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NUCLEAR
Paying China for pressuring Pyongyang
Iraqi boy to return home after leukemia treatment
Iranian Leader Rules Out Halt in Uranium Enrichment
Iran - EU Talks to Resume Nov. 5 as Deadline Looms
Russia tied to Iraq's missing arms
IAEA Says It Warned U.S. About Explosives
4 Iraqis Tell of Looting at Munitions Site in '03
Armed Group Claims to Have Iraq Explosives
Powell Cautions Israel on Iran Action
White House Says Nations Agree on N. Korea
Protesters Weld Shut Entrance to Brazil Nuclear HQ
U.S. set to have missile defense by year's end
"Serious shortcomings" seen in security at Russian nuclear plants
Russia Denies Involvement in Iraq Weapons
Nuclear watchdog chief advocates tougher, broader Non-Proliferation Treaty
Feds join search for nuclear fuel missing from PG&E plant
Lawsuit Seeks Cleanup of Radioactive Land Near Los Angeles
Initiative 297 foes believe it will pass
MILITARY
Fewer guns, but tensions persist in Liberia
Biological Weapons Pose Major Threat, Say U.K. Scientists
British troops move closer to Baghdad
Powell's Comments in China Rile Taiwan
The Chinese Dragon submerges
Study: 100,000 Excess Civilian Iraqi Deaths Since War
Militants Slaughter 11 Iraqi Soldiers
Fallujah Talks, and Battle Planning, Continue
Provincial Capital Near Falluja Is Rapidly Slipping Into Chaos
Rumsfeld 'ignored Fallujah warnings'
Palestinians Debate Significance of Israel's Gaza Withdrawal
Arafat collapses; condition 'serious'
Israeli peace camp hails Sharon the hawk
Osama and his Shi'ite nemesis
NATO chief says it hopes to train 1,000 senior Iraqi officers a year
Another Side of the Georgian-Russian Conflict
CIA can't authenticate alleged al Qaeda tape
Nuclear watchdog chief advocates tougher, broader Non-Proliferation Treaty
U.S. Barred From Forcing Troops to Get Anthrax Shots
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
O'Connor touts global law
Judge Rebuffs GOP Effort to Contest Voters in Ohio
Homeland Security Agents Visit Toy Store
Hope Fades for Intelligence Bill
Intelligence Report to Assess Threat Posed by Terrorists
Policing Is Aggressive at Bush Events
Poll Finds Most Americans Have Not Prepared for a Terror Attack
U.N. Condemns Harsh Methods in Campaign Against Terror
POLITICS
U.S. Creates Ethics Panel on Priority for Flu Shots
5 EYEWITNESS NEWS video may be linked to missing explosives in Iraq
President ridicules foe's 'wild charges'
N. Korea, Cuba worst for press
India's Ex-Foreign Minister Assails Powell
Missing Munitions Become Focus of Presidential Race
Indians Build 'Emerging Presence' in Capital
FACTBOX: Positions of Bush/Kerry on Domestic Issues
Secret Document Suggests GOP Preparing to Challenge Black Vote in Florida
Heavy early-voter turnout overwhelms elections offices
OTHER
Russian Parliament Ratifies Kyoto Pact
A Closer Look at the Stem Cell Record
ACTIVISTS
Mary Kelly Vs The State Trial Updates:
The New Anti-War Protesters
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- asia
Paying China for pressuring Pyongyang
Asia Times
By Ehsan Ahrari
Oct 28, 2004
http://atimes.com/atimes/China/FJ28Ad03.html
The use of pressure tactics is one of the ancient principles of diplomacy. Not many nations practice it as effectively as the United States, the lone superpower. The focus of Washington's pressure tactics this time is North Korea, and the recipient is none other the People's Republic of China, itself an ancient master of the subtle and not-so-subtle arts of diplomacy of all sorts, as well as deception.
In Washington's official circles, there has been a growing feeling that about the only effective way of getting Pyongyang to cooperate with the US on the nuclear-weapons-related conflict is to use the "China card". That means persuading Beijing to put pressure on Pyongyang to make reasonable offers to the United States, concerning dismantling of its nuclear-weapons program in return for aid, energy and security guarantees, in order to break the current impasse. A related feeling in Washington is that Beijing is serving as an interlocutor only halfheartedly. The US is not wrong in its overall assessment of China's role in these negotiations. In the world of international diplomacy, the effectiveness or limitations of the "China card" will only be determined by China - no one else.
True, China does have influence on North Korea, an old socialist ally; it provides oil, humanitarian assistance and other aid to Pyongyang. It tries to persuade North Korea to open up, join the world community and enjoy the fruits of prosperity. Even so, China's influence is limited.
Wrinkles in the conflict, some old, some new As a precondition to rejoining the six-nation forum, involving North and South Korea, China, Japan, Russia and the United States, and continuing negotiations, North Korea wants the US "to contribute to a compensation package". In return, it claims it would agree to freeze its nuclear-weapons programs. In addition, North Korean leader Kim Jong-il wants US President George W Bush to abandon what he call America's "hostile policy" toward Pyongyang and accept its suggestion for a discussion of South Korea's recently disclosed and unauthorized experiments with nuclear materials in the past.
The Bush administration envisages North Korea's preference for receiving up-front compensation as being aimed at driving a wedge between the United States and its other four allies in the discussion. In view of the fact that Japan and South Korea have already made commitments to supply fuel oil if North Korea commits itself to end its nuclear program, the US is under pressure to make similar gestures. However, Washington refuses to budge from its insistence that it will offer a security guarantee to Kim Jong-il's regime only after it "discloses and allows the verification of the full extent of its programs". US Secretary of State Colin Powell reiterated this position during his trip to East Asia.
What is also complicating the US-North Korea conflict is a naval exercise, or Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), involving the United States, Japan and several other East Asian countries. The purpose of this exercise in Japan's Sagami Bay is to stem weapons proliferation and send a strong warning. North Korea knows full well that it is the intended target of such a measure. The fact that US Under Secretary of State John Bolton was there as an observer does not make Kim Jong-il very happy, since in the past Bolton has called Kim "human scum" and a "bloodsucker". Besides, Bolton recently referred to such an exercise as "a useful deterrent to companies that otherwise might be tempted to do business with proliferators like North Korea". Powell attempted to put the best face on the exercise by noting that "it is not a hostile act toward North Korea". But Kim Jong-il remains utterly unimpressed.
What should China make of this public good-cop-bad-cop show? It appears that Beijing will stay engaged in the six-nation dialogue solely as a continuation of a ritual leading up to the US presidential election next Tuesday. China also knows that it can put ample pressure on North Korea, but not without significant payoffs from the US for China itself. Such a payoff must come in several ways:
# First, a clear enunciation of US-China relations must be made in the first part of next year in Washington. Even if Bush is re-elected, the United States must make discernable concessions regarding the Taiwan reunification conflict. # Second, the United States must also back off from selling sophisticated weapons platforms to Taiwan, an issue that has consistently annoyed leaders in Beijing. The most complicating aspect of these two expectations is that the US Congress is very much involved, and may not budge when it comes to abandoning a democratic ally, Taiwan. # Third, from the Chinese point of view, Washington and China must arrive at some new understanding in negotiations over weapons sales to People's Republic of China. Here again,the role of the US Congress remains vital. # Fourth, if George W Bush is re-elected, then China must see the framework of his administration's engagement in East Asia early next year in order to determine whether it adopts a strident posture or a friendly one toward China. On this issue, the White House has considerable leeway, especially if the neo-conservatives were to be consistently sidelined in the White House in a second Bush administration. The likelihood of such an occurrence - sidelining the neo-cons - appears terribly remote.
If Senator John F Kerry wins the White House, China knows that it must get serious about putting pressure on Kim Jong-il to unravel its nuclear-weapons program. However, a president Kerry must also assure North Korea first that he will not continue to take the United States down the road to hostility toward the Kim Jong-il regime.
Conclusions These pressure and counter-pressure games involving the United States, China and North Korea will become quite intriguing if Kerry is elected. The start of a new game is almost always more interesting than the continuation of an old one, where the participants' moves are pretty much anticipated. China will let the US play the "China card" as long Beijing gets fulfilled some of the cherished goals of its own strategic affairs, especially concerning Taiwan. Kerry, with no previous ideological baggage from the White House, might be more prone to deal with China and North Korea on the basis of pragmatism and national interests than Bush, whose ideological preoccupation has been seen as a major obstacle for the past four years by friends and foes alike.
Ehsan Ahrari is an independent strategic analyst in Alexandria, Virginia.
-------- depleted uranium
Iraqi boy to return home after leukemia treatment
Japan Today
October 28, 2004
http://www.japantoday.com/e/?content=news&cat=1&id=316993
NAGOYA - A 5-year-old Iraqi boy will return home Sunday after undergoing treatment for leukemia, which he is believed to have contracted from depleted uranium used in Iraq war, the boy's mother and Japanese supporters said Wednesday.
The boy, Abbas A-Ali Al-Malky, and his 26-year-old mother, Anwar Abed Mawasa, appeared before reporters in the city of Nagoya to express their gratitude to their supporters. (Kyodo News)
-------- iran
Iranian Leader Rules Out Halt in Uranium Enrichment
By Susanna Loof
Associated Press
Thursday, October 28, 2004; Page A17
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3619-2004Oct27.html
VIENNA, Oct. 27 -- Iran's supreme leader threatened Wednesday to pull out of negotiations if European countries press their demand for total suspension of uranium enrichment, as a new round of talks ended without an agreement to avert the possible threat of U.N. sanctions.
Britain, France and Germany are trying to work out a deal that would defuse Western concerns about Iran's nuclear program, which the United States says aims to develop nuclear weapons.
The Europeans are offering Iran incentives -- a trade deal and civilian nuclear technology, including a light-water research reactor -- in return for a halt in enrichment, which can produce fuel for both nuclear energy and atomic weapons.
They have warned that most European states will back the United States' call to refer Iran's nuclear file to the U.N. Security Council for possible economic sanctions if Iran doesn't give up all uranium enrichment activities before a Nov. 25 meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency, a U.N. body.
In talks Wednesday, Iran's delegates insisted on the right to enrich uranium. And the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, ruled out any long-term suspension of the program. "A long-term suspension of enrichment is a discussion without logic," Khamenei said, according to state-run television in Tehran. Still, Iranian negotiators held out the possibility of a compromise with the Europeans. Iranian and British officials said another round of talks would be held soon.
"We haven't closed the door for an understanding . . . but will reach compromise if there is a balanced package of agreements. Obligations and confidence-building measures have to be bilateral," Hossein Mousavian, Iran's chief delegate to the IAEA, told his country's state-run radio Wednesday. "There has to be no discrimination against Iran."
Iran insists that its nuclear activities are peaceful and geared solely toward generating electricity. The United States, pointing to Iran's vast oil reserves, contends that it is running a covert nuclear weapons program.
Heightening the U.S. concerns, Iran has resumed testing, assembling and making centrifuges used to enrich uranium.
--------
Iran - EU Talks to Resume Nov. 5 as Deadline Looms
October 28, 2004
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-nuclear-iran.html
VIENNA (Reuters) - Nuclear talks between the EU and Iran will resume in Paris on Nov. 5 with Tehran facing a looming deadline to agree to freeze uranium enrichment or risk referral to the U.N. Security Council, diplomats said on Thursday.
The Paris talks follow a second round of discussions between Iranian, British, German and French officials in Vienna on Wednesday described as positive and constructive by both sides.
``The EU has a positive feeling about the meeting yesterday. The talks were substantive,'' said an EU diplomat.
``The next round will be in Paris on November 5,'' said a diplomat from one of the EU's three biggest countries. A Western diplomat confirmed the date and venue for the talks.
The diplomats, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Iranian negotiators hinted during Wednesday's talks that Iran was prepared to freeze uranium enrichment for a short period.
``Their opening gambit was for the suspension to last two or three months,'' said the EU trio diplomat.
The EU has called for Iran -- which insists its atomic program is geared solely to electricity production -- to agree to an indefinite freeze on enrichment which can be used to make either nuclear power reactor fuel or bomb-grade material.
But Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the last word on all matters of state, said Tehran would not accept a long-term enrichment freeze and warned it could pull out of talks altogether if the EU made ``illogical'' demands.
The EU has warned it will back U.S. calls for Iran to be reported to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions at the Nov. 25 IAEA meeting if the enrichment suspension is not verifiably in place by then.
``They need to agree to the suspension by around Nov. 10 in order for the U.N. to verify it in time for the Nov. 25 board meeting'' of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the EU trio diplomat said.
IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said the enrichment freeze must be in place well before Nov. 25 if it is to be verified and included in the agency's report, which is normally sent to board members about 10 days before the meeting.
But another EU diplomat said the Iranians are ``masters at playing us right to the brink'' and that an agreement may not come until a couple of days before the IAEA meeting.
While Iran is prepared to temporarily freeze enrichment as a ``confidence-building measure'' it refuses to contemplate scrapping enrichment for good as the EU and Washington wants.
``Cessation (of enrichment) is out of the question,'' Hossein Mousavian, a senior Iranian security official, told Reuters in Tehran.
``This is our red line. If it is the other party's red line as well then we may have to try a period of confrontation in the Security Council,'' he said. ``But Iran is ready for confidence-building measures to assure the world our uranium enrichment program will never be diverted (to military use).''
The EU is offering Iran various incentives to scrap its enrichment activities including a guaranteed supply of reactor fuel, help with building a light-water power reactor and a resumption of stalled trade talks.
-------- iraq / inspections
Russia tied to Iraq's missing arms
October 28, 2004
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20041028-122637-6257r.htm
Russian special forces troops moved many of Saddam Hussein's weapons and related goods out of Iraq and into Syria in the weeks before the March 2003 U.S. military operation, The Washington Times has learned.
John A. Shaw, the deputy undersecretary of defense for international technology security, said in an interview that he believes the Russian troops, working with Iraqi intelligence, "almost certainly" removed the high-explosive material that went missing from the Al-Qaqaa facility, south of Baghdad.
"The Russians brought in, just before the war got started, a whole series of military units," Mr. Shaw said. "Their main job was to shred all evidence of any of the contractual arrangements they had with the Iraqis. The others were transportation units."
Mr. Shaw, who was in charge of cataloging the tons of conventional arms provided to Iraq by foreign suppliers, said he recently obtained reliable information on the arms-dispersal program from two European intelligence services that have detailed knowledge of the Russian-Iraqi weapons collaboration.
Most of Saddam's most powerful arms were systematically separated from other arms like mortars, bombs and rockets, and sent to Syria and Lebanon, and possibly to Iran, he said.
The Russian involvement in helping disperse Saddam's weapons, including some 380 tons of RDX and HMX, is still being investigated, Mr. Shaw said.
The RDX and HMX, which are used to manufacture high-explosive and nuclear weapons, are probably of Russian origin, he said.
Pentagon spokesman Larry DiRita could not be reached for comment.
The disappearance of the material was reported in a letter Oct. 10 from the Iraqi government to the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Disclosure of the missing explosives Monday in a New York Times story was used by the Democratic presidential campaign of Sen. John Kerry, who accused the Bush administration of failing to secure the material.
Al-Qaqaa, a known Iraqi weapons site, was monitored closely, Mr. Shaw said.
"That was such a pivotal location, Number 1, that the mere fact of [special explosives] disappearing was impossible," Mr. Shaw said. "And Number 2, if the stuff disappeared, it had to have gone before we got there."
The Pentagon disclosed yesterday that the Al-Qaqaa facility was defended by Fedayeen Saddam, Special Republican Guard and other Iraqi military units during the conflict. U.S. forces defeated the defenders around April 3 and found the gates to the facility open, the Pentagon said in a statement yesterday.
A military unit in charge of searching for weapons, the Army's 75th Exploitation Task Force, then inspected Al-Qaqaa on May 8, May 11 and May 27, 2003, and found no high explosives that had been monitored in the past by the IAEA.
The Pentagon said there was no evidence of large-scale movement of explosives from the facility after April 6.
"The movement of 377 tons of heavy ordnance would have required dozens of heavy trucks and equipment moving along the same roadways as U.S. combat divisions occupied continually for weeks prior to and subsequent to the 3rd Infantry Division's arrival at the facility," the statement said.
The statement also said that the material may have been removed from the site by Saddam's regime.
According to the Pentagon, U.N. arms inspectors sealed the explosives at Al-Qaqaa in January 2003 and revisited the site in March and noted that the seals were not broken.
It is not known whether the inspectors saw the explosives in March. The U.N. team left the country before the U.S.-led invasion began March 20, 2003.
A second defense official said documents on the Russian support to Iraq reveal that Saddam's government paid the Kremlin for the special forces to provide security for Iraq's Russian arms and to conduct counterintelligence activities designed to prevent U.S. and Western intelligence services from learning about the arms pipeline through Syria.
The Russian arms-removal program was initiated after Yevgeny Primakov, the former Russian intelligence chief, could not persuade Saddam to give in to U.S. and Western demands, this official said.
A small portion of Iraq's 650,000 tons to 1 million tons of conventional arms that were found after the war were looted after the U.S.-led invasion, Mr. Shaw said. Russia was Iraq's largest foreign supplier of weaponry, he said.
However, the most important and useful arms and explosives appear to have been separated and moved out as part of carefully designed program. "The organized effort was done in advance of the conflict," Mr. Shaw said.
The Russian forces were tasked with moving special arms out of the country.
Mr. Shaw said foreign intelligence officials believe the Russians worked with Saddam's Mukhabarat intelligence service to separate out special weapons, including high explosives and other arms and related technology, from standard conventional arms spread out in some 200 arms depots.
The Russian weapons were then sent out of the country to Syria, and possibly Lebanon in Russian trucks, Mr. Shaw said.
Mr. Shaw said he believes that the withdrawal of Russian-made weapons and explosives from Iraq was part of plan by Saddam to set up a "redoubt" in Syria that could be used as a base for launching pro-Saddam insurgency operations in Iraq.
The Russian units were dispatched beginning in January 2003 and by March had destroyed hundreds of pages of documents on Russian arms supplies to Iraq while dispersing arms to Syria, the second official said.
Besides their own weapons, the Russians were supplying Saddam with arms made in Ukraine, Belarus, Bulgaria and other Eastern European nations, he said.
"Whatever was not buried was put on lorries and sent to the Syrian border," the defense official said.
Documents reviewed by the official included itineraries of military units involved in the truck shipments to Syria. The materials outlined in the documents included missile components, MiG jet parts, tank parts and chemicals used to make chemical weapons, the official said.
The director of the Iraqi government front company known as the Al Bashair Trading Co. fled to Syria, where he is in charge of monitoring arms holdings and funding Iraqi insurgent activities, the official said.
Also, an Arabic-language report obtained by U.S. intelligence disclosed the extent of Russian armaments. The 26-page report was written by Abdul Tawab Mullah al Huwaysh, Saddam's minister of military industrialization, who was captured by U.S. forces May 2, 2003.
The Russian "spetsnaz" or special-operations forces were under the GRU military intelligence service and organized large commercial truck convoys for the weapons removal, the official said.
Regarding the explosives, the new Iraqi government reported that 194.7 metric tons of HMX, or high-melting-point explosive, and 141.2 metric tons of RDX, or rapid-detonation explosive, and 5.8 metric tons of PETN, or pentaerythritol tetranitrate, were missing.
The material is used in nuclear weapons and also in making military "plastic" high explosive.
Defense officials said the Russians can provide information on what happened to the Iraqi weapons and explosives that were transported out of the country. Officials believe the Russians also can explain what happened to Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs.
--------
IAEA Says It Warned U.S. About Explosives after April 2003 looting of nuclear complex
October 28, 2004
By WILLIAM J. KOLE
Associated Press Writer
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/I/IRAQ_WEAPONS?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
VIENNA, Austria (AP) -- U.S. officials were warned about the vulnerability of explosives stored at Iraq's Al-Qaqaa military installation after another facility - the country's main nuclear complex - was looted in April 2003, the U.N. nuclear agency said Thursday.
The International Atomic Energy Agency cautioned American officials directly about what was kept at Al-Qaqaa, the main storage facility in Iraq for so-called high explosives, spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said.
The disclosure shed new light on what the United States knew about Al-Qaqaa, which held 377 tons of high explosives that have vanished - an issue that has become a flashpoint in the final days of the U.S. presidential campaign.
The explosives can be used to make car bombs that insurgents have used to target U.S.-led forces in Iraq. On Thursday, an armed group in Iraq claimed in a video to have obtained a large amount of the missing material - HMX, RDX and PETN - and threatened to use it against foreign troops.
Iraqi officials say the materials were taken amid looting sometime after the fall of Baghdad to U.S. forces on April 9, 2003, though the Pentagon and President Bush are suggesting the ordnance could have been moved before the United States invaded on March 20, 2003.
An IAEA official told The Associated Press the explosives were stored in hundreds of large, heavy cardboard drums that probably would have required trucks and forklifts to handle. The U.S. military has said it would be difficult to haul away so much material unnoticed once troops reached the area.
Fleming did not say which officials were notified or when, but she said the IAEA - which had put storage bunkers at the site under seal two months before the war - alerted the United States about Al-Qaqaa after the Tuwaitha nuclear complex was looted. The IAEA said it informed U.S. officials separately of the Tuwaitha looting on April 10.
"After we heard reports of looting at the Tuwaitha site in April 2003, the agency's chief Iraq inspector alerted American officials that we were concerned about the security of the high explosives stored at Al-Qaqaa," she said.
"It is also important to note that this was the main high explosives storage facility in Iraq, and it was well-known through IAEA reports to the Security Council," Fleming said.
IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei informed the United Nations in February 2003, and again in April of that year, that he was concerned about HMX explosives, which were stored at Al-Qaqaa, some 30 miles south of Baghdad.
The explosives' disappearance recently has dominated the presidential campaign, with Democratic nominee John Kerry saying the Bush administration's poor planning led to the loss of the dangerous material. The Pentagon contends Saddam Hussein's regime may have removed the explosives before the war.
The IAEA also sought Thursday to clarify reports that the amount of missing explosives may have been far less than what the Iraqis said in an Oct. 10 report to the nuclear agency.
ABC News, citing IAEA inspection documents, reported Wednesday that the Iraqis had declared 141 tons of RDX explosives at Al-Qaqaa in July 2002, but that the site held only three tons when it was checked in January 2003. The network said that could suggest that 138 tons were removed from the facility long before the March 2003 invasion.
Vice President Dick Cheney seized upon the ABC report Thursday, telling supporters in Wisconsin that Kerry had gotten the facts wrong in criticizing the Bush administration for the disappearance of the explosives.
Kerry is "just dead wrong. ... We know ... upwards to 125 tons had been removed" in January 2003 before the invasion, Cheney said. "He's just plain wrong on the facts."
But Fleming said most of the RDX - about 125 tons - was kept at Al-Mahaweel, a storage site under Al-Qaqaa's jurisdiction located about 30 miles outside the main Al-Qaqaa site. She also said about 10 tons already had been reported by Iraq as having been used for non-prohibited purposes between July 2002 and January 2003.
"IAEA inspectors visited Al-Mahaweel on Jan. 15, 2003, and verified the RDX inventory by weighing sampling," Fleming said. She said the RDX at Al-Mahaweel was not under seal but was subject to IAEA monitoring.
"IAEA inspectors were in the process of verifying this statement (the Iraqi inventory of its weapons) ... and would have proceeded later had they stayed in Iraq," Fleming said. The nuclear agency's inspectors pulled out of Iraq just before the invasion and have not been allowed to return for general inspections despite ElBaradei's requests that they be allowed to finish their work.
The agency became involved at Al-Qaqaa because of the presence of 214 tons of HMX, which - like RDX - is a key component in plastic explosives but also can be used as an ignitor on a nuclear weapon. Fleming said it was the HMX that was the agency's main focus.
ABC said the inspection report noted the seals at Al-Qaqaa may have been useless because the storage bunkers had ventilation slats on the sides that could have been removed to give looters access to the explosives.
But Fleming said the inspectors had also checked the ventilation slats to ensure they had not been tampered with, and concluded "the confinement was sufficient" as long as the site was regularly checked. They could no longer do that once they pulled out on March 16.
IAEA inspectors last saw the Al-Qaqaa explosives on Jan. 15, 2003, when they took an inventory and placed fresh seals on the bunkers. Inspectors visited the site again on March 1, 2003, but didn't view the explosives because the seals were not broken, she said.
U.N. inspectors focusing on Iraq's long-range missile program visited the sprawling site on March 15, 2003 to tag missile warheads; they too left Iraq before the war started.
Agency inspectors have returned twice to Iraq since the war but focused only on Tuwaitha, a nuclear complex 12 miles south of Baghdad. They have not been allowed back to Al-Qaqaa.
On the Net:
IAEA, www.iaea.org
--------
MISSING EXPLOSIVES
4 Iraqis Tell of Looting at Munitions Site in '03
October 28, 2004
The New York Times
By JAMES GLANZ and JIM DWYER
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/28/international/middleeast/28bomb.html?oref=login&pagewanted=all
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Oct. 27 - Looters stormed the weapons site at Al Qaqaa in the days after American troops swept through the area in early April 2003 on their way to Baghdad, gutting office buildings, carrying off munitions and even dismantling heavy machinery, three Iraqi witnesses and a regional security chief said Wednesday.
The Iraqis described an orgy of theft so extensive that enterprising residents rented their trucks to looters. But some looting was clearly indiscriminate, with people grabbing anything they could find and later heaving unwanted items off the trucks.
Two witnesses were employees of Al Qaqaa - one a chemical engineer and the other a mechanic - and the third was a former employee, a chemist, who had come back to retrieve his records, determined to keep them out of American hands. The mechanic, Ahmed Saleh Mezher, said employees asked the Americans to protect the site but were told this was not the soldiers' responsibility.
The accounts do not directly address the question of when 380 tons of powerful conventional explosives vanished from the site sometime after early March, the last time international inspectors checked the seals on the bunkers where the material was stored. It is possible that Iraqi forces removed some explosives before the invasion.
But the accounts make clear that what set off much if not all of the looting was the arrival and swift departure of American troops, who did not secure the site after inducing the Iraqi forces to abandon it.
"The looting started after the collapse of the regime," said Wathiq al-Dulaimi, a regional security chief, who was based nearby in Latifiya. But once it had begun, he said, the booty streamed toward Baghdad.
Earlier this month, on Oct. 10, the directorate of national monitoring at the Ministry of Science and Technology notified the International Atomic Energy Agency that the explosives, which are used in demolition and missiles and are the raw material for plastic explosives, were missing. The agency has monitored the explosives because they can also be used as the initiator of an atomic bomb.
Agency officials examined the explosives in January 2003 and noted in early March that their seals were still in place. On April 3, the Third Infantry Division arrived with the first American troops.
Chris Anderson, a photographer for U.S. News and World Report who was with the division's Second Brigade, recalled that the area was jammed with American armor on April 3 and 4, which he believed made the removal of the explosives unlikely. "It would be quite improbable for this amount of weapons to be looted at that time because of the traffic jam of armor," he said.
The brigade blew up numerous caches of arms throughout the area, he said. Mr. Anderson said he did not enter the munitions compound.
The Second Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division arrived outside the site on April 10, under the command of Col. Joseph Anderson. The brigade had been ordered to move quickly to Baghdad because of civil disorder there after Mr. Hussein's government fell on April 9.
They gathered at Al Qaqaa, about 30 miles south, simply as a matter of convenience, Colonel Anderson said in an interview this week. He said that when he arrived at the site - unaware of its significance - he saw no signs of looting, but was not paying close attention.
Because he thought the brigade would be moving on to Baghdad within hours, Al Qaqaa was of no importance to his mission, he said, and he was unaware of the explosives that international inspectors said were hidden inside.
Pentagon officials said Wednesday that analysts were examining surveillance photographs of the munitions site. But they expressed doubts that the photographs, which showed vehicles at the location on several occasions early in the conflict, before American troops moved through the area, would be able to indicate conclusively when the explosives were removed.
Col. David Perkins, who commanded the Second Brigade of the Third Infantry Division, called it "very highly improbable" that 380 tons of explosives could have been trucked out of Al Qaqaa in the weeks after American troops arrived.
Moving that much material, said Colonel Perkins, who spoke Wednesday to news agencies and cable television, "would have required dozens of heavy trucks and equipment moving along the same roadways as U.S. combat divisions occupied continually for weeks."
He conceded that some looting of the site had taken place. But a chemical engineer who worked at Al Qaqaa and identified himself only as Khalid said that once troops left the base itself, people streamed in to steal computers and anything else of value from the offices. They also took munitions like artillery shells, he said.
Mr. Mezher, the mechanic, said it took the looters about two weeks to disassemble heavy machinery at the site and carry that off after the smaller items were gone.
James Glanz reported from Baghdad for this article and Jim Dwyer from New York. Ali Adeeb contributed reporting from Baghdad, and Khalid W. Hussein and Zainab Obeid fromAl Qaqaa.
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Armed Group Claims to Have Iraq Explosives
Oct 28, 2004
The Associated Press
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20041028/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_explosives_claim_4
BAGHDAD, Iraq - An armed group claimed in a video Thursday to have obtained a large amount of explosives missing from a munitions depot facility in Iraq and threatened to use them against foreign troops.
A group calling itself Al-Islam's Army Brigades, Al-Karar Brigade, said it had coordinated with officers and soldiers of "the American intelligence" to obtain a "huge amount of the explosives that were in the al-Qaqaa facility."
The claim couldn't be independently verified. The speaker was surrounded by masked, armed men standing in front of a black banner with the group's name on it in the tape obtained by Associated Press Television News.
"We promise God and the Iraqi people that we will use it against the occupation forces and those who cooperate with them in the event of these forces threatening any Iraqi city," the man added.
Nearly 400 tons of conventional explosives have disappeared from the al-Qaqaa facility south of Baghdad, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency.
The U.N. agency's chief Mohamed ElBaradei, reported the disappearance to the U.N. Security Council on Monday, two weeks after Iraqi officials told the nuclear agency that 377 tons of explosives had vanished as a result of "theft and looting ... due to lack of security."
The disappearance of the explosives has become a huge campaign issue in the U.S. presidential election.
Meanwhile, Iraqi extremists in videotape aired Thursday by Al-Jazeera television showed what they said was a Polish woman hostage held in Iraq and demanded that Poland remove all its troops from Iraq.
The group, which called itself the Abu Bakr al-Siddiq Fundamentalist Brigades, said the woman, who was not identified, works with U.S. troops in Iraq. They also demanded the release of all Iraqi female prisoners.
Interior Ministry spokesman Col. Adnan Abdul Rahman said the woman was a longtime Iraq resident with Iraqi citizenship and was believed to have been abducted Wednesday night from her home in Baghdad. Abdul Rahman did not release her name.
A middle-aged woman with gray hair and dressed in a pink polka-dotted blouse sat in front of two masked gunmen, one of whom was pointing a pistol at her head. Her voice was not audible on the tape.
Al-Jazeera said the woman called on Polish troops to leave the country and for U.S. and Iraqi authorities to release all female detainees from the Abu Ghraib prison. The announcer said she had been "working in Iraq for a long time."
In Warsaw, a Polish Defense Ministry official said she apparently did not belong to any of the Polish military units. Polish television TVN24 reported that all Polish journalists in Iraq have been accounted for.
Ahmed al-Sheikh, Al-Jazeera's editor-in-chief, said the kidnappers did not mention a specific threat on the tape nor did they give a deadline for their demands to be met. He would not say when or how the station obtained the tape.
Poland commands some 6,000 troops from 15 nations - including some 2,400 from Poland - in the Babil, Karbala and Wasit provinces.
The armed group had also claimed responsibility in the September kidnapping of 10 Turkish hostages, who were released this month.
Late Wednesday, Al-Jazeera aired a video showing British aid worker Margaret Hassan, who again pleaded with Britain to withdraw its forces from Iraq even as some 800 British troops began deploying toward the Baghdad area. They were expected to relieve U.S. troops in the capital who are being preparing for a major assault on insurgent areas west and north of the capital.
Hassan, 59, who ran CARE International's operations in Iraq, has been the most high-profile of foreign hostages abducted in Iraq. No group has claimed responsibility in her abduction.
She also asked for the release of female Iraqi detainees and the closure of CARE's operations in Iraq.
A day earlier, a militant Web site ran a claim by the al-Qaida-linked group led by Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi vowing to kill a 24-year-old Japanese hostage within 48 hours unless Japan withdrew its 500 troops from the country.
Japan's Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi swiftly refused the demand, saying he wouldn't give in to terrorists.
Meanwhile, fighting continued on several fronts.
_ U.S. aircraft bombed a suspected rebel safehouse Thursday in the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah, killing two people, the U.S. military and witnesses said.
_ A car bomb exploded Thursday in southern Baghdad, killing a U.S. soldier and at least one Iraqi civilian, the U.S. military said.
_ Insurgents clashed with U.S. forces Thursday in the restive central Iraq town of Ramadi, leaving two people dead, according to the U.S. military and hospital officials.
-------- israel
Powell Cautions Israel on Iran Action
October 28, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-US-Iran-Nuclear.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Secretary of State Colin Powell advised Israel on Wednesday that diplomacy and not force is the way to deal with Iran's nuclear weapons program.
Two decades ago, Israeli warplanes destroyed an Iraqi reactor to prevent Saddam Hussein from developing nuclear weapons.
With Iran now moving in that direction, Powell said ``there was a lot of speculation and horror stories and other stories about what this might lead to in the way of crisis, and part of that speculation is that the Israelis might do something or not do something.''
``I have no information on that,'' Powell said on CNBC. ``And I think the whole world, to include Israel, is trying to find a diplomatic and peaceful solution to this problem.''
Powell said Iran had a program that could produce nuclear weapons, but he did not think it could be done overnight or in the next several months.
``It's going to take them time,'' he said.
In talks Wednesday in Vienna, Iran's delegates insisted in a meeting with British, French and German officials on the right to enrich uranium, which is a key ingredient to making nuclear weapons.
And in Iran, supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ruled out any long-term suspension of the program.
Powell said it was time to take the issue to the U.N. Security Council, which could impose economic pressure on Iran. ``It is not in the interests of the region or the world for Iran to be moving in this direction,'' he said.
The State Department spokesman, Richard Boucher, said at the daily media briefing that taking Iran before the U.N. Security Council remains the U.S. position even with the talks in Vienna.
``At this point, we have not seen anything different,'' he said. ``But in terms of Iranian commitments or behavior, we will have to see how the meeting went.''
The Europeans were believed to be offering Iran fuel and trade if it halted its nuclear programs.
-------- korea
White House Says Nations Agree on N. Korea
October 28, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-US-North-Korea-Nuclear.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Pledging flexibility in trying to get North Korea to end its nuclear weapons programs, the Bush administration on Wednesday said there was ``a remarkable similarity of views'' among nations joined with the United States in the effort.
``The differences are being exaggerated,'' State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said of reports of discord with South Korea and China over tactics being used in trying to reopen joint negotiations with North Korea.
Secretary of State Colin Powell returned Tuesday from Japan, China and South Korea, all parties to the negotiations, with no sign North Korea was ready to return to the table soon.
``The thrust of the trip was from all of us how to get them back to the table, how to press forward as soon as possible,'' Boucher said. ``And that was one where we and the Japanese and the South Koreans and Chinese share, I think, a remarkable similarly of views.''
In Seoul on Tuesday, however, South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki Moon said the United States and its partners ``must come up with a more creative and realistic proposal so that North Korea can come to the negotiating table as soon as possible.''
Earlier, the official New Chinese News Agency released a comment by Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing saying ``we wish the U.S. side would go further to adopt a flexible and practical attitude on the issue.''
But Boucher on Wednesday said, ``We do understand the need in negotiations to be creative and flexible. We are prepared to go back to the table and listen to what the North Koreans might have to say about our proposal.''
And, Boucher said, ``we are prepared to discuss that proposal with other governments at the bargaining table.''
The United States has offered North Korea written assurances that there is no intention of a U.S. attack. Also, as part of a package to stop North Korea's programs, Japan and South Korea might offer economic incentives once the talks make headway.
The Central Intelligence Agency estimates that North Korea already has one or two nuclear weapons, and some U.S. intelligence analysts say North Korea may have as many as six.
--------
Protesters Weld Shut Entrance to Brazil Nuclear HQ
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
October 28, 2004
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/27881/story.htm
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - Greenpeace activists welded shut the entrance to the headquarters of Brazil's state nuclear power company this week and chained themselves together in front of the building.
The pro-environment group said it was protesting against new investments in Brazil's nuclear program, including a government plan to enrich uranium that has caused a dispute with the United Nations over nonproliferation inspections.
The unfurled a banner outside the Brazilian Nuclear Industries (INB) in Rio de Janeiro demanding an end to Brazil's "nuclear adventure."
"We want to know if the population agrees with the proliferation of nuclear energy in Brazil," one protester said before firefighters cut the activists free and police led them away.
The uranium enrichment program has been in the headlines since Brazil refused to allow officials from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to fully inspect its new Resende uranium enrichment plant, northwest of Rio de Janeiro.
The IAEA wants full access to Resende to ensure no uranium is diverted for weapons but Brazil will not allow access to the plant's centrifuges, saying it fears industrial espionage.
Brazil, home to the world's sixth-largest proven reserves of uranium, says its enrichment operations will be entirely peaceful and small compared to other countries. Brazil has two nuclear reactors and is considering a third.
A Science and Technology Ministry spokesman said the government was revising Brazil's nuclear program and hoped to present recommendations to President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva by the end of the year.
A commentary by the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control published in Friday's issue of the journal Science said the Resende plant had the potential to produce enough enriched uranium for six nuclear bombs every year, a claim Brazil has denied.
-------- missile defense
U.S. set to have missile defense by year's end
Army News Service
By John A Emmert
October 28, 2004
http://www4.army.mil/news/article.php?story=6496
WASHINGTON - The United States will have the capability to defend itself against a limited attack by long-range ballistic missiles when the missile defense system becomes operational later this year.
The U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command agency has built, tested and verified an initial defense operations capability, said Thomas M. Devanney, deputy program director for the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense Agency. SMDC is prepared to put it on alert while continuing testing and development on the in-place hardware and software.
The missile defense system is a collection of ground and sea-based radars, communication systems designed to detect, track and destroy an enemy warhead before it can reach the United States.
SMDC has been working on fielding a response to threats since the president declared the intent to have the capability to defend the country against ballistic missiles less than two years ago, said Devanney at the AUSA Annual meeting.
"Since the 30th of September, we've been going through a series of transition exercises with the warfighter," said Devanney. Participants have gone through the checklists and procedures and the system has been close to becoming armed a number of times. The only thing they didn't do was mechanically arm the interceptors.
Fort Greely, Alaska, has five ground-based interceptors emplaced and is set to receive the sixth during the first week of November, said Devanney. Plans to place an additional 20 interceptors within the next few years are underway. Allen Army Airfield has been upgraded so interceptors can be flown directly to the site.
Army National Guard Soldiers are now manning the fire control stations at Fort Greely and Colorado Springs, Devanney said. Either station can operate the system.
Ground-based midcourse defense is the centerpiece of the operation, said Devanney. It has one of the largest fire control loops ever built with 20,000 miles of fiber optic cable and nine satellite communications links.
Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., is coming online before the end of the calendar year with four more silos and an in-flight communication system.
At Beale Air Force Base, Calif., all the computing hardware inside the radar has been replaced, Devanney said. All the hardware is in place and it was tracking satellites within days. It is going through final testing and will be online by the end of December.
By the end of 2005, the largest X-band radar for target tracking and identification ever built will be completed. Built on a floating platform, the structure has four pontoons each the size of a fleet ballistic missile submarine. The structure is 14 stories tall and the radar is 110 feet tall.
The defense system now has the infrastructure and testing simulations to provide confidence, said Devanney. SMDC is now focused on sustaining and upgrading the system.
-------- russia
"Serious shortcomings" seen in security at Russian nuclear plants
MOSCOW (AFP)
Oct 28, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041028152755.kyoelshz.html
Security at three Russian nuclear power plants has "serious shortcomings" despite steps to improve security levels, Russia's deputy prosecutor general, Vladimir Kolesnikov, said Thursday.
"Following checks by the prosecutor, serious shortcomings were discovered in the protection of nuclear stations" at three sites in Russia, the state news agency RIA Novosti quoted Kolesnikov as saying.
"Certain steps to modernize the security systems were taken, but the problems still persist," he said, without specifying what those shortcomings were.
The three nuclear stations he referred to -- at Kola, Novovoronezh and Smolensk -- are located in regions of Russia bordering Finland, Ukraine and Belarus.
Kolesnikov also said that security checks had also shown up flaws in protection of Russia's huge network of oil pipelines, the report said.
In early October, Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said nuclear sites in Russia had adequate protection against terrorism following a string of spectacular attacks that rocked the country in August and September.
Russian environmentalists have on numerous occasions warned authorities against the risk of attacks on nuclear sites in Russia and have called for them to be better protected.
--------
Russia Denies Involvement in Iraq Weapons
Oct 28, 2004
Associated Press
By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20041028/ap_on_re_eu/russia_iraq_weapons_1
MOSCOW - Russia angrily denied allegations Thursday that Russian forces had smuggled a cache of high explosives out of Iraq (news - web sites) prior to the U.S. invasion in March 2003.
Defense Ministry spokesman Vyacheslav Sedov dismissed the allegations as "absurd" and "ridiculous."
"I can state officially that the Russian Defense Ministry and its structures couldn't have been involved in the disappearance of the explosives, because all Russian military experts left Iraq when the international sanctions were introduced during the 1991 Gulf War (news - web sites)," he told The Associated Press.
The denial followed a story in The Washington Times on Thursday that quoted a high-ranking U.S. defense official alleging that Russian special forces had "almost certainly" helped spirit out the hundreds of tons of high explosives that went missing from the al-Qaqaa base. The newspaper based its report on an interview with John Shaw, the deputy U.S. undersecretary of defense for international technology security.
Two weeks ago, Iraqi officials told the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency that 377 tons of explosives had vanished as a result of "theft and looting ... due to lack of security." The compounds, HMX and RDX, are key components in plastic explosives, which insurgents in Iraq have used in bomb attacks.
Russia' charge d'affaires in Iraq, Ilya Morgunov, also denied the report.
"I didn't hear about any weapons to be taken out," Interfax quoted him as saying. "Moreover, there was nobody to take them out, because we actually evacuated all of our personnel."
He said there had been no Russian special forces in Iraq, only civilian specialists working for foreign firms.
-------- treaties
Nuclear watchdog chief advocates tougher, broader Non-Proliferation Treaty
GENEVA (AFP)
Thu Oct 28, 2004
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20041028/wl_afp/un_nuclear_npt_iaea_041028185137
- Tighter global controls on the export of nuclear material and technology must be included in a bolstered nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT) up for debate next year, the head of the UN nuclear watchdog said.
International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei insisted in an article for a UN review that the multilateral treaty -- whose effectiveness has been questioned by the United States -- remained "the essential anchor" for global nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament.
Its weaknesses in the face of the advancing availability of nuclear weapons know-how -- now thought to extend to 40 countries -- should be tackled by bringing more countries on board a stronger NPT at a review conference due in 2005, he added.
"The nuclear export control system should be universalised and treaty-based, while preserving the inalienable rights of all states to peaceful nuclear technology," ElBaradei wrote.
One hundred and eighty-eight countries have joined the 1970 NPT limiting the spread of nuclear weapons, including the five main nuclear superpowers, but not emerging weapons states India, Pakistan, or Israel.
North Korea (news - web sites) pulled out last year.
India earlier this month repeated that it was not ready to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty, saying the pact imposes stricter conditions on fledgling nuclear states than on established nuclear powers.
However, the NPT's system of checks on technology and material exports are not binding, and only 61 of the signatories have subscribed to them.
The flaw was one of the triggers for the current tensions between Iran and the IAEA over its enrichment facilities.
The United States has also accused countries of seeking nuclear weapons capability while under the cloak of the NPT.
ElBaradei said nuclear inspectors must have the right to conduct checks in all countries, while transparent limits must be placed on processing of plutonium and weapons grade enriched uranium.
No country should be allowed to bow out of the NPT "without clear consequences" before the UN Security Council, he added, rejecting the current allowance for three months notice.
North Korea withdrew from the NPT in 2003 after it revived the Yongbyon nuclear reactor, marking the first time any country has withdrawn from a multilateral arms control treaty.
The move raised international tensions and prompted warnings of "nuclear anarchy".
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
-------- california
Feds join search for nuclear fuel missing from PG&E plant
October 28, 2004
American City Business Journals
http://sanfrancisco.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/stories/2004/10/25/daily37.html
The federal government is joining an investigation into how Pacific Gas & Electric Co. lost track of three nuclear fuel rods, the Associated Press reports.
The National Regulatory Commission will send a team of investigators to join the search for fuel rods that officials at the Humboldt Bay Power Plant can't find.
The rods have been unaccounted for since San Francisco-based PG&E -- the plant's operator -- began an inventory of a pool used to store spent nuclear rods.
Since August, PG&E crews have been using remote cameras to search less accessible areas of the pool.
NRC officials don't think the old fuel rods are in an unsafe place.
"We do believe it is in the spent fuel pool or in a spent fuel facility," said commission spokesman Victor Dricks.
The commission's inspection was launched because of the scope and complexity of PG&E's investigation. The commission also wants to evaluate PG&E's radioactive materials accountability and control program.
--------
Lawsuit Seeks Cleanup of Radioactive Land Near Los Angeles
October 28, 2004
LOS ANGELES, California, (ENS)
http://ens-newswire.com/ens/oct2004/2004-10-28-09.asp#anchor1
Two conservation groups and the City of Los Angeles are suing the Bush administration, alleging it broke longstanding commitments to clean up a radioactively contaminated nuclear facility in Southern California.
The Santa Susana Field Laboratory, a federal reactor testing site near Los Angeles, housed 10 reactors, one of which experienced a partial meltdown in 1959.
Despite radioactive and chemical contamination, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) said last year that it would not clean up the site according to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) standards.
Instead, DOE intends to leave 99 percent of the radioactively contaminated soil untouched and then release the land for potential residential development, the plaintiffs allege.
According to the EPA, the cleanup criteria chosen by the Energy Department would permit concentrations of some radioactive materials in the soil 10,000 times higher than EPA remediation goals - concentrations that pose the risk of cancer to one out of every 50 people exposed.
Still, once cleanup is complete, the DOE said, "future use of the property for residential purposes is probable."
"Surface and groundwater contamination by toxic and radioactive substances does not stop at city borders or respect county lines," said City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo. "My office will continue to look out for the health and safety of the residents of Los Angeles and Ventura County to ensure that responsibility for cleanup of the problems at this facility is properly addressed."
The lawsuit, filed October 21 in federal court in San Francisco by the Natural Resources Defense Council, Committee to Bridge the Gap, and the City of Los Angeles, alleges violations of the National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act, and CERCLA, the Superfund law.
It seeks to force the Energy Department to conduct a thorough environmental review of the site and to clean up the radioactive and chemical contamination according to the highest standards.
The 2,800 acre Santa Susana Field Laboratory is located on hills between the Simi and San Fernando Valleys in southeastern Ventura County, about 30 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles. For decades, the site was used to test nuclear reactors and rocket engines. Scientists suspect that the 1959 meltdown released more radioactivity than the meltdown at Three Mile Island in 1979.
Two other reactors suffered serious accidents in 1964 and 1969, when large numbers of nuclear fuel rods cracked. Radioactive contamination from decades of accidents and spills is widespread. Toxic chemicals such as TCE, dioxins, PCBs and heavy metals also pollute the site - by-products of rocket engine testing and nuclear activities.
Fifteen years ago, the two plaintiff groups joined forces with local community groups and shut down nuclear operations at the site.
Late last year, EPA officials found the Energy Department in violation of the DOE-EPA 1995 Joint Policy that commits all DOE sites to be cleaned up consistent with EPA standards.
EPA also found that under DOE's new plans, it would not be safe to release the site for any unrestricted use such as homes, and that the only acceptable use would be day hikes with limitations on picnicking.
"This case could affect nuclear contamination and public health nationwide," said Joel Reynolds, a senior attorney with NRDC and director of its Urban Program. "If the administration can ignore sensible cleanup standards here, at a site with a long history of nuclear accidents and even a reactor meltdown, it will do so anywhere. But if we can enforce a strong federal cleanup policy at Santa Susana, we will establish a precedent to safeguard the public nationwide."
"It is hard to conceive of putting houses on top of a former meltdown site," said Daniel Hirsch, president of CBG, another party to the suit and a longtime watchdog of Santa Susana Field Laboratory. "We sue to get the government to live up to its promises, to clean up the mess it made, and place no more people at risk."
"We've been lied to for 20 years about the health consequences of this place," said Barbara Johnson, a cancer survivor who lives near the field lab. "I'm so grateful that someone is finally going to force them to clean up this awful mess. It shouldn't take a lawsuit to get the government to protect us."
-------- us nuc waste
Initiative 297 foes believe it will pass
tri-cityherald.com
By Annette Cary
October 28, 2004
http://www.tri-cityherald.com/tch/local/elections/story/5720063p-5653503c.html
- Even the most ardent opponents of Initiative 297 hold out little hope that it will be defeated in Tuesday's election.
"I think it will pass and that's unfortunate," said Gary Petersen of the Tri-City Industrial Development Council. "It will not help cleanup. It will not speed it up, and unfortunately, when it passes, it will go to the courts."
The initiative, backed by Heart of America Northwest, would block shipments of waste to the Hanford reservation until waste there from the past production of plutonium for nuclear weapons is cleaned up.
Heart of America, which has poured nearly $1 million into promoting the initiative, sees it as a way to keep Washington from becoming a dumping ground for the nation's nuclear waste left from the massive weapons buildup of the Cold War.
The organization sees signs that the Department of Energy may not be committed to cleaning up all radioactive leaks into the ground at Hanford and may plan to abandon some of the high-level radioactive waste in Hanford's massive underground tanks.
But the campaign message that seems to have captured voters' attention is an image of 92,775 truckloads of radioactive waste rolling through their towns, within yards of schools and libraries, on their way to Hanford.
The Department of Energy has taken no stand on Initiative 297. But the message voters are receiving troubles DOE officials.
"Frankly, it's irresponsible to drum up concerns about transportation of waste," said Colleen French, DOE spokeswoman in Richland.
DOE says a recent record of decision limits incoming shipments to Hanford to 5,800 truckloads of mostly low-level radioactive waste, some of it mixed with chemicals.
In turn, DOE plans to ship far worse radioactive materials out of Hanford. High-level tank waste, barrels of materials contaminated with plutonium and irradiated nuclear fuel are planned to be shipped to Nevada or New Mexico for permanent disposal. Weapons-grade plutonium also will be removed from Hanford and likely sent to South Carolina.
Of the 405 million curies of radioactivity at Hanford today, about 90 percent should be gone by the end of cleanup, largely because so much of the most radioactive materials are planned to be shipped elsewhere, French said.
"Is this area really ready to accept leaving everything at Hanford?" she asked.
TRIDEC is expecting the U.S. Justice Department to be ready to file suit if the initiative passes. It's preparing a friend of the court brief to file in support.
Cleanup at Hanford is sure to be delayed while legal issues are being resolved, said Grant Nelson, governmental affairs director at the Association of Washington Business.
The association sees three potential areas for challenges.
State law allows initiatives to address only one issue. I-297 limits shipments of waste, provides for an advisory board and collects a surcharge on federal cleanup money to be distributed to local governments and public interest groups, likely including Heart of America.
"The initiative is limited to one topic: the cleanup of Hanford," said Bob Cooper, press secretary for Yes on I-297.
But the business association sees a topic bound for legal interpretation.
It also questions whether states can levy a surcharge on federal spending.
But the crucial legal question may be whether the state has the authority to stop the federal government from shipping waste to Hanford.
Gerald Pollet of Heart of America believes Washington has that authority under the Superfund law. It allows states to bar more waste from being added to sites that do not meet environmental standards.
Opponents of the initiative believe that forbidding the federal government to bring waste to Hanford violates the Atomic Energy Act and interstate commerce laws.
"This will be found as the state trying to govern federal law," Petersen said. "It will be kicked out by the federal courts."
While legal issues are being decided, the federal government may be less willing to fund cleanup, Nelson said. About $2 billion is expected to be spent this year at Hanford, with funding dropping as cleanup is accomplished.
Under the Tri-Party Agreement the federal government is legally obligated to clean up Hanford and will have to continue to spend money to meet legal deadlines, say supporters of the initiative.
But the power of the Tri-Party Agreement may pale next to the pressure to reduce the federal deficit, say opponents of the initiative.
"It may not want to put a lot of money into something unknown," Nelson said. "With the most consistent funding in a long time for Hanford, we do not want to be sending the signal to the feds that this might not be the best use of the money."
Reporter Annette Cary can be reached at 582-1533 or via e-mail at acary@tri-cityherald.com.
-------- MILITARY
-------- africa
Fewer guns, but tensions persist in Liberia
The Christian Science Monitor
By Mike Crawley
October 28, 2004
http://csmonitor.com/2004/1028/p04s01-woaf.html
ZWEDRU, LIBERIA - Armed gangs of young men no longer roam the streets of this town hacked out of the dense forests of eastern Liberia, an area laid waste by 14 years of war. A United Nations-sponsored disarmament program has brought enough security to Zwedru that traders sell their goods from stalls along the main street without fear of looting, while men sit chatting at the tea shops until late in the evening.
As Sunday's deadline for the disarmament of Liberia's former warring factions nears, most observers are calling the process a success, albeit a qualified one. More than 90,000 combatants have been demobilized and 26,000 weapons destroyed.
But the complexity of truly bringing peace to this war-ravaged nation becomes apparent one evening when angry voices drown out the buzz of conversation at a tea shop. The argument is about money. A one-time rebel commander is demanding a cut from the payments made to his former soldiers, and he doesn't seem to care who hears.
Attempts at extortion like this one are just one of the unintended consequences of Liberia's disarmament program, which has become one of the biggest forces driving the country's woeful economy. According to various officials working on the process, the $300 being paid to each demobilized fighter - totaling some $27 million - is breeding corruption among former commanders and fueling resentment among ordinary Liberians.
Officials say ex-commanders are recruiting civilians to pose as former combatants and briefing them on how pass themselves off as unarmed participants in the war. Those who slip through the screening questions posed by UN military observers are then forced to hand over most of the payment to the commanders; those who fail, particularly the women, often get beaten. Others bypass the screening questions by handing in precisely 150 bullets, the minimum to qualify automatically for disarmament.
Every afternoon in Zwedru, commanders flock to the vehicles dropping off their former troops after the four-day demobilization process to extort a share of the payment. It's a sign that faction leaders retain a substantial amount of control more than a year after former President Charles Taylor went into exile and a transitional government was formed, ending the civil war.
"There will always be unscrupulous commanders who try to benefit from the program," says Clive Jachnik, head of disarmament, demobilization, rehabilitation, and reintegration (DDRR) for the UN mission in Liberia. Mr. Jachnik says the program does not tolerate fraud and cracks down when it uncovers instances of coercion. But he is also critical of policy decisions made before he joined the mission earlier this year. "The planning could have been more comprehensive," he says. "Arms and cash should not be seen to be linked."
Liberians in the rural areas who didn't take up arms say they resent that the fighters who destroyed their country are being rewarded not only with money but also with preferential access to employment. The US has made it policy that all the projects funded through its $28-million Liberia Community Infrastructure Program must allocate three jobs to ex-combatants for each job that goes to a member of the war-affected community.
"It's like offering me a job because I have done wrong to somebody and not considering the person I have done wrong to," says Jonah Sampson, a manager with Multi Agrisystem Promoters, which is recruiting laborers for a US-funded project to clear more than 2,000 acres of an oil-palm plantation near the eastern town of Zleh.
"Everybody felt the effect of the war," says Mr. Sampson. "Why should the emphasis be on ex-combatants?" He says the ex-fighters have been slow to respond to work offers, but if the $2-a-day jobs were thrown open to the community, every slot would be filled "tomorrow."
During previous failed attempts at demobilization in Liberia, programs aimed only at former combatants "divided communities and caused considerable resentment on the part of civilians who received no special assistance," Oxfam, a British aid agency, warns in a report. An official at the US Embassy in Liberia says the main goal of the US funds are to help the ex-fighters reintegrate: "We are trying to hire as many non-combatants as possible, but the focus is not general employment."
There's a palpable sense of entitlement among many of the ex-combatants. Any day outside the headquarters of the National Commission for DDRR in Monrovia finds dozens of ex-fighters demanding cash for transport, school fees, or food. They defend their preferential treatment. "We are more traumatized than them," argues Prince Neagor, who says he has been a soldier since he was 12. "I was forced to go and fight."
So why aren't more ex-soldiers leaping at the jobs on offer? "The money is too small for them," says Alex Geayea, a former commander with the Movement for Democracy in Liberia, a rebel group.
Moses Jarbo, director of the government's National Commission for DDRR, says countries that go back to war don't do so during the demobilization phase, but afterward, especially if former fighters' expectations aren't met. He says Liberia needs a massive public-works program both to provide jobs and rebuild the country's shattered infrastructure.
Donors pledged $520 million to Liberia in February. Two-thirds of the pledges have come through, but according to Abou Moussa, the UN's chief humanitarian official here, little of the funding available is earmarked for rehabilitation. "I am concerned that if we don't get the money, ex-combatants will start protesting and causing unrest," he says. "We have a fragile peace in Liberia. We don't want to compromise that."
-------- biological weapons
Biological Weapons Pose Major Threat, Say U.K. Scientists
Reuters
By Jeremy Lovell
October 28, 2004
http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=263
LONDON - Biological weapons that can wipe out whole populations pose one of the biggest threats to the world today, yet remain almost completely uncontrolled, the British Medical Association said this week.
It urged the United States to stop blocking attempts to strengthen the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC) when it comes up for renewal in 2006.
"This technology could be used by sub-state terror groups and eventually by deranged individuals," said Malcolm Dando, author of the BMA's study, "Biological Weapons and Humanity II."
He warned that the development of biological weapons designed to target specific ethnic groups was coming closer to reality and said it was already theoretically possible to recreate devastating viruses like the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic that killed 40 million people.
The anthrax attacks in the United States in 2001 and the engineered nerve agent fentanyl used by the Russians to end the Moscow theater siege with disastrous results in 2002 showed that biological weapons already existed, Dando said.
Yet the BTWC, which dates back to 1975, contains no means of monitoring and no powers of enforcement.
"The best way of describing it is as a gentleman's agreement," said Dando, who is head of peace studies at Bradford University.
He said there were strong international mechanisms controlling nuclear and chemical weapons, but virtually nothing to control what he termed the "riotous development" of biotechnology.
Dando said the United States, which under President George W. Bush had turned its back on many international accords, was the key reason the BTWC treaty remained weak after 19 years.
The U.S.'s powerful biotechnology industry has put pressure on the administration not to sign up to international rules, fearing they could stifle research, he said.
But Dando noted that Bush's opponent in next week's presidential elections, Sen. John Kerry, had made positive comments about strengthening the treaty.
Russia, which was known to have developed a major biological weapons capability in the closing stages of the Cold War, had also kept a very low profile on the issue, he said.
"There are still several of its military laboratories that have not been opened up for inspection. You have to wonder why," he said.
Vivienne Nathanson, head of science and ethics at the BMA, said it was vital scientists got involved in self-regulation to try to ensure experiments and information were not misused.
"The real key to biosecurity, to not having to deal with deliberately spread epidemics, is to make sure that these materials are not produced," she said. "You can never provide 100 percent security but you can create safeguards."
Too lax controls and Armageddon could be round the corner, but too rigid regulation and vital advances on health sciences could be stifled.
What was needed was a code of ethics covering scientists and governments and sensible international laws fully enforced.
"If we don't do the prevention side, we have to be prepared for those weapons to be used," Nathanson said.
-------- britain
British troops move closer to Baghdad
October 28, 2004
From combined dispatches
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20041027-095716-2744r.htm
BAGHDAD - British troops and armor rolled north from Basra yesterday to take over a deadly area near Baghdad and free up U.S. troops for a widely expected attack on the Iraqi rebel-held city of Fallujah.
A column with Warrior armored vehicles on flatbed trucks took to the road, a Reuters news agency photographer said. The Warriors were fitted with an extra slat of armor to deflect rocket-propelled grenades - a weapon of choice for guerrillas in Iraq.
"The deployment has begun," said a British Defense Ministry spokesman. "For operational reasons I can give no further details. But they will be back for Christmas."
About 850 British troops, mainly from the Black Watch regiment, are deploying in a restive region just south of Baghdad, allowing U.S. troops to reinforce units fighting guerrillas in the Sunni Muslim city of Fallujah and elsewhere.
U.S. forces would spearhead any assault on Fallujah, which Iraq's U.S.-backed interim government has vowed to retake as part of a drive to pacify the country before national assembly elections planned for January.
As the redeployment took place, Al Jazeera television broadcast video of a kidnapped aid worker making another plea for her life.
The tape showed a distraught Margaret Hassan, the 59-year-old head of CARE International in Iraq, blinking back tears as she spoke.
"Please don't bring the [British] soldiers to Baghdad. Take them away. Please, on top of that, please release the women prisoners," she said. Mrs. Hassan has joint Irish, British and Iraqi citizenship.
It was the third video released since Mrs. Hassan was kidnapped on her way to work in Baghdad a week ago.
In the latest video, Mrs. Hassan also called on CARE International to close its offices in Iraq. The organization has suspended its activities since her Oct. 19 abduction.
No group has taken responsibility for her abduction. But followers of Jordanian-born militant Abu Musab Zarqawi had made the same demand for the release of female prisoners in the abduction of two Americans and a Briton last month. All three were beheaded.
Prime Minister Tony Blair's decision to agree to the U.S. request for redeployment is politically sensitive for the British leader, whose popularity has plummeted because of his support for the Iraq war.
Britain's 8,500 troops are based around the southern city of Basra in a relatively peaceful area of Iraq. Sixty-eight British soldiers have been killed in Iraq, compared with more than 1,000 U.S. troops.
British lawmakers have opposed moving the troops into U.S.-controlled areas, saying it would place them in more danger.
Elsewhere, a motorcycle bomber attacked a U.S. convoy in central Iraq, killing one American soldier and wounding another.
Also, one person was killed and three were wounded when a bomb exploded near their vehicle yesterday morning on the road to Baghdad's airport, a U.S. official said. The victims' nationalities were not available.
U.S. forces have been increasing raids in Sunni insurgent areas to the north, south and west of the capital in recent months in a bid to stabilize Iraq ahead of national elections in January. The U.S. military said yesterday that Iraqi forces, backed by Marines, captured 18 insurgents in a sweep through the central town of Haswah.
Earlier in the day, Mr. Blair repeated his pledge that the Black Watch contingent would be home in Scotland by Christmas. However, he didn't rule out further British deployments in the area.
-------- china
Powell's Comments in China Rile Taiwan
In Apparently Unintended Remarks, Secretary Says Island Is Not Independent
By Edward Cody
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, October 28, 2004; Page A18
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1564-2004Oct27.html
BEIJING, Oct. 27 -- Secretary of State Colin L. Powell spent less than 24 hours in China this week, but that was enough to stir up a diplomatic tempest with some unorthodox and apparently unintended remarks about U.S. policy on Taiwan.
The fuss demonstrated anew the high level of tension across the Taiwan Strait and the strained formulas that China and Taiwan use to argue about their long standoff. But statements by Powell also drew attention to an expanding gap between U.S. policy, which has not changed in a quarter-century, and Taiwan's steadily evolving idea of itself as an independent country determined not to be swallowed up by China.
Powell, in a pair of television interviews Monday in Beijing, said the United States holds that there is only one China and that Taiwan is not an independent nation. He went on to suggest that the Taiwanese and the Americans, in addition to the Chinese, are seeking to bring about the island's reunification with the mainland.
The comments, broadcast by CNN and the Hong Kong-based Phoenix news channel, veered noticeably from the standard formulations of U.S. policy, which were worked out in three U.S.-Chinese communiques issued after President Richard M. Nixon resumed contacts with China in 1972.
In the communiques, the United States recognized that the Beijing government maintains there is only one China and that it includes Taiwan, but did not explicitly adopt that as the U.S. view. Standard U.S. policy since then has been to urge a peaceful outcome "acceptable to people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait," without defining what the outcome would be.
Alarmed, Taiwan's leaders immediately accused Powell of springing an unfair surprise with a major policy shift in one of the world's most volatile areas, and reaffirmed their passionate insistence that the island is independent -- in fact, if not in law.
"Other countries, with or without formal diplomatic relations with us, cannot affect or deny the current situation and the fact that the Republic of China, or Taiwan, is a sovereign, independent country," President Chen Shui-bian told reporters in Taipei on Tuesday.
Foreign Minister Mark Chen more directly told the Taiwanese parliament that Powell's remarks "left a deep impression on Taiwan," according to news agency reports from the Taiwanese capital. "They have said they didn't want any surprises from us, but they gave us a big surprise," he added, referring to the United States.
Foreign Minister Chen sought an explanation Wednesday in a meeting with Douglas Paal, director of the American Institute in Taiwan, the de facto U.S. embassy in Taipei. Protesters, meanwhile, gathered outside the institute's building to denounce Powell's comments.
Chinese officials, who regard Taiwan as a province that must be reintegrated into the mainland at any price -- including war -- reacted positively. Powell's comments, made after a morning of meetings with senior Chinese leaders, closely matched their own views.
"Some people have said Powell made a slip of the tongue, but I don't believe it," Zhang Mingqing, spokesman for the government's Taiwan Affairs Office, said at a briefing Wednesday.
Some analysts suggested Powell's comments might have indicated dissatisfaction with Chen's government, whose officials last month issued a series of bellicose statements unwelcome in Washington. The Bush administration, absorbed by the war in Iraq and the election campaign, has tried to keep tensions down across the Taiwan Strait.
But U.S. officials were quoted as saying Powell had just used the wrong language. The State Department, without directly disavowing its boss, issued a clarification that said the United States' "one-China policy" had not changed. The U.S. government regards Beijing "as the full legal government of China and acknowledges China's position that there is one China and that Taiwan is part of China," a statement said.
The final outcome, the statement continued, should be reached without force and be "acceptable to people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait." There was no mention of Powell's suggestion that the outcome would be "a reunification that all parties are seeking."
Chen Shui-bian's government, which entered a second four-year term in May, is not seeking reunification; he was reelected on a hard-edged independence platform. Judging by opinion polls and election results, a majority of the island's 23 million inhabitants agree with him.
But when U.S. policy was worked out in the joint communiques with China, Taiwan's Nationalist Party was still in charge, having run the island since fleeing China after its defeat by Mao Zedong's Communist troops in 1949. For the Nationalists, one China was not a problem -- they just felt they should be running it.
Since then, the Nationalist Party has become a minority in a democratic Taiwan and, even among Nationalist partisans, the idea of reuniting with Communist-run China has lost much of its appeal. Officials for President Chen's Democratic Progressive Party have proposed that the solution might be a loose association along the lines of the British Commonwealth.
Mark Chen, Taiwan's foreign minister, suggested in a recent interview that, given these changes in Taiwan, the United States should consider updating its one-China policy. A senior presidential adviser, Koo Kwang-ming, three weeks ago took out full-page advertisements in several U.S. and Taiwanese newspapers, including The Washington Post, urging the idea on the Bush administration.
--------
The Chinese Dragon submerges
Asia Times
Oct 28, 2004
By Phar Kim Beng
http://atimes.com/atimes/China/FJ28Ad04.html
TOKYO - Over the past decade China has been expanding and enhancing its maritime forces to make them blue-water capable. A major focus is submarines, the Chinese Dragon U-boat. An obvious inference is the use of subs in the narrow, shallow Taiwan Strait in a possible conflict with "renegade" Taiwan, but military analysts say submarines are virtually obsolete and would easily be killed by ships and planes in the strait.
Still, the submarine, that sleek high-tech military platform, is an important symbol of prestige for both China and Taiwan, where the Legislative Yuan is battling over the military budget. Both Beijing and Taiwan are acquiring the vessels, despite what may be the futility of their deployment in a conflict.
A Chinese appraisal of future naval warfare in 2001, translated by the Foreign Broadcasting International Service of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), concludes that "the prospect for using submarines is good, because of their covertness and power. Submarines are menaces existing anywhere, at any time." In the same report, another Chinese analyst affirmed that "submarines are the maritime weapons posing the greatest threat to an aircraft carrier formation. Submarines are also our navy's core force."
According to US and Taiwan intelligence estimates, China has about 70 submarines (virtually all conventional), it is building more and buying more from Russia. It has one nuclear submarine, two more being built and eight Kilo-class diesels on order from Russia, to be delivered in 2005 (Russian sources) or 2007 (Chinese sources). David Shambaugh, a leading military analyst at George Washington University, confirms at least 70 submarines, basing his figure on the authoritative International Institute for Strategic Studies on military balance for his article in the Washington Quarterly in 2002.
According to Sid Trevethan, an Alaska-based specialist on the Chinese military, Beijing has deployed 57 submarines, including one Xia-class nuclear ballistic missile submarine, five Han-class sub, four Kilo-class subs, seven Songs, 18 Mings, and and 22 Soviet-designed Romeos.
Writing in the Spring 2004 issue of the journal International Security, Lyle Goldstein and William Murray affirmed: "Contrary to Western forecasts, China's confidence in imported Kilos has not halted domestic production of the new Song-class diesel submarine. In addition, China's nuclear propulsion program will soon field the first of its second-generation vessels, which will include both attack submarines and strategic missile boats. Finally, the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) is undertaking an overhaul of the submarine force's weaponry, training, recruitment, and doctrine."
The conservative Washington Times reported in July that to the surprise of US observers, China had built new Yuan-class diesel submarines that combine Russian technology and Chinese engineering.
Indeed, China is only in the middle of extending the size and range of its submarine fleet, while acquiring modern weapons to transform its fleet from a coastal defense navy to a force capable of sustained open-ocean operations.
These developments have increased the security concerns of Japan, Taiwan and the United States.
After all, even if China took at least two decades to achieve open-ocean operations, Beijing has the option to develop some midget submarines that would tap into underwater communication lines or get up close to a coastline to land its special forces.
"It is always a threat," said William Taylor, a retired Army colonel who was director of national-security studies at the US Military Academy. In a study on Chinese submarines, co-authored with Lyle Goldstein in the Spring 2004 issue of International Security, he said, "The subs can put special operations teams in place, they can target aircraft carriers, locate other targets, and with the Chinese nuclear [weapons] capability, there are different threat categories altogether."
Nor is there a limit to what China wants to achieve with its submarine forces. In addition to its one nuclear-powered submarine, which has been ridden with troubles that confine it to the port, China is building two new U-boats.
China's Type-093 sub is believed to be based on the Russian Victor-III class, while the Pentagon believes that its Type-094 attack submarine with a finished hull will be ready for deployment in 2005.
Regardless of type or form, however, most military analysts agree that Chinese submarines could create serious trouble during a regional conflict, either by menacing sea lanes or by forcing US aircraft carriers to stay further away from targets for fear of being torpedoed.
In this context, the US, Taiwan and Japan have begun to take China's submarine forces seriously, especially given Beijing's option to ally its maritime efforts with North Korea, another country with a massive, though archaic, and still deadly submarine fleet mostly inherited from World War II.
A Pentagon report published in May stated that China is changing from a coastal defense force to one employing "active offshore defense".
"This change in operations requires newer, more modern warships and submarines capable of operating at greater distances from China's coast for longer periods," the report said, noting that submarine construction is a top priority.
Indeed, over the last two months, the US Navy has begun conducting tests in the Sea of Japan, as well as similar trials off Hawaii, to test the prototype of a detection device that analyzes submarines' underwater color patterns and detects color gradations too faint for the human eye to detect. Early versions of the device called the Littoral Airborne Sensor Hyperspectral, or LASH, have spotted whales and submarines below the surface. Current detection methods used by the US Navy rely on sonar and other methods to "hear" the location of enemy submarines. The LASH system is designed to permit the Navy to "see" the submarines.
Japan is wary of China's efforts and has fully supported such detection exercises, since Chinese submarines have been spotted off the coast of Japan with increased frequency. Indeed, China has even begun to conduct resource surveys in the vicinity of Okino-Torishima, 1,700 kilometers south of Tokyo.
The Chinese survey activities have been undertaken within Japan's Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) in violation of the Law of the Sea, according to the Maritime Safety Agency of Japan. China, however, has insisted that Okino-Torishima should not be considered an island, but a cluster of rocks not qualified for EEZ status, as stipulated by the Law of the Sea.
While these submarines, Tokyo military experts believe, do not have any offensive intention in the immediate or short term, they are nonetheless positioned to increase China's intelligence-gathering activities and to explore the opportunity to block US naval forces in the event of a Taiwan conflict. China has the nasty habit of surfacing its submarine fleets off the coast of the Sea of Japan, as in November 2003, 25 miles offshore.
Taiwan also is taking the Chinese submarine threat seriously. Taiwan is severely disadvantaged, although the Taiwan Strait is narrow and relatively shallow because of the continental shelf, making it difficult for submarines to operate and hide.
According to Shambaugh, the China military analyst, Taiwan's two antiquated World War II-vintage (Guppy class), and two Dutch-built Zvaardis diesel submarines are no match for China's 70 submarines, were a conflict to break out.
Indeed, Taiwan's airborne anti-submarine warfare capability also remains limited, this despite the fact that the shallow Taiwan Strait actually gives Taiwan the military advantage.Taiwan is taking steps to strengthen its submarine forces accordingly. To begin with, the Taiwan navy has signed a submarine-rescue agreement with the US. According to Chinese-language news reports, the agreement states that the US is required to send a deep submergence rescue vehicle (DSRV) to Taiwan in the shortest time possible if any of Taiwan's four submarines become disabled.
That China is improving its submarine and naval capability has clearly made Taiwan wary. In October 2003, the Taiwan parliament was informed that a Chinese destroyer from the North Sea fleet had, for the first time, sailed through the waters east of Taiwan to join exercises in the South China Sea. "This has never happened before," said Defense Minister Tang Yao-Ming. President Chen Shui-bian repeatedly has urged Taiwan to improve its naval combat readiness.
Chen did not go into details about Taiwan's own naval buildup, but its highlights include the purchase of four US second-hand Kidd-class destroyers and eight conventional submarines. US President George W Bush in April 2001 approved the sale of eight diesel-electric submarines as part of Washington's most comprehensive arms package to Taipei since 1992.
The multibillion-dollar arms package, including submarines, has generated a fierce debate in Taiwan's Legislative Yuan, or parliament.
Although the chances are slim that China and Taiwan would return to the heyday of Cold War submarine warfare, when submarines pursued one another under the sea, the exponential expansion of Chinese submarine forces clearly has not been taken lightly.
Phar Kim Beng is a regular contributor to Asia Times Online. He is currently on a Sumitomo Foundation fellowship, where he is studying the state of Japanese social sciences. He was trained in international relations and strategic studies, first at Cambridge University, later the Fletcher School and Harvard University.
-------- iraq
Study: 100,000 Excess Civilian Iraqi Deaths Since War
October 28, 2004
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-iraq-deaths.html
LONDON (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed in violence since the U.S.-led invasion last year, American public health experts have calculated in a report that estimates there were 100,000 ``excess deaths'' in 18 months.
The rise in the death rate was mainly due to violence and much of it was caused by U.S. air strikes on towns and cities.
``Making conservative assumptions, we think that about 100,000 excess deaths, or more have happened since the 2003 invasion of Iraq,'' said Les Roberts of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in a report published online by The Lancet medical journal.
``The use of air power in areas with lots of civilians appears to be killing a lot of women and children,'' Roberts told Reuters.
The report came just days before the U.S. presidential election in which the Iraq war has been a major issue.
Mortality was already high in Iraq before the war because of United Nations sanctions blocking food and medical imports but the researchers described what they found as shocking.
The new figures are based on surveys done by the researchers in Iraq in September 2004. They compared Iraqi deaths during 14.6 months before the invasion in March 2003 and the 17.8 months after it by conducting household surveys in randomly selected neighborhoods.
Previous estimates based on think tank and media sources put the Iraqi civilian death toll at up to 16,053 and military fatalities as high as 6,370.or attacks and another 258 died in accidents or incidents not related to fighting, according to the Pentagon.
VERY BAD FOR IRAQI CIVILIANS
The researchers blamed air strikes for many of the deaths.
``What we have evidence of is the use of air power in populated urban areas and the bad consequences of it,'' Roberts said.
Gilbert Burnham, who collaborated on the research, said U.S. military action in Iraq was ``very bad for Iraqi civilians.''
``We were not expecting the level of deaths from violence that we found in this study and we hope this will lead to some serious discussions of how military and political aims can be achieved in a way that is not so detrimental to civilians populations,'' he told Reuters in an interview.
The researchers did 33 cluster surveys of 30 households each, recording the date, circumstances and cause of deaths.
They found that the risk of death from violence in the period after the invasion was 58 times higher than before the war.
Before the war the major causes of death were heart attacks, chronic disorders and accidents. That changed after the war.
Two-thirds of violent deaths in the study were reported in Falluja, the insurgent held city 50 km (32 miles) west of Baghdad which had been repeatedly hit by U.S. air strikes.
``Our results need further verification and should lead to changes to reduce non-combatant deaths from air strikes,'' Roberts added in the study.
Richard Horton, editor of The Lancet, said the research which was submitted to the journal earlier this month had been peer-reviewed, edited and fast-tracked for publication because of its importance in the evolving security situation in Iraq.
``But these findings also raise questions for those far removed from Iraq -- in the governments of the countries responsible for launching a pre-emptive war,'' Horton said in an editorial.
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Militants Slaughter 11 Iraqi Soldiers
October 28, 2004
By MARIAM FAM
Associated Press Writer
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/I/IRAQ?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Insurgents slaughtered 11 Iraqi soldiers, beheading one, then shooting the others execution-style, and declared on an Islamic militant Web site Thursday that Iraqi fighters will avenge "the blood" of women and children killed in U.S. strikes on the guerrilla stronghold of Fallujah.
The wave of foreigner kidnappings claimed another victim - a Polish woman in her 60s who is married to an Iraqi. Her captors demanded that Poland withdraw its 2,400 soldiers and that the U.S.-led coalition free all Iraqi women held at Abu Ghraib prison.
The killing of the 11 Iraqi National Guardsmen was claimed by the Ansar al-Sunnah Army, which posted a videotape of their brutal deaths on its Web site Thursday along with a warning for all Iraqi police and soldiers to desert or face death. The militants said earlier the soldiers were abducted this week on the road between Baghdad and Hillah, 60 miles to the south.
After forcing each of the soldiers to state his name and unit, the militants forced one of them to the ground and sawed off his head. The others were forced to kneel with their hands bound as a gunman fired shots into the back of their heads.
A voice on the videotape warned all Iraqi soldiers and police to "repent to God, abandon your weapons, go home and beware of supporting the apostate Crusaders or their followers, the Iraqi government, or else you will only find death."
"We will not forget the blood of our elderly, our women and our children that is shed daily in Fallujah, Samarra, Ramadi and elsewhere," a statement on the Web site said.
The al-Sunnah movement has claimed responsibility for a number of attacks and hostage takings, including the slaying of 12 Nepalese hostages in August.
Elsewhere, two more American soldiers were killed - one in a car bombing in Baghdad and the other in an ambush near Balad, 40 miles north of the capital. At least 1,109 U.S. service members have died since President Bush launched the Iraq war in March 2003.
In Tokyo, Japanese authorities said they had failed to enlist the help of a prominent Iraqi cleric in trying to free a 24-year-old Japanese hostage.
An al-Qaida affiliate led by Jordanian terror suspect Abu Musab al-Zarqawi threatened Tuesday to behead Shosei Koda in 48 hours unless Japan withdraws its troops from Iraq - a demand rejected by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.
The video of the Polish hostage, aired on Al-Jazeera television, showed a middle-aged woman with gray hair wearing a polka-dotted blouse sitting in front of two masked gunmen, one of whom was pointing a pistol at her head.
The woman was identified as Teresa Borcz-Kalifa by one of her former superiors at the Polish Embassy in Baghdad, where she worked in the 1990s. Leszek Adamiec told Poland's private Radio Zet that Borcz-Kalifa worked in the consular section until 1994.
Interior Ministry spokesman Col. Adnan Abdul-Rahman said the woman, a longtime resident with Iraqi citizenship, was believed to have been abducted Wednesday night from her home in Baghdad. In Warsaw, Foreign Minister Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz said she was a Polish citizen who is married to an Iraqi.
She was the ninth foreign woman abducted in Iraq since a wave of kidnappings began last spring. By comparison, Iraqi officials say that at least 152 Iraqis have been kidnapped this month - the highest monthly total since the occupation began last year.
Her abduction was claimed by the Abu Bakr al-Siddiq Fundamentalist Brigades.
Her voice was not audible on the tape, but Al-Jazeera said she urged Polish troops to leave the country and for U.S. and Iraqi authorities to release all female detainees from Abu Ghraib. The kidnappers did not mention a specific death threat or give a deadline.
President Aleksander Kwasniewski said Poland would not surrender "to the dictate of terrorists" by meeting the demands. Poland commands some 6,000 troops from 15 nations - including some 2,400 from Poland - in the Babil, Karbala and Wasit provinces south of Baghdad.
All but two foreign women hostages have been released, and in a statement issued Thursday in London, CARE International appealed for the release of Margaret Hassan, a British-Irish-Iraqi citizen who has headed the humanitarian organization's operations in Iraq since 1991.
"CARE has closed down all operations in Iraq," the statement said in English and Arabic. "Please release Mrs. Hassan to her family and friends in Iraq."
No group has claimed responsibility for kidnapping Hassan, but on a video aired Wednesday night she was seen pleading for the withdrawal of British troops and the release of Iraq women prisoners.
Several groups of hostage-takers have demanded the release of women prisoners in Iraq, including al-Zarqawi's group. Two Americans and a Briton were beheaded last month after coalition forces refused the demand.
Meanwhile, the first wave of 75 British soldiers set up camp Thursday at their new base at an undisclosed location some 30 miles south of Baghdad, part of some 800 British troops moving closer to the capital to bolster U.S. forces. Black Watch soldiers redeployed from the southern city of Basra were told they will be pulled out of Iraq in early December, the British news agency Press Association reported.
U.S. and Iraqi forces are gearing up for a possible assault on Fallujah and other militant strongholds west of Baghdad if community leaders do not hand over foreign fighters and extremists, including al-Zarqawi and his followers.
On Thursday, U.S. aircraft bombed a suspected insurgent safe house in Fallujah, killing two people, hospital officials said. The overnight strike in the northern part of the city targeted a "meeting site" used by suspected al-Zarqawi allies, the U.S. military said in a statement.
Insurgents also clashed with U.S. forces in Ramadi, 25 miles west of Fallujah and another militant stronghold. Two people were killed and four wounded, hospital officials said.
--------
Fallujah Talks, and Battle Planning, Continue
U.S. Convoy Moves Toward Insurgent-Held City as British Forces Shift North
By Jackie Spinner and Karl Vick
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, October 28, 2004; Page A21
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3806-2004Oct27.html
BAGHDAD, Oct. 27 -- Local leaders in the insurgent-held city of Fallujah said Wednesday that they were continuing to negotiate with Iraq's interim government on a possible handover of the city to Iraqi troops, but townspeople reported that insurgents and foreign military forces appeared to be preparing for battle.
A U.S. military convoy of at least 40 armored vehicles was seen moving toward Fallujah, while British troops in southern Iraq headed north to plug any gaps that an offensive on the city might create. At the same time, members of the Shura Council of Mujaheddin, which governs Fallujah, told residents who had not already fled the city to leave before what they described as "the last big battle" with U.S.-led forces.
"I told them I can't because I don't have the money or place to go," said Talal Abed, 57, a Fallujah municipal employee. "They insisted."
Abed said a council member gave him the equivalent of about $35 to rent a room or house outside the city. "They also stopped a taxi for me to take my family and leave today," he said.
The continuing talks between the shura council and the Iraqi government are aimed at avoiding a full-scale assault on the city, which insurgents have controlled since April. U.S. warplanes have been staging airstrikes in Fallujah for weeks, pounding targets reportedly linked to the network of Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian guerrilla. The U.S. government has accused Zarqawi and his loyalists of engineering many of the deadliest attacks in Iraq in recent months and has offered a $25 million reward for his capture or death.
Earlier this month, local insurgent leaders voted overwhelmingly to accept broad conditions set by the Iraqi government, including demands that they eject foreign fighters from the city, turn over all heavy weapons, dismantle illegal checkpoints and allow the Iraqi National Guard to enter the city. In turn, the insurgents set their own conditions, which included a halt to U.S. attacks on the city and acknowledgment by the military that women and children have been among the casualties in U.S. strikes.
Ibrahim Jafari, one of Iraq's two vice presidents, said Wednesday that "negotiations continue, and we hope to find a peaceful solution. If not, the government will have no choice but to deal with it by the military option."
Jafari said the main impediment to a negotiated settlement remains the presence of foreign guerrillas, who refuse to stop fighting despite the stated desire of many local insurgents to make a deal with the Baghdad government and prepare for elections promised for January.
"The most dangerous thing in Fallujah is the existence of foreign fighters," Jafari said in an interview. "This wasn't so in Najaf. It makes the people in Fallujah less unified, which makes the military option more likely to be necessary. We don't hope to use the military option, but the political calculation is not in our hands."
The British government agreed last week to shift more than 800 troops from southern Iraq to areas near Baghdad, which would free U.S. forces in and around the capital to move on insurgent-held areas. Britain has 8,500 troops in Iraq, most of them around the southern city of Basra.
In other developments, a U.S. soldier was killed Wednesday in a suicide attack in central Iraq that also wounded another soldier, the military said in a statement. The name of the slain soldier was withheld pending notification of next of kin.
In Baghdad, a senior Iraqi Foreign Ministry official who once served as ambassador to the United Arab Emirates was killed in what may have been a botched kidnapping attempt, the Associated Press reported.
Qusai Mahdi Saleh was driving to his home in northern Baghdad when four men stopped his car and tried to force him from the vehicle, said Labeed M. Abbawi, the deputy foreign minister.
Elsewhere in Baghdad, gunmen killed a senior Iraqi politician, the Reuters news agency reported. Mohammad Ayash, head of the Iraqi National Congress in western Iraq, was killed Tuesday as he left his home, said Entifadh Qanbar, a spokesman for the party. "They know who to kill. Mohammad was widely respected for a family history of opposition to Saddam Hussein. He was from Fallujah and well connected there," Qanbar said.
An Iraqi television anchorwoman, Leqaa Abdul Razzaq, was killed by gunmen Wednesday as she traveled by taxi to her home in southeastern Baghdad, said an official at al-Sharqiyah television where she worked.
Abdul Razzaq had worked for the U.S.-funded al-Iraqiya television network until about a month ago. Her husband was murdered about two months ago, Salah Askary, a news director at the station, told the Associated Press.
In the city of Khalis, about 40 miles north of Baghdad, three Iraqi civilians were wounded Wednesday when a car bomb exploded near a convoy of four-wheel-drive vehicles, which are widely used by foreign contractors.
The al-Jazeera satellite television network aired a videotaped plea by a kidnapped British aid worker Wednesday, urging Britain to withdraw its troops from Iraq. Margaret Hassan, 59, who was abducted Oct. 19, also pleaded for the release of women prisoners held by U.S.-led forces.
The U.S. military said a weapons buyback program in Baghdad's volatile Sadr City slum ended with mixed results. The program, which ran from Oct. 13 to Oct. 22, collected thousands of AK-47 assault rifles, antitank mines, rocket-propelled grenade launders and other arms, the military said in a statement. The military did not report the value of cash vouchers given out in exchange for the weapons.
Special correspondent Omar Fekeiki contributed to this report.
--------
INSURGENTS
Provincial Capital Near Falluja Is Rapidly Slipping Into Chaos
October 28, 2004
By EDWARD WONG
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/28/international/middleeast/28ramadi.html?pagewanted=all
RAMADI, Iraq, Oct. 21 -The American military and the interim Iraqi government are quickly losing control of this provincial capital, which is larger and strategically more important than its sister city of Falluja, say local officials, clerics, tribal sheiks and officers with the United States Marines.
"The city is chaotic," said Sheik Ali al-Dulaimi, a leader of the region's largest tribe. "There's no presence of the Allawi government," he added, speaking of Prime Minister Ayad Allawi.
While Ramadi is not exactly a "no go" zone for the marines, like the insurgent stronghold of Falluja 30 miles to the east, officers say it is fast slipping in that direction. In the last six weeks, guerrillas have stepped up the pace of assassinations of Iraqis working with the Americans, and marine officials say they suspect Iraqi security officers have been helping insurgents to attack their troops. Reconstruction efforts have ground to a halt because no local contractors are willing to work.
Most of the military's resources are channeled into controlling a bomb-infested, four-and-a-half-mile stretch of road that runs through downtown and connects two bases. Insurgents pop out of alleyways, mosques and a crowded market and fire at marines at will, then disappear when the Americans give chase.
Ramadi lies at the heart of rebellious Anbar Province and astride the major western supply route to Baghdad. The city, whose 400,000 residents have at best merely tolerated the foreign military presence, is seen as a crucial part of American efforts to plant a secular democracy in Iraq. But the disintegration of authority puts in jeopardy both the Bush administration's plan to stage nationwide elections by Jan. 31 and any sense of legitimacy such elections might have. It also complicates the American military's plans to invade Falluja, because of the close coordination between insurgents in the two cities.
With a powerful mix of propaganda and intimidation, well-financed guerrillas have turned the people of Ramadi against the American occupiers and their allies, Iraqis and marines here say.
"The provincial government is on the verge of collapse," said Second Lt. Ryan Schranel, whose platoon does 24-hour guard duty at the besieged government center opposite the main bazaar. "Just about everybody has resigned or is on the verge of resigning."
The provincial governor, Muhammad Awad, who doubles as the city's mayor, took office after the previous governor resigned in early August following the kidnapping of his three sons, and after a deputy governor was kidnapped and killed. Mr. Awad is juggling two jobs because no one has come forward to be mayor.
Compounding the problems, guerrillas have been streaming in since the marines stepped up airstrikes against the mujahedeen in Falluja, Marine officials say.
"We hit the deck one and a half months ago, and the area has changed for the downhill very quickly," said Staff Sgt. James Keefer, one of six civil affairs officers attached to the Second Battalion, Fifth Marines, which arrived here in early September. "We used to go to civilian areas in one or two Humvees to look at hospitals and other places. Now it's too dangerous, and we need four Humvees for a convoy, and we don't have the resources."
The power vacuum here also muddies plans for an invasion of Falluja, which has about 300,000 people, because Ramadi could well become a haven for retreating guerrillas. Marines here say they have found it impossible to seal off either the highway or the desert smuggling routes between the two cities. Indeed, Marine officials say there is a high level of coordination between insurgent groups in the two cities, with the suspected guerrilla leader in Ramadi, Muhammad Daham, working closely with counterparts in Falluja.
When the marines made their ill-fated push into Falluja last April, they had to battle a ferocious uprising in Ramadi, where 12 marines were killed in a single ambush.
Though members of the former ruling Baath Party are believed to be financing the insurgency here, where loyalty to Saddam Hussein ran high, there is a growing Islamist face to the rebellion, similar to Falluja, local officials and Marine officers say. Calls for resistance emanate from mosque loudspeakers when Marine convoys roll past. In a coordinated raid on seven mosques on Oct. 12, marines said, they found large weapons caches, taped anti-American sermons and DVD's showing beheadings.
Top Marine commanders say they may open an offensive in Ramadi together with one in Falluja. But such an assault would probably have only a limited effect, because insurgents here do not hold well-defined territory, as they do in Falluja. They have instead blended into the population and conduct hit-and-run strikes on Marine patrols and outposts along the main downtown strip.
"It's difficult to describe 'sense of control' in terms of insurgent activity," said Capt. Eric Dougherty, the commander of Company E, which lost four men in the first six weeks here. "The insurgent activity is everywhere. It's at our firm bases here. It's among women and children, those cowards."
Dozens of government employees still come to work every day at the provincial center, a three-story building pockmarked by bullets and shrapnel. Marines sitting watch behind sandbags on the roof get shot at regularly with AK-47's, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades.
"We're one of the only units that's got bases inside the city," said Lt. Col. Randall P. Newman, the battalion commander. "This is not Falluja. We want to keep this place from becoming a Falluja."
In an interview in his office, Governor Awad attributed the anarchy to the ineffectiveness of the Iraqi security forces and the limited presence of the marines, whom he said had wasted time earlier on reconstruction projects.
"The performance of the police and national guard is very weak in all of central Iraq," Mr. Awad said as he sat behind his desk, two Iraqi guards in civilian clothes hovering near him. "The marines are not protecting us. It's true that they've helped us with some projects such as improving the water supply and sewage disposal and rebuilding schools. But people think all that is worthless. They need security."
None of the dozens of marines interviewed in Ramadi disagreed with Mr. Awad's assessment of the Iraqi police and National Guard.
Even worse, they say, the local forces sometimes aid the insurgency. Marines arrested the police chief of Anbar Province in August on charges of corruption, and Lieutenant Schranel said Iraqi National Guardsmen were suspected of helping insurgents blow up a veterans' building that marines were using as an observation post.
Colonel Newman said the only effective Iraqi troops in Ramadi are 80 or so Iraqi Special Forces soldiers from elsewhere in the country. They live at battalion headquarters and are used for specific operations like mosque raids, not day-to-day security.
On a recent afternoon, two Iraqi National Guardsmen at a checkpoint at the government center watched as a group of marines walked up. "Here come the sons of dogs," one guardsman said to an Iraqi reporter.
Next door, in police headquarters, Iraqi officers tossed around conspiracy theories.
"The Americans gave us nothing more than AK-47's so they could stay in Iraq for a long time," Lt. Abdul-Latif Salim said. "The resistance has the right to fight the occupation. It's an obligation for every Muslim. The Allawi government has no power."
Insurgents have tried discrediting the marines and the local government through widespread propaganda. Clerics regularly preach against the occupation, while guerrillas post the names of Iraqi security officers outside mosques. A marine showed a flier seized from a mosque that depicted a woman in a black robe being raped by men in sunglasses, presumably Americans.
In late September, insurgents began blowing up whole buildings downtown, videotaping the demolitions and giving the tapes to Arab television networks to attribute blame to American airstrikes, Marine officers said. The explosions have destroyed an agricultural center, a veterans' building and the Red Crescent headquarters. Their wrecked facades still scar the city.
As in other parts of Iraq, guerrillas are killing locals working with Americans. An interpreter at a base called Combat Outpost, east of downtown, was found beheaded recently. Insurgents even killed the man who cleaned the portable toilets at the base.
Sergeant Keefer said the marines tried calling a list of 100 potential local contractors when they first arrived. Many of the phone numbers had been disconnected, and people who did answer said the contractors had left town. Reconstruction "is pretty much at a standstill right now," said Capt. Sean Kuehl, an intelligence officer. "An insurgency cannot be defeated solely by an occupying power. We need the support of the local population."
Abdul Razzaq al-Saeidy contributed reporting for this article.
--------
Rumsfeld 'ignored Fallujah warnings'
26 October 2004
independent.co.uk
By Kim Sengupta in Baghdad
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=576042
Warnings by the US military commander of last April's operation in Fallujah on the consequences of attacking the city were ignored by the Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, and not passed to President George Bush, an American newspaper has claimed.
After weeks of fighting, and with 600 Iraqis dead, not only did the assault fail, leaving Fallujah in the hands of the rebels, but it also triggered the bloody insurgency still sweeping Iraq. The city has now become the headquarters of Jordanian militant leader Abu Musab Zarqawi whose fighters have mounted relentless attacks, the latest of which claimed the lives of 49 Iraqi army recruits.
Yesterday US forces continue to mass around Fallujah in preparation for another attack, and British troops set off from Basra today, amid bitter controversy back home, to help in the operation to storm the city.
The April attack by the US followed the lynching of four American security guards in Fallujah, when their burnt and mutilated bodies were strung up over a bridge. The White House, and Paul Bremer, then the US administrator of Iraq, wanted to punish the attackers and this is what Mr Rumsfeld and General John P Abizaid, the head of the US forces in the Middle East, promised to deliver.
President Bush declared: "Our military commanders will do whatever necessary to secure Fallujah." Mr Bremer promised the "human jackals" responsible for the guards' deaths" will not go unpunished".
But the man given the assignment, Lieutenant General James T Conway, of the US Marines, strongly urged against the immediate military option. He said later: "We felt we ought to let the situation settle before we appeared to be attacking out of revenge." He also stressed that premature action would destroy the relationship he and his men had been trying to build with the people of Fallujah through reconstruction projects.
But, an investigation by the Los Angeles Times has discovered, Mr Rumsfeld and his advisors did not agree and General Conway's views failed to make it to the White House. But a Pentagon spokesman said it was proper that the dispute was settled at a lower level.
Having ignored the civilian casualties which would inevitably result from such a huge military operation, the US government also appeared to be oblivious to the likely international consequences around the world of women and children being killed.
As the attack intensified, members of the Iraqi Governing Council threatened to resign, and the United Nations envoy, Lakhdar Brahimi, and even Tony Blair urged an end to the offensive.
Four days later, with the city only half-taken, the marines were told to halt, then pull out. Before doing so, they hurriedly assembled a local force, the Fallujah Brigade, to take over. Most of those who enlisted turned out to be insurgents, and it took five months to disband the brigade which, by then, had brought many other fellow militants into the city.
-------- israel / palestine
Palestinians Debate Significance of Israel's Gaza Withdrawal
October 28, 2004
The New York Times
By STEVEN ERLANGER and GREG MYRE
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/28/international/middleeast/28mideast.html?pagewanted=all
JERUSALEM, Oct. 27 - A day after the Israeli Parliament voted to dismantle all its settlements in Gaza, Palestinians reacted Wednesday with ambivalence and watchfulness.
For many Palestinians, the Israeli vote - and the bitter political divisions in Israel over it - came as the first significant victory of a four-year intifada. Not surprisingly, as they have done since Prime Minister Ariel Sharon first announced his plan to leave Gaza, militant Palestinian groups took credit.
Musheer al-Masri, a spokesman for Hamas, called the Israeli vote "a big achievement of the Palestinian people and the resistance, which alone has pushed the Zionist enemy to think of leaving Gaza." And Sheik Nafez Assam of Islamic Jihad said: "The Zionist enemy will be removed from our land whether their Parliament voted with or against. Resistance will drive them out."
But because Israel is acting unilaterally, without any discussion with the Palestinians, and because Mr. Sharon is open about strengthening Israel's hold over the more important settlements on the West Bank, significant Palestinian voices see the Gaza withdrawal as a very limited success, even a setback.
"If the idea is to buy freedom for expanding settlements and consolidating them in the West Bank, then I don't think this is moving us toward the peaceful political objectives we seek," said Ghassan Khatib, the labor minister of the Palestinian Authority. "If it moves us to the road map, it makes sense."
Mr. Khatib said that few Palestinians were excited by the vote itself. "If there is a withdrawal of settlements, perhaps they will feel it has some significance,'' he said. The road map is an outline for peace negotiated by the United States, the European Union, the United Nations and Russia, calling for a freeze on all settlement activity and a halt in Palestinian terrorism. But Israel says that continuing Palestinian terrorism has put the plan in abeyance.
Ziad Abu Amr, a Palestinian legislator from Gaza, said the meaning of the parliamentary vote would depend on what follows. "It depends if Sharon follows through," he said. "As a matter of principle, we are not opposed to any withdrawal from any part of the occupied territory. But it will not put an end to our demands or an end to the occupation."
Palestinians want to make sure that "Gaza first" does not mean "Gaza last," that settlements in the West Bank are also dismantled, and that Israel is not allowed to destroy the possibility of a viable and territorially coherent Palestinian state.
For Israelis, Wednesday was not only a day to speculate on the future, but also to commemorate the ninth anniversary in the Jewish calendar of the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who had signed the Olso accords giving Palestinians limited self-rule.
Mr. Sharon, whose own life is said by the security forces to be under threat, praised Mr. Rabin, whom he once criticized so fiercely that he was accused of contributing to the climate of incitement that led to the assassination.
"The disputes were never personal," he said at Mr. Rabin's grave at Mount Herzl. "If in the heat of the moment things were said that shouldn't have been, I am so sorry."
Earlier, Mr. Sharon seemed to dismiss the resignation threat of his finance minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and three other ministers, who said they would resign if he did not call a national referendum on the Gaza plan within two weeks.
A senior adviser said Wednesday that Mr. Sharon would press ahead even if the ministers and the small National Religious Party leave the government and Likud splits. He said Mr. Sharon could name new ministers and try to work out "cohabitation, Israeli-style" with Labor Party to stay in office until the Gaza evacuation plan is carried out next year.
Early elections would be preferable to a national referendum, the adviser said. But elections, which would delay everything by at least three months, were a last resort, he said.
--------
Arafat collapses; condition 'serious'
October 28, 2004
By Mohammed Daraghmeh
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20041028-120736-5196r.htm
RAMALLAH, West Bank - Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat collapsed yesterday evening, was unconscious for about 10 minutes and remained in a "very difficult situation," Palestinian officials said.
One official last night told the Associated Press that the Palestinian leader was in "serious condition."
A team of Jordanian doctors was urgently summoned to treat the ailing Palestinian leader.
Mr. Arafat was having soup during a meeting with Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia, former Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas and another official between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. (2 p.m. and 3 p.m. EDT) when he vomited, according to a bodyguard who was in the compound at the time.
The 75-year-old Palestinian leader was brought to the clinic inside the compound, where he collapsed and was unconscious for about 10 minutes, the guard said.
However, appearing on CNN last night, Saeb Erekat, chief negotiator for the Palestinians, denied reports that the Palestinian leader was in critical condition or that he ever had lost consciousness.
On news that his health was worsening, scores of top Palestinian officials descended on the sandbagged, partially demolished Ramallah, compound where he has been confined for 2 1/2 years. The officials milled around the courtyard, waiting for news outside Mr. Arafat's three-story building, bathed in spotlights.
Israeli security officials said his wife, Suha, who lives in France with their young daughter, was expected to arrive today. The Jordanian doctors also were due today.
A decision to move Mr. Arafat from his compound to a hospital will be made purely on medical grounds, without taking politics into consideration, a senior Palestinian official said.
Israel said it would allow Mr. Arafat to leave the compound for the hospital and return afterward.
An official said Mr. Arafat was not awake when he saw him later in the evening, but it was not clear whether he was sleeping, had been sedated or was in a coma. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Earlier, Arafat spokesman Nabil Abu Rdeneh told reporters that Mr. Arafat was in "stable condition, but he needs more rest and more medical care."
The Palestinian leader has been ill for two weeks, suffering from what Palestinian officials said was the flu. Israeli officials speculated that he might have stomach cancer, but two of his doctors said yesterday that a blood test and a biopsy of tissue from his digestive tract showed no evidence of cancer.
On Tuesday, a hospital official said Mr. Arafat was suffering from a large gallstone. The gallstone, while extremely painful, is not life-threatening and can be treated easily, the official said.
Dr. Ashraf Kurdi, a Jordanian doctor who is heading the team due to arrive today, said he was urgently summoned to Mr. Arafat's compound but was given no details of his condition.
"I tried to get a medical report from them. I couldn't get anything," he said.
Mr. Arafat's health crisis has highlighted how unprepared the Palestinians are for their leader's death, making a chaotic transition period all but inevitable. Mr. Arafat has refused to groom a successor. Rival security chiefs already have battled each other in the streets.
Mr. Qureia and Mr. Abbas have been touted as possible political heirs to the Palestinian chief, though Mr. Arafat has bickered with both and has blocked their attempts to limit his powers.
No leader of his stature and popularity is waiting in the wings, said Palestinian legislator Hanan Ashrawi. "It's only natural to expect that there would be either a power struggle or there would be a loss of cohesion," she said.
Analysts said it could take years for a leader to emerge, hurting prospects for an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal. However, Israel and the United States hold out hope that a post-Arafat Middle East will be more conducive to peace because of what they say is Mr. Arafat's blind eye to terror and opposition to reform.
Polls show the second most popular Palestinian after Mr. Arafat is Marwan Barghouti, a leader of Fatah's young guard. But Barghouti is serving five consecutive life terms in an Israeli prison for involvement in deadly shooting.
On paper, at least, a path of succession has been charted. The parliament speaker would replace Mr. Arafat as Palestinian Authority president for 60 days, until elections are held. However, the current speaker, Rauhi Fattouh, is a bland backbencher uncertain to hold on during a turbulent transition period, and timely elections appear unlikely.
Mr. Arafat's other post, as Palestine Liberation Organization chief, would be filled, at least temporarily, by Mr. Abbas.
During Mr. Arafat's long confinement in the compound, doctors have equipped two rooms with medical equipment, including X-ray, ultrasound machines and emergency-resuscitation gear.
In tests this week, Mr. Arafat was in his pajamas and wore a blue wool hat, instead of his trademark kaffiyeh, a black-and-white checkered head scarf, an official on the medical team said.
The medical official said Mr. Arafat continues to sleep in a small room, which has only one window and is furnished with a bed and a closet, even though a new, sunnier room has been refurbished for him on another floor.
From his small window, Mr. Arafat looks out on rubble and heaps of cars flattened in previous Israeli raids.
Associated Press writer Karin Laub contributed to this report from Jerusalem.
--------
Israeli peace camp hails Sharon the hawk
JERUSALEM (AFP)
Oct 28, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041028073429.s5lz6qi0.html
Israel's peace camp, which for years regarded Ariel Sharon as the ultimate hawk, is now hailing the prime minister over his historic plans to uproot settlers from Palestinian territory.
Governments of all hues have withstood domestic and international pressure to pull out of any part of the West Bank or Gaza Strip since their occupation began after the 1967 Arab-Israeli War.
Sharon, who was regarded as the Israel's most right-wing ever leader, is now poised to carry out an evacuation process which was beyond all imagination when he came to power in 2001.
MPs on Tuesday backed Sharon's so-called disengagement plan which will see 8,000 settlers removed next year from the Gaza Strip, home to about 1.3 million Palestinians.
Yossi Beilin, a one-time justice minister who was one of the chief architects of the Oslo peace accords with the Palestinians in the 1990s, said Sharon's project must be regarded positively.
"I do believe it was a big victory for the peace camp in Israel," Beilin, who heads the leftist Yahad party, told AFP. "This is not exactly what we want, but it's a small beginning."
Beilin is one of the driving forces behind an unofficial peace blueprint known as the Geneva Initiative.
But while the Geneva plan was drawn up with Palestinians, Sharon is implementing his so-called disengagement plan on a unilateral basis.
Beilin said Sharon was making "a huge mistake in withdrawing without any coordination with the Palestinian side."
But he said the premier had set a precedent that must be exploited by the peace movement which has been in the doldrums amid the violence of the four-year Palestinian uprising.
"The opposition will not let Sharon stop at Gaza," he said. Yariv Oppenheimer of the settlement watchdog Peace Now also gave a qualified welcome to the decision by MPs to approve Sharon's plan to dismantle all 21 settlements in Gaza and another four in the northern West Bank next year.
"It's not our dream, we want to see much more but it's a beginning. Now we hope it will be implemented, that'll be the real test," he said.
Other Israeli doves believe Sharon and his right-wing Likud party are the only people who can oversee a pullout.
Ami Ayalon, former head of the domestic Shin Beth security service who has co-authored another peace plan, has argued the evacuation process has to be led by people "who believe it is a very sad, painful moment."
Veteran Israeli peace activist Uri Avnery however said it was a mistake to believe Sharon's plan could advance peace.
"It's not a peace plan but a war plan which will, if implemented, give back six percent of occupied Palestinian territory to strengthen Israel's presence on 94 percent of the rest, in the West Bank," he told AFP.
But Avnery admitted one of its unintended merits was to have unleashed "a confrontation between those who want Greater Israel on the whole of Palestine and beyond, based on religious, fascist concepts and all of those who object to that."
"The battle has just begun but may become more decisive over time."
Beilin's Palestinian co-author of the Geneva Initiative also had a less than favorable assessment of the plan.
"If we do not see an end to settlement activity in the West Bank and the construction of the wall, and if the Gaza withdrawal does not result in the end of Israel's occupation there, there is no serious progress," Yasser Abed Rabbo, a senior official in the Palestine Liberation Organisation, told AFP.
"Ending Israel's presence in Gaza means relinquishing control of its borders, airspace and sea so that it can become a sovereign territory that will be part of a future Palestinian state," he added.
However, the Sharon plan stipulates that Israel will keep control of every entry point in and out of the Gaza, including its airspace and territorial waters.
And Sharon has made clear he sees leaving Gaza as a way of easing international pressure to dismantle West Bank settlement blocs where the vast majority of settlers live.
-------- mideast
Osama and his Shi'ite nemesis
Asia Times
By B Raman
Oct 28, 2004
http://atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/FJ28Df03.html
CHENNAI - The Shi'ites of Pakistan and Afghanistan have a long memory for the insults and brutalities inflicted against them. It now appears they're on the hunt for their sworn enemies, and Osama bin Laden is among them.
That might be because they haven't forgotten what he did to them in 1988. It was then that hundreds of Shi'ites of the Northern Areas (NA - Gilgit and Baltistan) of Pakistan, known before 1947 as the Northern Areas of Jammu and Kashmir, were massacred after a demand raised by them for the creation of an autonomous Shi'ite state called Karakoram, consisting of the Shi'ite majority areas of the NA, Punjab and the Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP). Military ruler General Zia-ul-Haq called in bin Laden, then living in Peshawar, and his Sunni tribal hordes to carry out the massacre.
To avenge these deaths, a Shi'ite airman is believed to have caused an explosion on board the aircraft in which Zia was travelling from Bahawalpur to Islamabad in August 1988. This was followed in 1991 by the assassination in Peshawar of Lieutenant-General Fazle Haq, a retired army officer, close to Zia and hated by the Shi'ites because of his suspected role in the assassination of a respected Shi'ite leader.
The Taliban rule in Afghanistan from 1994 to October 2001, particularly after it captured Kabul in September 1996, saw the large-scale massacre of Shi'ites belonging to the Hazara tribe. These strikes were carried out by al-Qaeda as well as Pakistan's Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) and its militant wing, the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LEJ).
Angered over this, the Shi'ite community refrained from participating in large numbers in the anti-US demonstrations that were organized in different parts of Pakistan by the Sunni religious organizations to protest the US military strikes against al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan after September 11, 2001.
Since the beginning of 2003, there have been indications that sections of the Shi'ite community have been doing their own hunt for bin Laden and his No 2, Ayman al-Zawahiri. It was reported that the arrest at Rawalpindi, Pakistan in March 2003 of Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, who had allegedly orchestrated the September 11 terrorist strikes in the United States, was made possible by intelligence provided by some Shi'ites in Quetta, Balochistan province, where Khalid was living before fleeing to Rawalpindi.
After hearing these reports, the SSP and the LEJ, both members of bin Laden's International Islamic Front, retaliated by massacring a large number of Hazara Shi'ites in the Quetta area in July 2003. This was followed by many anti-Shi'ite incidents in Karachi and other parts of Pakistan.
The Shi'ites struck back by helping the Pakistani authorities arrest Massob Arooshi, described as Khalid's nephew, on June 13 this year following an unsuccessful attempt to kill the corps commander of Karachi on June 10. Arooshi was arrested at the house of one Abbas Khan, a former divisional engineer of Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited, and reportedly the father of Javed Abbas, a serving deputy superintendent of police of Sindh.
According to the Daily Times, the prestigious Lahore daily, a Shi'ite cleric from Gilgit working in Karachi tipped off the police about Arooshi's presence in the house of Abbas Khan. The paper said it was another Shi'ite cleric who had tipped off the police in March last year about Khalid's presence in Rawalpindi.
Arooshi's arrest led to the arrest on July 12 of 25-year-old Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan, a Pakistani national described as an al-Qaeda computer expert; the arrest on July 25 at the home of an LEJ member in Punjab of Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian national born in Zanzibar and wanted by the US's Federal Bureau of Investigation in connection with the explosions near the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam in 1998, and his Uzbeck wife; the arrest on August 6 of Qari Saifullah Akhtar, the amir of the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI) and his subsequent deportation to Pakistan; and the death in an alleged encounter at Nawabshah in Sindh on September 26 of Amjad Hussain Farooqi, alias Mansur Hasnain, who, according to Pakistani authorities, was the mastermind behind two abortive attempts to kill President General Pervez Musharraf last December and in the kidnapping and murder of US journalist Daniel Pearl in 2002.
The SSP and the LEJ once again sought revenge against the Shi'ites through a suicide bombing at a Shi'ite place of worship in Punjab on October 1, resulting in the death of 30 Shi'ites. The Shi'ites retaliated on October 7 with a cab-bomb attack that killed 40 Sunnis near a religious function organized in Punjab by Sunni members of the SSP and the LEJ. The function marked the first anniversary of the death of Azam Tariq, the former head of the SSP, who was assassinated last year allegedly by a Shi'ite gunman in Islamabad.
Azam Tariq was close to Musharraf, who had the cases pending against him under the Anti-Terrorism Act withdrawn, enabling him to contest and win the October 2002 National Assembly elections. The SSP retaliated against the October 7 attack by causing an explosion in a Shi'ite place of worship at Lahore on October 10, killing four Shi'ites.
And so it goes; attack and revenge. And so it will go on, until the Shi'ites of Pakistan and Afghanistan have smoked out bin Laden, al-Zawahiri and Mullah Mohammad Omar, the amir of the Taliban, and dispatched them to their maker or, worse still, to the Americans at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
The Shi'ites have a long memory for the insults and brutalities inflicted against them, as Zia, Fazle Haq, Khalid, Amjad Farooqi and many others have learned, at great cost. They hunt relentlessly for their suppressors and for those who massacred their near and dear ones - no matter the price.
They have not forgotten what bin Laden, at Zia's insistence, did to them in Gilgit in 1988. They have not forgotten what bin Laden, the Taliban and al-Zawahiri did to them in Central Afghanistan. They have not forgotten the role of the SSP and the LEJ in the massacre of the Shi'ites in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
They are on the hunt for their sworn enemies. They are unlikely to rest until they get them. They are doing this not because of any love for the US or Musharraf, but to avenge the deaths of their near and dear ones at the hands of al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
Unlike Iran, which is allegedly not cooperating with the United States in its hunt for the dregs of al-Qaeda, the Shi'ites of Pakistan have mounted their own hunt for bin Laden and his cohorts. It is not a coordinated operation with the US or Pakistan. It is an independent operation in parallel, whose objective is not to make the world safe for the Americans, but to avenge the deaths of their brothers and sisters and to make the world safe for the Shi'ites. No amount of brutality and retaliatory killings by the SSP and the LEJ will deter them from this.
If bin Laden is still alive, don't be surprised if his greatest nemesis proves to be the Shi'ites of Pakistan and Afghanistan.
B Raman is a retired additional secretary, Cabinet Secretariat, government of India, New Delhi, and currently director of the Institute for Topical Studies, Chennai and distinguished fellow and convenor at the Chennai chapter of the Observer Research Foundation. E-mail: corde@vsnl.com.
-------- nato
NATO chief says it hopes to train 1,000 senior Iraqi officers a year
(AFP)
Oct 28, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041028145729.of2ouuj0.html
MONS, Belgium - NATO aims to train around 1,000 senior Iraqi military officers a year as part of its military aid programme, the organisation's supreme commander, US General James Jones, said Thursday.
"About a thousand a year- that is pretty significant," he told reporters at NATO headquarters in Mons in southern Belgium.
Jones declined to say how many NATO instructors would be sent to Iraq or what kind of force would be deployed to protect them, saying it "depended on the willingness of member states".
Senior officers suggested the number could be between 350 and 3,000, though the higher figure was judged very unlikely.
"I think it would need not exceed 3,000,"Jones said. "I'm confident it will be less than that."
The NATO contingent will work on three fronts -- developing a military academy on the outskirts of Baghdad, channelling supplies of military equipment donated by alliance members and advising officers in the new Iraqi army.
Jones submitted earlier this week an "operation plan" to put into effect the training mission. This is being considered by NATO's military committee before being passed to ambassadors from the 26 NATO member states for approval later this year.
At present fewer than 70 NATO personnel are in Baghdad where they have already begun training military headquarters staff.
"Now we are working out of the Green Zone ((a fortress-like compound in the centre of Baghad that also houses the US and British embassies among other official buildings) but we are looking at alternatives to base trainers outside," a senior NATO spokesman in Baghdad told AFP Wednesday.
Jones said he could not say whether the military academy would be functioning by January, the date set for general elections in Iraq.
"Sixteen or 17 nations out of the 26 have indicated a willingness for duty inside Iraq," he said.
Others, in particular France and Germany, have said they will contribute to the programme but not on Iraqi soil.
About 20 Iraqi officers are expected in the Norwegian town of Stavanger next week for a week's training in a NATO facility.
-------- russia / chechnya
Another Side of the Georgian-Russian Conflict
balkanalysis.com
October 28, 2004
by Christopher Deliso
http://www.antiwar.com/deliso/?articleid=3864
When it comes to coverage of the ongoing feud between Georgia and Russia, the Western mass media have a tendency to draw their testimony from "official" sources - political leaders, think tank analysts and the representatives of semi-political organizations such as the OSCE and Western-funded NGOs. However, with only a few exceptions, the voice of the common people is rarely heard. This tacit media complicity all too often invalidates the viewpoint of regular Georgians or Russians as being irrelevant, while it ends up bolstering the policies of their increasingly bellicose governments or blessing the programs of allegedly populist organizations supported from without.
Further, media articles featuring miniature maps of the Caucasus tend to be political too. That is, while they reveal the jagged borders of far-flung territories unknown to most outsiders, and the locations of various cities therein, they tend to pay less heed to the geographical realities - something which is unfortunate, considering that the history of the entire Caucasus region has always been shaped by the exigencies of its rugged, mountainous terrain.
Having had an interest in the country and its key problems for several years, I endeavored on my latest trip to Georgia to visit other parts of the country, and get a mixture of opinions that would include the testimonies of non-official people whose lives are being affected by the decisions of their increasingly rash leaders.
A nice place to visit: Georgia's northern terrain is a joy to see - unless you can't exit.
Into the Mountains
It is less than a four-hour drive north to reach the Russian border from Georgia's capital, Tbilisi. But the road is winding and difficult, as it cuts through mountains that reach their peak in Mt. Kazbek (16,558 feet). Known as the Georgian Military Highway, this historically strategic route is marred with crater-sized potholes and disintegrates completely into dirt and rocks at its summit, the Jvari Pass. At many points, the road is carved out of sheer cliff faces and contains numerous built-in tunneled underpasses on the sides - a necessity, owing to the massive snowfall this area gets in winter. Needless to say, the views are magnificent throughout.
I negotiated this route after enlisting the services of one Tariel Tabashidze, a 40-year-old agronomist by training who now works as a translator for German and U.S. companies and individuals. Since the journey is definitely too challenging for the average car, we took his brother's trusty white Lada Niva - the Russian answer to a Jeep. Along the way, Tabashidze proudly recounted how the very same vehicle had been hired out a decade ago to BBC reporter Andrew Harding for his forays into neighboring Chechnya.
Unlike that volatile region, Georgia's Kazbegi region is a sparsely-populated oasis of tranquility, featuring abundant wildlife and medieval stone churches, sprinkled with tiny villages that culminate in the small town of Kazbegi itself, just a few miles from Russia. The proximity of the border means that the dilapidated shops in Kazbegi and its outlying villages are filled with Russian goods. Georgian farmers also send the majority of their produce north for export. Unlike claims of allegiance with Russia voiced by secessionists in Georgia's South Ossetian and Abkhazian provinces, Kazbegi's Russian relationship has nothing to do with politics. Rather, the greater distance and geographical difficulties of communicating with Tbilisi - especially in winter, when the whole area is snowed under - mean that the locals must rely on their connections with their much closer neighbors to the north, and especially the regional center of Vladikavkaz.
For remote mountain villages, having connections with nearby North Ossetia, over the Russian border, is necessary for survival.
The Border Swings Shut
However, these connections were instantly severed by the tragedy of Beslan on Sept. 1. In the wake of this deadly terrorist attack, Russian President Putin ordered the closure of Russia's border with the south as a security measure. Yet by early October, when I visited, the Kazbegi border (known as the Upper Lars crossing) was still closed. Any security risks (had there really been any) were long ended.
There was another factor to consider here. Almost exactly two years before, I had traveled via helicopter to another border point - Shatili - which sits snug on the Chechen part of the Russian border. Here, young OSCE monitors had, two days earlier, been stopped in a remote place by a dozen heavily armed Chechens. Luckily for them, the monitors were released, but with the following warning: "We know all about your little camp. So if you tell the Russians about us before two days have passed, we will destroy it."
From this and many other accounts, it thus seemed that Russian charges are justified. At least on their part of the border, Chechen terrorists did occasionally slip in and out of the Georgian wilds. However, it was also hard to believe that any such individual would be found standing in line, waiting to be processed at an official border checkpoint. Whether or not the Russians decided to close the border at Kazbegi would thus mean little for state security.
Pressing on to the closed border checkpoint, this old woman planned to camp overnight until it reopened.
And so even if initially understandable, the Russian border closure simply made no sense. And, as I found, it has meant trouble for both local Georgians and travelers trying to pass through. Elderly Makhvala Sargishvili owns a kiosk located (literally) in a hole in the wall running outside her tiny mountain village. Crammed inside the shop window were dusty boxes of outdated Russian provisions. Almost all of her products came from Russia, but with the blockage at the border she was faced with a real problem. "Life is not so bad, but not so good, either. This problem with the border is really difficult for us."
These comments were shared by three farmers, Giorgi, Emzar, and Vano, pitching hay in the idyllic mountain village of Kobi. Tomorrow would be dog-fighting day in the village, they announced; there was simply nothing else to do for entertainment. "There's no TV," said Giorgi, "and nobody has enough money to get married. There are now 59 couples from these villages waiting to have a wedding someday."
Agriculture is the only source of income for these villagers, and a very seasonal one. Within a few weeks after my visit, they predicted, the snow would start falling. Now, with the Russian border closed, "we can neither get goods we need nor export our produce," lamented Vano. Geography, not politics or ethnicity, had forced these Georgians to throw in their lot with the Russian Ossetian population to the north.
The Stranded Armenians
However difficult the border closure was for ordinary Georgian villagers, those most affected at the time were 25 Armenians who'd had the bad luck of reaching the border just as the carnage in Beslan was unfolding. Some were trying to go to Russia for work, others to return to their adopted homes in Vladikavkaz. None of them were prepared for the ordeal that would leave them trapped at the border for almost two months.
"We feel like animals," growled Isak Ogosian, the group's bearded spokesman. "We have been stuck here for 32 days. We have to sleep sitting up in the bus. And, despite our pleas, nobody helps us."
Among the disconsolate bunch were old ladies, young mothers and small children. They had little remaining money and supplies, and subsisted only due to the help of the already impoverished locals. While Georgian media had paid them a visit early on in the saga, nothing substantial had been done to ameliorate their situation. The mountain chasms falling into the river - in any other situation, hopelessly breathtaking - had become a sort of prison.
Indeed, life seemed pretty unhappy for the stranded Armenians. Some people slept in the rusty old bus, while one old woman prepared some variety of borscht in a metal pan. A little boy kicked one of the many crushed cans littering the ground as if it were a soccer ball. Off to one side, a young man snoring in a sleeping bag competed with a mangy, dozing dog. When they couldn't get him to wake up, Isak formed the shape of a cross on his back with some grass, sending the rest into hysterics. It was a rare uproarious moment for a dejected and powerless group of forgotten travelers.
"Nobody gets to go through [the border] except important people," charged Elizabeta Abramovna, a retired doctor who moved to Vladikavkaz 37 years ago with her late husband, then an official in the Soviet government. "Because of my complaining, everyone knows about me now, the governments and media. But still nobody helps us." According to her, the official response to the travelers' requests was a perfect example of passing the buck: since the Georgian side gave them permission to exit Georgia, it was no longer their problem when the Russians denied them entry. The Armenian officials they had consulted said there was nothing they could do either.
For a month the Armenians had lived with the vague promise that the border would soon be open. Nevertheless, this endless waiting had caused some to give up hope.
"About 12 of them want to just forget it and go back to Armenia [190 km/118 mi. to the south], where they have family," revealed Isak. "All we need is about $100 to hire a minibus. This situation is hard, especially for the children," he said, nodding at 3-year-old Angelina, an adorable and shy little girl hiding behind her mother, Anna. "All we want is to go back to Armenia, just to get at least to the [Armenian] border," said Anna. "After that we can find a way, somehow." And that is how we left them, in the chilly afternoon preceding yet another spectacular Caucasus sunset.
Yet the saga continued. Only on Oct. 22 was the border finally reopened. Armenian President Robert Kocharian "hailed" the event as "evidence that tension in North Ossetia is subsiding after the Beslan events." In other words, not only did his government fail to help his own stranded citizens, but the president went out of his way to toe the Kremlin's official line on the reason for the border having been closed in the first place.
For his part, Georgian leader Mikheil Saakashvili, appearing together with Kocharian, could only grumble that the border closure "has reminded us once again that sales markets should be looked for not only in Russia." Wonderful. Yet unless Saakashvili proposes to detonate hundreds of miles of mountain range, it doesn't seem likely that the north Georgians of Kazbegi will change their habits.
The Ossetian Question
And why should they? "We have no problem with the Ossetian people," said my earnest guide, Mr. Tabashidze. "It is the politicians who create these conflicts." His opinion was echoed by villagers we surveyed. "For us, it should not be a problem to visit a doctor, say, or go in the Russian shops there [in Vladikavkaz]," said Giorgi the farmer from Kobi. "This is our normal life."
Indeed, though the South Ossetian "government" desires to join up with its kin on the other side of the border - Russia's North Ossetia, where the Beslan saga unfolded - there is no wide-ranging ethnic hostility as has been the case in the Balkans, for instance. The Georgians of Kazbegi, at least, have long been trading with and visiting the Ossetians just over the border, and vice versa.
Hostilities often seem to be manipulated by the decisions of powerful leaders far above and far removed from the areas in question. Indeed, as a Georgian soldier unlucky enough to be serving in the South Ossetian "neutral zone" told one recent visitor, "this isn't between us and the Ossetians. It's between us and Russia."
Threats of War
However, the continued brinkmanship between these two major players is having its predictable local effect. "We will not wait long," threatened an unnamed local from the Georgian village of Abasheni, on the edge of the neutral zone. "We will wait two or three days and then we will also shoot at [the South Ossetian town of] Tskhinvali." The threat follows weeks of agitation from Georgians who claim they are being targeted by Ossetian paramilitaries during overnight outbursts of violence. The Georgians blame the Ossetian side for provoking the attacks, while the Ossetians are equally adamant that it's the Georgian army that is inciting them. For his part, the Russian major general heading the Joint Peacekeeping Force in South Ossetia told the protesting Georgians that he "cannot control everybody." The Georgians question whether Russia is even interested in controlling their Ossetian charges. In this vacuum of responsibility, however, "both sides are laying mines despite the pleas of OSCE to stop," and talk has again returned to war.
As if to set an example, Interior Minister Irakli Okruashvili last week started a three-week military training course for army reservists. President Saakashvili - who wants to ban anyone who hasn't undergone such training from taking up a civil post - sees the militarization of Georgian society as indispensable for proving the unity of the "Georgian nation." These perhaps ominous developments occur at a time when the Georgian government is beefing up its military presence in the conflict area. The Ossetians are likewise digging in.
It was the international shock over Beslan that seems to have hushed the Georgian government's warmongering words in September. After all, the summer months had been "hot," peaking in late August with Saakashvili's memorable declaration that Georgians should prepare for imminent war with Russia. However, if these recent developments are any indicator, it appears that sufficient time has passed to allow for heated words to once again shape the political discourse. Unfortunately, this will also mean that foreign media coverage of Georgia remains obsessed with the breathless statements of officials - and not the common people they allegedly empowered with last year's "Rose Revolution."
-------- spies
CIA can't authenticate alleged al Qaeda tape
(CNN)
October 28, 2004
http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/10/28/terror.tape/index.html
WASHINGTON -- After a technical analysis, the CIA cannot determine whether a videotape obtained by ABC News in Pakistan featuring a man claiming to be affiliated with al Qaeda is authentic, a U.S. intelligence official said Thursday.
"We have been unable to verify the tape's authenticity," the official said.
Portions of the 75-minute tape were aired Thursday evening by ABC News, which said it obtained the tape from a source known to have Taliban and al Qaeda contacts in the tribal regions of Pakistan.
ABC said it paid the source $500 in transportation fees.
A U.S. official said there were "real questions about its authenticity."
By that, the official said, he meant that it was not clear whether the tape was prepared by someone affiliated with al Qaeda and taking orders from its leaders, or whether it was a hoax.
With the presidential election just days away, officials are wary of a possible trick by an impostor.
"Without being able to authenticate it, it's just some guy talking on a tape," the U.S. intelligence official said.
On the tape, a man calling himself "Azzam the American" threatens terror attacks "at any moment," delivering the message in English. His face is covered with a headdress and he holds a rifle.
"People of America: I remind you of the weighty words of our leaders, Sheikh Osama bin Laden and Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, that what took place on September 11th was but the opening salvo of the global war on America," he says. "And that, Allah willing, the magnitude and ferocity of what is coming your way will make you forget all about September 11th."
A U.S. government official said the tape did not mention any means, mode or place of an attack.
Sources said copies of the tape were given to President Bush, Attorney General John Ashcroft, FBI Director Robert Mueller, former CIA Director George Tenet and nine other officials mentioned by name on the tape.
A U.S. intelligence official said the voice on the tape "does not match anyone we know of" who has been identified as being affiliated with al Qaeda.
The official said the tape was made in recent months, since it referred to the humanitarian crisis in Darfur, the same sex-marriage controversy in Massachusetts, and the report of the 9/11 commission.
The tape included a graphic indicating it was produced by the "Sahab Production Committee," which is the same as that seen on a number of authenticated al Qaeda tapes.
CNN's David Ensor, Kelli Arena, Jeanne Meserve and Jonathan Wald contributed to this report.
-------- un
Nuclear watchdog chief advocates tougher, broader Non-Proliferation Treaty
GENEVA (AFP)
Thu Oct 28, 2004
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20041028/wl_afp/un_nuclear_npt_iaea_041028185137
- Tighter global controls on the export of nuclear material and technology must be included in a bolstered nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT) up for debate next year, the head of the UN nuclear watchdog said.
International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei insisted in an article for a UN review that the multilateral treaty -- whose effectiveness has been questioned by the United States -- remained "the essential anchor" for global nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament.
Its weaknesses in the face of the advancing availability of nuclear weapons know-how -- now thought to extend to 40 countries -- should be tackled by bringing more countries on board a stronger NPT at a review conference due in 2005, he added.
"The nuclear export control system should be universalised and treaty-based, while preserving the inalienable rights of all states to peaceful nuclear technology," ElBaradei wrote.
One hundred and eighty-eight countries have joined the 1970 NPT limiting the spread of nuclear weapons, including the five main nuclear superpowers, but not emerging weapons states India, Pakistan, or Israel.
North Korea pulled out last year.
India earlier this month repeated that it was not ready to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty, saying the pact imposes stricter conditions on fledgling nuclear states than on established nuclear powers.
However, the NPT's system of checks on technology and material exports are not binding, and only 61 of the signatories have subscribed to them.
The flaw was one of the triggers for the current tensions between Iran and the IAEA over its enrichment facilities.
The United States has also accused countries of seeking nuclear weapons capability while under the cloak of the NPT.
ElBaradei said nuclear inspectors must have the right to conduct checks in all countries, while transparent limits must be placed on processing of plutonium and weapons grade enriched uranium.
No country should be allowed to bow out of the NPT "without clear consequences" before the UN Security Council, he added, rejecting the current allowance for three months notice.
North Korea withdrew from the NPT in 2003 after it revived the Yongbyon nuclear reactor, marking the first time any country has withdrawn from a multilateral arms control treaty.
The move raised international tensions and prompted warnings of "nuclear anarchy".
-------- us
U.S. Barred From Forcing Troops to Get Anthrax Shots
By Marc Kaufman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 28, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3691-2004Oct27.html
The Defense Department must immediately stop inoculating troops with anthrax vaccine, a federal judge ruled yesterday, saying that the Food and Drug Administration acted improperly when it approved the experimental injections for general use.
Concluding that the FDA violated its own rules by approving the vaccine late last year, U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan said the mandatory vaccination program -- which has inoculated more than 1.2 million troops since 1998 -- is "illegal."
Sullivan said that his ban on involuntary vaccination will remain in place until the FDA reviews the anthrax vaccine properly or until President Bush determines that the normal process must be waived because of emergency circumstances.
The Defense Department has required many troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan to be vaccinated, and it has punished and sometimes court-martialed those who refused. The Pentagon expanded its anthrax and smallpox vaccination programs in July to include troops stationed in South Korea and other areas in Asia and Africa, despite complaints from some service members that the anthrax vaccine made them sick.
In a statement, the Defense Department said it is reviewing the decision and will "pause giving anthrax vaccinations until the legal situation is clarified. . . . DoD remains convinced that the anthrax immunization program complies with all the legal requirements and that the anthrax vaccine is safe and effective."
In his ruling, Sullivan said that the FDA's approval was invalid because it did not meet the required review standards and the agency failed to seek the necessary public comment.
"Congress has prohibited the administration of investigational drugs to service members without their consent," Sullivan said. "This Court will not permit the government to circumvent this requirement."
"The men and women of our armed forces deserve the assurance that the vaccines our government compels them to take into their bodies have been tested by the greatest scrutiny of all -- public scrutiny. This is the process the FDA in its expert judgment has outlined, and this is the course this court shall compel FDA to follow," Sullivan wrote.
The judge ruled on a suit filed in March 2003 by six service members and civilians who argued that the FDA never properly reviewed the vaccine's ability to protect against inhalation anthrax. The suit contended that the drug was never shown to be effective, and that some vaccinated troops experienced extreme fatigue, joint pain and temporary memory loss after being vaccinated. The vaccine, made by BioPort Corp. of Lansing, Mich., is given in a series of shots.
Mark Zaid, an attorney for the six who has also defended more than a dozen service members court-martialed for refusing the vaccination, said one of his clients is a breast-feeding mother who does not think the vaccine is safe for her child.
"We will now initiate an effort to ensure the government reverses all punishments that were imposed for refusing an order to take the vaccine," Zaid said. He said he will also seek compensation for service members who contend they were harmed. "As we've seen in Iraq, there wasn't any actual threat from anthrax, so there was never any real need for the vaccine," Zaid said.
Sullivan initially ruled in late 2003 that the FDA had never approved the vaccine and ordered that the inoculations be stopped. Eight days later, the FDA approved the vaccine based on an application made 18 years earlier, and the inoculation program was resumed. Yesterday's ruling concluded that the agency did not follow its own rules in declaring the vaccine safe and effective.
In particular, Sullivan criticized the FDA for not allowing the public to comment on its decision -- a prerequisite for any approval. There was some public comment when the approval was first sought in 1986, but the 2003 decision was based on research conducted later and never subjected to public comment.
The FDA argued that comments had been submitted as part of a 2001 citizens' petition questioning proposals to begin the vaccinations, but Sullivan found them insufficient. "It is clear to this Court that if the status of the anthrax vaccine were open for public comment today, the agency would receive a deluge of comments and analysis that might inform an open-minded agency," he wrote.
Because the anthrax agent is so deadly, it has been difficult to test a vaccine that might protect against it. The best data have come from a study in the 1950s of workers at a factory that processed animal hides and furs, which can transmit naturally occurring anthrax. That study found that the vaccine now used by the military was effective in reducing the incidence of anthrax spread by contact, but the research involved only a tiny sample of people who might have inhaled the bacteria.
Anthrax vaccine was used in a limited way in the 1991 Persian Gulf War. A more expansive effort began in 1998. Difficulties in manufacturing the vaccine stopped the program in 2000 and 2001, but the vaccination effort was resumed and greatly expanded in 2002.
Staff writer Bradley Graham and researcher Madonna Lebling contributed to this report.
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
-------- courts / tribunals
O'Connor touts global law
October 28, 2004
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20041027-115212-8210r.htm
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor yesterday extolled the growing role of international law in U.S. courts, saying judges would be negligent if they disregarded its importance in a post-September 11 world of heightened tensions.
In a 15-minute speech at Georgetown law school, Justice O'Connor made no mention of the health of Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, 80, who was hospitalized this week for thyroid cancer and is expected to return to work Monday.
Justice O'Connor said the Supreme Court is increasingly taking cases that demand a better understanding of foreign legal systems. A recent example was last term's terror cases involving the U.S. detention of foreign-born detainees at U.S. Naval Base Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, she said.
"International law is no longer a specialty. ... It is vital if judges are to faithfully discharge their duties," Justice O'Connor told attendees at a ceremony dedicating Georgetown's new international law center.
"Since September 11, 2001, we're reminded some nations don't have the rule of law or [know] that it's the key to liberty," she said.
Later this term, the Supreme Court will decide the constitutionality of executing juvenile killers. The case has attracted wide interest overseas, with many foreign nations filing briefs pointing to international human rights norms as a justification for outlawing the practice.
Justice O'Connor, who is expected to be a pivotal vote, didn't mention the case, but said recognizing international law could foster more civilized societies in the United States and abroad.
--------
Judge Rebuffs GOP Effort to Contest Voters in Ohio
By Jo Becker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 28, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3731-2004Oct27.html
A U.S. District Court judge yesterday effectively ended efforts by Republicans in Ohio to challenge the eligibility of tens of thousands of voters in one of the most closely contested states in this year's presidential race.
Judge Susan J. Dlott in Cincinnati issued an order preventing local election boards from going forward with plans to notify challenged voters and hold hearings until she hears legal arguments tomorrow. But because her ruling means that those election board hearings cannot take place within the time frame state law requires before the election, Dlott's ruling killed the GOP effort that had targeted 35,000 voters, Democratic and Republican party officials said.
David Sullivan, director of the Democratic Party's Voter Protection Program in Ohio, praised the ruling and said the GOP was never able to offer proof that the challenged voters are ineligible. "The Republican assault on tens of thousands of Ohio voters was an unprecedented effort to intimidate voters, especially minorities, but it has backfired," he said.
Mark Weaver, a lawyer for the Ohio Republican Party, said yesterday's ruling does not prevent the party from going forward with plans to place 3,400 monitors in polling places, particularly in heavily Democratic urban areas. The challenges will take place Tuesday instead of being decided beforehand, he said.
States allow political parties to monitor polls and challenge voters' eligibility. In Ohio, the challenge is considered by a bipartisan election board.
"The ironic twist here is that now there will be longer lines [at the polls] because questions about voter eligibility will have to be decided on Election Day, rather than ahead of time," Weaver said.
A spokesman for Ohio's secretary of state, J. Kenneth Blackwell (R), who was named in the lawsuit, said he will not appeal the ruling. Election officials in Cuyahoga County, where most of challenges were filed, said they will not appeal either.
Both parties have been engaged in intense legal wrangling over election laws this year as they look for every possible edge in states where polls show the presidential race too close to call. They have fought over provisional ballots -- given to voters whose names do not appear on rolls at polling sites -- and how to determine their validity and how quickly the ballots should be counted. And they have battled over poll identification rules and procedures for early voting, a process in many states -- such as Florida -- that has already allowed more than 1.3 million people to vote in advance.
Ohio was part of an effort by Republicans in many battleground states to challenge voter registrations as Election Day approaches.
It was the second time that the GOP has lost on the issue. In Nevada, another battleground, Clark County election officials rejected an attempt this month by the former executive director of that state's GOP to challenge 17,000 voters in the Las Vegas area.
Dlott's ruling could alleviate the possibility of massive disruptions in the last days of the campaign. Cuyahoga County, where about 17,000 of the challenged voters reside, had been planning a mass hearing on Saturday.
The legal setback has not deterred GOP officials, who say that challenges are necessary to safeguard the election against fraud.
In Florida, the GOP has filed plans to place poll watchers at 5,000 polling places, spokeswoman Mindy Tucker Fletcher said. Whether those observers will challenge individual voters depends on the circumstances, she said. "If there's something blatant, we may choose to do that," she said.
In Denver, election officials said the Republican Party told them it plans to have 350 poll watchers to challenge voters there. "This is a very organized, very intense effort," said Alan McBeth of the Denver Election Commission. "If it becomes abusive, we may have to step in and say this is out of hand."
Tom Josefiak, the Bush campaign's general counsel, said in a recent interview that challenges would be conducted in a non-intimidating manner that would not disrupt voting.
Democrats, however, argue that the real aim of the challenge program is to keep voters likely to support Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), particularly minorities, from casting ballots.
Bob Bauer, a lawyer for the Democratic National Committee, said Democrats will also have large numbers of poll watchers. But, he said, "our watchers will be there to help voters, not to hinder them, to answer their questions, not to question them."
In Florida, Republican poll watchers will be disproportionately concentrated in minority precincts, according to a Democratic Party analysis of census data and GOP plans filed in five counties. In Miami-Dade, 59 percent of predominately black precincts will have at least one GOP poll watcher, compared with 37 percent of white precincts.
Although Fletcher did not dispute those numbers, she said that the party will not single out black neighborhoods, but rather heavily Democratic ones. "Those are the places most likely for the Democrats . . . to try to steal the election," she said.
Staff writer Ann Gerhart contributed to this report.
-------- homeland security / national intelligence
Homeland Security Agents Visit Toy Store
October 28, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Toy-Store-Homeland-Security.html
ST. HELENS, Ore. (AP) -- So far as she knows, Pufferbelly Toys owner Stephanie Cox hasn't been passing any state secrets to sinister foreign governments, or violating obscure clauses in the Patriot Act.
So she was taken aback by a mysterious phone call from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to her small store in this quiet Columbia River town just north of Portland.
``I was shaking in my shoes,'' Cox said of the September phone call. ``My first thought was the government can shut your business down on a whim, in my opinion. If I'm closed even for a day that would cause undue stress.''
When the two agents arrived at the store, the lead agent asked Cox whether she carried a toy called the Magic Cube, which he said was an illegal copy of the Rubik's Cube, one of the most popular toys of all time.
He told her to remove the Magic Cube from her shelves, and he watched to make sure she complied.
After the agents left, Cox called the manufacturer of the Magic Cube, the Toysmith Group, which is based in Auburn, Wash. A representative told her that Rubik's Cube patent had expired, and the Magic Cube did not infringe on the rival toy's trademark.
Virginia Kice, a spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said agents went to Pufferbelly based on a trademark infringement complaint filed in the agency's intellectual property rights center in Washington, D.C.
``One of the things that our agency's responsible for doing is protecting the integrity of the economy and our nation's financial systems and obviously trademark infringement does have significant economic implications,'' she said.
Six weeks after her brush with Homeland Security, Cox told The Oregonian she is still bewildered by the experience.
``Aren't there any terrorists out there?'' she said.
Information from: The Oregonian
--------
Hope Fades for Intelligence Bill
Compromise Soon Sense of Urgency Disappears as Budget Powers of New Director Continue to Be Sticking Point
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 28, 2004; Page A02
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3595-2004Oct27.html
Lawmakers yesterday abandoned efforts to pass legislation restructuring the U.S. intelligence system before Tuesday's election, with some warning that it may be impossible to reach an agreement even in time for a lame-duck session in mid-November, according to lawmakers and staff members.
The four chief House and Senate negotiators failed once again to reach agreement on the extent of budget powers to grant to a new national intelligence director, as part of a major reorganization of the intelligence community. Although both sides vowed to keep talks going, there no longer was a sense of urgency to complete their work before the election, as the White House and congressional leaders had vowed to do after the commission that studied the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks released its report and recommendations this summer.
The leaders of the Sept. 11 commission, former New Jersey governor Thomas H. Kean (R) and former representative Lee H. Hamilton (D-Ind.), have been pushing for quick legislative action, aided by public support from the families of victims of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Some relatives of victims, furious over the impasse, said President Bush and House Republicans who have pushed for controversial additions to the commission's recommendations would be blamed by voters for the failure to achieve a compromise. Commission member Timothy J. Roemer (D-Ind.), also a former representative, said the effort "looks to be as dead as a doornail."
"The people holding the hammer are the president and a few House Republicans," he said.
But some analysts concluded that Bush and his Democratic challenger, Sen. John F. Kerry, do not see the impasse as a major issue in their campaigns, despite previous calls for swift action to strengthen the nation's intelligence-gathering apparatus and reduce the likelihood of another terrorist attack.
Political scientist James A. Thurber said yesterday that Bush could have broken the impasse and forced a compromise with a phone call to House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.). Bush's failure to do so, he said, indicates that the White House does not see the issue as being vital to his reelection bid.
"The president has been disengaged from efforts on the Hill, especially in the last three weeks," said Thurber, director of American University's Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies. "He may be listening to people from the Department of Defense, and in the end he wants it both ways"; that is, being seen as working for a bill but not pushing so hard as to cause waves in the Pentagon.
The talks involved competing 500-page bills drafted in response to dozens of recommendations of the Sept. 11 commission. Commission leaders and victims' families favor the Senate bill over the House version, which contains a number of controversial intelligence issues as well as changes to immigration laws. The stalemate stems in part from a turf war over control of the intelligence budget, with advocates of the Pentagon attempting to retain control over $40 billion of annual intelligence spending.
The four chief House and Senate conferees intend to resume discussions today on the House's controversial immigration and law enforcement provisions. On Friday, a nationwide conference call will allow the leaders of the conference committee -- Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.), Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.) -- to bring the remaining House and Senate conferees up to date .
While the four lead conferees issued a statement saying they had made some progress, Senate and House aides said late yesterday that tentative agreements reached earlier on budget authority for the national intelligence director had been reconsidered by the House Republicans. "We were pushed back to where we were last week," a senior Senate aide said.
That triggered a statement from House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), calling the conference "a failure."
A sidelight to the negotiations, which some Senate aides say triggered the renewed Republican intransigence, was an unsolicited memo supporting the House proposed budget compromise that was written by Philip D. Zelikow, the Sept. 11 commission's executive director. The memo, received last Saturday afternoon by the conferees, "shocked" Kean and Hamilton and angered the Senate bill's supporters, according to a source participating in the conference.
Both Hamilton and Kean said Monday that they still supported the Senate position on budget authority but described the House proposal as moving toward compromise. Meanwhile, Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee and quarterback for the pro-Pentagon conferees, has helped publicize the Zelikow memo as a backup for his position.
Staff writer Charles Babington contributed to this report.
--------
WASHINGTON
Intelligence Report to Assess Threat Posed by Terrorists
October 28, 2004
By DOUGLAS JEHL
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/28/politics/28intel.html?pagewanted=all
WASHINGTON, Oct. 27 - American intelligence agencies are drafting a report that could address whether the Iraq war has increased or decreased the foreign terrorist threat to the United States, but it will not be completed before Election Day, according to senior government officials.
In an internal memorandum sent to the White House in August, the C.I.A. declined to take a position on whether overthrowing Saddam Hussein had made America "safer," the officials said. Spokesmen for the C.I.A. and the White House said that stance reflected the agency's unwillingness to become involved in policy judgments.
But in that memorandum, administration officials acknowledged, the agency proposed "factual corrections" to assertions included in a draft fact sheet prepared by the White House titled "America Is Safer Without Saddam Hussein."
The assertions to which the C.I.A. recommended changes were included under headings that described Mr. Hussein as "a major obstacle" to political reform in the Middle East and said he "maintained ties to terrorists and terrorist organizations."
The agency's comments about a draft White House fact sheet were described by current and former counterterrorism officials and confirmed by an administration official. They reflected what counterterrorism officials say is a continuing debate among intelligence officials, with some senior analysts within the C.I.A.'s Counterterrorism Center arguing that the invasion of Iraq has helped to fuel Islamic terrorism by inflaming anti-American sentiment.
Assessing threats to the United States is a primary responsibility of the intelligence agencies, and it is the topic of annual public testimony to Congress by the director of central intelligence. But the C.I.A. has avoided taking a public position on the issue during a presidential campaign in which the two major candidates have taken opposing positions on the war in Iraq, with President Bush calling it central to the effort against terrorism and Senator John Kerry calling it a dangerous distraction.
Government officials said that the new National Intelligence Estimate now being prepared would be the first to address the foreign terrorist threat since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and that it had been initiated by the National Intelligence Council, not the White House.
In an interview, a White House official said the question of whether the invasion of Iraq had made Americans safer was "not an intelligence judgment." But Richard C. Holbrooke, a top foreign policy adviser to Mr. Kerry, said he believed that voters had a right to know what independent experts at the C.I.A. thought about the issue.
Mr. Bush has argued that toppling Mr. Hussein was a vital step toward the creation of a new Middle East capable of turning the tide against terrorism. Mr. Kerry has said the war in Iraq diverted resources from the more important battle against Al Qaeda and its offshoots and has added to the ranks of jihadists and fueled a new wave of terrorist attacks in Iraq and elsewhere.
Condoleezza Rice, the White House national security adviser, criticized that Kerry view as misguided. "In the short term we're safer today because Saddam Hussein and his regime are no longer in power,"she said in an interview. "And in the longer term we're safer because his removal has changed the geostrategic picture to favor moderate Islam and those who will fight terror.''
In a telephone conversation, Mr. Holbrooke criticized the Bush approach. "As a result of the administration's policies," he said, "the United States has diverted resources and attention away from the war against our primary enemy, the terrorists, and our actions in Iraq have simultaneously created more terrorists and enemies of the United States."
Rand Beers, Mr. Kerry's national security adviser, said in an interview that if an American-led invasion to topple Mr. Hussein had been carried out "appropriately,'' "there would have certainly been a lot less opportunity for the war in Iraq to have served as the magnet for international jihadists to come in.''
The C.I.A. memorandum to the White House was sent in August in response to the draft fact sheet. "We are not commenting on the policy judgments or conclusions in the fact sheet," the agency said in the response, according to an administration official.
Among the "factual corrections" contained in the document were a recommendation that Mr. Hussein be described as "an obstacle" to reform in the Middle East rather than "a major obstacle," as he had been called by the White House, the official said. A second factual correction was to make "more general" statements about Mr. Hussein's ties to Palestinian terrorist organizations and the Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi that had been used to substantiate the White House assertion that Mr. Hussein "maintained ties to terrorists and terrorist organizations," the administration official said.
The White House fact sheet was never released, but a copy was obtained by The New York Times. A White House spokesman, Sean McCormack, said the decision not to release it had nothing to do with the C.I.A.'s comments. A spokesman for the agency described its handling of the fact sheet as routine.
"When documents of this kind arrive at the C.I.A. from the policy community for clearance, it is the agency's practice to clear only the facts they contain - specific names, dates and events," the spokesman said. "In clearing such documents, C.I.A. does not take positions on questions of policy, such as the very broad question raised in the document's title."
The C.I.A.'s most recent public assessment on the question of threats facing the United States was issued in February by George J. Tenet, then the director of central intelligence, in his annual testimony on the issue. Mr. Tenet made no direct mention of the any link between the invasion of Iraq and the foreign terrorist threat, but said the world remained "equally, if not more, complicated and fraught with dangers for American interests'' compared with last year.
But in response to a question about whether Americans were "safer today in this country than we were when we met a year ago,'' Mr. Tenet, along with the directors of the F.B.I. and the Defense Intelligence Agency, answered yes.
-------- police
Policing Is Aggressive at Bush Events
To Some, Protesters' Arrests Recall Vietnam War Era
By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 28, 2004; Page A07
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A3695-2004Oct27?language=printer
As a phalanx of motorcycles sped by on Old Philadelphia Pike in Lancaster County, Pa., in July, Tristan Egolf and six compatriots stripped to their skivvies and piled on top of one another in a pyramid, mimicking the infamous photograph taken at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison.
But a minute after their bit of street theater had begun -- and long before a motorcade carrying President Bush had arrived -- police moved in and arrested six of the protesters on disorderly-conduct charges. The seventh man got away.
This month, Lancaster County's Republican district attorney dropped charges against the "Smoketown Six" -- named for the Amish country town that hosted Bush that day -- declaring that their "symbolic conduct" was protected by the First Amendment.
"They denied us our chance at expression," said Egolf, 32, a twice-published novelist who lives in East Lampeter Township, Pa. "That seems to be what they're doing these days: They don't agree with your opinion, so they haul you off and drop the charges later."
As Bush has traveled the United States during this political campaign, the Secret Service and local police have often handled public protest by quickly arresting or removing demonstrators, free-speech advocates say. In addition, access to Bush's events has been unusually tightly controlled and people who do not support Bush's reelection have been removed.
Although it's impossible to precisely measure the tactics in comparison with previous campaigns, civil liberties advocates and other experts say the treatment of dissenters is harsher this year. Several dozen protest-related arrests have been reported in recent months, in addition to the 1,800 made outside the Republican National Convention in New York, and the American Civil Liberties Union says that scores of other people have been evicted or denied entry to Bush campaign events.
"Every president wants to suppress speech at one point or another," said Christopher Hansen, an ACLU lawyer who tracks arrests and removals. "That said, the incidents seem to be more numerous this time around."
Alex Vitale, a sociology professor at Brooklyn College who studies police behavior at political protests, argues that the United States has not seen such tactics during protests since the Vietnam War era.
"This seems to be on a new level from what we've seen from past administrations," Vitale said. "It's clear that some of these security zones are not based on legitimate security concerns. They are based on the idea of the president not seeing someone who disagrees with him, which basically undermines the whole idea of the First Amendment."
Tickets to Bush events, distributed by the Republican Party, go only to those who volunteer or donate to the party or, in some cases, sign an endorsement of the GOP ticket and provide names and addresses. Party workers police the crowds for signs of Kerry supporters, who are frequently evicted.
Bush campaign spokesman Scott Stanzel said the tickets are distributed by precinct leaders and volunteers, who have discretion about who should receive them. He said those in attendance include undecided voters.
"We give out tickets . . . to people who support his reelection and people who may be undecided but want an opportunity to hear what he has to say," Stanzel said.
The Kerry campaign says it does not limit attendance based on political views, a point Kerry has made frequently when confronted by hecklers on the campaign trail. "We don't base entry to our events on political affiliation," said Kerry spokesman Phil Singer.
Critics also have raised questions about the role of the Secret Service, which has cordoned off broad areas around campaign events in the name of security and has, according to some complainants, played a role in arresting or removing law-abiding protesters.
A spokesman said that the Secret Service strives to stay out of any confrontations or disputes that do not involve a security threat and that the agency is often wrongly identified as being involved in arrests.
"As long as there's no security threat, the responsibility for removing someone from the site is the responsibility of the site's sponsor," said spokesman Tom Mazur.
During the Republican convention, more than 1,800 people were arrested by the New York Police Department; nearly all still face charges. There were only six arrests at the Democratic National Convention in Boston, but protesters complained that they were herded behind barbed-wire fencing far from the convention site.
Outside the conventions, a series of arrests have kept law enforcement officials busy during the campaign season. In September, the mother of a soldier killed in Iraq was arrested at a rally for first lady Laura Bush in Hamilton Township, N.J.; she was wearing a T-shirt that said "President Bush you killed my son." The charges were later dropped.
In another well-publicized case in July, Jeff and Nicole Rank were arrested and jailed on trespassing charges in Charleston, W.Va., for wearing shirts with anti-Bush slogans during an appearance by the president. The charges were later dropped, and the Ranks received apologies from local authorities, who said the arrests were made at the behest of the Secret Service.
The couple has filed a lawsuit against the Secret Service and a White House official. Mazur declined to comment on the case.
As for Egolf, he and his friends were not dissuaded by their summertime arrests. The group managed to get into a Bush rally yesterday in Lancaster, before being escorted out after they began heckling, Egolf said. The group then reenacted its Abu Ghraib pyramid in a designated protest zone nearby. This time, there were no arrests.
"At least I got to express my feelings," Egolf said, "even though we were quickly silenced."
Staff writers Dana Milbank and Jim VandeHei and research editor Lucy Shackelford contributed to this report.
-------- terrorism
Poll Finds Most Americans Have Not Prepared for a Terror Attack
October 28, 2004
By CALVIN SIMS
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/28/national/28homepoll.html
Americans are closely divided on whether they think the United States is prepared to deal with another terrorist attack, but the overwhelming majority have done nothing to prepare for such an attack themselves, according to a recent New York Times poll.
The poll found that most Americans are not worried that they or a family member will become a victim of terrorism, with the majority of the respondents saying they do nothing different even when the government raises the terror-alert level.
The survey was conducted for use in a documentary produced by New York Times Television on the status of security in the United States.
While domestic security has been a major issue in the presidential campaign with Republicans and Democrats warning that another terrorist attack is inevitable, the Times poll suggests that for most Americans the issue is not a preoccupation.
"I guess the reason I'm not terribly worried about it is probably the location I'm in," Angela Loston, 24, a writer from Dallas, said in a phone interview after the survey. "Even though I'm in a major city, I am in the state of Texas, so I don't really see something happening here."
David Ropeik, who teaches risk communications at the Harvard School of Public Health, said the survey results reflect a well-established, intuitive human response to risk known as optimism bias, in which individuals disproportionately believe that they will not be victims of a peril even though they widely acknowledge that it will occur.
"We see the same phenomenon with smoking, obesity and natural disasters. If you don't think it will happen to you, then you won't take any precautions," Mr. Ropeik said. "When it comes to terrorism, there is some truth here. If an attack happens, it's unlikely that you or I will be a victim. But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't be prepared."
In the survey, 46 percent of the respondents said they did not think the United States was prepared for a terrorist attack, while 43 percent said the country was prepared. To questions of personal readiness, 61 percent responded that they did not have a stockpile of food and water at home in preparation for a terrorist attack. More than 70 percent said they had not selected a family meeting place in case of an evacuation due to terrorism, nor had they established a plan to communicate with relatives.
Asked why her family had not designated a gathering place or plan to stay in touch, Gloria Peters, a retiree from San Pablo, Calif., said, "We really haven't discussed that, but we should." She added, "The roads are going to be so packed jammed that it's going to be insane."
The survey found that women were more likely to regard both the country and their local communities as ill prepared to deal with another attack. Women are also more apt to express concern that someone in their family could become a victim of terrorism: 46 percent of women said they were very or somewhat concerned compared with 26 percent of men.
The Times poll, of 554 adults, was conducted nationwide by telephone Oct. 12 to 13 and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus four percentage points.
Citing the federal government's handling of the current flu vaccine shortage, Eugene Ladisky, a retired engineer from New York, said: "I get the impression that were there a terrorist attack, our government would let us fend for ourselves."
-------- torture
U.N. Condemns Harsh Methods in Campaign Against Terror
October 28, 2004
By JOHN H. CUSHMAN Jr.
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/28/politics/28nations.html
WASHINGTON, Oct. 27 - The United Nations official charged with monitoring compliance with international prohibitions against torture has sharply criticized several practices adopted by the Bush administration in its campaign against terrorism, the United Nations said Wednesday.
Theo van Boven, director of reports on torture, without singling out the United States by name, denounced any attempt to justify practices like holding prisoners in secret locations, moving them from country to country, holding people in painful positions, or depriving them of sleep for long periods.
His report, presented on Wednesday to the humanitarian committee of the General Assembly, expressed "serious concern" over "allegations of attempts to circumvent the absolute nature of the prohibition of torture and other forms of ill treatment in the name of countering terrorism, particularly in relation to the interrogation and conditions of detention of prisoners."
The report seemed to be aimed squarely at the Bush administration's attempts to justify its practices, and was presented just days after disclosures in news reports that administration lawyers had permitted the C.I.A. to move some prisoners from Iraq to other places, circumventing provisions of the Geneva Conventions.
"The absolute nature of the prohibition of torture and other forms of ill treatment means that no exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification for torture," the report said.
"No executive, legislative, administrative or judicial measure authorizing recourse to torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment can be considered as lawful under international law."
Mr. van Boven rejected arguments that some harsh interrogation methods should not be considered torture, and said that the detentions of thousands of people since Sept. 11, if they were held in solitary confinement, could be torture.
He said the use of secret detention sites should be a punishable crime.
-------- POLITICS
-------- investigations / reports
U.S. Creates Ethics Panel on Priority for Flu Shots
October 28, 2004
By GARDINER HARRIS
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/28/health/28vaccine.html
or the first time in its history, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has created a permanent panel of ethicists on vaccine distribution, to help navigate the life-and-death questions of who should get flu vaccines in the current crisis and how the agency should cope with any future epidemics. "Ethicists have unique tools to help shape our decisions,'' Dr. Julie L. Gerberding, director of the C.D.C., said in an interview yesterday. "We want to make sure that whatever we decide is equitable.''
The panel began deliberating Monday. One member, John D. Arras, a professor of bioethics at the University of Virginia, said the group might eventually tackle the question of whether babies should have priority over the elderly in receiving the flu vaccine, or vice versa. Another question the panel might have to decide is whether, in the event of a pandemic, members of crucial professions - perhaps even undertakers - should receive priority.
Such questions, Dr. Arras said, are explosive.
"This country doesn't like to talk about rationing at all," he said.
The disease control agency has already decided that broadly speaking, only the very young, the very old and the chronically ill should receive this season's limited supply of flu vaccine. But state and local health officials have complained that shortages of the vaccine are so dire that they do not have enough to inoculate everyone in those categories. While they have been making decisions themselves about who should receive priority, these officials say they want better guidance from the agency as to who is the highest of the high-risk.
"It'd be nice if the C.D.C. could provide a little leadership," said Ron Osterholm, health director of Cerro Gordo County, Iowa.
So far, the agency has declined to narrow its list, but Dr. Gerberding said that might change. And because choosing among high-risk groups involves ethical as well as medical issues, she said, she decided that she needed the help of ethicists.
Four people have been named to the panel, although the agency hopes to add a fifth. Those already appointed, in addition to Dr. Arras, are Robert J. Levine of Yale University, Kathleen Kinlaw of Emory University and Thomas Beauchamp of Georgetown University.
Ms. Kinlaw said the group would not spend very long debating abstract issues.
"We're all very interested in being practical," she said.
The panel's meeting on Monday, attended as well by officials of the disease control agency and state public health authorities, was held by conference call. C.D.C. officials spent most of the meeting discussing the science of influenza, the vaccine shortage and the range of issues that confront them.
Dr. Arras said one health official at the meeting was grappling with the question of whether to vaccinate all residents of his state's nursing homes.
"Some of those people in nursing homes will be extremely old, extremely debilitated and also demented," Dr. Arras said. "The question arises, Where is the vaccine better deployed?''
Public health officers in North Dakota were able to agree that chronically ill patients in the state's nursing homes should be vaccinated first. The decision was reached for medical and practical reasons, said Larry Shireley, the state epidemiologist: such people not only are at great risk of contracting the disease, Mr. Shireley said, but also are easy to reach.
But state health officers could not agree, he said, on whether babies or the healthy elderly should be next on the list.
Babies are more susceptible to the disease, but the elderly are more likely to die of it. On the other hand, most babies, unlike most of the very old, have decades of life ahead.
A standard ethical argument is that "people are supposed to get a certain number of fair innings in a lifetime," Dr. Arras said.
"That would incline you to treat the young rather than the old,'' he said, "since the old have already had their innings."
But since the old are more likely to die of the disease, another way to decide the issue is to determine the number of years that would be saved by inoculating them first rather than the young.
The committee will examine all those issues, Dr. Arras said.
The creation of the ethics committee is part of the C.D.C.'s effort to ensure that vaccines are distributed fairly. News last week that flu vaccine was being freely offered to lawmakers and aides in Congress set off a furor, and candidates for office are being peppered with questions about whether they have received shots.
The shortage of flu vaccine occurred because the Chiron Corporation's entire production of nearly 48 million doses was condemned by health authorities over the possibility of bacterial contamination. That left Aventis Pasteur, of France, as the nation's sole supplier of injectible flu vaccine this season. The company has already shipped about 35 million doses to the United States and will deliver an additional 26 million doses over the next two months.
Fearing that they would be blamed for a remaining shortage, Aventis executives asked the C.D.C. to make decisions as to where the new doses should be sent. Over the last two weeks, that task has been relatively easy: the agency simply decided that early orders by public health agencies should be filled first, because, Dr. Gerberding said, "we assumed the public-sector purchases were likely to have been made to target the high-risk."
But in the weeks ahead, the C.D.C. will have to decide whether to send doses, beyond those initially ordered by public health agencies, to nursing homes or pediatricians' offices, to veterans' hospitals or convalescent hospitals.
"These are tough decisions,'' Dr. Gerberding said, "and they are not going to get any easier.''
--------
5 EYEWITNESS NEWS video may be linked to missing explosives in Iraq
10/28/2004
5 EYEWITNESS NEWS
http://www.kstptv5.com/article/stories/S3723.html?cat=64
A 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS crew in Iraq shortly after the fall of Saddam Hussein was in the area where tons of explosives disappeared, and may have videotaped some of those weapons.
The missing explosives are now an issue in the presidential debate. Democratic candidate John Kerry is accusing President Bush of not securing the site they allegedly disappeared from. President Bush says no one knows if the ammunition was taken before or after the fall of Baghdad on April 9, 2003 when coalition troops moved in to the area.
Using GPS technology and talking with members of the 101st Airborne Division, 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS has determined the crew embedded with the troops may have been on the southern edge of the Al Qaqaa installation, where the ammunition disappeared. The news crew was based just south of Al Qaqaa, and drove two or three miles north of there with soldiers on April 18, 2003.
During that trip, members of the 101st Airborne Division showed the 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS news crew bunker after bunker of material labelled "explosives." Usually it took just the snap of a bolt cutter to get into the bunkers and see the material identified by the 101st as detonation cords.
"We can stick it in those and make some good bombs." a soldier told our crew.
There were what appeared to be fuses for bombs. They also found bags of material men from the 101st couldn't identify, but box after box was clearly marked "explosive."
In one bunker, there were boxes marked with the name "Al Qaqaa", the munitions plant where tons of explosives allegedly went missing.
Once the doors to the bunkers were opened, they weren't secured. They were left open when the 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS crew and the military went back to their base.
"We weren't quite sure what were looking at, but we saw so much of it and it didn't appear that this was being secured in any way," said photojournalist Joe Caffrey. "It was several miles away from where military people were staying in their tents".
Officers with the 101st Airborne told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS that the bunkers were within the U.S. military perimeter and protected. But Caffrey and former 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS Reporter Dean Staley, who spent three months together in Iraq, said Iraqis were coming and going freely.
"At one point there was a group of Iraqis driving around in a pick-up truck,"Staley said. "Three or four guys we kept an eye on, worried they might come near us."
On Wednesday, 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS e-mailed still images of the footage taken at the site to experts in Washington to see if the items captured on tape are the same kind of high explosives that went missing in Al Qaqaa. Those experts could not make that determination.
The footage is now in the hands of security experts to see if it is indeed the explosives in question.
-------- propaganda wars
President ridicules foe's 'wild charges'
October 28, 2004
By Bill Sammon
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20041028-122227-2846r.htm
LITITZ, Pa. - President Bush yesterday accused Sen. John Kerry of making "wild charges" about missing explosives in Iraq and mocked the Democrat for belatedly expressing concern over weapons stockpiles.
"The senator is making wild charges about missing explosives when his top foreign-policy adviser admits, quote, 'We do not know the facts,' " he said at a rally aimed at enlisting Democratic support, with Sen. Zell Miller of Georgia at his side.
"Think about that: The senator is denigrating the actions of our troops and commanders in the field without knowing the facts."
The broadside came two days after Mr. Kerry, Massachusetts Democrat, began blaming the president for the disappearance of 380 tons of explosives from an ammunition depot south of Baghdad.
The veracity of the story, which was reported Monday by CBS News and the New York Times, has come under fire from soldiers and journalists who were on the scene and say the explosives were missing before U.S. forces arrived on April 10, 2003.
"Our military is now investigating a number of possible scenarios, including that the explosives may have been moved before our troops even arrived at the site," Mr. Bush said.
The president accused his opponent of "denigrating" U.S. forces by implying they were negligent. The charge was denied by senior Kerry adviser Joe Lockhart.
"To somehow imply that John Kerry does anything less than fully support our troops is beneath contempt," Mr. Lockhart said. "The American people deserve better, and next Tuesday, they will get it."
Mr. Kerry, after the president's remarks, told an audience in Rochester, Minn., that Mr. Bush was doing a disservice to the military.
"You don't honor our troops or protect them better by putting them in greater danger than they ought to be," Mr. Kerry said. "The bottom line is, your administration was warned - you were put on notice, but you didn't put these explosives on a priority list. You didn't think it was important."
But Mr. Bush pointed out that while Mr. Kerry has been unequivocally blaming the White House for the disappearance, the Democrat's top advisers have been hedging their accusations.
For example, Kerry foreign-policy adviser Jamie Rubin acknowledged on CNN that it was possible that the explosives had been removed before U.S. troops arrived a day after the fall of Baghdad. Richard Holbrooke, widely considered Mr. Kerry's choice for secretary of state, was similarly noncommittal.
"I don't know what happened," Mr. Holbrooke told John Gibson of the Fox News Channel on Tuesday. "I don't know the truth."
Yesterday, Mr. Bush pounced on this ambivalence.
"A political candidate who jumps to conclusions without knowing the facts is not a person you want as your commander in chief," Mr. Bush said at the rally.
The remark prompted a sarcastic reply from former Democratic presidential candidate Wesley Clark.
"President Bush couldn't be more right," the retired general said. "He jumped to conclusions about any connection between Saddam Hussein and 9/11. He jumped to conclusions about weapons of mass destruction."
He added: "And because he jumped to conclusions, terrorists and insurgents in Iraq may very well have their hands on powerful explosives to attack our troops."
But the president pointed out that the explosives still would exist and be in the hands of Saddam, if not for the U.S.-led Operation Iraqi Freedom, which Mr. Kerry opposes.
"After repeatedly calling Iraq the 'wrong war' and a 'diversion,' Senator Kerry this week seemed shocked to learn that Iraq is a dangerous place, full of dangerous weapons," Mr. Bush said.
"If Senator Kerry had his way, Saddam Hussein would still be in power," Mr. Bush said, "He would control all of those weapons and explosives and could share them with his terrorist friends."
The sentiments were echoed by Vice President Dick Cheney, who said Mr. Kerry "is not one to let a shortage of facts bother him."
"He rushed out to put up a TV ad, saying there was a failure to secure these explosives when he has no idea if they were even there to be secured," he said. "John Kerry will say and do anything, except give our troops the backing and the praise they deserve."
With less than a week remaining in the campaign, Mr. Bush spent yesterday reaching out to centrist and conservative Democrats by invoking their opposition to homosexual "marriage" and abortion on demand.
He stumped across the Midwest with Democrats such as Mr. Miller and George McKelvey, the mayor of Youngstown, Ohio.
"As the citizens of this nation prepare to vote, I want to speak directly to the Democrats," the president said. "I'm a proud Republican, but I believe my policies appeal to many Democrats.
"In fact, I believe my opponent is running away from some of the great traditions of the Democrat Party," he added. "If you're a Democrat and you want America to be strong and confident in our ideals, I'd be honored to have your vote."
Ticking off a variety of domestic and international issues, Mr. Bush cited the stances of such Democratic presidents as Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson and Franklin D. Roosevelt.
The Kerry campaign responded by enlisting Mr. Kennedy's daughter, Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, to issue a statement calling on Mr. Bush to stop invoking her father's name.
For his part, Mr. Miller repeated a theme of his keynote address to the 2004 Republican National Convention, saying his party had abandoned its long record of fighting America's enemies and that Mr. Bush had to be re-elected to win the war on terrorism.
"The political pundits and talking heads said I looked mad and I sounded angry. How very perceptive of them, because I wish more of my party's leaders had the same will to win this war as does President Bush," Mr. Miller said.
Yesterday was the third day that Mr. Kerry has spent on the Iraq explosives issue, and his advisers think it could be a major factor in the campaign, arguing it crystallizes the reasons to toss out Mr. Bush.
The Kerry campaign charged yesterday that Mr. Bush has had a half-dozen excuses for the explosives' disappearance, but still hasn't given an explanation.
"This is a growing scandal, and the American people deserve a full and honest explanation of how it happened and what the president is going to do about it," Mr. Kerry said while campaigning in Sioux City, Iowa, yesterday morning.
The Kerry team unleashed a full spread of responses to Mr. Bush, including statements from retired Gen. Merrill McPeak and Gen. Clark, a statement by Mr. Lockhart, and a conference call with Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
In his call, Mr. Biden also said the argument on when the explosives disappeared isn't even the issue anymore.
"These guys knew where it was, and even if it was gone before, which I doubt it was, ask them a question, ... 'Who did you have there guarding that facility?' " he said.
Both the president and vice president emphasized that American troops have captured more than 400,000 tons of weapons and explosives in Iraq.
"But Senator Kerry doesn't talk about that, perhaps because it might remind people exactly how dangerous Saddam Hussein was, and how right our president was to remove him from power," Mr. Cheney said.
"John Kerry is playing armchair general, and he's not doing a very good job of it," he said.
Stephen Dinan, traveling with the Kerry campaign, contributed to this report from Iowa and Minnesota.
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N. Korea, Cuba worst for press
October 28, 2004
By Marion Baillot
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
North Korea, Cuba, Burma and China are ranked among the countries with the worst press-freedom records in an index released by a media watchdog group this week.
Paris-based Reporters Without Borders, which defends imprisoned journalists and press freedom throughout the world, said East Asia and the Middle East have the "worst press-freedom records," while northern Europe is "a haven for journalists."
North Korea, at 167, stands at the bottom of the list for the third year running, preceded by Cuba at 166 and Burma at 165. China is ranked 162, Vietnam 161, and Laos, 153. In the Middle East, Saudi Arabia is ranked 159, Iran 158 and Syria 155.
The United States, at 22, is ranked below Bosnia-Herzegovina and Trinidad and Tobago because of "violations of source confidentiality, persistent problems in granting press visas and the arrest of several journalists during anti-Bush demonstrations," the group said Tuesday.
Reporters Without Borders said the continuing war has made Iraq "the most deadly place on Earth for journalists," with 44 killed there since fighting began in March 2003.
It also ranked U.S. behavior toward the press in Iraq separately (at 108) from the overall situation in the country (at 148).
It said six journalists and media assistants were killed by U.S. Army gunfire and that the military failed to conduct proper inquiries into the deaths.
The group said the new Iraqi government has not yet established a framework guaranteeing press freedom and "reacted in an authoritarian manner toward the pan-Arab satellite TV news stations whose coverage they view as pro-terrorist."
The American democracy advocacy group Freedom House, which releases its ranking of press freedom around the world in May every year, placed the United States at 15 and Iraq at 142 out of 193 countries studied during 2003.
Senior researcher Karin Deutsch Karlekar at Freedom House, who also helped in the survey for Reporters Without Borders, said this week's index was fairly similar to the Freedom House ranking, especially at the top and bottom of the list. The reason for the difference in the ranking of some countries, including the United States, was that Reporters Without Borders considered attacks and imprisonment of journalists, while Freedom House looked at the legal and economic aspects of journalism.
"The press in the United States has a very strong legal structure," Mrs. Karlekar said.
She expressed surprise, however, at the ranking of India, "which has very vibrant media," at 120, below Afghanistan and Swaziland. Freedom House placed India at 93.
Reporters Without Borders said China, with 27 journalists in jail, and Cuba, with 26 behind bars, are the world's "biggest prisons for journalists."
Countries where the greatest press freedom is enjoyed are located in Europe: Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Ireland, the Netherlands and Norway are all ranked 1, along with Slovakia and Switzerland. Of the top 20 countries, only three are outside Europe: New Zealand (9), Trinidad and Tobago (11) and Canada (18).
The index shows that rich countries do not have a monopoly on press freedom. Jamaica (24), El Salvador (28), Costa Rica (35), Cape Verde (38) and Namibia (42) rank fairly high on the index.
•Desikan Thirunarayanapuram contributed to this article.
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India's Ex-Foreign Minister Assails Powell
Account of Efforts Behind Talks Between Indian and Pakistani Leaders Rejected
By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 28, 2004; Page A19
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3611-2004Oct27.html
India's former foreign minister has denounced Secretary of State Colin L. Powell in unusually strong terms, saying that Powell's account of how he helped facilitate a dialogue between the Indian and Pakistani prime ministers was "fabricated and baseless."
Powell recounted his role in an interview with USA Today last week, one of a spate of interviews he has given in recent weeks touting what he views as the administration's foreign policy achievements.
Referring to Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, Powell told the newspaper: "I'll never forget the day that President Musharraf, in one of our conversations . . . said to me, 'Do you think if my prime minister, the Pakistani prime minister, were to call the Indian prime minister, he would take the call?' I said, 'I'll call you back in a little while.' And we set it up, the call was made."
Powell added that "we also arranged for the call to be a 'How are you?' 'Fine' " type of call.
Powell said that at the time, in 2002, India and Pakistan had seemed on the verge of nuclear war, and "now the dialogue has paid off" with diplomatic relations, easy travel between the two countries and official talks to resolve differences on a range of issues. "I think that's been a success of the administration," Powell said.
Powell's comments were widely reported in India, which views itself as an independent great power. But Jaswant Singh, foreign minister at the time, told a news conference in New Delhi this week that Powell's account of arranging the call and his assertion that Pakistan and India had been on the brink of nuclear war were figments of his imagination.
"The way he has gone about claiming credit is a total concoction and a matter of imagination, the way he conjured up biological weapons in Iraq," Singh said. "I don't know whether the State Department of U.S.A., in addition to attempting to run U.S. foreign policy as best as it can, is also a telephone exchange and now is acting as a kind of elocution instructor to South Asia."
As a minister, Singh was believed to have had good relations with his U.S. counterparts. But at the news conference, he said: "The U.S. bureaucracy are world champions in . . . inaction, in finding reason not to do things." He added that the U.S. bureaucracy is three times ahead of its Indian counterpart in "obfuscating, obstructing and ensuring that nothing is done."
State Department spokesman Richard A. Boucher said Indian and Pakistani officials deserve praise for their "statesmanlike initiatives." But he said: "The story as told by the secretary is the true story."
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Missing Munitions Become Focus of Presidential Race
By Dana Milbank and Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, October 28, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A1733-2004Oct27?language=printer
LITITZ, Pa., Oct. 27 -- The disappearance of nearly 400 tons of explosives in Iraq dominated the presidential race for a third straight day on Wednesday, as Democratic nominee John F. Kerry accused President Bush of evading responsibility and the Republican said Kerry was making unsubstantiated charges.
Kerry, traveling in Iowa, scrapped plans to talk about domestic policy to accuse Bush of trying to cover up the failure to secure the explosives in Iraq. "This is a growing scandal and the American people deserve a full and honest explanation of how it happened and what the president is going to do about it," Kerry told supporters in Sioux City. Instead, he said, "we're seeing this White House dodging and bobbing and weaving . . . just as they've done each step of the way in our involvement in Iraq."
Bush, breaking two days of silence on the issue, told supporters at a rally here that Kerry was making "wild charges" about the missing munitions and was "denigrating the action of our troops and commanders in the field without knowing the facts."
"Our military is now investigating a number of possible scenarios, including that the explosives may have been moved before our troops even arrived at the site," Bush said, adding: "A political candidate who jumps to conclusions without knowing the facts is not a person you want as your commander in chief."
That Bush addressed the issue at all -- on Tuesday he only glared at a reporter who inquired about the matter -- reflected the prominence the explosives have gained in the final days of the presidential race, when every moment is precious to the campaigns. Kerry has used the situation to question Bush's terrorism-fighting credentials, and the matter has crowded out the subjects Bush is raising, particularly an appeal to Democrats.
The candidates' dispute centers on when the munitions disappeared from an Iraqi weapons depot -- before or after Saddam Hussein's fall from power last year. Details about which U.S. troops were among the first to reach the depot and what they did there have dribbled out of the Pentagon.
On Wednesday, the Pentagon said members of the 3rd Infantry and 101st Airborne divisions stopped there in early April 2003 but pushed on to Baghdad without hunting for the explosives. The first designated search teams, members of the 75th Exploitation Task Force, surveyed the depot on May 8, 11 and 27 in 2003 but found none of the explosives in question, the Pentagon said.
While there has yet to be an "October surprise" that shakes up the race, a series of small, negative surprises have undermined Bush's campaign: the flu-vaccine shortage, climbing oil prices, falling stocks and this month's disappointing jobs report.
On Tuesday, Iraqi interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi accused the U.S.-led forces in Iraq of "gross negligence" in allowing the massacre of 49 Iraqi guardsmen by insurgents. That followed the news Monday that the International Atomic Energy Agency had told the Bush administration on Oct. 15 that about 380 tons of powerful explosives had vanished from the depot.
Recently, Kerry has jumped from bad headline to bad headline to calibrate his attacks on Bush. For the most part, he is making this race a mandate on Bush measured by public reports and statistics, relegating his own ideas largely to the closing moments of 40-minute speeches. Kerry aides privately acknowledge that the Democrat has not captured the imagination of many voters. But they argue that he has successfully presented himself as an acceptable alternative to Bush.
While the bad news does not necessarily translate into support for the challenger, a survey of swing voters released Wednesday by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center found that Kerry "has made more substantial gains among these swing voters in the past month." Pew reported that the number of swing voters leaning toward Kerry increased to 40 percent from 28 percent, while the number supporting Bush increased to 38 percent from 34 percent.
To quiet audiences on Wednesday, Bush sought to use the missing munitions to his advantage by suggesting their existence, though conventional, confirmed the case for war. "After repeatedly calling Iraq the 'wrong war' and a 'diversion,' Senator Kerry this week seemed shocked to learn that Iraq was a dangerous place full of dangerous weapons," he told supporters. "The senator used to know that, even though he seems to have forgotten it over the course of the campaign. But after all, that's why we're there."
Bush said U.S.-led forces have destroyed or captured more than 400,000 tons of munitions, and he pointed to remarks by Kerry foreign policy adviser Richard C. Holbrooke. "Now the senator is making wild charges about missing explosives when his top foreign policy adviser admits, quote, 'We do not know the facts,' " he said. "Think about that. The senator's denigrating the action of our troops and commanders in the field without knowing the facts."
Aides said Bush was referring to an interview Holbrooke gave Fox News on Tuesday in which he said: "The U.N. inspectors and the IAEA inspectors had told the American military this was a major depot. . . . Now the thing has been looted. I don't know what happened. I do know one thing: In most administrations, the buck stops in the Oval Office."
Bush's remarks produced a furious response from Democrats. In a conference call arranged by the Kerry campaign, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (Del.) issued an extraordinary rebuke of the administration. Because of missing explosives, "my kid and a lot of other kids might get their ass over there and get blown up by these because of their civilian incompetence," he said, his voice rising to a shout.
Campaigning in Florida, Kerry's running mate, Sen. John Edwards (N.C.), kept the emphasis on the missing explosives. "What is he talking about?" he said of Bush's charge that Kerry is "denigrating" the troops. "Aren't we sick and tired of George Bush and Dick Cheney using our troops as shields to protect their own jobs instead of doing everything they should to protect our troops? Our men and women in uniform did their job. George Bush didn't do his."
Vice President Cheney, also in Florida, kept his focus on security, too, charging that Kerry "is trying every which way to cover up his record on defense, which is one of weakness." Standing near a 1942 Stearman biplane that George H.W. Bush flew as a young man, Cheney said in Kissimmee: "President Bush understands the war on terror and has a strategy for winning it; Senator Kerry does not."
The Kerry campaign said the larger issue is Bush's failure to secure postwar Iraq. "He's doomed to make the same mistakes all over again," Kerry said. "Three hundred and eighty tons of explosives that could be in the hands of terrorists, and he would do exactly the same?" He called Cheney the "chief minister of disinformation" for leading a White House effort to discredit its critics and blame others for allowing the cache to disappear.
All this week, Bush has been seeking to appeal to Democrats. He appeared Wednesday with Sen. Zell Miller (D-Ga.), who said at a rally near Youngstown, Ohio, that he sees the "ranks growing every day" of Democrats for Bush. Bush said he, not Kerry, follows the strong-defense tradition of Democrats such as Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman and John F. Kennedy. Bush, who met in Michigan on Wednesday evening with more than two dozen African Americans, including boxing promoter Don King, also told supporters he had common views with Lyndon B. Johnson and Hubert H. Humphrey.
In response to Bush's mention of Democrats, the Democratic National Committee issued a statement from Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, the late president's daughter, saying: "All of us who revere the strength and resolve of President Kennedy will be supporting John Kerry on Election Day."
The tenor of Wednesday and recent days suggests that whatever the original intentions of the campaigns, both sides seem content to let the debate in the final days be about security. In a television ad released Wednesday, the Kerry campaign thanks U.S. forces in Iraq. "As we see the deepening crisis and chaos in Iraq, as we choose a new commander in chief and a fresh start, we will always support and honor those who serve," the ad says.
Bush released an ad with a similar theme, in which he says he will defend the nation, "whatever it takes," and recalls: "I've met with the parents and wives and husbands who have received a folded flag. And in those military families, I have seen the character of a great nation."
While Bush continued to predict victory, he also expressed a note of stoicism. "On good days and on bad days, whether the polls are up or the polls are down, I am determined to win this war on terror and to protect the American people, and I will always support the men and women who wear the nation's uniform," he said.
VandeHei is traveling with Kerry. Staff writers John Wagner, traveling with Edwards; Lyndsey Layton, traveling with Cheney; and Bradley Graham in Washington contributed to this report.
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Indians Build 'Emerging Presence' in Capital
By Judy Sarasohn
Thursday, October 28, 2004; Page A23
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3697-2004Oct27.html
The National Congress of American Indians, founded in 1944 to monitor and protect tribal interests, wants to move out of rented digs and buy its own building in downtown Washington, reflecting Native Americans' growing involvement in politics and advocacy.
NCAI began a $12 million capital campaign at its annual convention earlier this month to buy a building and establish an American Indian Hall of Nations. A display of flags from every tribal nation in the United States is to "underscore the broad array of governments that exist in Indian Country," according to the group.
"It's a long time coming," NCAI President Tex G. Hall said in an interview. "We have an emerging presence. . . . It's clearly going to show our foothold in the capital."
NCAI members want the building in the capital to be near not just the Bureau of Indian Affairs but also the Energy, Commerce and Defense departments, as well as other agencies that have an impact on Indian affairs, Hall said. The building will house NCAI offices, space for meetings with lawmakers and members of the administration, and offices for tribal officials and members who come to town for business.
"Unfortunately, the first Americans have been the forgotten Americans," said Hall of the continuing widespread poverty and health and education problems in Indian Country. He is also chairman of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation in North Dakota.
Hall hopes that a higher visibility in Washington and increased lobbying, combined with a strong voter registration effort will help Native Americans better hold lawmakers and administration officials accountable for their Indian trust responsibilities.
Once the NCAI gets its office building, it may consider acquiring an "embassy." Said Hall: "We're certainly not going to stop with an office building."
Schall to Lead Community Development Group
John A. Schall, a domestic policy adviser to former President George H.W. Bush, has moved from the law firm of Alston & Bird to lead the National Congress for Community Economic Development. The NCCED, which represents community development corporations, named Schall its president and chief executive; he succeeds Roy Priest who retired.
Schall, who was then-Senate majority leader Bob Dole's chief budget adviser, has been managing Dole's consulting practice at Alston & Bird. Also while at the firm, Schall served as executive director of the National Business Coalition on E-Commerce and Privacy.
He said he was excited about joining an organization that has "34 years of being on the front lines of serving communities." But he noted, "Once you work for Bob Dole, you always work for Bob Dole."
Ubl Opens Lobbying Firm
Health care lobbyist Stephen J. Ubl has left the Advanced Medical Technology Association, where he was executive vice president for government relations, to open his own lobby shop -- Ubl Health Solutions. Among his clients are Edwards Life Sciences Corp. and Alcon Laboratories.
Earlier, he was the chief lobbyist for the Federation of American Hospitals and even earlier, he worked for Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa).
Cohen Joins Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice
Furthermore . . . Robert Cohen, national policy counsel at the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts (NAREIT), has joined Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice.
He'll be part of the firm's real estate practice group and will also lobby on real estate and telecommunications issues. Before joining NAREIT, Cohen opened the D.C. office of the telecom company Intrado Inc., managing its governmental affairs staff. Earlier he was director of congressional affairs for the Personal Communications Industry Association. He also was a counsel to the Senate Committee on Small Business.
APCO Worldwide's public affairs team has taken on two new folks: Roger Lowe, a former Washington bureau chief for the Columbus Dispatch and more recently a senior vice president of Porter Novelli and director of its D.C. public affairs practice, and Mike Tuffin, from America's Health Insurance Plans and the Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers of America.
The American Cancer Society has added two media advocacy managers to its government relations department: Trista Hargrove of the Walker Merchant Group and Colleen Wilber of O'Neill and Associates in Boston.
The Hauser Group, a public interest public relations firm, has signed on Julia Appel from NOW and Crystal Streuber, a reporter at the Beaufort Gazette, as communications assistants. Lynsey Kluever leaves the shop for the Center for Public Policy Priorities in Austin.
Rita Norton, who stepped down as vice president for government affairs earlier this year at Amgen, has joined AmerisourceBergen, a pharmaceutical services company. The executive search for the AmerisourceBergen was handled by Korn/Ferry International.
Talking about headhunters . . . Korn/Ferry has signed on Kristin Mannion to recruit executives for the nonprofit sector and work with companies to diversify corporate boards. She comes from Aura Associates and earlier was corporate vice president of government relations and public affairs for PaineWebber Inc. and worked in former New York governor Mario Cuomo's administration.
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FACTBOX: Positions of Bush/Kerry on Domestic Issues
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
October 28, 2004
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/27899/story.htm
WASHINGTON - These are the positions of Republican President Bush and his Democratic challenger, Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, on some of the domestic issues in the 2004 presidential campaign:
WAR ON TERROR/HOMELAND SECURITY
With the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks as backdrop, both candidates have said military action is needed to fight terrorism and supported creating the Homeland Security Department. Kerry has said he would like to increase the number of active troops temporarily by 40,000 to deal with terror threats. Both candidates oppose reinstating the draft.
Both support creating a new national director of intelligence. Kerry has fully endorsed the recommendations of the Sept. 11 commission for an intelligence director with strong budget and personnel authority. Bush has submitted a plan to the U.S. Congress that would give a new director authority over much of the intelligence community, but not the full budgetary powers sought by the independent panel.
ECONOMY, TAXES AND JOB GROWTH
With the U.S. economic recovery under way but job creation has been below expectations, both candidates say they are focused on spurring growth.
Bush has called on Congress to make permanent the tax cuts approved in 2001 and 2003, saying they will help create jobs. Bush has also talked about tackling tax reform in a second term.
Kerry wants to repeal the Bush tax cuts for Americans earning over $200,000 a year to help pay for health care, but he would retain cuts for the middle class. He says rolling back tax cuts for the wealthy will restore fiscal health and lead to growth. Kerry favors doing away with tax benefits for companies that move jobs overseas. Kerry would also raise the minimum wage.
HEALTH CARE
U.S. health care costs have soared in recent years and about 45 million Americans lack health insurance.
Bush seeks to reduce that number through tax breaks and health savings accounts to help people purchase insurance. He would also limit medical malpractice law suits.
Kerry aims to significantly reduce the number, partly by expanding existing government programs, helping businesses afford insurance, and picking up some of the cost of catastrophic illnesses. Critics say the plan would be costly.
ENERGY POLICY With consumers facing higher winter heating costs, paying near-record gasoline prices, and still stinging from an electricity crisis, both candidates support efforts to mandate increased automobile fuel efficiency, build a natural gas pipeline to Alaska and raise the use of alternative fuels. But they differ on oil and gas drilling.
Bush, a former oil executive, favors oil exploration in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, while Kerry opposes such drilling. Bush also supports constructing new nuclear plants and storing nuclear waste in Nevada's Yucca Mountain, both of which Kerry opposes. Kerry supports the continued use of existing nuclear plants.
SAME-SEX MARRIAGE
Same-sex marriage erupted as a controversial issue this year as some states began recognizing these marriages. Bush and Kerry both say they oppose same-sex marriage while accepting different degrees of civil unions for gay couples. Bush supports a constitutional amendment defining marriage as being between a man and a woman. Kerry opposes the amendment.
ABORTION
Bush opposes abortion in most cases and Kerry supports a woman's right to abortion. Bush has sought to double to $273 million funding for education programs advocating abstinence and has cut U.S. foreign aid to family planning groups that support abortion. Kerry would allow U.S. foreign aid to go to those family planning groups. Kerry voted against the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 that Bush signed into law because the measure did not make an exception to save the life of the mother.
GUN CONTROL
Bush, backed by the powerful National Rifle Association gun lobby, opposes most limits on gun ownership and did not act to prevent the recent expiration of an assault weapons ban. Kerry, who says he is an avid hunter, supports some limits on gun ownership and measures that would hold gun makers liable for gun crimes.
SOCIAL SECURITY
Bush backs a plan that would divert some Social Security taxes to private investment accounts for workers. Bush says the change would save the retirement program for younger workers and would not affect the benefits of current retirees or those near retirement. It is unclear how he would cover the transition costs, as much as $2 trillion, in the face of record budget deficits.
Kerry says private accounts expose retirees to too much risk and drain the retirement system of money it needs to pay benefits. He says more fiscal responsibility would help protect the system.
MEDICARE
Bush says the Medicare overhaul enacted last year will help seniors pay for costly prescription drugs and give them more health coverage choices.
Kerry said the plan was a giveaway to the pharmaceutical industry and that he would do more to help push drug prices lower, including allowing the importation of low cost prescription drugs from Canada.
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Secret Document Suggests GOP Preparing to Challenge Black Vote in Florida
Democracy Now
October 28th, 2004
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/10/28/141211
Investigative reporter Greg Palast exposes a secret document within the Republican Party in Florida that contains nearly 1,900 names and addresses of voters in the predominantly black and Democratic areas of Jacksonville. The so-called "caging list" could be used to block and harass African-American voters. [includes rush transcript] Concerns continue to mount across the country over the fairness of next Tuesday's election. Already problems have emerged in many states. In one county in Ohio, more than 900 registered voters have been told they must appear in court on Saturday to defend their voter eligibility or risk losing their right to vote. In Wisconsin, scores of students report that their local elections board says it has no record of their voter registration. In Nevada, fallout continues after the it emerged that a group registering voters had destroyed possible hundreds of ballots of voters who identified themselves as Democrats. But nowhere is concern greater than in the state of Florida, the epicenter of the theft of the election in 2000.
Yesterday, the deputy election supervisor in one of Florida's most populous counties admitted that some 60,000 absentee ballots had gone missing. Broward county election official Gisela Salas said the matter is under investigation by law enforcement agencies. In 2000, it was Broward county that gave Al Gore his strongest support in the state of Florida. The US Postal Service says it has investigators trying to find the missing ballots, which constitute 5 percent of Broward County's electorate.
This comes as investigative reporter Greg Palast obtained a secret document from inside Bush campaign headquarters in Florida. The document suggests a plan-possibly in violation of the law-to disrupt voting in the state"s African-American voting districts.
Two e-mails, prepared for the executive director of the Bush campaign in Florida and the campaign's national research director in Washington DC, contain a 15-page so-called "caging list". It lists more than 1,800 names and addresses of voters in predominantly Black and traditionally Democratic areas of Jacksonville, Florida. Palast broke the story on BBC's Newsnight program. Today, we broadcast the story in its entirety for the first time on US television and radio. Here is Greg Palast's report.
- Greg Palast's report.
- Greg Palast, investigative reporter with the BBC and author of the books "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy" and "Democracy and Regulation." He has a new documentary out called "Bush Family Fortunes."
RUSH TRANSCRIPT
This transcript is available free of charge, however donations help us provide closed captioning for the deaf and hard of hearing on our TV broadcast. Thank you for your generous contribution. Donate - $25, $50, $100, more...
AMY GOODMAN: Today we broadcast the story in its entirety for the first time in the united states on U.S. television and radio here. Here is Greg Palast's report.
WILLIE STEEN: I'm happy, I'm excited, and I'm ready to vote.
GREG PALAST: Willie Steen's his way to vote...he hopes. In the last election, he was one of thousands of black citizens stopped from voting when they were falsely tagged as criminals.
WILLIE STEEN: I went in the place to vote and I was with my son, and there's about forty or fifty other people around, and I got up there to vote, and they told me that I was a convicted felony. I told the young lady that I never been arrested before.
GREG PALAST: Enthusiastic Americans like Willie can now vote early in the weeks before election day. Willie sued governor Jeb Bush after Jeb's officials were caught playing games with the voter list, dropping legal voters, especially black ones, who overwhelmingly vote for Democrats.
WILLIE STEEN: Hey, how are you doing?
GREG PALAST: This is as far as Willie got last time. Will he be blocked yet again? We leave Willie in Tampa to go just past Disneyworld to Faithworld. Here in Orlando, the faithful, who believe they were cheated last time, pray it won't happen again. In the last election, one million black votes were not counted.
FAITHWORLD PREACHER: The Reverend Jesse Jackson.
JESSE JACKSON: You don't have to vote the way I vote. But I shouldn't steal your vote, in the name of Democracy. The winner shouldn't lose and the loser shouldn't win.
GREG PALAST: Jackson fears that the Republicans have some new plan to block the black vote, not just the fake felon scam used last time on Willie Steen.
JESSE JACKSON: There are more Mr. Steens out there, and now you have a case of this is a guy who just may be a kind of biopsy -- a kind of political biopsy of a cancer that is much more widespread than just one example. You can't forget the stealing of your birthright. You can't forget disenfranchisement of your vote.
GREG PALAST: A hundred miles away in the riverside town of Jacksonville, we may have found the evidence of the plan Jesse Jackson fears: something called a "caging list," which could capture black voters. This is a list of nearly 2,000 voters in the black neighborhoods of Jacksonville, who appear to have errors in their mailing addresses. The list was specially prepared for George Bush's campaign.
GEORGE BUSH: There is no doubt in my mind that, with your help, we'll carry Florida again, and win a great victory on November the 2nd.
ION SANCHO: Every one of these has to be hand entered, and --
GREG PALAST: We asked Ion Sancho why the Republicans might put together such a list. Sancho is a Democrat; but he's also one of the most respected and experienced of Florida's county elections supervisors.
ION SANCHO: The only thing that I can think of African-American voters listed like this, these might be potential individuals that will be challenged if they attempt to vote on election day.
GREG PALAST: American states allow political parties to place their people right inside the polling stations, like this one in Jacksonville. They can point to a voter and challenge their right to vote. Voters will be turned away with provisional ballots, which are usually just thrown out. Political parties rarely use challenges because they can bring voting to a halt.
ION SANCHO: In Leon county, for example, we have not had one challenged voter in the sixteen years that I've been the supervisor of elections. Because again, if you challenge voters, you really must do so with concrete, hard evidence, not your opinion. And this process can be used to slow down the voting process, to cause chaos on election day and, quite frankly, to discourage voters from voting.
GREG PALAST: Do the Republicans have a plan to launch thousands of challenges on November 2nd, and bring voting in Florida's black, Democratic precincts to a standstill? This is the caging list. And this it where it was sent: to the office of Brett Doster. He's the Executive Director of the George W. Bush for President Campaign in Florida. Let's ask his team about it. I asked Republican spokeswoman, Mindy Tucker Fletcher, if they had a strategy to challenge these black voters on election day.
MINDY TUCKER FLETCHER: I can't tell you right now. I don't -- I'm not part of the -- that strategy,
GREG PALAST: OK.
MINDY TUCKER FLETCHER: But I -- I -- this is -- this was not done in order to create a challenge list, as you, I think, were trying to get to.
GREG PALAST: But they accuse Democrats of registering voters illegally; so Republicans must counterattack. So you're saying your poll workers will be instructed to challenge people to say they should have a provisional ballot?
MINDY TUCKER FLETCHER: Where it's stated in the law, yeah.
GREG PALAST: Are you worried that will gum up the procedures for legal voters.
MINDY TUCKER FLETCHER: By enforcing the laws?
GREG PALAST: Well, that's a good question.
MINDY TUCKER FLETCHER: I imagine even the people in line would want the laws applied.
GREG PALAST: The law appears to be applied in a curious way in Florida. Across the road from the Jacksonville voting station, I spied someone hiding away a camera in a black s.u.v. with blacked-out windows. He was disguised in a tourist uniform, complete with shorts, baseball cap, and open-toed sandals. He had been filming every voter. I thought I'd say hello. This isn't just a hobby? You're just not doing this volunteer?
DOUG THE INVESTIGATOR: No.
GREG PALAST: OK.
DOUG THE INVESTIGATOR: No. I'm an investigator. This is my --
GREG PALAST: Are you a licensed investigator, or ...? A professional agency, then. It's not -- you're not like some frea -- you know, just some guy who decided he's going to do something. He remembered that his name was 'Doug,' but he couldn't remember who he was working for. The local congresswoman had a suggestion.
CONGRESSWOMAN: The Republicans, once again, are trying to intimidate African-American voters. This car have been here since the eighteenth, in front of the supervisor's office all day, and they have been filming.
GREG PALAST: Back in Tallahassee, another election scam surfaced which could sabotage thousands of voter registrations. It targeted students with liberal views. Election supervisor Ion Sancho discovered the scam struck close to home.
ION SANCHO: This, for example, is a copy of my step-daughter's voter registration from Orlando; and it is clear that her own handwriting filled in blocks two through fifteen. Apparently, a petition form was placed over the top of a voter registration form. It purported to tell the citizen they were signing a petition to legalize medical marijuana. The citizen filled it in, thinking that's what they were doing, and then after the voter had left, the individual fraudulently filled out lines one, the party change, making them a Republican now, and then fraudulently signed it, and then turned the application over to the election administrator. This form changed the voter's registration from Tallahassee to Orlando. And if this voter had not known me, and turned this information over to me, she may have been -- she may have been disenfranchised when she attempted to vote.
GREG PALAST: Is it a crime to misregister someone in that way?
ION SANCHO: It is a third degree felony to do this. It is an illegal act.
GREG PALAST: And the Republicans now admit it was their operatives who collected these thousands of suspect registrations, though the party denies it committed fraud. Civil rights experts in Washington fear the threat to a free and fair election is severe, and unprecedented. Ralph Neas is commander-in-chief of an army of 6,000 lawyers who will take up battle stations on election day, to protect voters from dirty tricks.
RALPH NEAS: This is the nerve center.
GREG PALAST: Right.
RALPH NEAS: There will be fifty-six of our field offices in the seventeen states, and then there will be thirty-eight legal command centers where the majority of the lawyers will be. There will be a law student or lawyer at every precinct; but if there are real problems, we've got mobile traveling vans of lawyers who will go to the troubled precincts and make the decision.
GREG PALAST: They'll keep their eyes open for mass challenges by poll watchers paid for by the Republican party. It may be disruptive, but it's perfectly legal to challenge voters; but if you target the challenges at black districts, like Jacksonville, you're breaking federal law.
RALPH NEAS: You cannot target districts, with respect to challenging voters, if race is a consideration. Doesn't even have to be the major factor. You cannot target on the basis of race.
WILLIE STEEN: Thanks.
GREG PALAST: Back in Tampa, Willie Steen finally gets to vote. But this happy ending was thanks only to "Newsnight." The day before he was still listed as a criminal felon, but when we turned up with cameras, his status magically changed to upright citizen who can vote unchallenged. But what about the thousands of others, without TV cameras, who will have to overcome the new tricks, caging lists, registration games and more in the 2004 battle of the ballot?
AMY GOODMAN: Investigative report by Greg Palast for BBC's "Newsnight", first aired here on Democracy Now! in the United States. This is Democracy Now! When we come back, Greg Palast joins us live in our studios.
AMY GOODMAN: Our guest is investigative reporter, Greg Palast. Juan.
JUAN GONZALEZ: Greg, congratulations on another terrific report. I guess the people in England and Europe are more informed on the shenanigans going on in the United States.
GREG PALAST: They're absolutely horrified. They are watching black cars with blacked out windows surveilling black voters. You are seeing challenge lists. To the rest of the world, the reaction in Europe to the report this led the BBC news in Europe, and the reaction was, the US is running election like Zimbabwe.
AMY GOODMAN: Didn't this happen in 2000, that your reports, first exposing what was going on in Florida, appeared in Britain and Europe, and the US press didn't touch it for months?
GREG PALAST: Only -- I broke the story on BBC and in The Guardian, that tens of thousands of voters were falsely listed as felons and barred from voting. Basically, it was black people who were only guilty of voting while black. In the film, we have one of those people, Willie Steen, and I want to emphasize that because the Republican Election Supervisor was tipped off of our coming down with the cameras to watch him vote, even though the state said -
AMY GOODMAN: He was doing early voting.
GREG PALAST: He was doing early voting, that one hour before he voted, they changed his status from felon to upright citizen, so he could vote. There's still -- the U.S. press doesn't cover this.
JUAN GONZALEZ: And who was it who tipped him off? You told us off camera. Can you tell us on camera?
GREG PALAST: One of the major newspapers in America is foolishly still not covering the story. It's hard to cover the story. You have to understand, BBC has been threatened by the Republican National Committee.
JUAN GONZALEZ: What was the newspaper? A reporter from the major newspaper?
GREG PALAST: I cannot say.
JUAN GONZALEZ: OK. It's a major newspaper in New York, right?
GREG PALAST: I understand.
AMY GOODMAN: What about BBC. You are talking about being threatened?
GREG PALAST: Yeah. That's why I'm grateful that you have run the report today. Because the Republican National Committee is threatening BBC, as they have done before with my reports, saying that if Greg Palast is on the air there will be no interviews for the network. From the Republican National Committee, which is, of course, cutting off the air supply of the news organization, and you can immediately see why American news organizations won't touch the story. That's basically that the Republican Party has a hit list of black people they're going to try to wipe out on Election Day, stop them from voting, and in particular, this has the effect of not only of intimidating the voters, eliminating voters, but in places like Jacksonville where three and four-hour waits are expected, this could entirely sabotage the voting operation. Understand, this is illegal if they're targeting black folk. It is against federal law.
AMY GOODMAN: We saw that scene of Congress member Corrine Brown in Jacksonville. Explain what she was saying.
GREG PALAST: The BBC cameras were there to interview her about voter harassment, and it just so happened that we caught a guy in the blacked out car with a telephoto lens filming each of voters going into the early voting booth. It's mostly black voters doing early voting. This may be related to this so-called caging list to knock out the block vote.
JUAN GONZALEZ: Also, the segment where you went into the fake registrations or the ones that where signatures were falsified. How expensive was that?
AMY GOODMAN: And explain who that this guy is.
GREG PALAST: What you saw was a guy, Ion Sancho, who is probably considered the most experienced and respected of election supervisors in Florida. Unfortunately, my one mistake was to identify him as a Democrat, because the Republicans told me he was a Democrat. He's very independent, not affiliated with any party. He has also asked the parties not to challenge voters on Election Day. The supervisors have said it's really never been done in Florida history. This basically is an attempt to stop the entire voting process, bring it to a halt. As for registrations, what happened was that students, mostly Democrats, students filled out petition forms for medical use of marijuana, and it turns out they were signing the back of registration forms without knowing it, reregistering themselves as republicans. This was definitely tied to a republican-paid operation, and at least 4,000 of the forged registrations, which is a felony to forge registration, have been found, and Jeb Bush's department of law enforcement says that they don't have time for the next few weeks to get around to arresting the forgers. It's just -- this is just the beginning of the game.
AMY GOODMAN: What does it mean that they have now registered as Republicans? Can they still vote?
GREG PALAST: No, they cannot. They have now double- registered. They only got caught because the Election Supervisor's daughter was caught in the scam. If she had put in an absentee ballot, if this wasn't caught in her case, her ballot would be thrown out.
JUAN GONZALEZ: He also said they were being reregistered in another county, therefore, creating problems?
GREG PALAST: Yes. In other words, basically setting up the voter to have their vote voided because they're double registered. And again, this is just one of the several games we are finding, for example, the felon purge, which our press here has said is over with believe me, it ain't. Most of the people of the 93,000 people tagged in the first round as felons, who are legal voters, mostly Democrats, 4 to 1 Democrats, just so you know, 4 to 1 Democrat registered. Most of those are still purged. They're still playing games with these people. Then you've also got games with absentee ballots. One thing that's not come out in the story about Broward County, and the ballots missing, you have to understand that Jeb Bush fired a black female Democrat who was elections supervisor, who was elected, replaced her with his own appointee, who is suddenly now not sending out absentee ballots in a heavily Democratic area.
JUAN GONZALEZ: This is Broward?
GREG PALAST: Broward. You have Jeb Bush appointing Republicans to replace Democrats, who are then impeding the vote, as in Jacksonville where a Republican was just appointed to take over, and he's making it almost impossible for black people to vote. Jacksonville, by the way, is the largest physical city in the United States with one polling place for early voting, again to stop the churches and Jesse Jackson and his group from bringing in thousands of voters to vote.
AMY GOODMAN: So again, this top news, as many as 58,000 absentee ballots have gone missing in Broward County, ballots said to have been mailed two weeks ago, but somehow, they have disappeared. Now there's a lot of finger pointing, the county is blaming the postal service. The post office said, No, we didn't get them.
GREG PALAST: You have to understand the games that are being played. Theresa LePore, Madame Butterfly from Palm Beach, who is an ally of Jeb Bush, was just defeated a few weeks ago in her own re-election. She will still be counting votes in November. In the last race, a couple of weeks ago, she counted 37,000 votes from 31,000 absentee ballots. It was like Fishes and Loaves. The problem is, if she had gone the other way, we would not have caught her. If she counted 31,000 votes out of 37,000 ballots. Do not, I recommend to people, don't use absentee ballots. You don't know where they're going and what they're doing with them. That's the great scams of this election. The thing is that it's all aimed racially. And you have to understand, who are people on the caging list that the Republicans appear to be ready to challenge? They include people whose addresses they claim cannot be verified. I verified some of these addresses. I found 50 guys shipped out from the military, so their addresses changed from the poor neighborhoods of Jacksonville to Baghdad. And they are going to challenge these soldiers' votes.
AMY GOODMAN: How did you get the caging list?
GREG PALAST: If I said that, I wouldn't receive any more lists. Let me tell you, if anyone has any lists or good items, go to Gregpalast.com. I love it, especially if it's marked secret or confidential on the top.
JUAN GONZALEZ: There's no reason, obviously, to assume if this kind of situation is occurring in Florida, that it's not occurring in other states as well, other battleground states.
GREG PALAST: I have to tell you that I have been writing a story called "Other Floridas." New Mexico -- there's non-count of vote in the Hispanic areas and Native American areas. Colorado they're starting a felon purge, days before the election which is against federal law, by the Republican Secretary of State. In Harper's, in this month's issue, I have gone through how the change in machinery to computers is going to cost hundreds of thousands of African American votes, Democratic Party votes. We figure our analysis is that in southern Florida alone, the change to computer also cost 27,000 votes -- will cost John Kerry a net of 27,000 votes. So, it's even the machinery. We have Hispanic precincts in New Mexico which in the last race showed no vote at all for president, and the response they get from elections officials, some people cannot make up their mind. What's happening is in poor areas, they're being given crap machines, just like they get crap hospitals and crap schools. They know this means that a lot of votes are lost in the machinery, whether its computers or punch cards. You name it. You have a loss of -- by the US Civil Rights Commission statisticians that I have been working with, we calculated a loss of 1 million black and minority votes lost in the machines. This is a tremendous electoral thumb on the scale, when we are going into this Tuesday. It's nationwide. I concentrated on Florida, because Florida will be Florida again. Look to, if you are going to see it election shoplifted, New Mexico, Colorado, Ohio. Those are going to be states where you cannot trust the vote.
AMY GOODMAN: We want to thank you very much, Greg Palast for joining us. Investigative reporter with this explosive report.
GREG PALAST: Thank you very much.
-------- voting
Heavy early-voter turnout overwhelms elections offices
October 28, 2004
By Brian DeBose
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20041027-115210-1536r.htm
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - Unexpected heavy early-voter turnout has resulted in long lines here, leaving election officials and citizens calling for more voting places.
"I do think we need more sites open because this is a huge turnout. I guess they got people really angry about 2000, and I was so pleased they pulled me out of line," said Lisa Luman, 35, who was on crutches because of a hip injury.
Several pre-Election Day voters, like Rikkia Rellford, 20, a student at Florida A&M University, said she stood in line for more than an hour to cast her ballot at the Leon County Court House.
"I wish all the election supervisors were like Leon [County] supervisor Ion Sancho, because he has attacked every problem that has come up, but I would like to see more sites open," Miss Rellford said.
Jenny Nash, spokeswoman for Secretary of State Glenda E. Hood, said record numbers of newly registered voters and absentee-ballot requests coupled with the early-voter turnout - more than 30 percent of registered voters are expected to cast their ballots before Tuesday - have overwhelmed elections offices.
"Our supervisors have been promoting the early voting and we're pleased to see people taking advantage, but I don't think the supervisors expected to see this many people," Miss Nash said.
Mrs. Hood traveled to West Palm Beach on Monday to witness the lines of people, some who stood in the sun for two hours before entering the voting booth.
But Miss Nash said this is the first election in Florida in which early voting has been allowed statewide. She said although the process has run "rather smoothly," logistical problems have arisen that need to be improved before the next election.
In some areas there were not enough machines, Miss Nash said, and in Broward County there was a problem with voters receiving their absentee ballots in a "timely fashion."
Newspapers here reported that about 58,000 absentee ballots have yet to reach their destinations. The mishap led to thousands of calls to the elections supervisors, overloading the phone lines.
Leon County's Mr. Sancho said he has fielded numerous calls from Broward County students at Florida State and A&M universities, which are in Leon County, complaining that Broward County supervisors' phones are busy and can't get their ballots.
Broward County officials blamed the U.S. Postal Service for the problem.
Miss Nash said those who can't got to their local elections supervisors office to pick up a ballot will be mailed one overnight.
Statewide registration is up by more than 1.5 million, from 8.75 million in 2000 to 10.3 million on the rolls this year. More than 11 percent of the electorate had voted by Tuesday in Jacksonville and similar numbers could be found in nearly every district, including Leon County, Miss Nash said.
Meanwhile, in Ohio, Democrats filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Columbus, seeking to block a Republican challenge of 35,000 voter registrations. Democrats asked the court to issue an order halting hearings before county elections boards now being held to determine whether challenged voters live where they are registered and should remain on the rolls.
Elections boards in at least 62 of 88 Ohio counties have scheduled hearings about challenges by the Republicans, who charged that mail to newly registered voters was returned as undeliverable, suggesting they had fraudulently been submitted.
The Democrats said in the suit, filed Tuesday, that there is no evidence to show that the unreturned mail represented ineligible voters. Instead, they said, the mail likely represented people who moved but were still eligible to cast ballots under state and federal law.
In Philadelphia, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Rep. Chaka Fattah, Pennsylvania Democrat, and several other prominent black leaders promised yesterday to stand guard against what they called Republican efforts to suppress black voters. Mr. Jackson described the promise as a "pre-emptive strike."
Their comments came in response to a U.S. News & World Report article that quoted Pennsylvania House Speaker John Perzel, Philadelphia Republican, saying the "Kerry campaign needs to come out with humongous numbers here in Philadelphia" and that it was "important for me to keep that number down."
•Jerry Seper contributed to this report.
-------- OTHER
-------- environment
Russian Parliament Ratifies Kyoto Pact
October 28, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Russia-Kyoto-Protocol.html
MOSCOW (AP) -- The Kyoto Protocol overcame its final legislative hurdle in Russia when the upper house of parliament ratified the global climate pact Wednesday and sent it on to President Vladimir Putin for his signature -- setting the stage for the treaty to come into force next year.
Putin's stamp of approval is considered a formality, but the Kremlin has given no indication of when he will sign the pact, which seeks to slow global warming by reducing greenhouse-gas emissions.
Russia's adoption is the final step needed among major industrial countries after the treaty was rejected by the United States, which alone accounted for 36 percent of carbon dioxide emissions in 1990.
The protocol needed ratification by 55 industrialized nations accounting for at least 55 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions in 1990. The pact will apply only to nations that ratify it.
The U.S. government says the pact would harm the U.S. economy and also argues it favors developing nations like China and India that are big polluters.
``For us, ratification is of crucial importance, since the protocol will take effect only after Russia ratifies it,'' Mikhail Margelov, who heads the Federation Council's foreign affairs committee, was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency. ``Ratification will again demonstrate to the world community our consistency and predictability in tackling global problems.''
The council voted 139-1 with one abstention, ratifying the pact just four days after the lower house also overwhelmingly approved the treaty. After Putin's signature, the Kremlin must notify the United Nations of its ratification, and the pact will take effect 90 days later.
The Kremlin had hesitated for years over the 1997 treaty, but Putin vowed in May to speed up ratification in return for the European Union's support of Russia's bid to join the World Trade Organization.
Russian critics of the treaty warned that it would stymie economic growth, but its supporters dismissed the claim, saying that even after a five-year recovery, the post-Soviet industrial meltdown has left emissions some 30 percent below the baseline. In 1990, Russia accounted for 17 percent of global emissions.
Margelov told the chamber that ratification would give Russia leverage in its sometimes prickly relations with the EU.
``Ratifying the Kyoto Protocol, we get a very strong position in our negotiations with the European Union,'' he said.
The Russian Cabinet has voiced hope that the treaty, which allows countries to trade greenhouse gas emission allowances, would also enable Russia to attract foreign investment to improve the energy-efficiency and competitiveness of its crumbling industries. The Russian electricity monopoly, Unified Energy Systems, which accounts for nearly 30 percent of the country's total emissions, is considered a top candidate for help.
Under the treaty, Russia can also sell unused emissions credits to countries that have exceeded their limits.
So far 125 nations have ratified the accord, and 84 parties have signed. China ratified in 2002, but it is not an ``Annex I'' country -- the industrialized countries required to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions in the agreement's first stage. Reductions for developing countries, such as China, are subject to later negotiation.
Once the protocol takes effect, industrialized countries will have until 2012 to cut their collective emissions of six key greenhouse gases to 5.2 percent below the 1990 level.
The next round of international climate talks is scheduled for December in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and negotiations on greenhouse-gas emissions after 2012 are due to start next year.
The Federation Council said in a statement Wednesday that Russia would make a decision on its participation in post-2012 emission cuts after the December talks.
-------- genetics
FACT CHECK
A Closer Look at the Stem Cell Record
October 28, 2004
By DAVID E. ROSENBAUM
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/28/politics/campaign/28facts.final.html
Senator John Kerry exaggerates the potential gains from embryonic stem cell research, and President Bush understates the degree to which he has prevented such research.
What the Candidates Say
Mr. Kerry At a rally in Dover, N.H., on Monday, Mr. Kerry said that "100 million Americans suffer from one disease or another that's chronically debilitating."
On Monday night in Warren, Mich., he used the 100 million figure again and added: "We've got, you know, grandparents who suffer from Alzheimer's, people who have M.S., A.L.S., spinal cord injury, and all this time staring us in the face is the possibility - I can't tell you it's going to happen. I can't tell you that. But we are going to move forward to find a cure for diabetes, for Parkinson's, Alzheimer's. We're going to do stem cell research."
Mr. Bush In his second debate with Mr. Kerry, Mr. Bush said, as he often has during the campaign: "I'm the first president ever to allow funding, federal funding, for embryonic stem cell research. I did so because I, too, hope that we'll discover cures from the stem cells and from the research derived."
THE FACTS
The Kerry campaign said it got the 100 million figure from the Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research, an organization that advocates therapeutic cloning for the purpose of scientific study. The organization says this is the number of people who "suffer from cancer, Alzheimer's, diabetes, Parkinson's, spinal cord injuries, heart disease, A.L.S. and other devastating conditions for which treatments must still be found."
If the Kerry figure is accurate, it would mean that more than one in every three Americans has a debilitating disease. The National Center for Health Statistics reports that about 12 percent of the population, or about 35 million Americans, have "limitation of activity caused by chronic conditions." The Census Bureau reported in 2001 that 53 million Americans had "some level of disability" and that 33 million had "a severe disability."
Scientists say embryonic stem cell research is a promising avenue that could lead to the treatment and possibly cure of dread diseases. But it is unlikely that anyone with these diseases today will be helped. So far, there has not even been successful treatment in mice, and no specific help for humans is on the horizon.
Mr. Bush is literally accurate but not telling the whole truth when he says he was the first president to allow federal financing for stem cell research. The Republican Congress blocked President Bill Clinton when he tried to use government money for this kind of research.
What Mr. Bush permitted was federal money for research only on the relatively small number of stem cell colonies that existed in August 2001 when his policy was announced. Scientists view this as putting a brake on research, not accelerating it.
-------- ACTIVISTS
Mary Kelly Vs The State Trial Updates:
6.20 PM Thursday 28th - Guilty Verdict - Jury 10:2
Indymedia Ireland
Oct 28 2004
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=67216&type=feature
"Individuals have international duties which transcend the national obligation of obedience. Therefore [individuals] have the duty to violate domestic laws to prevent crimes against peace and humanity from occurring." Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal 1945-1946.
"His insistence that the invasion of Iraq cannot be mentioned in testimony is actually contrary to the Criminal Damage Act, which takes a person's state of mind into account when they perform the so-called damage. If they are deemed to have an honestly held belief they were acting in the interests of others, then they cannot be guilty of criminal damage. Therefore, Mary absolutely must be allowed to explain her motivations in order for there to be fair trial."
"Lawful excuse" defense not allowed by hostile Judge Judge Carroll Moran ruled today in Ennis Circuit Court that the use of Shannon airport by the US military and the war in Iraq are "not relevant" to Mary's case. Court report
Court Watcher "...the judge denied almost every witness that the defense attempted to call. Among the witnesses denied the stand were Mr. Denis Holliday a former Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations, Mr. Daniel Einsberger of Pentagon Papers fame, Dr. Horst Gunther who uncovered the United States use of depleted uranium in Iraq, Mr. Edward Horgan a former UN Peacekeeper, and Dr. Curtis Doebbler an international lawyer..."
Relevance of evidence in first trial. "He [Judge Moran] ignored the defence testimony, directing the jury not to allow feelings or issues of conscience to influence them in making their decision. This extraordinary instruction, when the whole function of a jury is to act as the conscience of society in matters of law, is perhaps an indication of how profoundly the rosecution's agenda had been shown up by the strength, clarity and truth of the defence.
Out of Sight out of mind There hasn't been an "immediacy clause" for the necessity defence Mary is using since 1997, when the Non-Fatal Offences Against the Person Act amended the Criminal Damage Act (1991).
"In his ruling against Eoin Dubsky earlier this month in the same courthouse, J O'Donnell also leaped back in time to find him guilty because his defence under Section 6.3.c of the Criminal Damage Act ("Lawful excuse") wouldn't hold cause Iraq is so far away."
Question of the trial? Whats more dangerous knives, bombs or policy? Judge Carroll Moran cautioned Ms Kelly on sticking to relevant issues in her defence, he told her, that the defence of lawful excuse refers only to an action taken to prevent a threat to a person, their property, or other persons, but only when that threat was of an immediate nature. He gave the example of damaging the knife of a potential attacker, brandishing such an implement and went on to inform her, that the war in Iraq and the presence of a US plane did not impose an immediate threat to her or other persons when she damaged the U.S.A.F. navy plane
(from June 2003 court report) "The sage-like Ramsey Clarke (former U.S. Attorney General and longtime peace campaigner) testified for 30 minutes about the adverse effects of U.S. foreign policy, stating facts and figures about the effects of long-term low-intensity conflict in Iraq since 1991. He expressed deep concern about the sanctions, with at least 585,000 young children dead as a direct result of them. He also compared Mary's action to somebody removing the bullets from a gun that would otherwise be used to kill someone. The prosecuting counsel strenuously questioned the relevance of Clarke's testimony, and asked him the following question: "If someone broke into your house and did 1.5 million euros worth of damage, how would you feel?" Clarke replied that if his house was capable of complicity in the murder of innocents, he'd be actively offering invitations to people to come and damage it. Clarke was asked the question several times (apparently the prosecutor felt he hadn't answered it), and gave the same reply each time. I am sure many bizarre questions are asked in courtrooms, but this one strikes me as similar to asking Rosa Parks "If someone sat in your usual seat in the bus, how would you feel?" Removal of context, universalizing of the particular, seems to be a tool used by empire time and again. And, because we all know that the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house (to borrow from Audre Lorde), all that a defence can do is to continually push the focus back to the context in which an action occurs."
June 2003: Hung jury doesn't satisfy state. "Despite being effectively told to ignore their own human consciences, the jury couldn't convict Mary Kelly for her efforts to undercut the U.S. war machine." Statements and Audio interview with Mary Kelly after initial trial.
--------
The New Anti-War Protesters
More and more military families are supporting the troops by calling for their return.
10.28.04
The American Prospect
By Joseph Rosenbloom
http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=8811
SANDWICH, N.H. -- By the end of last week, Maggie Porter's brick collection totaled 1,099 -- and counting.
The bricks are meant to depict the coffins that the United States has been transporting to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware since the Iraq War began. Each brick is wrapped in a miniature American flag and labeled with the name of a serviceman or woman who has died in the war.
Over Columbus Day weekend this month, there was a popular local harvest fair a mile or so down the road from Porter's large white house in the rural town of Sandwich, New Hampshire. Porter and her husband, Boone, hauled her bricks out of their cavernous barn and stacked them on a plywood pedestal in their front yard. A blue-and-white sign explained the bricks' intended message: "The True Cost of War."
The cost of the war in Iraq as measured by returning coffins haunts Porter and her husband. Their 24-year-old son, Charles, is an Army paratrooper who is completing a hitch in South Korea and, more to the point, will soon be subject to redeployment to Iraq.
"I am totally opposed to what my government is doing over there," Porter told me on a crisp autumn day last week. A tall, slender woman, she was wearing a red-and-gray-check flannel shirt and faded jeans. Her hands were speckled with paint. She had been painting plywood sheets to prepare her exhibit, which she calls an "anti-war installation," for a redeployment of its own.
"Some of them cried, and some came and knelt, and some brought flowers," she said, describing the reactions of the people who stopped by her house on Columbus Day weekend. "A few people drove by and shouted, 'What about 9-11?' But they were in the minority."
On Friday, the bricks are to be trucked to Concord for display at an anti-war rally on the lawn of New Hampshire's Statehouse.
Porter, 51, didn't set out to be an anti-war activist. She and her husband are lawyers who had a joint practice in Kansas City representing corporate clients until they relocated to New Hampshire three years ago. Boone Porter, 54, now works as a corporate lawyer out of a home office. In the last presidential election, he voted for George W. Bush. Recently, though, they've joined a small but seemingly growing and increasingly organized community of military relatives who are going public with grievances about the Iraq War.
To be sure, many military families support the government's war policy, as a recent poll by the Annenberg Public Policy Center suggests. The survey of military families found that 63 percent, compared with only 41 percent of the public generally, approve of Bush's handling of Iraq.
During other wars involving the United States, even ones that divided the nation, members of military families rarely spoke out publicly against the government's policy, according to Lawrence Wittner, a professor of history at the State University of New York at Albany and an expert on U.S. anti-war movements. When military families have taken a public stand during a war, they generally have sought to bolster the government's position. Mothers of children serving in the armed forces, for example, have joined Blue Star Mothers of America Inc., which has supported the troops and promoted patriotism since World War II.
"Military families tend to put the best face on the sacrifice that their relatives have made," Wittner says. "Therefore, there's a tendency to support the government's position on the war rather than the position of the critics."
But the Iraq War appears to have galvanized critics among military families to speak out to an unprecedented degree. The most conspicuous example is Lila Lipscomb, the grief-stricken mother featured in Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11. In the film she sobs as she reads the last letter home from her son, Army Sergeant Michael Patterson, before he was killed in a helicopter crash in Iraq. A flurry of recent TV spots sponsored by groups supporting John Kerry for president have been providing a national platform for several military relatives who object to how the Bush administration has been conducting the war.
Brooke Campbell, the sister of a soldier killed in Iraq, appears in an ad that MoveOn.org's political action committee says it is broadcasting this week in at least seven battleground states at a cost of more than $1 million. The ad opens with footage of President Bush joking about the futile search for weapons of mass destruction. "My brother died looking for weapons of mass destruction," Campbell interjects.
Campbell is affiliated with the Band of Sisters, which has about 20 members, all of whom are mothers, wives, or sisters of American soldiers. Organized by Win Back Respect, a pro-Kerry "527" committee, members of the Band of Sisters have taken part in two other TV advertisements and, along with Wesley Clark, have appeared at pro-Kerry rallies in Green Bay, Wisconsin, and Columbus, Ohio.
Band of Sisters' backers say that the military families' perspective on the war is especially persuasive in shaping public opinion. "They're explaining to people what the real costs are in terms of families, and that it's real important that the leaders be held accountable," says Megan Ceronsky, a first-year student at Yale Law School who coordinates the Band of Sisters' appearances.
A similar group, Real Voices, was formed in September by Deane Little, a liberal activist in California. In video clips posted on a Real Voices Web site, two mothers, a brother, and a sister of soldiers who died in Iraq charge that the administration, among other things, misled the nation, rushed to war, and failed to supply U.S. troops with enough body armor. At least one Band of Sisters ad, a mother's lament about her son on a mission in Baghdad, had $200,000 worth of TV airtime, according to the Web site.
The Band of Sisters and Real Voices fault President Bush for how he is handling the war. They differ from Military Families Speak Out, a loose-knit, nonpartisan group launched almost two years ago in the run-up to the war. Military Families Speak Out holds that "the occupation of Iraq by the U.S. military is the problem, not the solution," said Charley Richardson, who co-founded the group in November 2002 along with his wife, Nancy Lessin, and one other person.
"Regardless of the outcome of the election, we will continue fighting to end this war and bring the troops home now," said Richardson, a labor educator at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. His son, Joe, a sergeant in the Marine Corps Reserve, has already come home. He did a nine-month stint in Iraq and its environs, returning to the United States in May, but could be called back to active duty if the war continues.
The membership of Military Families Speak Out is on the upswing and now numbers more than 1,800, according to Richardson. The group has had a contingent, often including Richardson and Lessin, at every major demonstration against the Iraq War. On October 2 of this year, to take a recent example, a delegation of 50 to 60 people from Military Families Speak Out joined other anti-war groups in a memorial procession from Arlington National Cemetery to the White House, Richardson said.
Observers offer varying reasons why military families, unlike their counterparts during previous wars, have emerged as high-profile critics of the Iraq War. One theory has to do with the Pentagon's heavy deployment to Iraq of the National Guard and reservists, whose families are less well-prepared for the long absences of their loved ones than are the relatives of active-duty personnel.
For Maggie Porter, who signed up as a member of Military Families Speak Out in September, the explanation for her activism is simple. She believes the case that President Bush has made for waging war in Iraq is woefully lacking. "Iraq doesn't have the wherewithal to be any kind of threat to the United States," she said.
But the war goes on, and Porter said that she shudders to think how many more bricks she might have to wrap with flags. "What I'm worried about," she said, "is that I'll be written off, 30,000 bricks from now, as a total flake."
Joseph Rosenbloom is a Prospect senior correspondent.
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