John F. Kerry have staked out sharply different positions, with the Democratic candidate advocating the use of human embryos from fertility clinics to pursue medical research. Bush has provided federal funding for research on a limited line of human embryos for stem cell research. But he also backs legislation that would criminalize therapeutic cloning.
U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan weighed in on the debate Thursday, saying that "in my personal view, I think I will go for therapeutic cloning." But he said: "Obviously, it's an issue for the member states to decide."
The governments of the United States, Costa Rica and dozens of European and Latin American countries that support a total ban argue that a partial ban would encourage the creation of a black market in human embryos.
Roberto Tovar, Costa Rica's minister of foreign affairs and worship, said that "cloning reduces the human being to a mere object of industrial production and manipulation." He added: "Today we must decide whether the international community will adopt a utilitarian ethic that justifies the deliberate creation of human embryos with the purpose of destroying them for scientific experiments."
Key European governments, including that of Britain, support a Belgian resolution calling for a partial ban on cloning that would permit scientific research pursuing cures for diseases. "If other countries decide they want to ban therapeutic cloning, then we respect that totally. All we are asking for is the same respect in return," said Emyr Jones Parry, Britain's ambassador to the United Nations. Parry said the other resolution "seeks to impose a single dogmatic and inflexible viewpoint on the rest of the world and overturn decisions which have been legitimately taken by other national governments."
Islamic countries, whose religion rejects the notion that life begins at conception, want more time to consider their position on the issue. Speaking on behalf of the 57-member Organization of the Islamic Conference, Turkey's representative, Gokcen Tugral, said the Islamic states are opposed to a vote on either resolution. "A vote on either of the draft resolutions by which one side would impose its views on the other would only create a negative atmosphere," she said.
The United States, Belgium and other countries have continued negotiations aimed at a compromise. On Thursday, South Korea proposed delaying any vote this year and convening an international scientific conference on cloning to increase delegates' understanding of the issue.
"The current divisions within [the General Assembly's legal] committee do not favor beginning serious negotiations on human cloning," said Shin Kak Soo, South Korea's representative in Thursday's debate.
-------- ACTIVISTS
Activists seek rights for felons
October 22, 2004
By Christina Bellantoni
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/metro/20041021-105220-1196r.htm
Civil rights groups are fighting to loosen state rules for restoring voting rights to felons, potentially adding millions of ex-convicts to voter rolls in the next decade.
The nation currently holds about 7 million people in its prisons and is home to about 5 million released felons who are not allowed to vote, according to several civil rights and advocacy groups. About 1.5 million of the released felons are black men, prison statistics show.
Legal experts said legislative bodies nationwide have been loosening restrictions for restoring felons' rights, which include voting, serving on juries and holding elected office. However, no group tracks national statistics on how many felons actually register to vote.
"Once people have learned about disenfranchisement, it has offended their sense of fairness and democracy," said Ryan King, research associate for the Sentencing Project, a District-based criminal-justice advocacy group. "Both legislatively and through the court of public opinion, we are moving in the direction of having less restrictive policies."
But Virginia Delegate Bradley P. Marrs said his state has a policy that other states should follow - denying voting rights to felons forever as punishment for breaking the law.
"We don't allow people who have violated the societal contract to participate in how the government runs," said Mr. Marrs, Chesterfield County Republican. "We deprive certain rights for life."
Since the 2000 election, states such as Maryland and New Mexico have become less restrictive on felons' rights.
In 2002, the Maryland legislature passed a bill that restored felons' right to vote upon completion of their sentences, affecting about 200,000 people.
Under the law, rights are restored automatically to first-time, nonviolent offenders only. For others, the period without rights depends on the number of convictions and whether the person has been convicted of a violent crime.
Hassan Allen-Giordano, state director of Maryland's Voting Rights Coalition, said 372 Maryland felons registered to vote over the summer.
Nearly 2,000 Virginia felons will be able to vote Nov. 2, because Gov. Mark Warner restored rights to them at an expedited pace.
The Washington Times reported yesterday that Mr. Warner, a Democrat, has granted 1,892 petitions since taking office in 2002, more than any other governor in Virginia in at least 30 years. He 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 presidential election was Oct. 4.
The sharp increase in approvals can be partly attributed to a backlog of 732 requests - some more than four years old - which the governor inherited when he took office, administration officials said.
No one is saying Mr. Warner's move is politically motivated, but the governor's office said some applications were processed more quickly so they could meet the voter-registration deadline.
States such as California, Pennsylvania, Texas and New York now allow for automatic restoration of rights once a felon completes his or her sentence. Only Maine and Vermont allow felons to vote in prison.
Blacks, who tend to vote Democratic, make up a sizable portion of the nation's current and former prison populations.
Restoring felons' voting rights "might benefit the Democrats; however, the people who get convicted of felonies aren't necessarily the people who vote a lot," said David Lublin, professor of political science at American University. "It's not clear to me it will have a huge partisan impact."
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is pushing for less restrictive and more uniform state policies on granting felons the right to vote.
This week, the ACLU released a study on how 15 states purge felons from their voting rolls, including Virginia and Maryland. The study was inspired by the 2000 election and what happened in Florida, where thousands of voters were erroneously removed from voter rolls.
Kent Willis, executive director of the ACLU of Virginia, said most state voter databases do not have a system of checks and balances to ensure that the correct person is taken off the rolls, particularly in the case of people who have the same name as a felon.
"Registrars need to be sure they are not purging a nonfelon from the voting rolls," he said. "Due to error and lack of effort, many people who are eligible voters are being denied their right to vote."
In addition, few states notify a person before their name is being removed. Mr. Willis contends that states should do everything in their power to contact a person to verify the information is correct.
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