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NUCLEAR
Plant security a campaign issue
Exposed: scandal of nuclear leaks at Scots plant
Rocket Launchers and Shells in My Backyard
Iran Parliament OKs Nuke Enrichment Bill
2nd Site With U.N.-Sealed Arms Was Looted, Inspectors Report
At Denuded Weapons Site, a New Menacing Presence
377 tons small part of absent Iraq explosives
If Brazil Wants to Scare the World, It's Succeeding
Cleanup project to begin at Knolls Laboratory
MILITARY
Afghan militants threaten to kill three U.N. workers
Afghan Militants Release Video of Hostages
100 Are Reported Killed In Violence in Somalia
Algeria marks 50th anniversary of launching independence war
Army Tactics Anger Thai Muslims
Three-day protest to block Taiwan's special defense budget begins
Looters overran sensitive Iraq desert site;
Suicide Attack Kills 8 Marines Near Baghdad
Car bomb kills eight Marines, wounds nine in Iraq
Attacks Kill Nine Marines In Iraq
Allawi Warns Falluja Rebels That Time Is Running Out for Talks
Allawi Vows to Clear Fallujah of Rebels
U.S. Hopes To Divide Insurgency
Palestinian leaders close ranks in Arafat's absence
After Gaza Win, Sharon Fights Political Doubt
Israelis and Palestinians Address Arafat's Absence
Military Intelligence chief: Arafat's death may end intifada
Uncovering The Bush Plan For Regime Change In Cuba
Pakistan perturbed by tapes of al Qaeda
At Least 15 Injured in Blast Outside Chechen Hospital
Deputy chief of Russia's strategic air force killed: report
Message from the people of Fallujah
Need for Draft Is Dismissed by Officials at Pentagon
GIs Lack Armor, Radios, Bullets
Pentagon suppresses details of civilian casualties, says expert
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
Cutbacks Threaten Work Of Homeland Security Unit
Protecting the Homeland
Spanish Prisons Provide Pool of Recruits for Radical Islam
Terrorist Tape, Political Angst
POLITICS
Bin Laden focus of race as vote nears
U.S. Failure to Capture Bin Laden Is Debated
Now They're Registered, Now They're Not
OTHER
Report Sounds Alarm on Pace of Arctic Climate Change
A Gasoline Additive Lingers in New York's Drinking Water
Chemical Spill at Arthur Kill Waterway
ACTIVISTS
Real Men Don't Let Other Men Bomb Civilians
Hawking to lead anti-war protest on election day
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- accidents and safety
Plant security a campaign issue
10/31/2004
The Mercury
Evan Brandt, ebrandt@pottsmerc.com
http://www.pottstownmercury.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=13260059&BRD=1674&PAG=461&dept_id=18041&rfi=6
While the topic of safety at nuclear and chemical plants has long been a subject of debate, in recent months it has become a subject of debate in the presidential campaign.
In the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the issue of homeland security has been front and center in the white-hot race between incumbent Republican George W. Bush and Democratic challenger John F. Kerry.
And two arenas in which this debate is being waged -- the security of chemical plants and nuclear power plants -- are of obvious local interest.
Occidental Chemical Corp. operates a plant on Armand Hammer Boulevard in Lower Pottsgrove that produces polyvinyl chloride resin and is among the nation's largest emitters of vinyl chloride, a recognized carcinogen.
And Exelon Nuclear's Limerick Genera-tion Station is perhaps the dominant feature of the region's landscape.
Kerry has taken the position that Bush has done too little to secure chemical plants from a terrorist attack, a charge the Bush campaign refutes. And a report released by a consumer group on Oct. 18 makes similar charges about security at nuclear plants, which the Bush campaign also refutes.
The operators of the two local plants touched by this debate insist their plants are safer now than they ever were.
Chemical Plants
Kerry has singled out chemical plants in particular saying security "is not adequate" to protect them from terrorist attack, making the communities that surround them vulnerable to harm.
Bush counters that the Department of Homeland Security "has already identified the nation's highest-risk chemical sites and is partnering with industry to enhance protections at those sites, improving safety for over 13 million Americans."
There is evidence to support both positions.
Gaps found
Kerry's Web site cites a number of studies including a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency assessment that there are about 123 chemical facilities in the United States "where a terrorist attack could endanger more than 1 million people. In the Philadelphia area, there are seven such plants, the highest concentration of these facilities on the east coast," Kerry's site notes.
Unwilling to provide easy information to terrorists, neither Kerry, nor any of the other security evaluations on this issue have identified specific plants as being particularly vulnerable.
But in general, it makes reference to numerous studies supporting the call for increased security at chemical plants. His site refers to a 2003 Washington Post story quoting a former Georgia-Pacific security chief who told the Post "security at a 7-Eleven after midnight is better than that at a plant with a 90-ton vessel of chlorine."
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reporter Carl Prine made headlines, along with a "60-Minutes" film crew, when both demonstrated the ease with which they could enter unsecured sites in western Pennsylvania, Houston, Baltimore and Chicago.
Kate McGloon, a spokeswoman for the American Chemistry Council, said member plants where problems were found by those reporters generally reacted to the revelations by working to improve security at their plants.
Recent reports
More recently, two reports have taken a look at potential problems.
Wednesday, a federally funded report by the Paper-Allied Industrial Chemical and Energy Workers, better known as PACE, found that while security improvements have been made at many plants after the 9/11 attacks, plants "have not done an adequate job of preventing and preparing for such an event," said Dave Ortleib, the union's director of health and safety programs.
The study, funding by the National Institutes of Health, found while many have added fences and guards, what is "greatly lacking" at the plants is "meaningful worker involvement and participation" in developing ways to prevent an attack, Ortleib said.
"Our members are on the front lines, and we feel there needs to be a greater emphasis on prevention," he said.
A more scathing report was released Oct. 18 by Public Citizen, a non-profit consumer advocacy group in Washington, D.C., in which the contributions Bush has received from the chemical industry are highlighted as a possible reason for what they say is a reluctance by the administration to take proper steps to protect chemical plants.
"Bush has abdicated his responsibility to protect America from the risk of terrorist attacks because he is fundamentally hostile to regulation of private industry and is loath to cross his big money campaign contributors," Public Citizen President Joan Claybrook said when the report was issued.
Claybrook said her group accepts no money from corporations, is not affiliated with any political party and does not endorse candidates.
Rather than an attempt to influence the outcome of the election, Claybrook said it was all the talk about homeland security during the summer campaign, which she felt was ignoring this problem, that motivated the compilation and release of the report.
McGloon scoffed at the suggestion that the report had no political motivations. "It's unfortunate that campaign contributions are being used to avoid talking about the real progress being made on chemical plant security," she said.
Political or not, its doubtful Public Citizens report was welcome news at Bush campaign headquarters. A call to the Bush campaign's Pennsylvania communications director was not immediately returned Friday or Saturday.
Changes at OxyChem
Among the biggest contributors highlighted in the report, who gave to either Bush, his inaugural fund or the Republican National Committee was J. Roger Hirl, President and CEO of Occidental Chemical Co., who collected $100,000 for Bush in 2000.
OxyChem's parent company, Occidental Petroleum and its employees, together donated $434,000 over the last three years, according to the Public Citizen report.
Sam Morris, the plant manager at the OxyChem plant in Lower Pottsgrove, declined to comment on that aspect of his company's relevance to this issue.
However he was willing to talk, in general terms, about security at the 267-acre site, once a Firestone Tire and Rubber plant.
"We have implemented additional security measures since 9/11 and we have tightened up procedures," Morris said. "We have further restricted access to the facility, put up additional vehicle barricades and enhanced monitoring," he said.
He said the plant has also conducted a voluntary security assessment of the plant, made changes after vulnerabilities were identified, "and had those verified by an independent third party," that Morris would identify only as "officials."
Further, the changes and security measures are shared with a community advisory panel as well as the local emergency response team, he said.
Those are the kind of measures recommended by Isadore "Irv" Rosenthal, a research fellow with the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton Risk Management and Decision Processes Center and a 40-year veteran of Rohn and Haas who was appointed to the U.S. Chemical Safety Board by President Clinton.
"There's no question plants have beefed up security, the question is whether it has been done broadly enough," Rosenthal said. "There are a significant number who have not even met the minimum standard and I understand why they might not be able to. But when you rely on purely voluntary measures, there are always a number who don't volunteer."
He added "I imagine Occidental as a company has behaved responsibly overall."
Worst case scenario
According to documents filed with the government and made available by OMB Watch's Right to Know Network, the worst-case scenario involving OxyChem is not a vinyl chloride incident, but one involving anhydrous ammonia.
Should that storage tank rupture and its contents vaporize in 10 minutes, it could injure the 13,600 people who live within 1.7 mile radius of the plant, a radius that includes several schools and Pottstown Memorial Medical Center.
The document also makes clear that officials at OxyChem consider this scenario to be highly unlikely and would only occur if a variety of fail-safes and back-up systems all failed.
The battle in Congress
Another front in the political war is how security at these plants can be regulated.
Congress has taken two basic approaches, both of which have not made it to the floor for a vote.
One, initiated in the Senate shortly after the 9/11 attacks by New Jersey Democrat Jon Corzine, would require plants to reduce storage of dangerous chemicals and change processes, where possible, to use less dangerous chemicals.
While this general approach is supported by PACE, Ortleib said his union would prefer to see the spefici language before making any kind of endorsement.
McGloon said while the members of the Chemistry Council are strongly in favor of legislation to improve security at the 2,040 chemical facilities owned by its 140 members, they do not look favorably on "the federal government telling us how to run our businesses."
Instead, they support a competing Senate proposal by Oklahoma Republican James Inhofe, that requires better security plans, puts the authority in the hands of the Homeland Security Department, but does not limit the use or storage of dangerous chemicals.
Claybrook derided this approach as "typical bureaucratic shifting to a department that has no power and no authority over these plants. The government regulates safety in food, in cars, why not in chemicals?" she asked.
Nuclear politics
Nuclear power plants, on the other hand, are highly regulated and security at them was stiffened immediately after the 9/11 attacks.
Locally, National Guard units swarmed to the Limerick facility and stood guard for several months in the aftermath of the attacks.
As such, the debate on security at these plants at the presidential level has been less intense.
It is largely Public Citizen that has made the accusations here, which charges similar to those made about chemical plants, its report calls nuclear plant security "grossly inadequate."
This situation is allowed because Bush "has a fierce ideological aversion to regulation" and "the administration is heavily indebted to the nuclear industry and electric utilities for generous campaign contributions," Public Citizen wrote.
According to the Public Citizen report, Exelon has donated $434,161 to Bush and the RNC between 2000 until this year.
While Kerry campaigns on preventing nuclear proliferation and the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste site in Nevada, he makes no mention of security problems at nuclear plans in any of his campaign materials.
Bush's campaign makes note of requirements he supported to improve security and training at nuclear power plans and quotes John Hamre, president and CEO of the Center for Strategic International Studies, who said "there is more security around nuclear power plants than anything else we've got."
Lisa Washak, spokeswoman for the Limerick facility, confirmed that the plant recently installed additional fencing, guard towers and has increased the "stand-off" distance, which refers to how close people are allowed to get to the plant without being cleared by security.
"This has always been a highly secure and well-protected facility," she said, pointing to Nuclear Energy Institute material that says since 9/11, the industry has spent an $370 million on additional security.
------
Exposed: scandal of nuclear leaks at Scots plant
Massive area contaminated at Hunterston
sundayherald
By Rob Edwards
31 October 2004
http://www.sundayherald.com/45765
A huge area of land has been contaminated from leaks at Hunterston nuclear power station in North Ayrshire . The contamination is much worse than previously suspected, and far more than has been admitted at other nuclear sites in Scotland.
Some 81,000 cubic metres of soil - enough to fill 900 double-decker buses - are laced with radioactivity which for years has been spilling from pipelines and blowing off open-air ponds of nuclear waste.
Although the state-owned company that runs the plant insists that the contamination is "very low-level", it poses huge clean-up problems. The government regulator, the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate, says the soil will have to be treated and disposed of as radioactive waste.
The contamination has been found at Hunterston A nuclear power station, which is now being decommissioned. The official published inventory of Britain's nuclear waste estimates the total amount of unpackaged low-level radioactive waste at Hunterston A at no more than 28,860 cubic metres. But almost three times that amount were found by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), the government body set up to oversee the clean-up of Britain's nuclear plants. It said the contamination was as a result of "historic leaks".
Pete Roche, a consultant to Greenpeace, pointed out that Hunterston A's 81,000 cubic metres is a huge amount of waste. He said: "It dwarfs the amount of waste that we know about at most other nuclear facilities . It will be decades, at least, before the nuclear waste legacy problem is solved."
The Hunterston A site is run by the British Nuclear Group (BNG) . It claimed that it has known about the contamination "for some time" and that it had been "mainly" caused when the reactors were operating.
"Some of the contamination came from the on-site open-air cooling ponds through some wind-blown contamination within the site," said a BNG spokesman. "Some would also have been caused by spills from effluent lines within the site."
Extensive investigations are planned over the next few years to assess the exact volume and level of contamination, he added. In the meantime, the contamination will be managed and monitored to ensure safety of the public, the workforce and the environment.
But experts said that cleaning up and disposing of such a large amount of contaminated soil will not be easy. The only site available for disposing of low-level radioactive waste - Drigg, near the Sellafield nuclear plant in Cumbria - is nearly full.
Chris Ballance, the Green MSP for the south of Scotland, said the discovery of so much contamination was "a complete scandal". He was present at the NDA stakeholder meeting in Ayrshire where the information was disclosed.
"Is the Ayrshire coast always going to be radioactive around Hunterston? Is the site always going to have to be protected against people with malicious intent?" he asked.
The Hunterston revelations are going to be raised at Westminster by the Welsh anti-nuclear Labour MP, Llew Smith. He has put down a parliamentary question demanding details of the contamination and what is being done to remove it.
The Nuclear Installations Inspectorate wasn't able to comment in detail on the situation at Hunterston A, but a spokesman did say that its policy was that contaminated soil should be treated as radioactive waste and disposed of accordingly.
The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) was aware of the contamination. "Our understanding is that the main incident leading to the contamination arose in the 1970s," said a spokeswoman.
"If contamination ... is found outside the site boundaries, then Sepa would consider what action should be taken. If there were any recent breaches of authorisation or ongoing releases, then Sepa would use its legislative powers appropriately."
The south of Scotland is also facing another risk from the de commissioning of the four reactors at Chapelcross, near Annan in Dumfries and Galloway. BNG has confirmed that 40,000 nuclear fuel rods are due to be shipped south from the site between 2005 and 2007.
-------- depleted uranium
Rocket Launchers and Shells in My Backyard
axisoflogic.com
Oct 31, 2004
By Sharbani Banerji
http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_13152.shtml
The events of the past few weeks have unearthed some frightening facts. "India is being unwittingly turned into a dumping ground for scrap containing explosives from war-ravaged countries" ( "Scrap ammo: The big dump", Hindustan Times (HT), 9th Oct 2004). What no one has pointed out till now is that these are in all probability, depleted uranium munitions, and pose far greater danger than 'explosives' pose. In Iraq, US has even dropped Mark 77 firebombs, which are similar to napalm bombs used in Vietnam. We don't know what their (inactive) shells would look like. Have they crept into the scrap? Everybody talks about "Nuclear Proliferation". What about this "Proliferation of Explosive and Radioactive Scraps" ? What are we going to do to stop it?
On Sept 30th, while a truck carrying scrap iron, which had sailed from Iran, was unloading the cargo in the compounds of a steel factory in Ghaziabad, a portable rocket launcher hidden inside the scrap exploded, thereby killing eight people on the spot, and also injuring eight others. Two more people died in the city hospital later. The unsuspecting workers had used a gas burner to cut the scrap, resulting in a huge explosion. This factory, Bhushan Steel and Strips Ltd., is located in Shahibabad, in District Ghaziabad, in Uttar Pradesh, India. It imports huge quantities of scrap iron from abroad, which are then melted and recast into iron rods. These rods, the most essential component in all kinds of buildings, bridges etc., are then sold in the market.
The rocket launcher wasn't the only ammunition hidden inside the scrap. As the police sprang into action, thereby arresting the GM and the additional GM of Bhushal Steels for causing death due to negligence, and the army and the National Security Guard (NSG) personnel took over, it was discovered that there were about 15 more 81mm mortars embedded in the heap of scrap metal. NSG diffused two of the shells inside the factory premises itself. Realizing that it was too risky, they took the rest to the Hindon river bed, where three more were diffused. They didn't realize that even this was too risky, especialy if these muntions contain depleted uranium, which in all probability they do, as we shall argue. This incident was only the tip of the iceberg.
The "killer truck" (as HT likes to call it), wasn't the only truck carrying cargo for Bhushan Steels. As more and more trucks started to arrive carrying scrap, the army isolated them and moved them to Kanha Upavan area, for further checking. From the 11 trucks which had been brought to Kanha Upavan, a protected forest area near the factory, 56 more rocket shells were found, some of which were live. And, without thinking twice, the NSG started to diffuse the bombs inside this ecological park !
The scrap consignment was exported by a company named 'Lucky Metals SZE' of Dubai. The company is owned by a Pakistani Dilwar Hussain. There are credible reports that the munitions embedded in the scrap actually originated in Iraq. The $25000 consignment had sailed from the Bandar Abbas Port in Iran, and and reached the Indian port Mundra, in Gujrat. From, there, it landed at the Inland Container Depot (ICD) at Tughlaqabad, New Delhi, for clearance. From Tughlaqabad, seven trucks carried the cargo to Bhushan Steels at Shahibabad. The seventh truck was the 'killer truck'. The consignment had been cleared at every single stage of it's journey. Lucky Metals of UAE, the company shipping it declared that there were no 'bombs, shells, ammunition' in it. So did the authorities at Mundra port, and even those at ICD Tughlaqabad in New Delhi. That is, at none of the check points, be they be in India, or in Dubai or in Iran, a full-fledged physical verification was carried out, of the consignment. From one post to the other, the officials rubber-stamped the papers and cleared it. It's easy. Given the state of affairs, it appears that it is almost impossible to check everything physically.
Thanks to the media, which was quick to highlight the incident, this time, the police did spring into action immediately. The state government ordered an enquiry into the incident. The district was on high alert and so was Delhi police. A country wide inspection of iron and steel units were ordered.
As we said, it was only the tip of the iceberg. Since that incident in the premises of Bhushan Steels, rockets, and shells, a great many of them live, have been found all over the country, from the strangest places, like road sides, fields, ponds, bushes, etc., and they continue to be found everyday.
In Ghaziabad alone, 42 more rockets have been found from different places. Eg., 10 rockets were recovered from behind Delhi Public school on Meerut Road Industrial area, 15 in a bush in a park in Bulandshahar Industrial area, 11 from Kavinagar industrial area, 6 from near Postal Staff College in Rajnagar. They have also been found in Delhi. Atleast 31 empty shells were found in Mayapuri area. 219 shells were found at Dhicchuan Nilwala Road in Najafgarh, out of which, 6 were suspected to be live. 18 'junk rockets' were found by a farmer in a field in Aligarh district, in Harduarganj. 12 Shells were found abandoned at Khurja-Aligarh Road in Bulandshahar.In Meerut four gunny bags containing spent rockets, used machine gun cartridges and other fire arms were found by the road side in Mawikalan village on Delhi-Baghpat road. 120 shells were recovered from Gujrat out of which 50 were found near Shinai village on Mundra road, 5 of them live; 36 were found in Mitiyana village, and 23 at Anjar.
In Siliguri in Darjeeling district, 6 rocket propelled granade shells were found from a riverbed. 72 rockets were recovered from Raipur. In Chattisgarh, about 62 shells have been found in a pond, amongst which about 46 were live. And it continues. Even yesterday, on Oct 26th, hundreds of shells of rocket-launchers, mortars and hand grenades were dug out from a site near Vehlena bypass on Muzaffarnagar-Meerut highway. A godown owner had bought some scrap from a Meerut resident. The consignment contained ammunition shells. Fearing police action, he buried them at that site. It appears that, that is what has happened in all the other cases too. The authorities suspect that the factories dealing in scraps are trying to dispose off the shells, in the wake of stepped up security. That explains why they have been detected in such weird locations. That also rules out a 'terror angle', which the media focussed on, initially. But what comes out is even more dangerous. The incident at Bhushan Steels was just one of the 'explosive situations' which actually exploded. Ammunition-filled scrap has been coming all along, atleast recently for sure. Many more such ammunition-filled consignments had reached the country before 30th Sept, and may be even after 30th Sept, easily dodging detection. They must have slipped from other ports too, as their geographical distribution indicates.
The mess does not end once the killer-shells have been detected. Only NSG has the expertise and infrastructure for disposal of these shells and rockets. But they too seem to be unprepared to deal with such a situation. The ammunitions have not been checked for radioactivity. If they contain depleted uranium, must they be diffused, which essentially means 'exploded'? Initially many shells were thus diffused in the Kanha-Upavan area, thereby causing immense harm to the environment, and may be also to the people who had been exposed to the dust, until protests from the residents of Karhera and nearby villages, from the environment group 'Paryavaran Sachetak Dal', from the officials of Pollution Control Board, from Shri Krishan Gaushala and others, forced them to change plans. Besides, the area is surrounded by the Gas Authority of India Pipe lines and is close to Hindon airbase. The bomb disposal squad then shifted the site for defusal of bombs and rockets from Kanha Upavan to Loni. They buried 94 explosives in that area. On 18th, one of these buried rockets found it's way to a site near a brick kiln under Sihani Gate police station area in the city . Meanwhile, residents of more than eight villages in the Loni area too, launched a campaign against the detonation and piling up of explosives in their area.
We don't know yet, what the authorities plan to do with all the shells that have been found so far, and are continuing to be detected. Nobody seems to have enough expertise on the subject.
It has been pointed out that it is not the first time that live shells have been found in scrap consignments. The incidents were mostly overlooked. They were first detected in 1991 at ICD, Pragati Maidan, New Delhi. That particular consignment had originated from Iraq. It was during the first gulf war. In 1993 five people died at ICD Tughlaqbad as the live shells hidden inside a consignment exploded. In 1996 again, explosives were found in a consignment of metallic waste. In April 2004, ICD Ludhiana reported live shells and explosives in a scrap consignment. Three months later, 11,000 live cartridges were found inside an empty container by the Container Corporation of India (CONCOR). In August, ICD Tughlaqabad again detected live shells. In all these cases, though the matter was reported to police, no action was taken. On Oct 9th, at ICD Tughlaqabad, 68 shells found, out of which 47 were live.This consignment originated in Somalia, and was imported by an Indian firm called Norma. Customs officers detected the shells on Aug 7th, but neither CBEC nor police took any notice of Customs report to them. It was only after the incident in Bhushan Steel factory that CBEC and police decided to act. Last month, in Uttaranchal, rocket shells were found in Pauri district.
Given this record, it is obvious that the munitions are sneeking into India, through iron scraps because the ports and ICDs are not equipped enough to check them. Also, they sneek-in whenever US rages a war on Iraq, as it happened during the first gulf war too. And, when business gets high priority, safety and survival takes a back seat.
There are no electronic scanners and sensors at the ICDs or even at the ports. They don't have adequate staff to do physical verification of each and every consignment. Only in suspicious cases consignments are examined thoroughly, that is, manually. But that is time consuming, and business houses donot like that. A proposal has been made that X-ray machines be installed at ports to scan all consignments, and that all scrap containers be subject to 100% examination, before clearance. It has also been suggested that import of loose scrap should be replaced by import of shreddded scrap, as is the norm in most countries. Import of loose scrap if allowed, should be through designated ports only. The suggestions have been acepted by the Director General of Foreign Trade, and notification has been issued. Restrictions on import of scrap from war ravaged countries have also been tightened. Dubai has tightened its rules too. Yes, the authorities have woken up, and directives issued. The administration needs to be tightened at every check point, for banned items can be cleared even by X-ray machines if the officials manning them are not vigilant enough or are corrupt. It happened at Indira Gandhi International Airport on 22/10. The CISF personnel manning X-ray machine failed to detect false revolvers, a banned item, in hand baggage of two passengers, about to board a PIA flight to Karachi. They were caught by PIA sky marshals when they were about to board the aircraft.
The prices of steel are likely to rise as a result of new restrictions. Shredded scrap will eliminate the possibility of shells slipping in, but is costlier. And as is expected, huge volumes of scrap are piling up at ICD as well as at ports like Mundra, Kandla, Mumbai, Kolkata-awaiting clearance. Yes, all this is good and necessary, and we shouldnot complain.
Then, what are we complaining about? Let us come to the bottom of the iceberg, which unfortunately is the most explosive part of the whole story. Metal scrap in India is mainly coming from the Gulf, African and South American countries, as they are cheap. A lot of it is coming from Iraq, via Iran. The port of origin, as declared before the customs is often different from the actual place of origin of the scraps-which would in all probability be a war ravaged country like Iraq. Somalia a war ravaged country is a big scrap collecting port. The rockets, shells and other explosives are passed on by these countries, to the exporting port. Even if India takes up the matter with the exporting ports, we are not sure that they would be able to actually implement full-fledged checking of the consignments, just as in India it has not been possible all these years.
Our contention is that, all the reports revealed so far point to the conclusion that the ammunitions imported with scrap metals are in effect Depleted Uranium (DU) Munitions, hundreds of tonnes of which have been used by US and UK in Iraq. US had used it as a standard weapon in the first gulf war too, and had continued to use it in Balkans and Afghanistan. We can conclude that the same would have happened in Somalia-rather wherever US has intervened so far.
Why do we suspect that the lose rockets and shells imported in India are actually DU munitions? First, consider the properties of DU. DU is a residue left after uranium is enriched for use in nuclear reactors and is also recovered after reprocessing spent nuclear fuel. Thus, it is effectively free. Since it is 20% heavier than steel, it can penetrate steel and concrete much more easily than other weapons. It burns at 10,000C. It is radioactive and has toxic effects. Upto 2000 tonnes of DU has been used in Iraq. DU is an effective tank destroyer and bunker buster. DU shells are lethal. When the DU rod inside a shell disintegrates, it disperses over a wide area, spreading radioactive and toxic dust..
Now see what has been said about the lethal shells and rockets found at Bhushan Steels and other places. (1) Eye witnesses said the explosion at Bhushan Steels was so strong that it could be heard a kilometer away from the accident site. (2) The bombs were so powerful that even their splinters left huge craters while being defused. Had the rocket launcher hit the live bombs, the whole factory would have been gutted. Or if the rockets and missiles had been thrown into the boiler, the explosion could have destroyed atleast a 4 km radius area.(3) Officials said that the rockets and missiles recovered at Bhushan Steels were powerful enough to hit targets in Delhi.(4) And most important, they have come from 'war-ravaged countries'. Now what do we mean by 'war-ravaged' countries? Obviously from countries where US has raged a war --the most war-mongering nation in the world. And DU munitions are standard weapons used by US wherever it has raged a war. (5) No check is carried out when scrap is either picked up from or dumped in the yards in the exporting country. In most cases, bulldozers tear down remnants of buildings and bridges that have been bombed. The scrap is then sold off. It is possible that live shells and partially exploded shells are embedded inside the scrap (HT reported).
Since there has been no 'official-check' or declaration, we can only conjecture with near certainty that the munitions exploded and found so far, active or inactive, are DU munitions, which US is proliferating all over the world.
Now, why should we fear DU munitions even when they are inactive or unexploded? We should, more than we fear a nuclear bomb, because they are radioactive, toxic, and cause slow and untold damage to health, ---- and are 'proliferating'. Yes, nuclear bombs proliferate too, but certainly not as much as DU already has, and is threatening to, in all parts of the world, in an invisible way, even into my backyard.
Though opinions vary, there is a general agreement that DU munitions cause health-hazards of extremely serious nature. The Royal Society in Britain set up an independent expert working group to investigate the health hazards of DU munitions. It's two part report has studied the increased risks of radiation-induced cancer from exposures to DU on the battlefield and the risks from the chemical toxicity of Uranium, non-malignant radiation effects from DU intakes, the long term environmental consequences of the deployment of DU munitions etc. Scientists fear that the effects of DU munitions in Iraq would have a fall out for many generations to come. Scientists have urged shell clear-up in Iraq to protect civilians The Royal Society has recommended that fragments of DU penetrators be removed, and areas of contaminations should be identified, and where necessary, made safe. Pentagon however doesnot consider that necessary. Most scientists believe that DU causes cancer and other severe illnesses. According to the Royal Society, both soldiers and civilians in Iraq were in short and long term danger. Children playing at contaminates sites were particularly at risk. The soil around the impact sites of depleted uranium penetrators may be heavily contaminated, and could be harmful if swallowed by children. For example. If it leaks into water supplies, it would pose a long time threat to health. The UN environment program has been tracking the use of DU in Balkans and found it leaking into the water table. Seven years after the conflict it has recommended decontamination of buildings where DU dust is present to protect the civilian population against cancer. DU contaminates the land, air and water, and ultimately destroying the lives of people exposed to it. DU corrodes the soil and exist for a long time in the dust. Evidence is building that DU causes more genetic damage than scientists suspected, even at levels deemed as low as to be non-toxic. A US soldier Keny Duncan was with the Royal Corps of Transport helping to shift Iraqi tanks destroyed by DU shells in 1991 gulf war. He was exposed to DU. All his three children are born with some kind of deformity.
Given this scenario, what is India supposed to do? It is obvious that the actions taken so far, the directives issued by various offices and agencies have failed to take into account the possibility ( rather a near certainty) that the rockets and shells are part of depleted uranium munitions used by US and UK in whichever country they have landed illegally. It should be the responsibility of US and UK, to clear up the shells not only in Iraq, Afghanistan, Balkans, Somalia and so on, but also in India, where they have proliferated due to their irresponsible and monstrous actions. If they have proliferated to India, it is a near certainty that they would proliferate to many other developing and less developed countries, and ultimately back into the developed countries, including even US and UK. In all probability these munitions are being sold by the hard pressed people of war ravaged countries only for money, and not for terrorism. Also, this is one way to get their own country rid of these lethal weapons. One shouldnot underestimate the knowledge and intelligence of poor and illiterate villagers. They may not know the technicalities, but they sure know that these weapons if lie in their neighbourhood would cause extreme damage to their health and also to flora and fauna. For example, in Ghaziabad, it was the villagers of Kanha Upavan and Loni area who were the first ones to protest against the stockpiling and diffusal of explosives in their area.
Recently, a lot of studies have been done on the hazards of DU, but no new regulations have come into effect. We need new International laws and treaties to deal with this menace, which is sure to take a serious turn in the near future, considering the quagmire the US has put itself into, in Iraq. India should speak out, and raise the issue in the UN. Who should be signing the "Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty" (NPT) now?
Meanwhile, at the domestic level, the ammunitions found so far should be given as much weightage as the nuclear bomb was given during Pokhran Test. They should be carried to a desert-may be to Pokhran for disposal, and not to residential localities, or forests, or river beds. There have been suggestions that loose scrap should be banned, and only shredded scrap should be allowed.Yes, shredded scrap would ensure that there are no untoward explosions, but that would still not ensure that shreds of DU ammunitions are not included in that, especially, if imports are being carried out from war-ravaged countries. Thus, imports from war ravaged countries have to be stopped completely. And stringent checks should be carried out at every check-post, even if that means delays and increase in price of steel. Get the priorities right, Mr. Businessman!
In the words of Noam Chomsky (Hegemony or Survival : America's quest for global domiance, Metropolitan books, 2003):
"One can discern two trajectories in current history: one aiming toward hegemony, acting rationally within a lunatic doctrinal framework as it threatens survival; the other dedicated to the belief that "another world is possible", in the words that animate the World Social Forum, challenging the reigning ideological system and seeking to create constructive alternatives of thought, action and institutions."
Keeping this in mind, India should take up the issue with the World bodies.
Notes: "When the dust settles : Depleted uranium may be far more dangerous than previously thought - and we could be dealing with the fallout for many generations to come " The Guardian, April 17, 2003
"Scientists urge shell clear-up to protect civilians: Royal Society spells out dangers of depleted uranium" The Guardian, April 17, 2003.
"The health hazards of depleted uranium munitions: Part 1", Royal Society, May 2001 ISBN: 0854033540
"The health hazards of depleted uranium munitions: Part 2", Royal Society March 2002 ISBN: 0854035745
The events of the past few weeks have unearthed some frightening facts. "India is being unwittingly turned into a dumping ground for scrap containing explosives from war-ravaged countries" ( "Scrap ammo: The big dump", Hindustan Times (HT), 9th Oct 2004). What no one has pointed out till now is that these are in all probability, depleted uranium munitions, and pose far greater danger than 'explosives' pose. In Iraq, US has even dropped Mark 77 firebombs, which are similar to napalm bombs used in Vietnam. We don't know what their (inactive) shells would look like. Have they crept into the scrap? Everybody talks about "Nuclear Proliferation". What about this "Proliferation of Explosive and Radioactive Scraps" ? What are we going to do to stop it?
On Sept 30th, while a truck carrying scrap iron, which had sailed from Iran, was unloading the cargo in the compounds of a steel factory in Ghaziabad, a portable rocket launcher hidden inside the scrap exploded, thereby killing eight people on the spot, and also injuring eight others. Two more people died in the city hospital later. The unsuspecting workers had used a gas burner to cut the scrap, resulting in a huge explosion. This factory, Bhushan Steel and Strips Ltd., is located in Shahibabad, in District Ghaziabad, in Uttar Pradesh, India. It imports huge quantities of scrap iron from abroad, which are then melted and recast into iron rods. These rods, the most essential component in all kinds of buildings, bridges etc., are then sold in the market.
The rocket launcher wasn't the only ammunition hidden inside the scrap. As the police sprang into action, thereby arresting the GM and the additional GM of Bhushal Steels for causing death due to negligence, and the army and the National Security Guard (NSG) personnel took over, it was discovered that there were about 15 more 81mm mortars embedded in the heap of scrap metal. NSG diffused two of the shells inside the factory premises itself. Realizing that it was too risky, they took the rest to the Hindon river bed, where three more were diffused. They didn't realize that even this was too risky, especialy if these muntions contain depleted uranium, which in all probability they do, as we shall argue. This incident was only the tip of the iceberg.
The "killer truck" (as HT likes to call it), wasn't the only truck carrying cargo for Bhushan Steels. As more and more trucks started to arrive carrying scrap, the army isolated them and moved them to Kanha Upavan area, for further checking. From the 11 trucks which had been brought to Kanha Upavan, a protected forest area near the factory, 56 more rocket shells were found, some of which were live. And, without thinking twice, the NSG started to diffuse the bombs inside this ecological park !
The scrap consignment was exported by a company named 'Lucky Metals SZE' of Dubai. The company is owned by a Pakistani Dilwar Hussain. There are credible reports that the munitions embedded in the scrap actually originated in Iraq. The $25000 consignment had sailed from the Bandar Abbas Port in Iran, and and reached the Indian port Mundra, in Gujrat. From, there, it landed at the Inland Container Depot (ICD) at Tughlaqabad, New Delhi, for clearance. From Tughlaqabad, seven trucks carried the cargo to Bhushan Steels at Shahibabad. The seventh truck was the 'killer truck'. The consignment had been cleared at every single stage of it's journey. Lucky Metals of UAE, the company shipping it declared that there were no 'bombs, shells, ammunition' in it. So did the authorities at Mundra port, and even those at ICD Tughlaqabad in New Delhi. That is, at none of the check points, be they be in India, or in Dubai or in Iran, a full-fledged physical verification was carried out, of the consignment. From one post to the other, the officials rubber-stamped the papers and cleared it. It's easy. Given the state of affairs, it appears that it is almost impossible to check everything physically.
Thanks to the media, which was quick to highlight the incident, this time, the police did spring into action immediately. The state government ordered an enquiry into the incident. The district was on high alert and so was Delhi police. A country wide inspection of iron and steel units were ordered.
As we said, it was only the tip of the iceberg. Since that incident in the premises of Bhushan Steels, rockets, and shells, a great many of them live, have been found all over the country, from the strangest places, like road sides, fields, ponds, bushes, etc., and they continue to be found everyday.
In Ghaziabad alone, 42 more rockets have been found from different places. Eg., 10 rockets were recovered from behind Delhi Public school on Meerut Road Industrial area, 15 in a bush in a park in Bulandshahar Industrial area, 11 from Kavinagar industrial area, 6 from near Postal Staff College in Rajnagar. They have also been found in Delhi. Atleast 31 empty shells were found in Mayapuri area. 219 shells were found at Dhicchuan Nilwala Road in Najafgarh, out of which, 6 were suspected to be live. 18 'junk rockets' were found by a farmer in a field in Aligarh district, in Harduarganj. 12 Shells were found abandoned at Khurja-Aligarh Road in Bulandshahar.In Meerut four gunny bags containing spent rockets, used machine gun cartridges and other fire arms were found by the road side in Mawikalan village on Delhi-Baghpat road. 120 shells were recovered from Gujrat out of which 50 were found near Shinai village on Mundra road, 5 of them live; 36 were found in Mitiyana village, and 23 at Anjar. In Siliguri in Darjeeling district, 6 rocket propelled granade shells were found from a riverbed. 72 rockets were recovered from Raipur. In Chattisgarh, about 62 shells have been found in a pond, amongst which about 46 were live. And it continues. Even yesterday, on Oct 26th, hundreds of shells of rocket-launchers, mortars and hand grenades were dug out from a site near Vehlena bypass on Muzaffarnagar-Meerut highway. A godown owner had bought some scrap from a Meerut resident. The consignment contained ammunition shells. Fearing police action, he buried them at that site. It appears that, that is what has happened in all the other cases too. The authorities suspect that the factories dealing in scraps are trying to dispose off the shells, in the wake of stepped up security. That explains why they have been detected in such weird locations. That also rules out a 'terror angle', which the media focussed on, initially. But what comes out is even more dangerous. The incident at Bhushan Steels was just one of the 'explosive situations' which actually exploded. Ammunition-filled scrap has been coming all along, atleast recently for sure. Many more such ammunition-filled consignments had reached the country before 30th Sept, and may be even after 30th Sept, easily dodging detection. They must have slipped from other ports too, as their geographical distribution indicates.
The mess does not end once the killer-shells have been detected. Only NSG has the expertise and infrastructure for disposal of these shells and rockets. But they too seem to be unprepared to deal with such a situation. The ammunitions have not been checked for radioactivity. If they contain depleted uranium, must they be diffused, which essentially means 'exploded'? Initially many shells were thus diffused in the Kanha-Upavan area, thereby causing immense harm to the environment, and may be also to the people who had been exposed to the dust, until protests from the residents of Karhera and nearby villages, from the environment group 'Paryavaran Sachetak Dal', from the officials of Pollution Control Board, from Shri Krishan Gaushala and others, forced them to change plans. Besides, the area is surrounded by the Gas Authority of India Pipe lines and is close to Hindon airbase. The bomb disposal squad then shifted the site for defusal of bombs and rockets from Kanha Upavan to Loni. They buried 94 explosives in that area. On 18th, one of these buried rockets found it's way to a site near a brick kiln under Sihani Gate police station area in the city . Meanwhile, residents of more than eight villages in the Loni area too, launched a campaign against the detonation and piling up of explosives in their area.
We don't know yet, what the authorities plan to do with all the shells that have been found so far, and are continuing to be detected. Nobody seems to have enough expertise on the subject.
It has been pointed out that it is not the first time that live shells have been found in scrap consignments. The incidents were mostly overlooked. They were first detected in 1991 at ICD, Pragati Maidan, New Delhi. That particular consignment had originated from Iraq. It was during the first gulf war. In 1993 five people died at ICD Tughlaqbad as the live shells hidden inside a consignment exploded. In 1996 again, explosives were found in a consignment of metallic waste. In April 2004, ICD Ludhiana reported live shells and explosives in a scrap consignment. Three months later, 11,000 live cartridges were found inside an empty container by the Container Corporation of India (CONCOR). In August, ICD Tughlaqabad again detected live shells. In all these cases, though the matter was reported to police, no action was taken. On Oct 9th, at ICD Tughlaqabad, 68 shells found, out of which 47 were live.This consignment originated in Somalia, and was imported by an Indian firm called Norma. Customs officers detected the shells on Aug 7th, but neither CBEC nor police took any notice of Customs report to them. It was only after the incident in Bhushan Steel factory that CBEC and police decided to act. Last month, in Uttaranchal, rocket shells were found in Pauri district.
Given this record, it is obvious that the munitions are sneeking into India, through iron scraps because the ports and ICDs are not equipped enough to check them. Also, they sneek-in whenever US rages a war on Iraq, as it happened during the first gulf war too. And, when business gets high priority, safety and survival takes a back seat.
There are no electronic scanners and sensors at the ICDs or even at the ports. They don't have adequate staff to do physical verification of each and every consignment. Only in suspicious cases consignments are examined thoroughly, that is, manually. But that is time consuming, and business houses donot like that. A proposal has been made that X-ray machines be installed at ports to scan all consignments, and that all scrap containers be subject to 100% examination, before clearance. It has also been suggested that import of loose scrap should be replaced by import of shreddded scrap, as is the norm in most countries. Import of loose scrap if allowed, should be through designated ports only. The suggestions have been acepted by the Director General of Foreign Trade, and notification has been issued. Restrictions on import of scrap from war ravaged countries have also been tightened. Dubai has tightened its rules too. Yes, the authorities have woken up, and directives issued. The administration needs to be tightened at every check point, for banned items can be cleared even by X-ray machines if the officials manning them are not vigilant enough or are corrupt. It happened at Indira Gandhi International Airport on 22/10. The CISF personnel manning X-ray machine failed to detect false revolvers, a banned item, in hand baggage of two passengers, about to board a PIA flight to Karachi. They were caught by PIA sky marshals when they were about to board the aircraft.
The prices of steel are likely to rise as a result of new restrictions. Shredded scrap will eliminate the possibility of shells slipping in, but is costlier. And as is expected, huge volumes of scrap are piling up at ICD as well as at ports like Mundra, Kandla, Mumbai, Kolkata-awaiting clearance. Yes, all this is good and necessary, and we shouldnot complain.
Then, what are we complaining about? Let us come to the bottom of the iceberg, which unfortunately is the most explosive part of the whole story. Metal scrap in India is mainly coming from the Gulf, African and South American countries, as they are cheap. A lot of it is coming from Iraq, via Iran. The port of origin, as declared before the customs is often different from the actual place of origin of the scraps-which would in all probability be a war ravaged country like Iraq. Somalia a war ravaged country is a big scrap collecting port. The rockets, shells and other explosives are passed on by these countries, to the exporting port. Even if India takes up the matter with the exporting ports, we are not sure that they would be able to actually implement full-fledged checking of the consignments, just as in India it has not been possible all these years.
Our contention is that, all the reports revealed so far point to the conclusion that the ammunitions imported with scrap metals are in effect Depleted Uranium (DU) Munitions, hundreds of tonnes of which have been used by US and UK in Iraq. US had used it as a standard weapon in the first gulf war too, and had continued to use it in Balkans and Afghanistan. We can conclude that the same would have happened in Somalia-rather wherever US has intervened so far.
Why do we suspect that the lose rockets and shells imported in India are actually DU munitions? First, consider the properties of DU. DU is a residue left after uranium is enriched for use in nuclear reactors and is also recovered after reprocessing spent nuclear fuel. Thus, it is effectively free. Since it is 20% heavier than steel, it can penetrate steel and concrete much more easily than other weapons. It burns at 10,000C. It is radioactive and has toxic effects. Upto 2000 tonnes of DU has been used in Iraq. DU is an effective tank destroyer and bunker buster. DU shells are lethal. When the DU rod inside a shell disintegrates, it disperses over a wide area, spreading radioactive and toxic dust..
Now see what has been said about the lethal shells and rockets found at Bhushan Steels and other places. (1) Eye witnesses said the explosion at Bhushan Steels was so strong that it could be heard a kilometer away from the accident site. (2) The bombs were so powerful that even their splinters left huge craters while being defused. Had the rocket launcher hit the live bombs, the whole factory would have been gutted. Or if the rockets and missiles had been thrown into the boiler, the explosion could have destroyed atleast a 4 km radius area.(3) Officials said that the rockets and missiles recovered at Bhushan Steels were powerful enough to hit targets in Delhi.(4) And most important, they have come from 'war-ravaged countries'. Now what do we mean by 'war-ravaged' countries? Obviously from countries where US has raged a war --the most war-mongering nation in the world. And DU munitions are standard weapons used by US wherever it has raged a war. (5) No check is carried out when scrap is either picked up from or dumped in the yards in the exporting country. In most cases, bulldozers tear down remnants of buildings and bridges that have been bombed. The scrap is then sold off. It is possible that live shells and partially exploded shells are embedded inside the scrap (HT reported).
Since there has been no 'official-check' or declaration, we can only conjecture with near certainty that the munitions exploded and found so far, active or inactive, are DU munitions, which US is proliferating all over the world.
Now, why should we fear DU munitions even when they are inactive or unexploded? We should, more than we fear a nuclear bomb, because they are radioactive, toxic, and cause slow and untold damage to health, ---- and are 'proliferating'. Yes, nuclear bombs proliferate too, but certainly not as much as DU already has, and is threatening to, in all parts of the world, in an invisible way, even into my backyard.
Though opinions vary, there is a general agreement that DU munitions cause health-hazards of extremely serious nature. The Royal Society in Britain set up an independent expert working group to investigate the health hazards of DU munitions. It's two part report has studied the increased risks of radiation-induced cancer from exposures to DU on the battlefield and the risks from the chemical toxicity of Uranium, non-malignant radiation effects from DU intakes, the long term environmental consequences of the deployment of DU munitions etc. Scientists fear that the effects of DU munitions in Iraq would have a fall out for many generations to come. Scientists have urged shell clear-up in Iraq to protect civilians The Royal Society has recommended that fragments of DU penetrators be removed, and areas of contaminations should be identified, and where necessary, made safe. Pentagon however doesnot consider that necessary. Most scientists believe that DU causes cancer and other severe illnesses. According to the Royal Society, both soldiers and civilians in Iraq were in short and long term danger. Children playing at contaminates sites were particularly at risk. The soil around the impact sites of depleted uranium penetrators may be heavily contaminated, and could be harmful if swallowed by children. For example. If it leaks into water supplies, it would pose a long time threat to health. The UN environment program has been tracking the use of DU in Balkans and found it leaking into the water table. Seven years after the conflict it has recommended decontamination of buildings where DU dust is present to protect the civilian population against cancer. DU contaminates the land, air and water, and ultimately destroying the lives of people exposed to it. DU corrodes the soil and exist for a long time in the dust. Evidence is building that DU causes more genetic damage than scientists suspected, even at levels deemed as low as to be non-toxic. A US soldier Keny Duncan was with the Royal Corps of Transport helping to shift Iraqi tanks destroyed by DU shells in 1991 gulf war. He was exposed to DU. All his three children are born with some kind of deformity.
Given this scenario, what is India supposed to do? It is obvious that the actions taken so far, the directives issued by various offices and agencies have failed to take into account the possibility ( rather a near certainty) that the rockets and shells are part of depleted uranium munitions used by US and UK in whichever country they have landed illegally. It should be the responsibility of US and UK, to clear up the shells not only in Iraq, Afghanistan, Balkans, Somalia and so on, but also in India, where they have proliferated due to their irresponsible and monstrous actions. If they have proliferated to India, it is a near certainty that they would proliferate to many other developing and less developed countries, and ultimately back into the developed countries, including even US and UK. In all probability these munitions are being sold by the hard pressed people of war ravaged countries only for money, and not for terrorism. Also, this is one way to get their own country rid of these lethal weapons. One shouldnot underestimate the knowledge and intelligence of poor and illiterate villagers. They may not know the technicalities, but they sure know that these weapons if lie in their neighbourhood would cause extreme damage to their health and also to flora and fauna. For example, in Ghaziabad, it was the villagers of Kanha Upavan and Loni area who were the first ones to protest against the stockpiling and diffusal of explosives in their area.
Recently, a lot of studies have been done on the hazards of DU, but no new regulations have come into effect. We need new International laws and treaties to deal with this menace, which is sure to take a serious turn in the near future, considering the quagmire the US has put itself into, in Iraq. India should speak out, and raise the issue in the UN. Who should be signing the "Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty" (NPT) now?
Meanwhile, at the domestic level, the ammunitions found so far should be given as much weightage as the nuclear bomb was given during Pokhran Test. They should be carried to a desert-may be to Pokhran for disposal, and not to residential localities, or forests, or river beds. There have been suggestions that loose scrap should be banned, and only shredded scrap should be allowed.Yes, shredded scrap would ensure that there are no untoward explosions, but that would still not ensure that shreds of DU ammunitions are not included in that, especially, if imports are being carried out from war-ravaged countries. Thus, imports from war ravaged countries have to be stopped completely. And stringent checks should be carried out at every check-post, even if that means delays and increase in price of steel. Get the priorities right, Mr. Businessman!
In the words of Noam Chomsky (Hegemony or Survival : America's quest for global domiance, Metropolitan books, 2003):
"One can discern two trajectories in current history: one aiming toward hegemony, acting rationally within a lunatic doctrinal framework as it threatens survival; the other dedicated to the belief that "another world is possible", in the words that animate the World Social Forum, challenging the reigning ideological system and seeking to create constructive alternatives of thought, action and institutions."
Keeping this in mind, India should take up the issue with the World bodies.
Notes: "When the dust settles : Depleted uranium may be far more dangerous than previously thought - and we could be dealing with the fallout for many generations to come " The Guardian, April 17, 2003
"Scientists urge shell clear-up to protect civilians: Royal Society spells out dangers of depleted uranium" The Guardian, April 17, 2003.
"The health hazards of depleted uranium munitions: Part 1", Royal Society, May 2001 ISBN: 0854033540
"The health hazards of depleted uranium munitions: Part 2", Royal Society March 2002 ISBN: 0854035745
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=66&ItemID=6519%20
-------- iran
Iran Parliament OKs Nuke Enrichment Bill
October 31, 2004
By ALI AKBAR DAREINI
Associated Press Writer
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/I/IRAN_NUCLEAR?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- To shouts of "Death to America," Iran's parliament unanimously approved the outline of a bill Sunday that would require the government to resume uranium enrichment, legislation likely to deepen an international dispute over Iran's nuclear activities.
Still, Iran's top nuclear negotiator Hossein Mousavian told The Associated Press there was a 50 percent chance of a nuclear compromise with European nations.
He ruled out an indefinite suspension of key enrichment activities - a concession that European negotiators have sought - but suggested Iran would consider calling a halt to building more nuclear facilities.
The talks with the Europeans aim at averting a standoff over Iran's nuclear weapons program at a Nov. 25 meeting of the U.N. nuclear watchdog.
The Europeans have offered to provide nuclear fuel and technology if Tehran reins in its ambitions to develop its own fuel - by creating enrichment facilities that can be used for peaceful purposes or for creating weapons.
Some lawmakers broke out with shouts of "Death to America!" after the conservative-dominated parliament after lawmakers voted to advance the nation's nuclear program, an issue of national pride that provides a rare point of agreement between conservatives and reformers.
Parliament speaker Gholam Ali Haddad Adel called Sunday's vote a message to the world.
"The message of the absolute vote for the Iranian nation is that the parliament supports national interests," he said. "And the message for the outside world is that the parliament won't give in to coercion."
The legislation said the goverment is "required to make use of scientists and the country's facilities ... in order to enable the country to master peaceful nuclear technology, including the cycle of nuclear fuel."
Another vote is expected on the bill when details are worked out, but that is usually a formality. A date for the second vote was not immediately set.
Washington has pushed hard for Iran to drop its nuclear program, which Tehran maintains is for peaceful energy purposes. The United States, which has secured some support from European nations, accuses Iran of trying to build nuclear weapons.
Mousavian, Iran's top nuclear negotiator told the AP some progress "definitely" was made during last week's talks with Europeans, who he said "showed flexibility and understanding."
Britain, Germany and France have warned that most European states will back Washington's call to refer Iran to the U.N. Security Council for possible economic sanctions if Tehran doesn't give up all uranium enrichment activities before a Nov. 25 meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
"I see the chance of a compromise before November (25th) as 50-50," Mousavian said.
In two rounds of talks in Vienna, Austria, the Europeans offered Iran a trade deal and peaceful nuclear technology - including a light-water research reactor - in return for assurances Iran would indefinitely stop enriching uranium. Mousavian said a third round of talks is planned, but not yet scheduled.
"We have rejected two possibilities: cessation and unlimited suspension," he said. "We told the Europeans if your target is cessation, it will be impossible. But we are flexible if your proposal is balanced."
"The package should define a timetable," he said.
Mousavian indicated Iran is willing to consider a moratorium on building more nuclear facilities, which it would need to produce enough fuel for additional power plants. Iran already has facilities in Isfahan and Natanz, but Iranian officials say that at full capacity they would only be able to supply one power plant.
"It will take a minimum of five years for Iran to provide fuel for one nuclear power plant," Mousavian said. "If they guarantee nuclear fuel, we would welcome it. It will be the best guarantee not to go for expansion."
Uranium enriched to a low level can be used to produce nuclear fuel. If enriched further it can be used to make nuclear weapons.
Iran is not prohibited from enriching uranium under its obligations to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty but faces growing international pressure to suspend such activities as a good-faith gesture.
Iran, which repeatedly has refused to give up its nuclear program, last year suspended actual uranium enrichment. However, Tehran has rejected demands that it stop all other activities related to enrichment, such as building centrifuges.
-------- iraq / inspections
WEAPONS
2nd Site With U.N.-Sealed Arms Was Looted, Inspectors Report
October 31, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/31/international/middleeast/31chemical.html?pagewanted=all
Looters overran an Iraqi complex last year where a bunker holding old chemical weapons was sealed by United Nations monitors, American arms inspectors have reported.
The American inspectors say all of the sealed structures at the Muthanna site, 35 miles northwest of Baghdad, were broken into. But it is unknown if usable chemical warheads were in the bunker, what may have been taken and by whom.
"Clearly, there's a potential concern, but we're unable to estimate the relative level of it because we don't know the condition of the things inside the bunker," said Ewen Buchanan, spokesman for the United Nations arms inspection agency, whose specialists have been barred from Iraq since the invasion.
In a lengthy Oct. 6 report summarizing a fruitless search for banned weapons in Iraq, the inspectors known as the Iraq Survey Group disclosed that widespread looting occurred at Muthanna after the fall of the Iraqi capital in April 2003.
An annex of the 985-page report said every United Nations-sealed location at the desert installation had been breached in the looting spree, and "materials and equipment were removed."
Bunker 2 at Muthanna State Establishment, once Iraq's central chemical weapons production site, was put under the control of the United Nations in early 1991 after it was damaged by an American bomb in the Persian Gulf war. At the time, Iraq said 2,500 sarin-filled artillery rockets had been stored there.
The United Nations teams sealed the bunker with brick and reinforced concrete, rather than immediately attempt the risky job of clearing weapons or remnants from under a collapsed roof and neutralizing them.
A C.I.A. analysis hypothesized in 1999 that all the sarin must have been destroyed by fire. But a United States General Accounting Office review last June questioned that analysis, and the United Nations, whose teams were there, said the extent of destruction was never determined.
One chemical weapons expert said even old, weakened nerve agents - in this case sarin - could be a threat to unprotected civilians.
The weapons involved would be pre-1991 artillery rockets filled with sarin, or their damaged remnants - weapons that were openly declared by Iraq and were under United Nations control until security fell apart with the American attack.
--------
MISSING EXPLOSIVES
At Denuded Weapons Site, a New Menacing Presence
October 31, 2004
By JAMES GLANZ
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/31/international/middleeast/31site.html?pagewanted=all
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Oct. 30 - More than a year and a half after hundreds of tons of powerful explosives vanished at Al Qaqaa, the former weapons facility, the scene on Saturday was of a ransacked and largely denuded moonscape, ruled by the mujahedeen.
They appeared to be in at least temporary control of the sprawling site, setting up checkpoints, conducting surveillance and even detaining visitors who did not suit the fighters' inscrutable purposes.
On Saturday, two British armored vehicles patrolled the distant fringes.
Fresh trenches and earthen berms surrounded clusters of gutted bunkers that once contained the explosives - possibly in an attempt by the American and Iraqi governments to keep away outsiders as they begin inquiries into the disappearance of the materials, as detected by the Iraqi government and international investigators.
But it was the men wearing the filigreed headcloths and nurturing a hatred of Westerners who were running the place on Saturday. Two employees of The New York Times drove over the berms in an all-terrain vehicle, but were questioned by a mujahedeen scout who suddenly arrived at the place where they were taking the first known pictures of the gutted bunkers - their metal doors torn off and stolen, their dark bellies empty - since soon after the invasion began early last year.
The scout drove off, but as the two employees, both Iraqis, left Al Qaqaa, they encountered a mujahedeen checkpoint at a river crossing. The employees, Q. Mizher and a companion who asked not to be identified, were blindfolded, then searched, and driven to a safe house in the surrounding desert where they were interrogated for more than two hours. Their captors wanted to know whether Mr. Mizher was working for the British troops who had recently entered the area from the south.
If they were working for the troops, Mr. Mizher was told, they would be killed. If they were not helping the British, they had nothing to fear.
Mr. Mizher repeatedly assured his captors, truthfully, that he was an Iraqi journalist who had come to take pictures of the site and see the place where the explosives had once been secreted away. Eventually, he persuaded them. Both employees are now safe in Baghdad.
The site itself was largely a wasteland in the open desert, with only a few corroded signs bearing the word "explosives" and the name of the facility in Arabic to show that this had once been one of the most fearsome ammunition dumps in Saddam Hussein's arsenal.
"It's like the end of the world," Mr. Mizher's companion said later of the mostly abandoned landscape. "There is no humanity."
When he stood among the clusters of bunkers, Mr. Mizher said, he felt the weight of dead silence, pierced now and then only by the screech of a desert bird winging overhead. The outline of a grinning Saddam Hussein had been sketched on a wall in a half-destroyed building.
In one place, a handful of looters were still working under the watchful eyes of the mujahedeen. Nothing of much value was left except for the metal reinforcing bars inside some of the crumbling concrete walls of buildings around the bunkers. So the looters tugged at those and carried them off.
There was no sign of any remaining explosives. The insides of the bunkers were picked clean. The complex was arranged in eight great clusters of seven bunkers each. Mr. Mizher visited three of those clusters, where a total of four bunkers had contained sealed containers of high-density explosives, according to confidential records kept by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
In the confusion of the desert's geography, Mr. Mizher was not able to pinpoint the four specific bunkers that had contained the powerful explosives, but the bunkers were all similar in their appearance and size.
The first sign of trouble came when the mujahedeen scout pulled up in a truck and asked what Mr. Mizher was up to.
He decided to leave immediately, but it was already too late: six or seven mujahedeen were waiting at a riverbed crossing. All but one of them were masked, their headcloths wrapped menacingly across their faces.
The British armored vehicles were nowhere to be found. Mr. Mizher and his companion were taken, blindfolded, to the safe house and relentlessly questioned by what appeared to be a higher-ranking mujahedeen officer.
This man had served in the Iraqi Army - fortunately for Mr. Mizher, who had been a captain in the army himself. He mentioned the names of several former high-ranking army officers in the area of Al Qaqaa, and the mujahedeen seemed to soften.
After they had checked his cameras, phones, identification and vehicle registration and satisfied themselves with the interrogation, the mujahedeen drove both employees back to a place near the fjord and let them go.
The mujahedeen never said why Al Qaqaa was still so important to them. They simply melted away into the desert.
--------
377 tons small part of absent Iraq explosives
Missing prewar stockpiles may total 250,000 tons
Oct. 31, 2004
The Associated Press
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6376212/
VIENNA, Austria - From the deserts of the south and west to the outskirts of Baghdad, Iraq is awash in weapons sites - some large, others small; some guarded, others not. Even after the U.S. military secured some 400,000 tons of munitions, as many as 250,000 tons remain unaccounted for.
Attention has focused on the al-Qaqaa site south of Baghdad, where 377 tons of explosives are believed to have gone missing - becoming a heated issue in the final days of the U.S. presidential campaign.
But with the names of other sites popping up everywhere - al-Mahaweel, Baqouba, Ukhaider, Qaim - experts say the al-Qaqaa stash is only a tiny fraction of what's buried in the sands of Iraq.
"There is something truly absurd about focusing on 377 tons," said Anthony Cordesman, a defense analyst and Iraq expert with the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. He contends Iraq's prewar stockpiles "were probably in excess of 650,000 tons."
Underscoring the depth of Iraq's militarization before the March 2003 invasion, the Pentagon says U.S.-led forces have destroyed 240,000 tons of munitions and have secured another 160,000 tons that is awaiting destruction.
A nation 'awash in weapons' Through mid-September, coalition forces inspected and cleared more than 10,000 caches of weapons, U.S. arms hunter Charles Duelfer said in a recent report. But up to 250,000 tons remain unaccounted for, according to military estimates, much of it in small stashes scattered around the country.
"I caution that there is a lot that we probably don't know about, because this was a country, as the inspectors acknowledged, that was awash in weapons," Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita said Friday in Washington.
The 377 tons that Iraq says vanished from Al-Qaqaa sometime after the April 9, 2003 fall of Baghdad represents just "one 1,000th of the material that we are aware of," Di Rita said.
The Bush administration has touted the thousands of tons of explosives it did find after the March 2003 invasion as a sign of success, and officials argue that U.S. forces pushing to Baghdad to topple Saddam Hussein could not stop to secure every cache.
Critics, however, say war planners should have committed more troops to the task of securing sites or let U.N. inspectors back to help.
In insurgents' hands? The debate is sharpened by the possibility that whatever munitions unsecured may since have fallen into the hands of Iraqi insurgents leading a bloody campaign of bombings and attacks on U.S. forces since the fall of Saddam Hussein.
Among the sites that don't appear to have been secured was a cache of hundreds of surface-to-surface warheads at the 2nd Military College in Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad. Each warhead is believed to have contained 57 pounds of high explosives.
Peter Bouckaert, who heads the emergency team for New York-based Human Rights Watch, told The Associated Press he was shown a room "stacked to the roof" with the warheads on May 9, 2003. He said he gave U.S. officials in Baghdad the exact GPS coordinates for the site, but that it was still not secured when he left the area 10 days later.
"Looting was taking place by a lot of armed men with Kalashnikovs and rocket-propelled grenades," Bouckaert said Saturday in a telephone interview from South Africa.
"Everyone's focused on Al-Qaqaa, when what was at the military college could keep a guerrilla group in business for a long time creating the kinds of bombs that are being used in suicide attacks every day," he said.
What about Ukhaider? Another prominent site is an ammunition storage area at Ukhaider, 75 miles south of Baghdad, where U.N. inspectors found 11 empty chemical warheads in "excellent" condition in January 2003.
Two U.S. aid workers reported looting at Ukhaider in October 2003, but were told the U.S. military didn't have enough troops to seal the site, The Oregonian reported Friday.
David Albright, a former U.N. inspector, said the sheer volume of weapons stored across Iraq should have prompted the United States to invite inspectors back to check on key sites such as Al-Qaqaa.
Instead, he told the AP, "there was a lot of arrogance" on the part of U.S. officials who rebuffed the International Atomic Energy Agency's repeated requests to resume general inspections.
IAEA inspectors pulled out of Iraq on March 16, 2003, a few days before the invasion. They since have been allowed to return only twice, both times to check on the Tuwaitha nuclear complex, the U.N. agency's main concern in Iraq. They have not been back to Al-Qaqaa.
Focus on HMX The IAEA, which informed the U.N. Security Council about the missing explosives last week, says Al-Qaqaa is important because it was the main storage site for HMX, which can be used in plastic explosives but also in ignitors for a nuclear weapon.
Al-Qaqaa also contained large stores of RDX and PETN, but the U.N. nuclear agency's main concern was the HMX. Although the IAEA said Saddam's nuclear program was in disarray before the war and there was no evidence that Iraq had revived efforts to build atomic weaponry, the agency placed the material under seal as a precaution.
It remains unclear whether U.S.-led forces attempted to secure the vast site, which the Iraqis say was looted "due to a lack of security" after Saddam's fall. The White House contends the material may have been removed before American troops arrived in the area.
Army Maj. Austin Pearson said his team removed 250 tons of munitions, including plastic explosives, from Al-Qaqaa on April 13, 2003. But those munitions were not under IAEA seal as the missing high-grade explosives were, and the Pentagon was unable to say definitively that they were part of the missing 377 tons.
Cordesman thinks the Pentagon is taking a bad rap on Al-Qaqaa. U.S. forces' main task at the time, he contends, was to advance swiftly on Baghdad.
"There was little military point in securing this particular site during a period the U.S. was rushing forward with limited forward-deployed strength to seize Baghdad before Saddam's forces had any chance to regroup," he said.
-------- latinamerica
If Brazil Wants to Scare the World, It's Succeeding
nytimes
By LARRY ROHTER
October 31, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/31/weekinreview/31roht.html?pagewanted=2&ei=5006&en=fcb34e44ec7a1af7&ex=1099976400&partner=ALTAVISTA1
RIO de JANEIRO - Throughout the world, Brazil has long had an image as a land of soccer and samba, inhabited by a friendly, easy-going people. So why is it locked in a dispute with the International Atomic Energy Agency, accused by American and other nuclear experts of being a nuclear scofflaw whose actions aid rogue states like North Korea and Iran?
Ever since it began observing the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in 1997, Brazil has resisted allowing international inspectors full access to a secretive uranium enrichment plant 100 miles from here. This month, Science magazine sharpened the controversy with an article saying the installation will give Brazil the "breakout capability" to produce enough fissionable material for six nuclear warheads a year, a claim Brazil's government dismissed as fantasy.
Though the military dictatorship that ruled until 1985 had a clandestine nuclear arms program, no one is saying Brazil is trying to build an atomic bomb now. Rather, the concern is that it could export uranium enriched here, or technology, and that such exports could end up in the hands of rogue states or terrorists. International experts worry about Brazil's export controls, and its history. In the 1980's, it secretly sent Iraq uranium and technical assistance.
To outsiders, Brazil's resistance to inspections doesn't make sense. The world is awash in processed uranium, the nuclear program here has consumed more than $1 billion that could have cut widespread poverty, and Brazil's secrecy has only raised suspicions about its trustworthiness and ultimate intentions, the argument goes.
"I don't see how this should be one of their major preoccupations," said James Goodby, who was the Clinton administration's chief negotiator on nuclear proliferation issues. "Don't they at least worry what the rest of Latin America, especially the Argentines, think of this?"
Among Brazilians, however, the government's assertiveness, like the nuclear program itself, has proved quite popular. Though an American ambassador here once described Brazil as "a country that punches under its weight," the nuclearissue seems to have awakened latent pugnacity, and insecurities.
Writing in the 1950's, the playwright Nelson Rodrigues saw his countrymen as afflicted with a sense of inferiority, and he coined a phrase that Brazilians now use to describe it: "the mongrel complex." Brazil has always aspired to be taken seriously as a world power by the heavyweights, and so it pains Brazilians that world leaders could confuse their country with Bolivia, as Ronald Reagan once did, or dismiss a nation so large - it has 180 million people - as "not a serious country," as Charles de Gaulle did.
Whether coincidence or not, the government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has launched an advertising campaign to build national self-esteem even as it stands tough on the nuclear issue. He has also stepped up Brazil's campaign for a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council, leading the daily O Estado de São Paulo to report that Brazil wants to use its nuclear prowess to raise its profile in world affairs.
"What we're seeing are the same ideas of exaggerated nationalism that we have been through so many times before here, the belief that we are going to be a great power and all of that," said José Goldemberg, a physicist who as minister of science and technology in the early 1990's forced an end to the Brazilian military's secret nuclear weapons program. That deep-seated conviction, he added, "leads to a disproportionate response" and what he called "the chauvinist attitude that nobody can come in here."
Resistance to inspections may also be linked to a widespread belief here that an international conspiracy to keep Brazil from becoming a great power is the only thing holding the country back. A whole literature on that subject has led some Brazilians to argue that the International Atomic Energy Agency, despite its record of impartiality elsewhere, is intent on robbing Brazil of a valuable technological secret.
"Why are the Brazilians hiding both the casing and the rotors of their centrifuges?" wonders Henry D. Sokolski, a former Defense Department official who is now executive director of the Washington-based Nonproliferation Policy Education Center. "Their stated reason, the idea that the I.A.E.A. can't be trusted, is incredibly insulting and downright loopy."
For all of Brazil's concerns about being considered a lightweight, it has recorded some notable technological and scientific achievements. Embraer is the world's third largest aircraft manufacturer, a university consortium in São Paulo has become one of the world's leading centers of genome research, and agricultural researchers have developed significant new crop varieties.
But in a land so hungry for respect, that is not enough. The uranium enrichment plant in Resende has been sold to the public as a triumph of "technology that is 100 percent Brazilian," in the words of the minister of science and technology, Eduardo Campos.
Foreign experts say that claim is not true. In the past, Brazil made similar statements about its space program, trying to hide the role of French and Russian technology obtained through exchange programs or on the international black market.
"There is foreign assistance, and they carefully mislead people or spin it in such a way that it fits their definition of what indigenous means," said David Albright, a physicist and former nuclear inspector who is president of the Institute for Science and International Security. "We know the Germans helped them make an earlier model of centrifuge, and we think the Germans provided them the technology on how to work with carbon fiber centrifuges."
Doubts have also been raised about just how innovative Brazil's centrifuge process is. They focus on a type of magnetic coil that supposedly makes Brazilian centrifuges more efficient and durable than other nations'. The government has insisted on blocking these from inspectors' view.
But "these claims of a need to protect industrial secrets are exaggerated, since this technology is used routinely in other applications in other parts of the world," Dr. Goldemberg said. "National pride is involved here, but I don't know if that is worth arousing the suspicion of the rest of the world."
The situation has been complicated by Brazil's apparent desire to deal with the outside world under principles that routinely govern relationships here. In the simplest terms, Brazil is arguing that it deserves a wink-and-a-nod exemption from full inspection because Brazilians are nice people, unlike those nasty North Koreans or Iranians.
Brazilian society functions on the basis of what is known as "jeitinho," a notion that all formal laws and rules can be maneuvered around if one is clever or charming enough. Of course, the more powerful you are, the better your chances of getting around cumbersome procedures by "driblando," the verb Brazilians use to describe a soccer player's adroitness with the ball.
After inspectors were finally granted partial access to the Resende plant this month, there were predictions that the standoff would soon be overcome by some jeitinho. Most likely it will. But even so, foreign experts expect another confrontation over inspections in the coming years, this one involving the navy's decades-old campaign to build a nuclear-powered submarine.
"Submarines are not subject to the safeguards regimen, that's my view of things," said Roberto Abdenur, who became Brazil's ambassador to the United States early this year after being his country's representative at the International Atomic Energy Agency. "Brazil will always respect its obligations, but, like any other member state, we also insist on our right to protect our technological secrets."
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
-------- new york
Cleanup project to begin at Knolls Laboratory
Capital News 9
10/31/2004
http://www.capitalnews9.com/content/headlines/?ArID=102048&SecID=33
Contractors will soon begin dismantling one of the buildings at Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory in Niskayuna as an early part in the cleanup of low-level nuclear contamination at the site.
The U.S. Department of Energy is expected to spend up to $240 million on the entire cleanup project. Officials said work should be completed by 2014.
The part of the facility being dismantled researched ways of recovering uranium and plutonium from spent nuclear fuel. Those operations ended in 1953.
The cleanup is part of a federal initiative to deal with the environmental problems associated with the nuclear arms buildup during the Cold War.
Contractors will soon start work on the clean up of low-level nuclear contamination at Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory in Niskayuna. State and federal officials have said the contaminated areas pose no imminent danger to human health or the environment.
Research at Knolls is now focused on nuclear naval propulsion. The lab, now owned by Lockheed Martin, currently employs more than 2,600.
-------- MILITARY
-------- afghanistan
Afghan militants threaten to kill three U.N. workers
October 31, 2004
By Stephen Graham
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20041030-113724-9426r.htm
KABUL, Afghanistan - Taliban-linked militants threatened yesterday to execute three foreign U.N. workers kidnapped in Kabul unless British troops withdraw from Afghanistan and Afghan prisoners are freed from custody at the U.S. Naval Base Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Armed men kidnapped the three - Annetta Flanigan of Northern Ireland, Philippine diplomat Angelito Nayan and Shqipe Habibi of Kosovo - in Kabul on Thursday, stirring fears that Afghan militants were copying the bloody tactics of their Iraqi counterparts.
A spokesman for the Taliban splinter group Jaish-al Muslimeen, or Army of Muslims, said video of the hostages, all of whom were working on Afghanistan's landmark presidential election, would be sent to an Arab television channel "in two or three days."
"If these countries don't agree to our demands, we will do the same thing as the mujahideen are doing in Iraq," Ishaq Manzoor told the Associated Press by satellite telephone.
"We may kill them if we could not get a positive response," he said, adding that he was speaking from near the Afghan-Pakistan border.
In the clearest indication that the claim of responsibility could be genuine, a Western official in Kabul said British officials and relatives had identified one of several 16-digit ID numbers supplied by the group as fitting Miss Flanigan's credit card.
"It's definitely hers," said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Naveed Moez, an Afghan Foreign Ministry spokesman, also said government sources had "confirmed" Jaish-al Muslimeen's claim of responsibility, but didn't elaborate.
Other Afghan officials, however, said it was still not clear whether militants, renegade warlords or criminals were responsible.
"We don't know exactly who they are," President Hamid Karzai said yesterday after meeting with NATO commanders in Kabul. "Let's hope the U.N. workers are safe and sound, and we are working very hard to bring them back to their families."
NATO and U.S. troops and Afghan security forces have mounted extra patrols and roadblocks in and around Kabul since the election workers were forced from their clearly marked U.N. car into a black sport utility vehicle on a busy street.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair did not immediately comment on the demand that Britain withdraw its 1,700 troops from the NATO force in Afghanistan. British soldiers serve under U.S. commanders hunting Taliban and al Qaeda militants mainly in the south and east of the country.
Police detained seven suspects for questioning Friday, but said they had found no links to the abductions. Three of the suspects picked up in the Kabul area were armed and wore military uniforms - matching witness descriptions of the kidnappers.
Officials say the kidnappers' vehicle was seen heading toward Paghman, a valley west of Kabul with a reputation for banditry, but one suggested that the victims might still be in Kabul.
Aid-agency staffs have been ordered to restrict all but essential movements around Kabul.
--------
KIDNAPPINGS
Afghan Militants Release Video of Hostages
November 1, 2004
By CARLOTTA GALL
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/01/international/asia/01afghan.html
KABUL, Afghanistan, Oct. 31 - Militants holding three foreign United Nations staff members in Afghanistan released a videotape on Sunday showing their hostages, and they said the three would be killed if demands for the release of prisoners and the withdrawal of foreign troops were not met by noon Wednesday.
The video, delivered to the Arab news network Al Jazeera and broadcast Sunday morning, was the strongest indication yet that the group Jaish-e-Muslimeen, or Army of Muslims, was holding the hostages as it has claimed, and was adopting the media-oriented tactics of kidnapping groups in Iraq.
The three hostages - Angelito Nayan, a Filipino diplomat, and two women who are election workers, Annetta Flanigan from Northern Ireland and Shqipe Hebibi from Kosovo - were seized Thursday from their car on a busy street in Kabul. They appeared unharmed but drawn in the video, sitting together against a wall. They were guarded by a militant with a black-and-white checkered scarf wrapped around his face.
Leaders of Jaish-e-Muslimeen issued their conditions in telephone calls to news agencies on Sunday. They demanded that the United Nations and the United States and other foreign nations withdraw their forces from Afghanistan, that all of their Muslim prisoners in Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, be released and that military and police operations to find the hostages and their captors be halted.
"The U.N. should leave Afghanistan, and it should call Britain and America's meddling in Afghanistan illegal," the leader of the group, Akbar Agha, 47, told Reuters.
He demanded that Kosovo and Britain withdraw their forces from Afghanistan. "Those who have no military involvement in Afghanistan, like the Philippines, must call Britain and America's meddling in Afghanistan illegal and must stop its contributions through the U.N. for America and Britain's activities," he said.
He also called for the release of all Muslim prisoners in Afghanistan and Cuba, "be they Taliban or Al Qaeda."
Kosovo, a province of Serbia, is under United Nations administration, and it has no troops in Afghanistan. Britain has 1,700 troops here, most of whom are part of the peacekeeping force that is based in Kabul, the capital, and two northern cities.
The United Nations spokesman in Afghanistan, Manoel de Almeida e Silva, confirmed that the three hostages shown in the video were the three United Nations employees abducted Thursday in Kabul, and he appealed for their release.
"We can confirm that the video shows our colleagues, Annetta, Lito and Shqipe,'' he said. "We are relieved that they appear to be unharmed. We call for their safe and immediate release."
At an earlier news briefing, he said: "We miss them. And like their friends and families, we worry about them, about their medical and physical conditions and about their emotional well-being."
"They come from faraway lands with habits, cultures and traditions that are very diverse. But they have at least one thing in common - their commitment to serve people who can benefit from their knowledge and expertise. This is why they volunteered to come and work in Afghanistan."
The leaders of Jaish-e-Muslimeen are known to be former Taliban commanders and are thought to be living in Pakistan, where they first contacted journalists to claim responsibility for the kidnappings. But the Afghan police and intelligence agents are concentrating their investigation on Paghman, a rural area west of Kabul, and they say that a group with criminal links was probably responsible for the abduction and may still be holding the hostages.
"We don't think they are far from Kabul," an Interior Ministry spokesman, Lutfullah Mashal, said of the hostages. "We don't think that they are out of the country. Probably some terrorists are involved in this, but I should say that the one kidnapper that we saw on television was most likely neither a Talib nor a member of Al Qaeda."
Jaish-e-Muslimeen is a breakaway group of the Taliban that shares the same aims as that militant religious movement but has adopted different tactics, said Rahimullah Yusufzai, a Pakistani journalist who spoke to Mr. Agha recently. The group is opposed to President Hamid Karzai and the election process, wants foreign troops out of Afghanistan and wants a government led by the mujahedeen fighters and guided by Shariah law, the legal code of Islam, he said.
-------- africa
100 Are Reported Killed In Violence in Somalia
Breakaway Region Rejects New Leader
Reuters
By Hussein Ali Nur
Sunday, October 31, 2004; Page A24
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12517-2004Oct30.html
HARGEYSA, Somalia, Oct. 30 -- About 100 people were reported killed on Saturday in fighting between Puntland and the rival Somali territory of Somaliland. The hostilities erupted after Puntland's leader was elected president in a new effort to reunite Somalia under a national government.
Abdullahi Yusuf has pledged to work peacefully with breakaway Somaliland as he tries to restore order to Somalia, which descended into anarchy in 1991 following the overthrow of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.
But his election on Oct. 10 alarmed Somaliland, which declared full independence from Somalia in 1991. Many people in Somaliland view Yusuf as a serious foe because he was the leader of Puntland, a neighboring autonomous territory that has land disputes with Somaliland.
Somaliland authorities warned Yusuf on Oct. 12 against any attempted aggression and said they were on alert against any move to bring Somaliland back into Somalia.
"Full mobilization of our soldiers is going on and will continue until Abdullahi Yusuf's forces leave our territory," a spokesman for the Somaliland president said on Saturday, adding that fighting had stopped because of heavy rains.
A spokesman for Somaliland's Defense Office said the death toll from the fighting, which erupted on Friday at the village of Adi-Addeye, about 20 miles north of Las Anod, had risen to 109.
It was not immediately clear whether that figure referred to combat casualties or civilians or both. The spokesman said nine Somaliland soldiers were killed in the fighting.
Puntland and Somaliland have fought sporadic clashes for years over the ownership of several eastern areas of Somaliland claimed by Puntland's leaders on the basis of ethnicity. Las Anod has been a flash point during previous fighting.
Matt Bryden, a senior analyst with the policy research organization International Crisis Group, said Yusuf's elevation to the presidency had heightened tensions between the two territories. "It is probably going to get worse unless dialogue is started," he said.
Yusuf was elected head of state by Somali lawmakers after two years of intermittent peace talks, held in Kenya because of insecurity at home. He has not yet been able to return to Somalia because of the continued chaos there, and has asked the African Union to send 20,000 peacekeepers to disarm the militias that control much of the failed state.
"The president is very much concerned about the unfortunate clashes that happened yesterday which caused heavy losses of life and property," the head of Somalia's presidential press service, Yusuf Mohamed Ismail, told reporters in Nairobi.
Ismail said Yusuf wanted an international fact-finding mission to establish the cause of the fighting and facilitate a cease-fire.
Yusuf said in a letter sent to neighboring states and the United Nations on Friday that Puntland had told him Somaliland was waging "an all-out war."
-------
Algeria marks 50th anniversary of launching independence war
ALGIERS (AFP)
Oct 31, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041031110936.wsuicgqm.html
Fifty years ago Monday, Algerian nationalists sparked what was to become one of the African continent's bloodiest independence wars with a series of some 60 nearly simultaneous explosions and attacks that left a dozen people dead.
Their meticulously planned surprise operation targetted symbols of French rule such as police stations, municipal buildings, bridges and electrical facilities, stunning the colonial authorities only months after France lost Indochina at Dien Bien Phu.
It would take the French political class nearly nine more blood-soaked years to grasp the amplitude of the rebellion, and to break ranks with proponents of an eternal French Algeria.
The National Liberation Front (FLN), announcing in Cairo its intent to wrest independence from France after 132 years under its rule, was immediately embraced by charismatic Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser, at a time when European colonial powers, weakened by World War II, faced a wave of nationalism encouraged by the defeat of Nazi totalitarianism.
The newborn United Nations, one of whose founding principles was the right to self-determination, became an effective pulpit for emancipation movements across the world, egged on by the Soviet Union's Marxist ideology.
Although the FLN leadership had been previously unknown, it was clear to the vast majority of Algerians and to the French secret service that they had been laying plans for many long months.
Of the inner circle, three were operating from Cairo, including two who are still alive today, opposition figure Hocine Ait Ahmed and former president Ahmed Ben Bella.
The effects of the conflict -- not even recognized by France as a war until 1999 -- were soon felt. Thousands of French youths, many of them opposed to the war, were sent to the Algerian mountains to fight the rebels.
The conflict helped bring down the Fourth Republic in 1958, and general Charles de Gaulle was recalled from retirement to save French Algeria, only to soon realize that independence was the only logical outcome.
Negotiations finally led to a ceasefire in March 1962, followed by independence on July 5.
Algerian historians have estimated the death toll among Algerians at 1.5 million, while others have placed it between 200,000 and 500,000, while the French counted more than 27,000 dead soldiers, nearly 2,300 civilian dead and nearly 3,000 missing.
Deep scars remain from the war, especially among Algerians and "pieds noirs" -- the French colonists who fled Algeria en masse at independence.
Revelations of exactions committed during the war including the use of torture by French soldiers still haunt people on both sides of the Mediterranean, while some legal investigations remain unresolved to this day.
Nevertheless, bilateral relations have gradually begun to transcend the pain of the past. French President Jacques Chirac and his Algerian counterpart Abdelaziz Bouteflika agreed last year to set up a "special partnership", and they plan to sign a friendship treaty next year to boost cooperation, including in the military sphere.
At the approach of the anniversary, a wide range of events have been launched in Algeria, and the French media are giving it extensive coverage.
Historical lectures, film festivals, commemorations and tributes to key figures in the independence fight have been planned in Algiers and other cities.
-------- asia
Army Tactics Anger Thai Muslims
Military's Response to Southern Insurgency Draws Accusations of Brutality
By Alan Sipress
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, October 31, 2004; Page A24
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A12518-2004Oct30?language=printer
PONDOK HUMULANAH, Thailand -- Razee Dorloh, 22, left his house built on stilts near the riverbank on Monday morning without a word, his family recounted. He headed for the district police station to join a protest against the detention of six men for allegedly supporting a Muslim insurgency.
The last time Razee's brother, Nasae, saw the young man alive, Thai soldiers had opened fire on the estimated 2,000 demonstrators. "At the sound of shooting, everyone dropped to the ground. That's when I lost sight of Razee," said Nasae Dorloh, 30.
About 1,000 people were arrested at the protest, and 78 died when they were suffocated or crushed after being forced to lie atop one another in trucks on a five-hour drive to a military base. Razee's battered and bruised body was found by his family at the base in the town of Pattani the following day.
These deaths, along with those of six people shot and killed in the crowd, are among more than 440 this year in a wave of attacks by Muslim insurgents and an aggressive response by military forces in southern Thailand. The violence has stoked the anger of people in three southern Muslim provinces who have long complained of harsh tactics and discrimination by the government in Bangkok, about 750 miles to the north.
"Even before this week, we felt that people in this area were treated badly and unfairly compared to other parts of the country," said Razee's sister, Zubaidah Dorloh, 37, a white head scarf draped loosely over her head. "Now people are even more upset with how the army treats them."
On Friday, Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra announced an inquiry into the killings and expressed regret for the violence. "I will set up an independent commission to investigate the incident with the aim of bringing wrongdoers to justice," he said in a speech on national television. Meanwhile, most of the detainees were released Saturday, the Associated Press reported.
Thaksin has been criticized by local organizations and human rights groups for heavy-handed actions in his response to violence in the Muslim portion of this predominantly Buddhist country.
Muslims in the southern provinces of Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat charged that the government denied them employment and education opportunities. Separatists battled the central government in the 1970s and 1980s, but the region, part of a Muslim kingdom annexed by Thailand in 1902, had been largely calm in recent years.
'We Live in Fear'
Until this year, the Dorlohs said, they had led a tranquil life in Pondok Humulanah, a village of 30 families concealed amid the coconut palms on the banks of the languid Narathiwat River. Villagers worked hard but made a reasonable living in construction and fishing, and by smuggling fruit, rice and clothes across the nearby Malaysian border.
In early January, unidentified attackers raided a Thai army camp in Narathiwat province, killing four soldiers and capturing 300 weapons. Thaksin responded by declaring martial law and sending more forces to the south.
Muslim insurgents pressed their campaign of shootings and machete attacks, primarily targeting police, teachers and Buddhist monks. Thai security forces responded with increasingly aggressive tactics that drew accusations of brutality from local residents.
"Since January, everything has been different," Zubaidah said. "We live in fear."
Seated on woven mats spread out on their porch, the Dorlohs recited a list of grievances against the security forces, accusing them of abducting and killing Muslim teachers. They also complained that soldiers at times barred residents from leaving the village to work.
After a policeman was shot and killed in front of a school about a month ago, soldiers swept through Pondok Humulanah, searching each house for militants and weapons. Two youths were arrested, but later released.
"When the soldiers went away, we couldn't sleep at all that night because we were so scared the army would kill us or plant weapons here to make us a scapegoat or take one of our boys," said Jawahae Dorloh, 33, another sister.
A Mass Arrest
Razee was the youngest of nine brothers and sisters living in several airy, wood-plank homes along the river. His family said he shared their sense of injustice but took little interest in politics.
A skinny man with short wavy hair, Razee was a recent graduate of a Muslim high school and worked for a brother-in-law in the construction business. He was an observant Muslim who snapped to attention when he heard the call to prayer coming from the village's whitewashed mosque, his family recalled. But photographs from a summer outing with friends reveal a lighter side. In one, he poses on the beach in a baseball cap and sunglasses; in another he dons a plaid hat.
After losing sight of Razee at the demonstration in Tak Bai, south of Pattani, his older brothers, Nasae and Ibrahim, said they watched from behind a wall as Thai troops charged into the crowd, arresting the men.
Over the next two hours, Nasae and Ibrahim said, soldiers stripped the protesters of their shirts, using them to bind their hands behind them. The men were kicked, pummeled with rifle butts and, in some cases, made to crawl across the pavement.
"Then they brought them one by one and shoved them into the back of army trucks like they were loading animals," said Ibrahim, 35, a grocery store employee.
The troops put about 1,200 men into waiting army trucks, stacking them four deep, according to a sweetbread seller in the market who witnessed the process. The truck beds were sealed with green tarpaulin for the drive to the army camp in Pattani.
One of Razee's fellow demonstrators, Azaha Lulae, 22, recounted being forced to lie on top of another man with at least two more layers of people above him. He heard others gasping for air.
"Imagine a plastic bag being put over your head," Lulae said, describing the ordeal from a hospital bed in Pattani. "Some people begged the soldiers, but the more you begged, the more they stepped on you." He recalled the soldiers taunting their prisoners, "If you want to die, we can deliver that for you."
When Razee did not come home Monday evening, his brothers returned to Tak Bai to search for him. They found only his red motorbike.
After a sleepless night, eight family members boarded a pair of pickup trucks to search for him in Pattani. Other villagers went with them.
An officer at the camp made them wait for two hours, then returned with a partial list of the dead, including Razee's name.
Zubaidah collapsed and began to weep. "We were shocked and stunned," she recalled. "We felt so helpless."
Razee's brothers retrieved his body. They said his head was disfigured and covered with dried blood. His mouth was bloodied, his neck badly scraped and his chest swollen by bruises. They brought the body home.
"So many innocent youths were killed," said Nasae, a fish trader. "It makes us angrier and angrier. It's going to be harder and harder to solve this problem."
Unending Violence
Relations between the Muslim and Buddhist communities were already tense in this region. After the deaths this week, businessmen and professionals have been buying guns and armoring their vehicles with steel plates, according to Panitan Wattanayagorn, a security analyst at Chulalongkorn University.
Religious leaders and security experts said they feared further violence. A bomb exploded Thursday outside a bar in a border town, killing three people and wounding about 20 others. Two bombs killed a policeman and wounded 19 people Friday morning at a crowded food stall in neighboring Yala province. Authorities defused a large bomb that had been set to explode near a Buddhist temple in a Narathiwat market at a time when monks were scheduled to be there collecting alms.
Analysts, including Panitan, warned that the deaths on Monday could strengthen an evolving alliance between younger Muslim radicals and older separatist groups, which have remained largely quiet in recent years.
Razee's brothers consulted religious leaders at the mosque in Pondok Humulanah and decided not to bathe the corpse, as is standard Muslim practice, or to recite the usual funeral prayers.
Instead, shortly before midnight Tuesday, they wrapped the body in a plain white cloth and quietly lowered it into a sandy grave near the gate of the village cemetery alongside another 22-year-old, who had been shot during the demonstration. This simple rite, they explained, is reserved for Muslims who die as martyrs for their religion.
Special correspondent Somporn Panyastianpong contributed to this report.
--------
Three-day protest to block Taiwan's special defense budget begins
TAIPEI (AFP)
Oct 31, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041031105047.9n0whdgs.html
Protestors began a three-day sit-in outside Taiwan's parliament Sunday in a bid to prevent lawmakers from approving the government's 18 billion US dollar special defense budget.
About 30 college professors and democracy activists placed themselves outside the Legislative Yuan in Taipei and chanted slogans such as "Reject the special military budget."
They want the government to postpone screening of the budget until after November 2 presidential elections in the United States and Taiwan's December parliamentary polls.
But the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) may ask parliament's defense committee to place the issue on its discussion agenda this week or even push for a vote for a second reading, protestors said.
"DPP legislators have been asked to prepare for a vote," protest spokesman Kuo Chung-i told AFP.
"The DPP government felt it must be in a hurry as it has felt the pressure from the US government and arms suppliers," he added.
The party, which does not have majority in the parliament, declined to comment on the remarks.
In June cabinet approved a special budget of 610.8 billion Taiwan dollars (18.2 billion US) to purchase weaponry from Washington over a 15-year period starting in 2005.
The arms package, pending final approval in parliament, includes eight diesel-powered submarines, a modified version of the Patriot anti-missile system and a fleet of anti-submarine aircraft.
It has stirred heated debate on the island with critics saying the spending would further provoke rival China and heighten cross-strait tensions.
The government says the arms deal is aimed at strengthening the island's defences against growing military threats from Beijing, which claims sovereignty over Taipei.
China has repeatedly vowed to wage war against Taiwan should it seek formal independence.
In another protest Sunday, a group of candidates in the upcoming parliamentary elections clashed with police after demanding the removal of politicians they regard as close to the late Chiang Kai-shek whose party ruled Taiwan until 2000.
Candidates of the Taiwan Solidarity Union held a rally in southern Kaohsiung city where they also demanded that the name of the island be altered to "Taiwan" rather than the present "Republic of China".
No one was injured in the clash.
Chiang and his army fled to the island in 1949 after being defeated by communist forces in China. He died in 1975 but the Kuomintang group he led continued to rule the island until 2000 when the pro-independence Democratic Progressive PartyTaiwan's won election.
-------- chemical weapons
Looters overran sensitive Iraq desert site;
U.N.-sealed chemical arms at risk
The Associated Press
By Charles J. Hanley,
October 31, 2004
http://www.thesunlink.com/bsun/nw_international/article/0,2403,BSUN_19092_3293323,00.html
Looters unleashed last year by the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq overran a sprawling desert complex where a bunker sealed by U.N. monitors held old chemical weapons, American arms inspectors report.
Charles Duelfer's arms teams say all U.N.-sealed structures at the Muthanna site were broken into. If the so-called Bunker 2 was breached and looted, it would be the second recent case of restricted weapons at risk of falling into militants' hands.
Officials are unsure whether this latest episode points to a threat of chemical attack, since it isn't known if usable chemical warheads were in the bunker, what may have been taken and by whom.
"Clearly, there's a potential concern, but we're unable to estimate the relative level of it because we don't know the condition of the things inside the bunker," said Ewen Buchanan, spokesman for the U.N. arms inspection agency in New York, whose specialists have been barred from Iraq since the invasion.
Chief arms hunter Duelfer told The Associated Press by e-mail Friday from Iraq that he was unaware of "anything of importance" looted from the chemical weapons complex. The report his Iraq Survey Group issued on Oct. 6 said, however, that it couldn't vouch for the fate of old munitions at Muthanna.
One chemical weapons expert said even old, weakened nerve agents - in this case sarin - could be a threat to unprotected civilians.
The weapons involved would be pre-1991 artillery rockets filled with sarin, or their damaged remnants - weapons that were openly declared by Iraq and were under U.N. control until security fell apart with the U.S. attack. They are not concealed arms of the kind President Bush claimed Iraq had, but which were never found.
In its Oct. 6 report, summarizing a fruitless search for banned weapons in Iraq, Duelfer's group disclosed that widespread looting occurred at Muthanna, 35 miles northwest of Baghdad, in the aftermath of the fall of the Iraqi capital in April 2003.
A little-noted annex of the 985-page report said every U.N.-sealed location at the desert installation had been breached in the looting spree, and "materials and equipment were removed."
Bunker 2 at Muthanna State Establishment, once Iraq's central chemical weapons production site, was put under U.N. inspectors' control in early 1991 after it was heavily damaged by a U.S. precision bomb in the first Gulf War. At the time, Iraq said 2,500 sarin-filled artillery rockets had been stored there.
The U.N. teams sealed up the bunker with brick and reinforced concrete, rather than immediately attempt the risky job of clearing weapons or remnants from under a collapsed roof and neutralizing them.
A CIA analysis, not done on site, hypothesized in 1999 that all the sarin must have been destroyed by fire. But a U.S. General Accounting Office review last June questioned that analysis, and the United Nations, whose teams were there, said the extent of destruction was never determined.
The looting at Muthanna, a 35-square-mile complex in the heart of the embattled "Sunni Triangle," is the latest example of how sensitive Iraqi sites - previously under U.N. oversight - were exposed to potential plundering by militants or random looters in Iraq's wartime chaos.
Last Monday, U.N. officials confirmed that almost 380 tons of sophisticated explosives - also under U.N. seal - had disappeared from a military-industrial site south of Baghdad, a location left unsecured by U.S. troops advancing to Baghdad in April 2003.
Thousands of tons of other munitions are also unaccounted for across Iraq. The issue has become a flashpoint in the U.S. presidential race.
Buchanan said a U.N. team inspected the sealed Muthanna bunker on Dec. 4, 2002, and inspectors continued to visit Muthanna up to March 14, 2003, although they did not view the bunker that day. Four days later, on the eve of the U.S. invasion, the U.N. monitors had to leave Iraq.
As for when the sealed bunker may have been breached, the report said, "The facilities at the southern section"- the bunker area -"were removed by unknown entities between April and June 2003." It didn't elaborate, but presumably the first U.S. search teams arrived at Muthanna in June and discovered the looting.
"The (Iraq Survey Group) is unable to unambiguously determine the complete fate of old munitions, materials and chemicals produced and stored there," the Duelfer report said.
The three-week-old report also said, without elaboration, that chemical munitions "are still stored there" and that warheads, apparently not filled with chemical agent, "are still being looted."
In a brief e-mail responding to AP questions on Friday, however, Duelfer said his inspectors "never found anything of importance looted from the cruciform bunkers," Muthanna's huge cross-shaped storage bunkers. He also said piles of sand dumped onto bunker contents in the past were a deterrent to theft.
The group's formal report, on the other hand, indicated the Americans don't know what may have been taken from the sarin-warhead or other bunkers. "The bunkers' contents have yet to be confirmed," said the 24-page annex, whose photographs show bricked-up entrances breached by man-sized holes.
The report also said unspecified bunkers tested positive for the presence of chemical weapons agents.
Duelfer, an ex-U.N. inspector and now CIA adviser, told the AP the Muthanna site, 30 miles north of the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah, is currently being "monitored" by the U.S. military.
In a quarterly report to the U.N. Security Council on Aug. 27, six weeks before Duelfer's disclosures, U.N. inspectors had called attention to Muthanna's sealed bunker, and said 16 other sealed structures and areas there "contained potentially hazardous items and material." Buchanan said those include toxic chemicals and waste, but not chemical weapons agents.
Nerve agents like sarin can cause convulsions, paralysis and respiratory failure. Their potency degrades over time, but "even with degradation, the weapons may be dangerous even if there's half as much nerve agent now as before," said British chemical weapons expert Richard Guthrie.
Guthrie, of Sweden's Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, said weakened sarin might be useless against military units in the field, but still be a threat to unprotected civilians in confined spaces.
The Muthanna complex, in desolate flatlands populated by Bedouin camel herders, produced huge amounts of nerve agents and the blister agent mustard in the 1980s, when the weapons were used against Iranian troops and rebellious Iraqi civilians during the Iran-Iraq War.
Under U.N. resolutions banning Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, the U.N. inspectors who moved in after the 1991 Gulf War oversaw destruction of 22,000 chemical weapons at Muthanna by 1998, when they withdrew from Iraq in a dispute over access and CIA infiltration of the U.N. operation.
When U.N. inspectors returned after four years, Muthanna's sealed locations appeared not to have been tampered with, Buchanan said.
-------- iraq
Suicide Attack Kills 8 Marines Near Baghdad
October 31, 2004
By EDWARD WONG
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/31/international/middleeast/31iraq.html?ei=5094&en=d7de39f2a5f5eb16&hp=&ex=1099195200&partner=homepage&pagewanted=all&position=
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Oct. 30 - Eight marines were killed and nine others wounded west of the capital on Saturday when a suicide car bomb rammed into their convoy, military officials said, making it the deadliest day for the American forces in half a year.
Here in Baghdad, insurgents staged their first major assault on a news media organization by detonating a car bomb outside the offices of a popular Arab news network, killing at least 7 people and wounding about 19 others, police and hospital officials said.
The attack on the marines took place near Abu Ghraib, the prison 15 miles west of Baghdad used by the Americans to hold detainees, said Capt. Bradley Gordon, a Marine spokesman. The military said in a terse statement that those killed were conducting "increased security operations." Marines have been battling an increasingly lethal insurgency in rebellious Anbar Province, which encompasses the parched lands of western Iraq and includes the provincial capital of Ramadi and the insurgent stronghold of Falluja.
The bomb that killed seven in Baghdad exploded outside the offices of Al Arabiya, the prominent network based in the United Arab Emirates. Insurgents drove a car packed with explosives right up to the network's offices in Mansour, an affluent neighborhood west of the Tigris River that has suffered from a surge of violence.
An hour after the blast, a charred car chassis lay in the road as American soldiers and Iraqi policemen raced to cordon off the site. Ambulances carried off bodies drenched in blood.
A group calling itself the 1920 Brigades claimed responsibility in an Internet posting, saying that the network's workers were "Americanized spies speaking in Arabic tongue." Al Arabiya has covered the war with an anti-American angle and has been sharply criticized by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.
In Tokyo, Japanese officials said a male body discovered by American forces on Friday near the city of Balad was not that of Shosei Koda, a 24-year-old Japanese traveler being held by the militant group of Jordanian fighter Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The body turned out to be that of a balding Iraqi man in his 50's, despite an earlier news release from the American military saying the corpse was "Asian." Mr. Zarqawi's group said in a video early Wednesday that Mr. Koda would be beheaded if the Japanese government did not withdraw its 550 troops stationed in Iraq within 48 hours, a demand that Japanese leaders rejected.
On Saturday, The Associated Press reported that the decapitated body of what appeared to be a young Asian male had been found in an area of northwestern Baghdad known for its insurgent activity. The body was taken to a hospital, but no identification had been made late Saturday night.
The deaths of the eight marines came as the American military was making final preparations for an all-out invasion of Falluja, the center of the Sunni-led insurgency and a suspected haven for Mr. Zarqawi. Warplanes conducted airstrikes in southern Falluja on Saturday as artillery pounded the area. There was no immediate report of casualties.
In the besieged city, a council of tribal and religious leaders awaited the arrival of a delegation from the interim National Assembly, which has been charged with helping negotiate a peace settlement and averting the planned American invasion. Peace talks have been continuing in spurts over the past few weeks, though neither side has expressed any optimism.
The number of American troops killed on Saturday was the largest in a single day since May 2, when nine troops died in attacks across the country.
In early April, 12 marines were killed in an ambush in Ramadi.
Right after that ambush, the military said the marines had been killed in an insurgent attack on a base or outpost. But in recent interviews, marines with the Second Battalion, Fifth Marines, which took charge of Ramadi in early September, said guerrillas had killed the 12 marines in a roadway ambush while they were riding in unarmored or very lightly armored vehicles.
Since then, insurgents have used car bombs to deadly effect against American troops. On Sept. 6, one such bomb tore through a convoy carrying American and Iraqi troops near Falluja, killing seven marines and three Iraqi security officers. Four months earlier, a car bomb killed eight soldiers from the First Armored Division near Mahmudiya, south of Baghdad.
In Anbar Province, senior military commanders have said they will mount a simultaneous offensive in Falluja and Ramadi, where insurgents have been expanding their foothold, and try to close off the Syrian border, believed to be a transit point for jihadists.
Army commanders with the Second Brigade Combat Team in Camp Ramadi, responsible for controlling central Anbar Province, reflected on the precarious situation. Col. Gary S. Patton, the brigade commander, said in an interview that to quell the insurgency, it was crucial to develop effective Iraqi security forces, a strong local government and improved municipal services. "But it's difficult to do any of that stuff when you're fighting five-meter targets, terrorists at every street corner," he said. "And so our fight right now is to gain some freedom of action."
Maj. Steven Alexander, the brigade operations officer, said that Prime Minister Ayad Allawi needed to deal firmly with the mujahedeen in Falluja, but that he risked alienating civilians with a heavy assault. "So I don't envy his decision," he said.
The bomb outside the Al Arabiya office in Baghdad exploded in the midafternoon, with the blast heard for miles. The explosive-laden car had pulled up to the gate, about 9 to 13 feet from the office building itself, said Najwa Qasim, a correspondent for the network. A deep pit marked the spot where the bomb went off. Large parts of the building collapsed, and at least three staff members were killed, Ms. Qasim said.
Al Arabiya's offices are surrounded by the homes of Iraqi officials and are just blocks from the residence of Adnan Pachachi, a prominent member of the former Iraqi Governing Council. A recruiting center for the Iraqi Police sits nearby, and American soldiers in Humvees often patrol the leafy suburb.
The Mansour District has grown increasingly dangerous in recent weeks. A powerful car bomb exploded there last month, and two American engineers and a Briton were kidnapped from their home around the same time and later beheaded by Mr. Zarqawi's group.
Word of the fate of Mr. Koda, the young backpacker held by Mr. Zarqawi's group, sowed confusion across Japan on Saturday. The day began with Foreign Ministry officials saying at an early morning news conference that a body believed to be that of the backpacker was being flown to Kuwait for identification. But later in the day, Japanese medical officers in Kuwait found that instead of inspecting the body of a long-haired 24-year-old Japanese man, they were staring at the corpse of a balding Iraqi man in his 50's that the American forces had sent them.
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi told reporters, "The government will make its full efforts to rescue Mr. Koda."
Hiroyuki Hosoda, chief cabinet secretary, said Saturday evening that the government believed Mr. Koda was still alive, and that "we are now back to the starting point."
Reporting for this article was contributed by Richard A. Oppel Jr. from Ramadi, Ashley Gilbertson from Baghdad, James Brooke from Tokyo and an Iraqi employee of The New York Times from Falluja.
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Car bomb kills eight Marines, wounds nine in Iraq
October 31, 2004
By Edward Harris
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20041031-125204-6274r.htm
NEAR FALLUJAH, Iraq - A car bomb killed eight U.S. Marines west of Baghdad yesterday, the deadliest attack against the U.S. military in nearly six months. Marines pounded guerrilla positions on the outskirts of Fallujah, where American forces are gearing up for a major assault on the militant stronghold.
In Baghdad, another car bomb exploded outside an Arabic television network's offices, killing seven persons and injuring 19 in the biggest attack against a news organization since the occupation began last year.
It was a day in which at least 30 persons died in politically motivated violence across the country.
Late yesterday, the decapitated body of Japanese hostage Shosei Koda, 24, was found in an insurgent-infested neighborhood of Baghdad. The Japanese Foreign Ministry confirmed Mr. Koda's identity through fingerprints.
An al Qaeda-linked terrorist group led by Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab Zarqawi threatened to behead the Japanese backpacker unless Tokyo withdrew its soldiers from Iraq. Japan rejected that demand.
South of Baghdad, witnesses said a U.S. convoy came under attack, prompting Iraqi forces to open fire randomly and throw hand grenades, hitting three minibuses and three vans. At least 14 persons were killed, hospital officials said.
The Marines' deaths came when a car bomb went off next to a truck southwest of Baghdad, said Maj. Clark Watson of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force. Nine other Marines were wounded in the attack in western Anbar province, which includes Fallujah and other militant strongholds, the military said.
It was the largest number of U.S. military deaths in a single day since May 2, when nine U.S. troops were killed in separate mortar attacks and roadside bombings in Baghdad, Ramadi and Kirkuk.
American forces are preparing for a major assault on Fallujah in an effort to regain control of Sunni Muslim towns north and west of the capital ahead of crucial national elections due by Jan. 31.
Militants fired mortars at Marine positions outside Fallujah. U.S. troops responded with "the strongest artillery barrage in recent weeks," said Marine spokesman 1st Lt. Lyle Gilbert.
Later, a Marine Harrier jet bombed a guerrilla mortar position inside Fallujah, then strafed it with machine-gun fire, Lt. Gilbert said. He had no reports of militant casualties.
Crowds of Iraqis peered skyward as two warplanes circled over the rebel-held city, where large explosions rumbled yesterday afternoon.
"This is very painful for Fallujah. I think they're destroying the town and killing families there," said Saadoun Mohamed, 35, a driver near Fallujah.
"It's very complicated. I don't know how to solve this problem," he said through a translator.
Clashes between U.S. troops and militants also occurred yesterday in Ramadi, west of Fallujah. Two policemen were killed and four Iraqis injured in the crossfire, said Dr. Saleh al-Duleimi of the Ramadi General Hospital.
In Baghdad, the car bomb exploded outside the office of the Al Arabiya television network, a satellite broadcaster based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Seven persons were killed and 19 injured, police and hospital officials said.
Three bodies, including one of a woman, were mangled beyond recognition, said Al Arabiya correspondent Najwa Qassem. It could not be determined whether any of those bodies were of Al Arabiya employees. However, she confirmed that one guard and one administrative worker were among the dead.
The blast collapsed the first floor of the building, where staffers were meeting, said Saad al-Husseini, a correspondent of MBC, a sister channel of Al Arabiya based in the same building.
Employees "were trapped between fire and the shattering shards of glass," he said. That "led to the high number of casualties. We were all there."
Al Arabiya's managing editor, Abdulrahman al-Rashed, said seven persons remained missing.
A militant group calling itself the "1920 Brigades" claimed responsibility for the attack, blasting Al Arabiya as "Americanized spies speaking in Arabic tongue" in a statement posted on a Web site. The station is owned by Saudi investors.
"We have threatened them to no avail that they are the mouthpiece of the American occupation in Iraq," the statement said, warning of more attacks against this "treacherous network." It was impossible to verify the claim's authenticity.
Mr. al-Rashed, an outspoken critic of Islamic militants and terror attacks, said the station will continue to operate from Iraq.
--------
Attacks Kill Nine Marines In Iraq
25 Civilians Are Slain In Separate Incidents
By Karl Vick
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, October 31, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12454-2004Oct30.html
BAGHDAD, Oct. 30 -- Nine U.S. Marines were killed and nine wounded in violence on Saturday, the deadliest day for American forces in Iraq in almost six months. At least 25 Iraqi civilians were killed by a car bomb, an insurgent rocket and what news reports called reckless fire by Iraqi security forces.
Eight of the Marine deaths and the nine injuries occurred when a car bomb detonated next to a truck southwest of Baghdad, Maj. Clark Watson of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force told the Associated Press. The attack took place in Anbar province, which extends west from the capital to the borders of Syria and Jordan. A ninth Marine was also killed Saturday, officials, who gave no other details, said.
Anbar province includes the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah, against which U.S. forces are preparing a major offensive. On Saturday, they unleashed an artillery barrage and an airstrike on targets in the city. U.S. military patrols elsewhere in Anbar are frequently ambushed by roadside bombs and, increasingly, cars laden with explosives.
The headless body of a Japanese backpacker who was abducted in the capital earlier this week was recovered wrapped in an American flag in Baghdad. The Japanese government confirmed through fingerprints that the corpse was that of Shosei Koda, 24, the Associated Press reported. Koda was threatened with beheading by a group affiliated with Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian-born insurgent leader in Iraq.
Hours after Koda's body was found Saturday, a Polish woman held by militants since last week pleaded for her life and asked Poland to remove its troops from Iraq in a video aired by al-Jazeera television. Teresa Borcz Khalifa, 54, who holds dual Polish-Iraqi citizenship, sat in front of a banner with the militant group's name, the Abu Bakr al-Siddiq Fundamentalist Brigades.
In Baghdad, seven people were killed and 17 wounded, some seriously, when a car bomb exploded outside the office of al-Arabiya, a satellite news channel. The thunderous blast, which occurred while many members of the station's staff were finishing a meeting in the front room, was the worst attack on a news organization in Iraq.
"We cannot supply you with any footage because the office and the sets were all destroyed," an al-Arabiya reporter, Najwa Qasim, said on the air a few minutes after the attack. Two burned bodies lay at her feet and firefighters poured water on flaming parked cars as she spoke.
Another reporter cautioned that the bomb might have been intended for a different building in the same area of the prosperous Mansour neighborhood, where government buildings and the homes of prominent politicians are also located.
But minutes after the blast, a group calling itself the 1920 Revolution Brigades asserted responsibility for the attack in a message posted on the Internet. The group called al-Arabiya a "treacherous network" and "Americanized spies speaking in Arabic tongue."
The group had been unknown until earlier in the day, when it released a videotape of a kidnapped Sudanese who had been working as an interpreter for a U.S. contractor.
Employees of the network, which is based in Dubai but owned by Saudi investors, have paid a steep price for reporting on the escalating violence in Iraq. Two of its journalists were fatally shot by U.S. soldiers in March at a checkpoint in Baghdad, in what the military called a tragic accident. Another correspondent was fatally wounded by fire from a U.S. helicopter in September while doing a report alongside a disabled armored vehicle in Baghdad.
Al-Arabiya remained in Iraq after a rival Arabic language news network based in Qatar, al-Jazeera, was officially barred by Iraq's interim government on the grounds that it promoted the insurgency.
In the smoky aftermath of the bombing Saturday, two men debated whether al-Arabiya had so distanced itself from the insurgency that it had become a target for attack. "I noticed lately they started using the word 'dead' instead of 'martyr' for the people killed at Fallujah, for example," said one of the men, who gave his name only as Ahmed.
At least 14 people were killed south of the capital when Iraqi security forces opened fire on a busy street. The Iraqi forces arrived in the area and began firing on bystanders just after a U.S. convoy was attacked by as many as three roadside bombs, witnesses said according to the Associated Press.
The guardsmen sprayed fire into three minibuses and randomly threw grenades, according to the report. A cameraman for Associated Press Television News reported seeing 18 bodies. Witnesses said the guardsmen also broke into a nearby mosque and detained a cleric and two guards, the AP reported.
The incident occurred in Haswah, a town 25 miles south of Baghdad, in an area where insurgents have carried out ambushes and kidnappings. Two days earlier in the nearby town of Yusufiya, a father and son were found dead in the middle of a road, according to the military. At their feet were their graduation certificates from the Iraqi police academy.
In Baghdad's Jadariya neighborhood, a rocket fired by insurgents landed on a house, killing at least four members of a family inside, witnesses said. The missile was apparently intended for the nearby Ministry of Interior building, which is frequently targeted by insurgents launching missiles from the south.
Meanwhile, U.S. forces pressed insurgents in Anbar's two largest cities. In Fallujah, which has been held by local and foreign fighters since April, Marines ramped up for a threatened offensive intended to return control of the city of 300,000 to Iraq's interim government in time for elections planned for January. Warplanes crossed the skies above the city, as the booms of artillery shells shook the ground at a Marine outpost near Fallujah. The engagement lasted more than an hour.
Fighting was also reported in Ramadi, 30 miles west of Fallujah, which U.S. commanders have also threatened to re-take by force. A mortar attack Saturday on a government complex killed two Iraqi police officers and wounded four, the Reuters news agency reported.
Correspondent Jackie Spinner near Fallujah and special correspondents Naseer Nouri and Bassam Sebti in Baghdad contributed to this report.
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Allawi Warns Falluja Rebels That Time Is Running Out for Talks
October 31, 2004
The New York Times
By JAMES GLANZ and NORIMITSU ONISHI
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/31/international/middleeast/31cnd-iraq.html?hp&ex=1099285200&en=fa00a907ad82f459&ei=5094&partner=homepage
BAGHDAD, Oct. 31 - Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi issued repeated warnings today that negotiations with the rebels who hold Falluja are swiftly running out of time, saying that unless his government is allowed to establish control immediately, he will ask the American and Iraqi forces massed around the town to attack.
Mr. Allawi said that as recently as Saturday night, he had met with tribal and religious leaders from Falluja and nearby Ramadi, where clashes broke out early today between insurgents and United States Marines. But there was little sign of any progress, and the prime minister made it clear that chances for a peaceful settlement were rapidly fading.
"The time is closing down, really," Mr. Allawi said. "I am not putting a time schedule, but we are approaching the end."
In Japan, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi repeated today his vow to keep about 550 troops in Iraq after the government confirmed that the decapitated body found on a street in Baghdad was Shosei Koda, a 24-year-old Japanese tourist who was kidnapped by the militant group of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
"We cannot lose to terrorism, we must not yield to brute force," said Mr. Koizumi, who had immediately rejected the group's threat on Wednesday to behead Mr. Koda unless the government withdrew its troops from Samawa, in southern Iraq.
The main opposition Democratic Party blamed the deployment of the Japanese troops for leading to Mr. Koda's death and repeated calls for their withdrawal. But it seemed unlikely that Mr. Koizumi's government would suffer any political setback because most Japanese tended to point instead to Mr. Koda's carelessness.
Mr. Koda, who had recently been studying English in New Zealand, reportedly dismissed many warnings in Amman, Jordan, not to travel to Baghdad and took a bus to the Iraqi capital with very little money. Mr. Koda, who was apparently curious about the situation in Iraq, did not take necessary precautions in Baghdad and was even seen walking the streets in shorts.
Videos of at least four other foreign hostages being held in Iraq brought what is now a familiar mix of hope and grief to their families and countrymen. The French ambassador to Iraq said he had been assured by Sunni religious figures that two French journalists - Christian Chenot and Georges Malbrunot - were in good health, Agence France Presse reported. A new video of a kidnapped Polish woman surfaced late Saturday, lifting hopes among officials in her government, the agency reported.
But the Reuters news agency reported that the distraught wife of a Sri Lankan driver who has been taken pleaded for his release today. And there was no word on Margaret Hassan, the director of CARE International in Iraq who was abducted on Oct. 19 and has appeared in two videos appealing for British troops to leave Iraq. She has also asked for female Iraqi prisoners to be released.
An Army spokesman for the Second Brigade Combat team in Ramadi said that one marine was killed and four were wounded when a roadside bomb went off during a patrol in Ramadi today. The spokesman had no information about any civilian causalities.
On Saturday, two Iraqis were killed and four were wounded when an armored personnel carrier shot at a suspected suicide car bomber. But it turned out that it was a taxi with six apparently innocent people inside. The attack was at a vehicle control point.
A preliminary investigation found no explosives in the car, the spokesman said, calling the episode "a very unfortunate, very tragic event and we hate it when these kinds of things happen."
"We have had six suicide bombs in the last week against our units," the spokesman said. "At least one of them was a taxi so you could understand the soldier's actions. He fired first at the engine block but it continued to accelerate so the second time he shot into the cab, killing the driver."
In a meeting with reporters inside the heavily fortified green zone in Baghdad, Mr. Allawi ticked off what he said were recent successes in killing and capturing insurgents and their leaders in Iraq. He emphasized the capture of what he said were 167 foreign fighters who had come from outside Iraq, but it was unclear whether they had come to the country recently to fight or had immigrated years ago.
But he was unambiguous about his motivations in the gathering storm around Falluja.
"The terrorists and insurgents continue to use Falluja and the people of Falluja as a shield," Mr. Allawi said, giving a list of recent insurgent attacks in his country.
"That's why I cannot stand back and allow such attacks to continue," he said.
Mr. Allawi said that he would keep pressing for a peaceful resolution but that "our patience is running thin" as the talks dragged on.
On another topic Mr. Allawi declined to say much about an issue that has received intense discussion in the American presidential campaign in the past week: the disappearance of hundreds of tons of powerful conventional explosives from the Al Qaqaa weapons facility south of Baghdad around the time of last year's invasion of the country.
"I don't like to really have a premature comment," Mr. Allawi said. "I have ordered the relevant authorities start an investigation into this. Once we have the results, we will make a public statement."
Mr. Koda's brother, Maki, 26, speaking on behalf of his family, who had received both hate mail and letters of support in recent days, said, according to Kyodo News: "We feel strong gratitude for those who had supported us, while we also feel sorry for causing trouble. Despite the outcome we wish that the Iraqi people would have peace as soon as possible."
Richard A. Oppel Jr. contributed reporting for this article.
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Allawi Vows to Clear Fallujah of Rebels
October 31, 2004
By SAMEER N. YACOUB
Associated Press Writer
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/I/IRAQ?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Iraq's interim prime minister said Sunday that efforts to peacefully resolve the conflict in Fallujah have entered their final phase and warned that "our patience is running thin," vowing to clear the city of militants who have carried out some of the bloodiest attacks in Iraq.
Ayad Allawi's strong comments signaled that the start may be near for a major assault on Fallujah that U.S. forces have been preparing. Allawi warned there would likely be civilian casualties if an offensive takes place.
U.S. commanders say Allawi will give the final order to launch the assault, which would aim to restore control to Sunni Muslim towns north and west of the capital ahead of Jan. 31 elections.
As night fell in the Iraqi capital, the rumble of powerful explosions could be heard coming from the edge of the city. The cause of the explosions could not be determined.
Speaking to reporters in Baghdad, Allawi vowed that the elections, a key step in plans to move Iraq toward democracy "will take place on schedule." The country's deteriorating security situation has led to doubts that nationwide voting can take place in Iraq.
Allawi said there was no deadline for talks with Fallujah leaders aimed at finding a peaceful resolution. But he said if no deal is reached, "I have no choice but to secure a military solution."
"I will do so with a heavy heart, for even with the most careful plan there will be some loss of innocent lives," he said. "But I owe, owe it to the Iraqi people to defend them from the violence and the terrorists and insurgents."
"The terrorists and insurgents continue to use Fallujah and the Fallujah people as a shield for their murderous acts," Allawi said. "Some of the most incredible crimes have been committed in Fallujah and out of Fallujah by these terrorists."
Fallujah, west of Baghdad, is considered the strongest bastion of Sunni insurgents who have carried out a spiraling campaign of bombings, ambushes and kidnappings. Allawi's warning came after a particularly bloody day even by the standards of this conflict-ravaged country.
In all, at least 30 people died Saturday in politically motivated violence across Iraq - stark evidence of a security situation threatening to spiral out of control.
Among them were eight Marines killed by a car bomb near Fallujah. The U.S. military earlier said a ninth Marine was also killed but later corrected the report, confirming the death toll of eight.
Also, early Sunday, the Japanese government confirmed that the decapitated body of a young Asian male - found wrapped in an American flag and dumped in an insurgent-infested neighborhood of Baghdad - was that of Japanese hostage Shosei Koda, 24, said Japanese Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura.
Koda's abduction was claimed by the al-Qaida in Iraq group, led by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who Iraqi and U.S. leaders claim is in Fallujah. Allawi has demanded Fallujah's city leaders hand over al-Zarqawi to avoid an attack, thought the leaders deny he is there.
Allawi said he had met with tribal leaders from the area Saturday and told them "the window for such peaceful settlement is closing."
"I explained that I hoped that the peaceful citizens of the areas where the terrorists are based will help the government to arrest them," he said. "They assured me that they would work with my government to achieve this."
Allawi also said authorities have arrested 167 Arab foreign fighters, who are in Iraq's custody.
U.S. commanders have estimated that up to 5,000 Islamic militants, Saddam Hussein loyalists and common criminals are holed up in the insurgent bastion.
U.S. Marines carried out a three-week siege of Fallujah in April, but when hundreds of people were killed, the military was forced to back down. Insurgents have since tightened their grip on the city, and several other cities in the Sunni Triangle north and west of Baghdad have fallen under their sway.
For the second straight day, clashes erupted Sunday between U.S. forces and insurgents in the town of Ramadi, 70 miles west of Baghdad, leaving seven people dead, according to hospital officials. The fighting broke out in the eastern and central part of the city. Sporadic gunfire could be heard near City Hall. Shops and schools in the area have been closed for days due to the deteriorating security situation, residents said.
On Saturday, U.S. forces pounded insurgent positions on the outskirts of Fallujah in some of the heaviest skirmishes in weeks. Marines and guerrillas traded mortar and artillery fire, and U.S. jets bombed positions inside the city.
The Marine deaths came when a car bomb went off next to a truck southwest of Baghdad, between the capital and Fallujah, said Maj. Clark Watson of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force. It was the biggest number of American military deaths in a single day since May 2, when nine U.S. troops were killed in separate mortar attacks and roadside bombings in Baghdad, Ramadi and Kirkuk.
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U.S. Hopes To Divide Insurgency
Plan to Cut Extremism Involves Iraq's Sunnis
By Bradley Graham and Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, October 31, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A12434-2004Oct30?language=printer
Facing an entrenched insurgency in Iraq whose ranks have grown significantly over the past year, the Pentagon has devised a new military strategy aimed at driving a wedge between various factions, defense officials said.
The strategy stems from what the officials said is a deeper understanding of an insurgency that has gained strength in recent months and proved tougher and more resilient than expected. Once viewed as little more than a few thousand embittered remnants of Saddam Hussein's government, the hard-core militants in Iraq are now estimated by senior U.S. military officers to number as many as 12,000.
The dominant element of the insurgency, the officials said, is a loose group referred to in U.S. military documents as "Sunni Arab rejectionists," consisting largely of former members of Hussein's government. These are onetime military officers and intelligence agents who U.S. officials have come increasingly to believe had some kind of plan to reorganize into cells and wage an insurgency if U.S. forces invaded.
Filling out the resistance, the officials said, are an assortment of Islamic extremists, some homegrown, such as the militia led by radical Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr, and some foreign, such as those associated with Jordanian-born Abu Musab Zarqawi, plus a mix of criminals, financiers and other "facilitators" operating inside and outside Iraq and having access to substantial sums of money.
The new Pentagon plan, devised over the summer, centers on enticing more Sunnis into the political process while targeting the Islamic extremist groups for elimination. It depends heavily on building up Iraqi security forces more successfully than in the past year and breaking the bureaucratic logjams that have stymied flows of reconstruction aid into formerly rebel-held cities such as Samarra to win over civilian populations.
"The aim is to drive a wedge between the Sunni Arab rejectionists and the incorrigibles," said one senior official involved in policymaking on Iraq. "Many in the rejectionist group feel disenfranchised and are being intimidated. They need to be relieved of that yoke and engaged, while the extremists need to be isolated, captured or killed."
U.S. forces face substantial obstacles in bringing their plan to fruition. Commanders have identified 22 cities and towns in Iraq that must be brought under the control of the Iraqi government before nationwide elections, scheduled for January, can be held. The status of those cities is being assessed periodically by U.S. military commanders, based on a matrix that rates the insurgent threat in the area, the readiness of local Iraqi security forces and the functioning of local government services.
Since the start of the holy month of Ramadan two weeks ago, insurgent attacks against Iraqis and U.S. and coalition forces have risen more than 25 percent, to about 80 a day. Pentagon figures show that about 80 percent of the attacks have been concentrated in four of Iraq's 18 provinces: Baghdad, Anbar, Salah ad Din and Ninawa, all areas heavily populated by Sunnis.
Moreover, the notion that the use of military force against some insurgent groups can be balanced with political and economic enticements aimed at others is a risky one, say experts on Iraq inside and outside the government. They warned in interviews that U.S. firefights and aircraft attacks have themselves fed the insurgency, turning the relatives of slain militants and civilians into new insurgents.
"We don't understand when someone kills a brother, it calls for revenge killing," said Barbara K. Bodine, a State Department official who served in Iraq last year and now is a fellow at the Institute of Politics of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. "We underestimate our daily humiliation of Iraqis."
Within the U.S. military, senior officers involved in the Iraqi effort say one of the greatest difficulties will be breaking an intensified campaign of intimidation being waged by insurgents against Iraqis and others associated with the U.S.-led coalition or Iraq's interim government. Borrowing tactics used by Hussein to instill fear in any who would consider opposing him, insurgents have embarked on an increasing spree of assassinations, suicide bombings and kidnappings targeting Iraqi political figures, bureaucrats, police, interpreters, international aid workers and others portrayed as collaborators.
As examples of how the attacks have appeared aimed increasingly at undermining existing Iraqi authorities, in the past 10 days gunmen in Baquba assassinated the deputy governor of the Iraqi province of Diyala; a suicide car bomber in Mosul killed three Iraqi government employees, while another wounded an Iraqi general. Also in Mosul, the sheik who chaired an association of tribal chieftains in the north was assassinated. And in Irbil, gunmen killed the chief of police.
With Iraq at a critical stage, as nationwide elections approach and U.S. and Iraqi forces prepare for possible new offensives against insurgent strongholds, several senior military officers and civilian defense officials agreed recently to discuss the Pentagon's strategy and current view of the insurgency. Some of the strategy was first reported in the New York Times earlier this month.
They said no single unifying leader of the insurgency is thought to exist. While some ad hoc contacts appear to occur among factions, they said, there is little evidence of a national network of coordination or a single ideological vision. If a common current runs through many of the groups, they said, it is a strong nationalist opposition to a foreign presence.
Estimates of the size of the insurgency vary. A senior military officer who works the issue and who last autumn put the number of "committed fighters" at 5,000 -- a figure disclosed publicly in November by Gen. John P. Abizaid, the top U.S. commander in the Persian Gulf region -- said that he now estimates they have grown to as many as 12,000.
He said the insurgency has expanded in part because of mounting Iraqi irritation with the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq. Other contributing factors, he said, include the scandal over mistreatment of prisoners at U.S.-run detention centers and the rise of Sadr's militia.
The strategy to differentiate between extremist elements who are considered lost causes and those in the Sunni resistance who might be persuaded to drop their opposition was formalized in Pentagon planning documents in August and has been refined several times since, defense officials said. Alluding to the plan, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has spoken in recent weeks of methodical attempts by U.S. and Iraqi authorities to reach political accords with resistance groups. Iraq's interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, who took office in June, also has made clear his desire to extend an olive branch to some Sunni militants.
In cases where these diplomatic efforts fail, Rumsfeld has signaled the likely use of military force, as was demonstrated four weeks ago in Samarra. Pentagon officials said the most critical test will come in an increasingly likely assault on more than 3,000 insurgents in Fallujah and Ramadi.
Over the past year, the U.S. view of the insurgency has evolved. Rumsfeld initially spoke dismissively of enemy fighters in Iraq as "dead-enders" -- referring to remnants of Hussein's Baath party, elements of his Special Republican Guard and other specialized units. As attacks continued, many were blamed on al Qaeda and affiliates such as Ansar al-Islam and other foreign fighters said to be entering from Syria.
More recently, senior officials have described an expanded and deeply entrenched array of Sunni cells in particular. They have cited evidence of plans by Hussein's closest advisers before the U.S. invasion to regroup in small cells afterward. They also say some former Baathist officials dispersed after the war began and began providing financing from outside as well as inside Iraq.
One senior defense official said more than a dozen "financial people" from Hussein's government have been identified funneling money from Syria to insurgents in Iraq. Izzat Ibrahim Douri, a former senior Baath Party official, is among those said to have traveled to Syria to help set up a support network. He is now believed to be back in Iraq and playing a significant role in coordinating attacks.
"The real enemy are the FRE," said the senior military officer, using the abbreviation for former regime elements. "But the problem with the FRE is they're so ingrained, so insidiously situated within Iraqi society."
Citing their ruthless violence and brutal intimidation, he likened them to the New York mafia in the 1930s, "where they owned blocks, where people wouldn't tell on them because they knew they'd have their throat slit." He called them "a very difficult target."
The view of Iraq's insurgency as a disparate assortment of groups is supported by a number of experts outside the U.S. government. While they describe the insurgency as lacking unity or a long-term vision, they also say it seems not to have suffered as a result.
"The insurgents may have calculated that their success does not now require an elaborate political and socioeconomic vision of a 'free' Iraq," said Ahmed S. Hashim, professor of strategic studies at the Naval War College and a consultant to Abizaid's Central Command. "Articulating the desire to be free of foreign occupation has sufficed to win popular support."
"The insurgents represent different philosophies but they all want to get us out of Iraq," said Bodine, the former State Department official. "There is no clear national leadership and no politics -- at least not yet -- but we're not far from a time when it could become national."
W. Patrick Lang, a former Army colonel and Middle East specialist in the Defense Intelligence Agency, said the insurgents were pursuing "a strategy of isolation of the occupier."
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Palestinian leaders close ranks in Arafat's absence
October 31, 2004
By Mohammed Daraghmeh
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20041030-113726-6046r.htm
RAMALLAH, West Bank - The Palestinian leadership convened yesterday without Yasser Arafat in the chair for the first time in years, making a show of stability while the ailing iconic leader was being tested for a mysterious blood disorder in France.
Mr. Arafat's usual chair at the head of the conference table was empty as his deputy Mahmoud Abbas convened the top committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Mr. Abbas stayed in his seat to the right of Mr. Arafat's chair in the office in the Ramallah headquarters compound.
Mr. Abbas later addressed reporters alongside four other senior officials, in an apparent message that no one was trying to usurp Mr. Arafat's position and emerge as a single leader.
"We decided that all Palestinian leadership institutions will continue functioning in the framework of the Palestinian Authority, according to the Palestinian basic law," Mr. Abbas said. "This is President Arafat's desire."
In Clamart, France, where Mr. Arafat is hospitalized, initial results from a battery of tests found no signs yesterday of leukemia, a Palestinian diplomat said. Doctors were still probing the cause of the ailing Palestinian leader's dramatic deterioration in health.
After he was rushed from the West Bank to a French military hospital, the 75-year-old Mr. Arafat "spent a very good night" and awoke yesterday "in very good humor, rested," said Leila Shahid, the Palestinian envoy to France.
"The doctors exclude, already from what he has done in terms of exams, any possibility of leukemia," Miss Shahid told reporters. "I repeat: the doctors exclude, for the time being, any possibility of leukemia."
In Ramallah, Rauhi Fattouh, speaker of the Palestinian parliament, said the meeting yesterday was intended to send a signal to the people and the world that "there is no vacuum here, and the Palestinian institutions will function as if Arafat was here."
Mr. Fattouh said the leadership was continuously briefing the top aides who flew with Mr. Arafat to France on Friday.
"It is true that many things need Arafat's signature and approval, like financial and security issues, and we will be in touch with him in Paris," he said.
Mr. Arafat's health crisis has raised fears of instability because he never groomed a successor and always ensured the removal of anyone who appeared to be gaining too much power.
He had not left his gutted and sandbagged headquarters compound in nearly three years, but he was flown out to France after a two-week sickness took a turn for the worse Wednesday night.
The Washington Times reported Thursday that Mr. Arafat had agreed in principle to a plan that would create a new post of deputy chairman of the Palestinian Authority and put Mr. Abbas in the post.
Although Mr. Arafat prefers to be addressed as president, a title typically used for leaders of independent nations, his formal title is chairman of the Palestinian Authority.
Mr. Abbas served as Palestinian prime minister for four months last year, leaving after a series of disputes with Mr. Arafat. The two have reconciled since then.
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After Gaza Win, Sharon Fights Political Doubt
Israeli Leader Struggles to Keep Government Unified and Evacuation Plan on Track
By John Ward Anderson and Molly Moore
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, October 31, 2004; Page A28
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A12527-2004Oct30?language=printer
JERUSALEM, Oct. 30 -- After winning one of the toughest political fights of his career before Israel's parliament, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon faces a colossal battle to keep his government afloat, his party united and his plan to evacuate Jewish settlers and Israeli soldiers from the Gaza Strip on track, according to Israeli politicians and political analysts.
And now the uncertainty over the health of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, Sharon's longtime foe, has added another level of political uncertainty to the Israeli leader's ability and commitment to pursuing the evacuation plan.
"If Arafat lives, Sharon has to pull off the disengagement, but the potential for a Palestinian state in the West Bank decreases," said Hillel Frisch, a political scientist at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar Ilan University outside Tel Aviv. "And if Arafat does not live, disengagement might be delayed, and there's going to be Palestinian infighting, which will give Sharon the excuse to say, 'I'm waiting.' "
Doctors in Paris, where Arafat was transported Friday, continued to investigate the cause of his deterioration, after initial tests found no signs of leukemia, said Leila Shahid, the Palestinian envoy to France, the Associated Press reported.
[Senior aides to Arafat said Sunday that tests had ruled out any life-threatening condition, the Reuters news agency reported.]
Sharon's spokesman, Raanan Gissen, said a change in the Palestinian leadership would allow Israel to "start the disengagement, and it's possible that what begins as a unilateral disengagement process may end up as a bilateral dialogue and negotiation over the future of this conflict."
While some analysts see Sharon's proposal as a way of avoiding participation in any peace process, they said that the emergence of a new, moderate Palestinian leader could force Sharon's involvement.
"If there's an orderly transfer of power, Sharon would be on the spot," said Yossi Alpher, co-founder of Bitterlemons.org, a Palestinian-Israeli Internet dialogue site. "There would be pressure on him at a minimum to negotiate the disengagement with this person."
Many Palestinians oppose Sharon's plan, which calls for closing all 21 Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip, evacuating their 8,100 inhabitants and withdrawing Israeli troops, as well as vacating four settlements in the northern West Bank. The proposal was formulated without input from Palestinian leaders. One of Sharon's top advisers said its aim was to freeze any political process with the Palestinians and strengthen Israel's control over the West Bank.
Nevertheless, Sharon's disengagement plan represents the only significant proposal for change in the Israeli-Palestinian situation in more than a year. Israel has never withdrawn settlers from the Gaza Strip or the West Bank; its last pullout from any settlement was in 1982, when settlers were removed from the Sinai Peninsula under the terms of the Camp David peace accords with Egypt.
The Israeli parliament, the Knesset, approved Sharon's plan by a 67 to 45 vote last week after acrimonious debate, but the plan still faces legislative hurdles and cabinet decisions that could significantly alter or kill it before the withdrawals are to begin next year.
Four senior cabinet ministers from Sharon's hawkish Likud Party who backed the plan, including Finance Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, say they would quit the government if Sharon did not agree to put the plan to a nationwide referendum. If the National Religious Party, the smallest party in Sharon's coalition, were to follow through on a similar threat, his government would have 55 votes in the 120-member parliament, making it difficult for the government to survive.
"If Netanyahu leaves, if the National Religious Party leaves the government, we will have no government, no coalition," said Yuval Steinitz, a Likud member who is chairman of parliament's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee and who voted with Sharon on Tuesday but supports a referendum. "Our ability to pass the budget is doubtful, and it's clear we're going to have to have new elections."
But in an interview published last week in Israel's largest daily newspaper, Yedioth Ahronoth, a defiant Sharon vowed: "There will be no referendum on disengagement, as the ones behind this initiative are interested in sabotaging the disengagement plan. I will never give in to pressure and threats."
Neither Sharon nor the four Likud ministers who threatened to resign -- Netanyahu, Education Minister Limor Livnat, Agriculture Minister Yisrael Katz and Health Minister Danny Naveh -- nor the National Religious Party, have left themselves much room to back down from their positions, according to politicians and political analysts. That sets the stage for more wrangling driven by politics, religion and ego, perhaps culminating in the collapse of Sharon's government and a call for early elections.
"Sharon doesn't like to be blackmailed," said Shmuel Sandler, a political scientist at Bar Ilan University. On the other hand, he said, "I don't see how Netanyahu can withdraw such an ultimatum." And if the National Religious Party pulls out, Sandler said, "Sharon has no choice but to go to elections."
The battle comes as the United States holds a presidential election, and many in the Arab world link the U.S. war in Iraq to President Bush's unbending support for Sharon in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Some of Sharon's opponents within Likud said Wednesday that his intractable opposition to holding a referendum stems in part from his determination not to disappoint the United States, his strongest international ally.
"He has to show stability vis-a-vis Bush," said Gila Gamliel, a Likud member of parliament who voted against the Gaza plan. "Bush is currently in a neck-and-neck race with [John] Kerry. He has to fulfill the demands of Bush."
Despite broad popular support, Sharon's Gaza plan was defeated in a Likud Party referendum in May and was voted down by the party's Central Committee in August. In an unprecedented slap, 15 of the 40 Likud members of parliament voted to repudiate a speech that Sharon gave this month on the opening day of the legislative session. On Tuesday, 17 members voted against the disengagement plan, forcing Sharon to reach out to traditional opponents in the parliament, or Knesset, to ensure the plan's approval.
Now, if the four cabinet ministers join the 17 party dissidents, Sharon will be left leading a minority faction of his party in the Knesset. His position would further deteriorate if others who support a referendum, such as Steinitz and Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom, joined the revolt.
But even if Sharon changed his mind after the U.S. elections, it is not clear that parliament would be willing to subject its own decision in favor of the withdrawal to a public referendum. Knesset vote-counters said a proposal to put the issue to referendum would not be approved.
"We oppose the referendum totally," said Giyora Ayalon, a spokesperson for the Labor Party's 19 Knesset members, who all voted for Sharon's plan. "All those who say that they support the referendum are in fact opposed to [the disengagement plan], and all they are interested in is gaining time and to try to obstruct the process."
Researcher Samuel Sockol contributed to this report.
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Israelis and Palestinians Address Arafat's Absence
October 31, 2004
By GREG MYRE
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/31/international/middleeast/01mideastcnd.html?hp&ex=1099285200&en=ebf86be47ca343cd&ei=5094&partner=homepage
JERUSALEM, Oct. 31 - The Israeli cabinet and Palestinian officials held separate gatherings today, but dealt with the same question: how to respond to the absence of Yasir Arafat, who remains hospitalized in France with an undiagnosed illness.
Israel's prime minister, Ariel Sharon, told his cabinet ministers that Mr. Arafat's ailment had not altered plans for a unilateral Israeli withdrawal of soldiers and Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip, which is scheduled for next year.
But Mr. Sharon and his aides raised the possibility that a new Palestinian leadership could open the door to the negotiations envisioned under a Mideast peace plan known as the "road map," which collapsed shortly after its introduction last year.
"If and when a new leadership emerges, and fulfills its obligations, then we would be willing to return to the road map," said Raanan Gissin, a spokesman for Mr. Sharon. "The opportunity is there. It depends on whether the Palestinians seize it. Without Arafat, we believe the chances would be much greater."
Mr. Sharon has refused to deal with Mr. Arafat, contending that he encourages violence against Israel and is not a reliable partner for peace negotiations.
Four years of Israeli-Palestinian fighting have extinguished virtually all political contacts between the two sides. With Mr. Arafat sidelined indefinitely, Israelis and Palestinians have raised a wide range of possibilities about how the situations could play out.
Some say that if Mr. Arafat passes from the scene, the two sides could find a way out of the current bloodletting and reopen some form of dialogue. Others say that the Palestinians could face internal battles in choosing a new leadership, contributing to further lawlessness in the Palestinian areas and continued conflict with Israel.
Israel's chief of military intelligence, Maj. Gen. Aharon Zeevi-Farkash, told the cabinet that a new Palestinian leadership might try to persuade armed Palestinian factions to declare at least a temporary cease-fire with Israel, according to a report on Israel radio.
However, Israel has been skeptical that such truces can hold. The result, the general said, would be increased pressure on Israel to coordinate its Gaza withdrawal with the Palestinians, something that Mr. Sharon has so far resisted.
Israel says it will allow Mr. Arafat to return to his compound in the West Bank city of Ramallah from France, following his medical treatment. But Mr. Sharon told his cabinet that if Mr. Arafat dies, the Palestinian leader would not be buried in Jerusalem, which is his long-expressed wish.
Israel seized the eastern part of the city in the 1967 Mideast war and annexed it, a move that has never been recognized internationally. The Palestinians are seeking east Jerusalem for the capital of a future state.
Mr. Arafat underwent additional tests today at the Percy Army Teaching Hospital outside Paris, and Palestinian aides said he was feeling better. But doctors are not expected to give a diagnosis of his illness until Tuesday or Wednesday, Palestinian officials said.
Mr. Arafat has had a low blood platelet count, and doctors have conducted a series of tests to check for cancer, a viral infection and other ailments, Palestinian aides said. The aides say that initial tests, at least, have indicated that he does not have leukemia.
Salam Fayyad, the Palestinian finance minister, told The Associated Press that he had spoken by telephone with Mr. Arafat.
"Arafat told me, 'I am O.K. I am feeling well. Please tell my brothers there that I am doing well,' " said Mr. Fayyad, who is in the West Bank. "This phone call is clear proof that President Arafat is fully aware of what is going on around him."
Palestinian officials have sought to strike a balance since Mr. Arafat was airlifted from his West Bank compound on Friday and flown to France.
They want to demonstrate that Palestinian institutions are still working despite the absence of Mr. Arafat, who has played a dominant role for decades.
But they do not want to give the impression they are usurping power while Mr. Arafat is away, and are acting on the assumption he will return to his former role.
The Palestinian prime minister, Ahmed Qurei, led a meeting of the National Security Council, a body that is led by Mr. Arafat. In addition, the Palestinian Legislative Council convened on today.
"We are now talking about how we should prove that we are a mature and responsible nation and that we are capable of remaining united and of withstanding the difficult new circumstances," said Ziad Abu Ziyad, a Palestinian legislator.
Mr. Arafat emerged as the dominant Palestinian leader in the late 1960's, and no other Palestinian figure can approach his stature. He embodies the Palestinian quest for statehood, even among Palestinians critical of his leadership.
On the Israeli side, Mr. Arafat is almost universally despised, and many hold the view, or at least the wish, that relations between the two sides could dramatically improve when Mr. Arafat is gone.
But Shlomo Avineri, a political science professor at Hebrew University, said the departure of Mr. Arafat would not instantly transform the Israeli-Palestinian relationship.
"It's not just a question of Arafat's personality, this is too simplistic," Mr. Avineri said. "I believe there will have to be fundamental changes in Palestinian attitudes, and that is not going to happen overnight, even with a new leadership."
--------
Military Intelligence chief: Arafat's death may end intifada
Haaretz
October 31, 2004
By Aluf Benn, Amos Harel and Arnon Regular
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/495473.html
Military Intelligence chief Aharon Ze'evi said Sunday that he believes that there would be a chance to bring about an end to the Al Aqsa Intifada if Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat dies. Speaking at Sunday's cabinet meeting, Ze'evi stressed that the chairman's death would only lead to the end of the violence that began in September 2000, and not the entire Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said Sunday that Israel would continue moving forward with the disengagement plan despite the deterioration in Yasser Arafat's health and the possibility that he could die soon.
Sharon also said that if a new Palestinian leadership emerged and it would put forth a real effort to dismantle terror infrastructures, Israel would be willing to renew negotiations based on the road map for peace plan. But, Sharon said, "as long as there will be no partner, we will push forward with the disengagement plan that was approved by the government and the Knesset."
Reacting to a proposal by Agriculture Minister Yisrael Katz, according to which Israel would not allow Arafat to return to Ramallah in the event his health improved, Sharon said that "Israel has made a commitment to allow Arafat to return to the territories." Sharon added, however that "so long as I am prime minister, Arafat will not be buried in Jerusalem."
Arafat's condition improving Arafat's financial adviser, Mohammed Rashid, said Sunday that he had visited the chairman and Arafat had told him he was feeling "better". Rashid said that Arafat had got out of bed Sunday morning, had joked with his doctors and read from the Koran for the first time in ten days.
"Arafat does not have leukemia," said Rashid. "It's been ruled out. Rule it out." Results from additional tests to determine what was wrong were due on Wednesday, he said.
"Doctors are happy because his situation is quite stable," Leila Shahid, the PLO envoy to Paris told reporters on Sunday. She said that Arafat had received messages of support from a number of world leaders, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, French President Jacques Chirac, Cuban leader Fidel Castro and Chinese President Hu Jintao. U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell telephoned his Palestinian counterpart, Nabil Shaath, in the West Bank.
Israel Radio reported that Arafat's wife, Suha, is deciding how much information to release to the public on the state of the chairman's health.
Senior Palestinian Authority sources said late Saturday that Arafat had lost some of his mental capacities and that he cannot function. Some of the sources voiced doubts that he will be capable of resuming his position as PA leader, even if his health recovers to some extent.
French doctors are checking Arafat for viral infection after tests ruled out leukemia and any other life-threatening illness, aides to the Palestinian leader said on Sunday.
Arafat was rushed Friday from the West Bank to a French military hospital after being ill for two weeks with what was initially described as a bad flu. The Palestinian leader's symptoms included vomiting and diarrhea.
PA cabinet minister Saeb Erekat said Sunday morning that within two days, the French medical team currently examining ailing Arafat would issue a report with their diagnosis of the PA chairman's ailment.
Erekat said Arafat had undergone a CAT scan and was undergoing further tests. He quoted Shahid as saying that doctors had ruled out leukemia. But Erekat advised caution, saying Israeli media reports had been premature.
"I urge everyone not to jump to conclusions before the French doctors give their report, and they will give it in 48 hours," Erekat said Sunday.
Qureia convenes National Security Council Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia on Sunday convened a meeting of the Palestinian National Security Council, part of an explicit effort to demonstrate that Arafat's ailment has not compromised the ability of Palestinian institutions to function.
Palestinians on Sunday evening denied reports that former prime minister Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) was due to fly to Paris to meet Arafat and get his blessing for talking over certain responsibilities in the PLO.
"At the moment our thoughts and prayers are with President Arafat and for his speedy recovery," said Erekat.
"At the same time," Erekat told Army Radio in an interview, "we have Palestinian institutions that are able to run the affairs, the daily lives of the Palestinian people. Yesterday [Saturday], Mr. Mahmoud Abbas, Abu Mazen, was the acting chair of the PLO Executive Committee, in accordance with its general laws, and today [Sunday], Prime Minister Qureia, Abu Ala, will be the acting chair of the National Security Council."
At the Sunday meeting, the Palestinian NSC discussed continuing efforts toward reform in the PA and the reining-in lawlessness in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
"The main points on the agenda today (were) to restore public order, the rule of law and end the situation of chaos and the deterioration we are witnessing," Erekat told Reuters.
-------- latin america
Uncovering The Bush Plan For Regime Change In Cuba
US Regime Change Efforts Not Limited To Middle East
ZNet
by Hope Bastian
October 31, 2004
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=54&ItemID=6529
I'm living in a war zone, but what I see when I look out the window of my apartment in Havana, Cuba does not resemble the pictures in the papers of the war in Iraq. No missiles have been fired here, there are no camouflaged soldiers in the streets with guns, no armored tanks roll by. The sun is still shining, the birds still sing, and the streets are alive with people busy living their lives. There are no children dying in the streets from shrapnel wounds, but there is no doubt the nation is under attack. Here the war is manifested not in body counts and car-bombings but in the constant assault of material poverty: crumbling homes and rolling black-outs. It doesn't look like a war zone, but the U.S. government is waging a silent war here and no one is left untouched.
The war in Iraq is not the only war that the Bush Administration is involved in today and its plans for "regime change" are not limited to the Middle East. They might have caught Saddam, but there's another bearded "bad-guy" on the loose, and another nation, weak after years of U.S. sanctions, to be "liberated". There's nothing new about the war against Cuba, which started in May of 1961, only four months after the Revolution overthrew U.S.-backed dictator, Fulgencio Batista. Forty -five years and over 600 assassination attempts later, the war against Cuba is now principally fought with weapons of economic destruction. The Bush Administration has intensified this economic war and made overthrowing the Cuban government a higher priority in this election year than in previous years.
Last October, Bush began his presidential campaign with a pledge to radical rightist elements of the Cuban-American community in South Florida to take drastic steps to strengthen the enforcement of the U.S. embargo against Cuba. "Clearly, the Castro regime will not change by its own choice," Bush said, "But Cuba must change." In his speech, Bush announced the establishment of the Commission for the Assistance to a Free Cuba, "to plan for the happy day when Castro's regime is no more and democracy comes to the island." The Commission was asked to draw upon experts within the U.S. government to "identify ways to hasten the arrival of that day." Bush warned that, "The transition to freedom will present many challenges to the Cuban people and to America", and promised that, "In all that lies ahead, the Cuban people have a constant friend in the United States of America...we are confident that no matter what the dictator intends or plans, Cuba será pronto libre".
On May 6, 2004, the Commission for the Assistance to a Free Cuba, chaired by Secretary of State Colin Powell, and staffed by a "dream team" of high level cabinet officials reported back to the president. They presented a 458-page report outlining concrete steps to be taken by the Bush administration to overthrow the Cuban government . As soon as the report was released, wheels were set in motion to write these recommendations into law. On June 16, 2004, the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) published a new set of regulations in the Federal Register to govern U.S. economic relations with Cuba. (OFAC administers and enforces economic and trade sanctions that support U.S. foreign policy and national security goals.)
Much of the press coverage in the U.S. about these new measures has focused on the ways in which they have affected Cuban families on both sides of the Florida Strait. However, the most controversial measures are contained in other new regulations. The U.S. government has instituted new measures limiting Cuba's ability to engage in international trade in its attempt to overthrow the Cuban government.
Tools of economic warfare The Bush administration's current war for regime change in Cuba depends not on cluster bombs and depleted uranium, but on the use of a 45-year old economic embargo as a weapon to isolate Cuba. By preventing other countries from trading with Cuba, the U.S. government hopes to make it impossible for the nation to provide for the needs of its citizens. Cuba will reach a breaking point; the people will rise up against their government and welcome the U.S. "liberators" with open arms. At least that's the way it is supposed to work. A full 400 pages of the 458 page "Commission for the Assistance to a Free Cuba Report" are focused on the delivery of aid by the U.S. government to a new regime to ease the suffering caused by the crippling economic embargo. The report outlines in detail a plan for rebuilding the country in the U.S.'s image of a model representative democracy with a free-market economy. Does the term nation building sound familiar from some other context?
When socialism ended in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, Cuba lost its largest trading partner and fell into a deep economic depression. In the U.S., many hoped that Cuban socialism would follow and it was to that end that they chose that moment to tighten the embargo. In October 1992, less than a month before the U.S. general elections, Congress passed the Torricelli Act. Foreign subsidiaries of U.S. owned companies were prohibited from trading with Cuba. Ships that delivered goods to Cuba were prohibited from docking in U.S. ports for six months after, forcing shipping companies to decide who they wanted to trade with: Cuba or the United States. Because a ship docking in Cuba either loses access to the U.S. market or risk a steep fine if they dock in a U.S. port, Cuba's shipping costs skyrocketed. The law also restricted remittances, prohibited economic assistance and debt forgiveness to any country conducting trade with Cuba, and increased punitive measures for anyone breaking the trade embargo or travelling to Cuba illegally.
Four years later, in another election year (1996), Congress passed the Helms-Burton Act. This Act included another series of harsh measures aimed at preventing non-U.S. firms from trading with Cuba by punishing those who engage in commercial dealings with Cuba. Under the Helms-Burton Act, any naturalized U.S. citizens whose Cuban property had been confiscated since the Revolution now had the right to sue, in U.S. courts, the foreign companies or individuals who they deem have gained from investments in those properties. It also authorized the U.S. State Department to deny visas to the executives, majority shareholders and their families of companies that have invested in property that belonged to U.S. companies prior to the Revolution.
Before the Helms-Burton Act, many elements of the embargo existed only as executive orders and regulations that could be modified by the president. Helms-Burton codified the embargo requiring an act of Congress to lift the embargo. It also dictated the conditions that must exist in Cuba before the embargo would be lifted. Top on the list were the creation of a new government in Cuba that does not include Fidel or Raul Castro and proof that this new government was "substantially moving towards a market-oriented economic system based on the right to own and enjoy property".
The recent attacks by the U.S. Treasury Department on businesses trading with Cuba show the strength of the Bush administration's commitment to "regime change" in Cuba. Perhaps these attacks also demonstrate its lack of commitment to fighting international terrorism. While the Treasury Department has 21 employees who track financial transactions with Cuba, it has only four employees responsible for tracking the funding of Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. Al Qaeda operatives may remain at-large, planning future terrorist attacks, but we can all rest assured that James Sabzali, a Canadian citizen who sold resins used to purify public drinking water in Cuba, has been slapped with a $10,000 fine and a 12-month conditional sentence for his dangerous actions. To you or me, this may sound a little harsh; to the Bush administration, it is clear that an unequivocal message must be sent to the international business community that trading with Cuba is "trading with the enemy". As the well-known axiom of Bush's foreign policy clearly states "You're either with us or against us".
One recommendation in the Commission's May report was that the U.S. government establish a Cuban Asset Targeting Group, to investigate and identify new ways in which hard currency is moved in and out of Cuba. In May, the U.S. Federal Reserve fined UBS AG, Switzerland's largest bank, $100 million dollars U.S. for allegedly sending U.S. dollars to Cuba in violation of provisions of the embargo that prevent Cuba from trading in dollars. This action has created serious problems for Cuba by making it very difficult to deposit its dollars abroad and renew bills in circulation.
Although the Bush administration claims that, "There is a growing international consensus on the nature of the Castro regime and the need for fundamental political and economic change on the island." for thirteen straight years, the U.N. General Assembly has voted to condemn the U.S. embargo against Cuba. On October 28, 2004, the U.N. General Assembly voted 179 to 4 with one abstention on a resolution condemning the U.S. economic embargo of Cuba. During these thirteen years, the margin in favor of Cuba has steadily increased. This year, only the United States, Israel, Palau and the Marshall Islands voted against a condemnation of the embargo. Is this the "coalition of the willing" who supports U.S. policies for "regime change" in Cuba? Just as in the current military war for "regime change" in Iraq, the U.S. government stands alone in its economic war against Cuba, supported only by a weak coalition of "allies" who cannot refuse.
A war of attrition is being fought by the U.S. in Cuba. The Cuban people are suffering from the cumulative effects of 45 years of economic policies designed to create the conditions for a US-assisted transition to a free-market economy. The island is blockaded, not by U.S. battleships and destroyers, but by a collection of laws and presidential mandates that fly in the face of international law, limiting the free movement of trade and the economic sovereignty of Cuba and those who would do business with them.
Hope Bastian is an educator working to educate U.S. citizens about the ways that U.S. foreign policy affects the people of Latin America.
-------- pakistan / india
Pakistan perturbed by tapes of al Qaeda
October 31, 2004
By Paul Haven
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20041031-125150-5997r.htm
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - The envelope containing terror mastermind Osama bin Laden's latest message to the world was dropped into a mailbox in an upscale neighborhood of the Pakistani capital, the second purported al Qaeda video to come out of this nation in a little more than a week.
Officials cautioned yesterday that release of the tape to the Islamabad office of Arabic television channel Al Jazeera does not prove that bin Laden is in Pakistan.
Nonetheless, its appearance was an embarrassment to Pakistan, which bills itself as a key ally in Washington's war on terrorism and has spent months focusing its troops on a swath of tribal communities along the Afghan-Pakistan border, where the fugitive al Qaeda leader reputedly has been hiding.
Ahmad Muaffaq Zaidan, Al Jazeera's bureau chief in Pakistan, said the tape was dropped off at the gate of the station's office Friday, just hours before it aired.
"The guard brought it to me along with other mail. It was in an envelope, I opened it, and it was a big scoop," Mr. Zaidan said. He immediately sent the tape to Al Jazeera's headquarters in the Persian Gulf nation of Qatar.
Pakistan has sent tens of thousands of troops to the long and porous border with Afghanistan, concentrating on forbidding North and South Waziristan, where both bin Laden and his top deputy, Egyptian surgeon Ayman al-Zawahri, are believed to be hiding.
Scores of soldiers and civilians have been killed, but the operations so far have not netted any major fugitives. The situation has sparked charges that the sweeps are conducted as a political show to curry favor with Washington, which has given Islamabad billions of dollars in aid since President Pervez Musharraf threw his support behind the anti-terrorism effort.
Bin Laden appeared far healthier in the video released Friday than many would have suspected, considering speculation that he already was ailing in the winter of 2001, when U.S., Afghan and Pakistani forces began their dragnet. U.S. officials have described him as holed up in a dank and dreary cave, all but cut off from the outside world.
Pakistani officials were quick to move into damage-control mode yesterday, saying they had no idea how Al Jazeera got the tape and insisting its existence did not prove the terrorist leader was here.
Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan, the army spokesman, said the intensity of Pakistan's efforts in North and South Waziristan would make it impossible for bin Laden to hide there.
"Even if the tape was dropped here, that doesn't mean that he is here," Gen. Sultan said. "Nobody knows where he is, but he cannot be in Pakistan's tribal areas because of the presence of so many troops."
Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao said, "I don't think he is in Pakistan."
In Afghanistan, the U.S. military dismissed the videotape as "propaganda" and insisted bin Laden would be caught.
"Although we don't have a time frame for when bin Laden will be captured, we have full confidence that he will be," U.S. military spokesman Maj. Scott Nelson told reporters.
Asked where bin Laden was hiding, Maj. Nelson said the military still suspected he could be somewhere near the Afghan-Pakistani border.
"If we knew exactly where he was, we would be there in a moment, and we would have a very happy day and a happy election," Maj. Nelson said.
Pakistan has made more than 500 al Qaeda arrests since the September 11, 2001, attacks, including a series of arrests this summer that led to a terrorism warning in the United States.
Unidentified observers said the success can be considered confirmation of Pakistan's cooperation in the war on terrorism or as evidence that this is still the nation of choice for many of bin Laden's followers.
The tape was the second released here to a major television network. ABC News received a tape showing a shrouded man claiming to be an American member of al Qaeda in Pakistan on Oct. 22, then waited several days to air it as it checked its authenticity.
The man, who spoke in English, threatened more attacks and said U.S. streets would "run red with blood."
Intelligence officials, however, have not been able to verify the tape's authenticity, and officials do not have information linking the video to a specific threat, said an intelligence official, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
They also have not been able to positively identify the speaker.
Both the bin Laden video and the one aired by ABC News carried banners attributing it to the Sahab Production Committee, a purported al Qaeda propaganda company.
Talat Massood, a defense analyst and former Pakistani general, said bin Laden probably was in Pakistan, despite the official denials, and that he could be either in the sprawling Pakistani port city of Karachi or well cared for by followers in the tribal region.
"The fact that he has the courage to come out shows that he feels protected in his surroundings," Mr. Massood said. His healthy appearance "shows that he is probably living in reasonable comfort and he is being taken care of."
Associated Press reporters Stephen Graham in Kabul, Afghanistan, and Sadaqat Jan in Islamabad contributed to this report.
-------- russia / chechnya
At Least 15 Injured in Blast Outside Chechen Hospital
October 31, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Russia-Chechnya.html?pagewanted=all
MOSCOW (AP) -- Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev, who claimed responsibility for last month's Beslan school hostage-taking, warned Sunday that he was ready to fight Russia for a decade and insisted civilians remained a fair target.
But Basayev also said the rebels would observe ``international law'' if Russia also made such a commitment. The Chechens have accused the Russians of human rights violations and war crimes.
``If (President Vladimir) Putin doesn't want peace, we'll wait until he leaves or if we can we'll send him directly to hell,'' Basayev said in an interview published on Chechenpress.com, a Chechen Web site. ``Five years of war have gone quickly, another five or ten years will go just as fast.''
Basayev has claimed responsibility for some of the most audacious terror attacks inside Russia, including the Sept. 1-3 hostage-taking in North Ossetia which left more than 330 people dead, half of them children. The Federal Security Service has offered a reward of $10.3 million for information that could help ``neutralize'' him.
The interview dated from Oct. 14 featured Basayev's responses to e-mail questions posed by Toronto's the Globe and Mail newspaper to another Chechen Web site, the site said. There was no way to independently confirm the authenticity of the interview, although it did feature some hallmarks of Basayev's style.
``Our aim isn't to kill people, especially children, but to stop the genocide of the Chechen people and defend freedom and independence,'' Basayev reportedly wrote. ``Therefore, we are forced to resort to extremes, which we are not ourselves happy with.''
Basayev said that ``if Putin would begin to observe international law, then we would automatically begin to observe it.'' He added that such a move would ``even be advantageous for us,'' but stressed the rebels wouldn't do that ``unilaterally.''
He also insisted that most Chechen rebels fight independently in small groups and organize their own financing, saying that his presence in Chechnya was rarely required. In 2003, Basayev said he was only in Chechnya for two weeks ``and the majority of the mujahadeen didn't even notice.''
Meanwhile, a car bomb exploded Sunday outside the Chechen capital's main hospital, injuring 17 people in an attack that apparently targeted members of a Chechen security force bringing their wounded for treatment after an earlier explosion, officials said.
The first explosion struck a vehicle carrying the Chechen security troops on a highway in the outskirts of the capital, Grozny, Federal Security Service spokesman, Maj. Gen. Ilya Shabalkin, said on Russia's NTV television.
Then, as the injured were being taken into Grozny's hospital No. 9, a second car exploded outside the building, he said.
Thirteen of the wounded in the second attack were members of the Chechen presidential security service, headed by Chechen First Deputy Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov, said Maj. Igor Golubenko, a duty officer for the Chechnya Emergency Situations Ministry in Rostov-on-Don. The other victims were three hospital workers and a child. The security service officers appeared to have been the target, Golubenko said.
Golubenko said that one person was wounded at the highway blast. Shabalkin, however, put the number of wounded there at three and said one person had died, according to Russian media.
The presidential security service, believed to number 2,000-4,000 men, is responsible for combating the rebels who have been fighting Russian rule for close to a decade. But they are widely feared by Chechen civilians and have been accused of severe abuses ranging from kidnappings to robberies.
Separatist rebels pushed Russian troops out of Chechnya in 1996, after a 20-month war that left the region de facto independent. Troops returned in the fall of 1999 after rebels raided the neighboring province of Dagestan and after a series of apartment house bombings that Russian officials blamed on the rebels.
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Deputy chief of Russia's strategic air force killed: report
MOSCOW (AFP)
Oct 31, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041031201740.ziq2a9i9.html
The deputy commander of Russia's strategic long-range air force was killed Sunday in the western Smolensk region, the Interfax news agency reported quoting police sources.
Unknown assailants opened fire on General Konstantin Dementyev's car, killing both Dementyev and his driver on the spot, the sources said, adding that the second passenger was rushed to a Smolensk hospital.
No official comment was immediately available.
-------- un
Message from the people of Fallujah
Bristol Stop The War News
31st October 2004
http://www.couplescompany.com/Features/Politics/2004/FallujahPlea.htm
This letter was sent by representatives of the people of Fallujah to the UN secretary general Kofi Annan and published in the United Kingdom on October 31, 2004.
"IT IS more than evident that US forces are committing daily acts of genocide in Iraq. As we write, these crimes are being perpetrated against the city of Fallujah.
US war planes are launching their most powerful bombs against the civilian population, killing and wounding hundreds of innocent people. Their tanks are pounding the city with heavy artillery.
As you know, there is no military presence in the city. There have been no actions by the resistance in Fallujah in the last few weeks because negotiations are in progress between representatives of the city and the Allawi government.
The new bombardment by the US has begun while the people are fasting during the celebration of Ramadan. Now many of them are trapped in the ruins of their homes and cut off from any outside assistance.
On the night of 13 October a single US bombardment destroyed 50 houses and their inhabitants. Is this a crime of genocide or a lesson about US democracy? The US is committing acts of terror against the people of Fallujah for only one reason to force them to accept the occupation.
Your Excellency and the whole world know that the US and their allies have destroyed our country on the pretext of the threat of weapons of mass destruction.
Now, after their own mass destruction and the killing of thousands of civilians, they have admitted that they have not found any.
But they have said nothing about the crimes they have committed. The whole world is silent, and even the killing of Iraqi civilians is not condemned. Will the US be paying compensation, as it made Iraq do after the 1991 Gulf War?
We know that we live in a world of double standards. In Fallujah the US has created a new and shadowy target "Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
Al-Zarqawi is a new excuse to justify the USAs criminal actions. A year has passed since this new excuse was dreamed up, and every time they attack homes, mosques and restaurants, killing women and children, they say. We have launched a successful operation against al-Zarqawi.
They will never say they have killed him, because he does not exist. The people of Fallujah assure you that this person is not in the city, nor probably anywhere else in Iraq.
Many times the people of Fallujah have asked that if anyone sees al-Zarqawi they should kill him. We know now that he is nothing but a phantom created by the US.
Our representatives have repeatedly denounced kidnapping and killing of civilians. We have nothing to do with any group that acts in an inhumane manner.
We call on you and the leaders of the world to exert the greatest pressure on the Bush administration to end its crimes against Fallujah and pull its army back from the city.
When they left a while ago, the city had peace and tranquility. There was no disorder in the city. The civil administration here functioned well, despite the lack of resources.
Our offence is simply that we did not welcome the forces of occupation. This is our right according to UN Charter, according to international law and according to the norms of humanity.
It is very urgent that you, along with other world leaders, intervene immediately to prevent another massacre. We have tried to contact UN representatives in Iraq to ask them to do this but, as you know, they are sealed off in the maximum security Green Zone in Baghdad and we are not allowed access to them.
We want the UN to take a stand on the situation in Fallujah.
Best wishes, in the name of the people of Fallujah, the shura council of Fallujah, the trade union association, the teachers union, and the council of tribal leaders "
Kassim Abdullsattar al-Jumaily: President The Study Center of Human Rights & Democracy
On behalf of the people of Fallujah and for: Al-Fallujah Shura Council The Bar Association The Teacher Union Council of Tribes Leaders The House of Fatwa and Religious Education
This letter was first published in the Bristol Stop The War News - U.K 31st October 2004
-------- us
Need for Draft Is Dismissed by Officials at Pentagon
October 31, 2004
By THOM SHANKER
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/31/politics/31draft1.html
WASHINGTON, Oct. 30 - Rumors of a secret plan to reinstate the draft are churning across the Internet, worrying some in Congress and even coloring the presidential campaign, but senior Pentagon personnel officials and Army officers insist that there is no need for a draft - and that they do not want one, either.
To counter public fears that conscription is returning, these officials produced internal studies to illustrate the economic and demographic reasons why a draft is not necessary, and why it would be a step backward for the quality of the current all-volunteer force.
Army and Pentagon officials hope that efforts under way to reorganize the service to form at least 43 combat brigades from today's 33 will create additional deployable units and alleviate the stress on the Army. And as both the Air Force and Navy shrink their personnel rosters, some of those departing personnel are being courted by the Army in a program that also serves as antidote to the draft.
If a decision is made that the American military should grow, then the Pentagon could ask Congress to finance a permanent expansion in personnel, including enough money to attract recruits and retain those in uniform without undercutting accounts for operations and weapons systems.
Officials note that Congressional proposals for expanding the military, mostly in the range of 30,000 to 40,000 more troops, would hardly require a new draft to force conscripts from across the approximately two-million-strong cohort of current 18-year-old Americans.
In fact, the demographics of America are cited by Pentagon officials as a major reason why the draft makes no sense today.
The Pentagon's top personnel officer, David S. C. Chu, said the size of today's military - 1.4 million in the active component, and 1.2 million in the National Guard and Reserve - is a much smaller percentage of a much larger pool of possible recruits than the United States faced during World War II and into the 1950's.
And since the military could not possibly absorb all the 18-year-olds in the population should a draft be reinstated, there is little doubt that a system of deferrals would be established that, just as in the Vietnam era, could create a caste-like system separating the privileged of America from the others.
"What do you do when not all need to be called and only a few are chosen?" said Mr. Chu, who is under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness. "It becomes a question of fairness."
Today's high-technology military also benefits from personnel who are committed to staying in the service for several years, allowing the armed services to reap full benefit from their costly training. During the draft, soldiers were required to stay in the service for only two years. But Pentagon studies show that current recruits need one to three years to reach full competency in combat or support skills.
A study by Mr. Chu's office makes that point in arguing against reinstating a draft that was allowed to lapse on July 1, 1973.
"Draftees quit early; volunteers stay - so today's mid-grade and senior noncommissioned officers are well-experienced," said the study, written by Bill Carr, deputy under secretary for military personnel policy.
"During the most recent draft, 90 percent of conscripts quit after their initial two-year hitch, whereas retention of volunteers is five times better - about half remain after their initial (normally four-year) military service obligation," said the study, which was published in the spring 2004 edition of "World Defense Systems," a military journal.
Those statistics may not be persuasive to those who believe the United States is poised for a broader array of offensive military operations against other adversaries that would require a draft, nor to those who feel that a program of required national service would benefit the nation and America's 18-year-olds.
But senior officers stress that the all-volunteer military is also more competent, better educated and more disciplined than in the final years of the draft.
"I served in the draftee Army," said Gen. Richard A. Cody, who is now vice chief of staff for the Army, the service most under stress from worldwide deployments. "Those soldiers were just as loyal as today," he said. "But it was like Forrest Gump. You know, 'Life is like a box of chocolates.' With conscripts, you never know what you're going to get."
General Cody said the strain to meet current global commitments cannot be minimized - nor the strain to meet recruiting goals. But he said the young men and women who signed up today were of a higher quality than any he had seen in 29 years of command.
"I don't have rose-colored glasses on," General Cody said. "But we don't need the draft and we don't want the draft. There are plenty of Americans who still want to be in the military."
Perhaps the most often-cited reason for opposition to a draft is the motivation of the all-volunteer force.
"The most important thing about a draft is that the people you draft, by definition, don't all want to be there," Mr. Chu said. "The great strength of the volunteer force is the ranks of people who all made a positive, voluntary decision that this is what they want to do."
The current American military "is also smarter than the general population" from which conscripts would be drawn, according to the study by Mr. Chu's office. "Over 90 percent of new recruits have a high school diploma, while only 75 percent of the American youth do; 67 percent score in the upper half of the enlistment (math/verbal aptitude) test," it stated.
"These attributes translate to lower attrition, faster training and higher performance," it concluded.
Mr. Chu said that studies of the military also showed that the all-volunteer force had fewer disciplinary problems than a draftee service.
"All that comes together in the performance of the force in the field, which is the ultimate test," Mr. Chu said. "How does this force fight? How well does it carry out the nation's objectives? How disciplined is it in the face of challenges? I don't think anyone can look at the events of the three-plus years since 9/11 and not see the payoff in the volunteer force."
--------
GIs Lack Armor, Radios, Bullets
(CBS)
Oct 31, 2004
http://cbsnewyork.com/topstories/topstories_story_305195404.html
Two weeks ago, a group of Army reservists in Iraq refused a direct order to go on a dangerous operation to re-supply another unit with jet fuel.
Without helicopter gunships to escort them over a treacherous stretch of highway, and lacking armored vehicles, soldiers from the 343rd Quartermaster Company called it a suicide mission.
The Army called it an isolated incident, a temporary breakdown in discipline, and an investigation is underway.
But the 343rd isn't the first outfit to be put in harm's way without proper equipment, and commanders in Iraq acknowledged that the unit's concerns were legitimate, even if their mutiny was not.
With a $400 billion defense budget you might think U.S. troops have everything they need to fight the war, but that's not always the case.
Correspondent Steve Kroft talks to a general, soldiers in Iraq, and their families at home about a lack of armored vehicles, field radios, night vision goggles, and even ammunition - especially for the National Guard and reserve units that now make up more than 40 percent of U.S. troops.
In this report, Kroft also talks to Sen. John McCain about how pork-barrel politics have shortchanged troops on the ground.
Every couple of weeks Karen Preston gets a telephone call from her son Ryan who is serving in Iraq with the Oregon National Guard.
But Karen Preston has been worrying a lot ever since last summer when Ryan returned home on leave and showed her these photos of the unarmored vehicles his unit was using for convoy duty in Iraq.
Lacking the proper steel plating to protect soldiers from enemy mines and rocket propelled grenades, they had been jerry-rigged with plywood and sandbags.
"They were called cardboard coffins," Preston says.
There have been more than 9,000 U.S. casualties in Iraq so far - more than 8,100 wounded and 1,100 killed. Nearly half of those casualties are the result of roadside bombs, known as improvised explosive devices or IEDs in military jargon. Yet the U.S. military still lacks thousands of fully armored vehicles that could save American lives.
Specialist Ronald Pepin, who serves in Baghdad with the New York National Guard, says, "They have no ground plating. So if you hit something underneath you, then it's going to kill the whole crew, you know? And that's just something you have to live with."
Staff Sgt. Sean Davis from the Oregon National Guard was critically wounded last June when his unarmored Humvee hit an IED outside of Baghdad. He suffered shrapnel wounds, burns, and was unable to walk for six weeks.
Davis said his Humvee was armored with plywood, sandbags, and armor salvaged from old Iraqi tanks.
He considers himself lucky that he wasn't killed in the blast. His friend and fellow guardsman Eric McKinley, who was riding in the same vehicle, wasn't so fortunate. The 24-year-old Army specialist died of his wounds. His father Tom said his son was supposed to have been discharged from the Oregon National Guard a few months before his death, but was held over because of the war.
McKinley says his son would have stood a lot better chance of surviving had his vehicle been fully armored.
"Our troops need to be protected over there to the best ability that we can protect them and it's not being done," he says.
The Department of Defense denied a 60 Minutes request for an on-camera interview to explain the situation. But responding to a written question about vehicles traveling dangerous routes in Iraq being armored with plywood and sandbags, the Army told us, "As long as the Army has a single vehicle without armor, we expect that our soldiers will continue to find ways to increase their level of protection."
60 Minutes went to a man more familiar with the problems facing the Oregon National Guard than anyone else - its commanding general, Ray Byrne. General Byrne was somewhat reluctant to talk when 60 Minutes showed him pictures of his men's Humvees and trucks, armored with plywood and sandbags.
"If you have nothing then that's better than nothing. The question becomes then again when - when are they going to receive the full up armored Humvees? And I don't have that answer," says Gen. Byrne.
"It distresses me greatly that they do not have the equipment. I don't have control over it. The soldiers don't have control over it. The question becomes, 'When is it going to be available? When is it going to be available? When will they have it?'"
There are still no good answers to those questions. Most of the vehicles in Iraq arrived there without armor plating, because the Pentagon war planners didn't anticipate a long, bloody insurgency.
But 18 months after President Bush declared an end of major combat, the Pentagon is still struggling to provide the equipment needed to fight the war.
Oregon Congresswoman Darlene Hooley, a Democrat whose district includes Gen. Byrne's National Guard, complained to the secretary of defense. She says she thinks the vehicles are not fully armored yet because military planners didn't anticipate an insurgency.
"We didn't have enough armored vehicles," she says. "They weren't manufactured."
Congress has appropriated additional money for armored trucks and Humvees, over $800 million in the current defense bill.
The Army told 60 Minutes they will have produced 8,100 fully-armored Humvees by March.
However, production is lagging behind the urgent need, and the Pentagon's interim solution is shipping so-called "add-on armor" kits to Iraq, where they are being bolted on to thousands of vehicles.
But most of those add-ons don't protect the bottom of the vehicle, leaving them vulnerable to an explosive device.
And it isn't the only equipment problem facing soldiers in Iraq.
Oregon guardsman Sean Davis told us that his unit was short ammunition and night vision goggles, and lacked radios to communicate with each other.
He says guardsman were using walkie-talkies that they or their families purchased from a sporting goods or similar store. "And anybody can pick up those signals, you know," he says. "And we don't have the radios that we need."
Gen. Byrne says stories about families in Oregon having to go out and buy for their sons and daughters radio equipment, body armor, GPS gear, computers and night vision goggles because they weren't being issued are true.
He said some Guard units are also using Vietnam era M-16 assault rifles, which he calls adequate for state duty but not acceptable for duty in Iraq. There is also a bullet shortage for training, he says.
It bothers him, but "there's nothing I can do about it," he says.
"If I was making the decisions, I would readjust," he says. "The soldier on the ground should be a focus. When that's taken care of you can take care of other stuff."
The Army acknowledged to 60 Minutes that there is a shortage of radios in Iraq and a shortage of bullets for training, and says both are in the process of being remedied. There have also been problems with maintenance and replacement parts for critical equipment like Abrams tanks, Bradley personnel carriers and Black Hawk helicopters.
Winslow Wheeler, a long time Capitol Hill staffer who spent years writing and reviewing defense appropriations bills, thinks he knows one reason why those shortages exist, after looking at the current Defense budget. Army accounts that pay for training, maintenance and repairs are being raided by Congress to pay for pork-barrel spending.
Wheeler says $2.8 billion that was earmarked for operations and maintenance to support U.S. troops has been used to "pay the pork bill."
Wheeler, who has written a book called "The Wastrels of Defense," says congressmen routinely hide billions of dollars in pet projects in the defense bill.
And buried in the back of this one, Wheeler found a biathlon jogging track in Alaska, a brown tree snake eradication program in Hawaii, a parade ground maintenance contract for a military base that closed years ago, and money for the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial celebration.
By law, these projects can't be cut, so Pentagon bookkeepers will have to dip into operations and maintenance accounts to pay for them.
"They do all kinds of things that adds up to: 'We're basically eating our own young to support the war,'" he says.
According to Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a member of the Armed Services Committee who speaks out against pork-barrel spending, there is a total of $8.9 billion of pork in this year's defense bill, which would go a long way toward upgrading all the equipment used by the National Guard.
"I don't think that this war has truly come home to the Congress of the United States," McCain says. "This is the first time in history that we've cut taxes during a war. So I think that a lot of members of Congress feel that this is just sort of a business-as-usual situation."
"The least sexy items are the mundane - food, repair items, maintenance - there's no big contract there," says McCain. "And so there's a tendency that those mundane but vital aspects of war fighting are cut and routinely underfunded."
It is not a comforting thought for families with loved ones in Iraq, who lack armored vehicles, radios or things they need to stay alive. It's on Karen Preston's mind every time she talks to her son.
"He's very pro-military, as am I," she says. "I just want them to have the best equipment."
Some armored vehicles have now been shipped to her son's unit, but without protection on the bottom of the vehicle, an insurgent's explosive is just as deadly.
Specialist Pepin on the New York Guard says, "It's kind of like an act of faith. When you get in your vehicle, you just hope, you know. Say a little prayer before you go out."
This weekend, Acting Secretary of the Army Les Brownlee wrote to 60 Minutes saying, "The Army has made great strides in improving the capabilities of all units deploying to Iraq as the nature of the conflict has changed." He noted the president approved spending $840 million to improve the armor on Humvees in Iraq.
-----
Pentagon suppresses details of civilian casualties, says expert
independent.co.uk
By Raymond Whitaker
31 October 2004
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=577793
The Pentagon is collecting figures on local casualties in Iraq, contrary to its public claims, but the results are classified, according to one of the authors of an independent study which reported last week that the war has killed at least 100,000 Iraqis.
"Despite the claim of the head of US Central Command at the time, General Tommy Franks, that 'We don't do body counts', the US military does collect casualty figures in Iraq," said Professor Richard Garfield, an expert on the effects of conflict on civilians. "But since 1991, when Colin Powell was head of the joint chiefs of staff, the figures have been kept secret."
Professor Garfield, who lectures at Columbia University in New York and the London School of Hygiene and Public Health, believes the Pentagon's stance has confused its response to the latest study. "The military is saying: 'We don't believe it, but because we don't collect figures, we can't comment," he said.
"Mr Powell decided to keep the figures secret because of the controversy over body counts in Vietnam, but I think democracies need this information."
The first scientific study of the human cost of the Iraq war, published last week in The Lancet, showed a higher level of casualties than previous estimates. Iraqbodycount.net, a website which collects accounts of Iraqi civilian deaths reported by two separate media sources, said yesterday the toll was between 14,181 and 16,312, but admits that the spreading violence in Iraq, which has made it all but impossible for journalists to move around safely, has undermined its method. That did not prevent the Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, from using its figures to cast doubt on the academic survey.
The Government would examine the results "with very great care", Mr Straw told BBC Radio 4's Today programme last week. "It is an estimate based on very different methodology from standard methodology for assessing casualties, namely on the number of people reported to have been killed at the time or around the time." Previously the Government has dismissed the findings of the Iraqbodycount website.
The study by US and Iraqi researchers, led by Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, surveyed 1,000 households in 33 randomly chosen areas in Iraq. It found that the risk of violent death was 58 times higher in the period since the invasion, and that most of the victims were women and children.
"Making conservative assumptions, about 100,000 excess deaths have happened ... Violence accounted for most of the excess deaths, and air strikes from coalition forces accounted for most violent deaths," said Les Roberts of the Baltimore institution. The researchers excluded Fallujah, the most violent area of Iraq, from their results, which would have made the toll higher. But the finding that air strikes caused the highest casualties casts doubt on US claims that air attacks allow pinpoint precision.
Iraq's interim government has also suppressed casualty figures. Dr Nagham Mohsen, an official at the Iraqi Health Ministry, was compiling data from hospital records last year. In December she was ordered by a superior to stop. The Health Minister denied that the order was inspired by the Coalition Provisional Authority.
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
-------- homeland security / national intelligence
Cutbacks Threaten Work Of Homeland Security Unit
By John Mintz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, October 31, 2004; Page A06
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A12489-2004Oct30?language=printer
A key unit of the Department of Homeland Security has slipped into a state of financial turmoil that could endanger its ability to investigate terrorists, pay informants and perform wiretaps, some department employees and officials say.
All hiring and transfers at the department's Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) division have been banned for two months, as have almost all training, purchases of supplies and equipment, and maintenance of vehicles. Top department officials say they are committed to protecting ICE's ability to perform investigations, but agents in the field say ICE's budget shortfall of perhaps $500 million may soon threaten its national security work.
The cause of the financial hole at ICE is a set of complex accounting maneuvers used when the Department of Homeland Security was established in 2003. Those procedures have led to financial disputes among several Homeland Security agencies, officials said.
ICE has a diverse mission that includes investigating immigration violations, international arms dealers, money launderers and child pornographers. It is participating in the government effort to disrupt possible terrorist threats during the election period. It is an amalgam of parts of the old Customs Service, the former Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), and other agencies.
Top Homeland Security officials are hiring outside accountants to help referee the disputes, which involve hundreds of millions of dollars, among the three Homeland Security agencies that include parts of the old INS: the 15,000-employee ICE; Customs and Border Protection (CBP), whose 41,000 employees guard U.S. borders, airports and seaports; and the 10,000-strong Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS), which provides services for immigrants.
"These are very frontline agencies, and getting them healthy as fast as possible is what we're about," said Andrew Maner, Homeland Security's chief financial officer, who has overseen 10 months of intense negotiations among the three agencies. "We need to have very healthy agencies, given what they do."
One result of ICE's budget crisis is that it has been forced to release on bond 25,000 illegal immigrants over the past year because it lacked space to incarcerate them, said Rep. Jim Turner (Texas), the ranking Democrat on the House Select Committee on Homeland Security. "That's a dangerous situation that needs management attention," he said.
ICE officials disputed the number, adding that they did not release any convicted criminals or people suspected of posing terrorist threats.
ICE officials said they do not plan layoffs or furloughs, and that they are doing everything they can to avoid compromising investigations. In a Sept. 3 e-mail to employees announcing the need for deeper budget cuts, ICE chief Michael Garcia said they were necessary "to ensure we operate within our budget while continuing to direct resources towards our national security missions, which are our highest priority."
"The message has been sent to the field to make sure they continue to fulfill that mission," ICE spokesman Russ Knocke said.
ICE agents around the country confirmed that their superiors are trying to avoid limiting investigations. But it has become clear that ICE will overspend its current budget of $3.8 billion, even with the cutbacks it is making, ICE officials and agents said. It is illegal for an agency to overspend its congressionally approved budget.
The budget picture varies office by office, employees said. Most larger offices have been able to keep cars running and agents active because they have more budget flexibility, but some smaller field offices are taking cars off the streets, restricting photocopying and cutting agents' budgets, officials said.
"My bosses are saying, 'Don't ground the fleet, because that affects operations,' and so we haven't," said an official at a large ICE office. "But it's not possible to meet our budgets" without cutbacks that would sideline agents' vehicles, he added. "We're on track to overspend."
The origins of ICE's budget problems hark back to the way the former agencies were broken up and reassembled into three new entities inside Homeland Security. It has led to bitter clashes among the three new agencies -- ICE, CBP and CIS -- over how much each owes the others for providing an array of expensive services to one another.
The disputes involve hundreds of types of cash outlays, including the computer work that ICE provides the other two agencies; and ICE's payment of rent and parking costs to the other agencies in some field offices. All three claim they should be repaid for various costs they incur for the other agencies, but ICE is by far the overall loser, officials said.
In merging the various parts of the old Customs and INS, Congress and the White House decided that the new Homeland Security entities should not create their own units to handle information technology, human resources, payroll, legal and other services, officials said. To economize, the three agencies were each assigned to handle some of the tasks for the others, and instructed to settle the costs later. But the task has turned out to be much more difficult and disruptive than anyone predicted, officials said.
ICE has been plagued by employee discontent since it was formed, along with the Department of Homeland Security, in March 2003. Many former Customs agents, who prided themselves on high performance and esprit de corps, resented being put together with agents from the old INS and being forced to pursue sometimes humdrum cases involving alien smuggling rings and fraudulent marriages.
Many former Customs agents also express bitterness about using ICE's computerized budget- and case-tracking systems, which used to belong to the INS and had been criticized by outside auditors for years. A number of ICE employees and members of Congress say ICE's internal financial systems are one cause of ICE's current budget crisis -- an assertion ICE officials deny.
The Homeland Security appropriations bill approved earlier this month notes that lawmakers are "extremely concerned about the financial health of ICE, and whether it has the systems and management in place to support the functioning of the agency.
"The adverse impact of hiring and spending freezes and uncertainty on the operations of this critical agency and the morale of its personnel cannot be ignored," according to language in the law.
In tense bargaining over last fiscal year's budget, Homeland Security officials persuaded the three agencies to repay each other for various services. ICE was given $500 million, with CBP paying $215 million of that, and CIS providing $270 million. ICE also saved $120 million through cutbacks in the past fiscal year, which ended on Sept. 30.
Now the three agencies are locked in negotiations for the current fiscal year, with each saying it is owed money, and ICE warning it might not be able to do its job under its current budget. The accountants are looking at such seemingly trivial cost-allocation questions as how much each agency pays for photocopiers in each field office and the share of copying by employees of each of the three agencies.
"This is incredibly complex," said a Homeland Security official briefed on the controversy. "But ICE's new budget [from Congress] has a huge projected hole in it. . . . This situation has to be resolved immediately."
--------
Protecting the Homeland
The SUN
By Julie McCormick
October 31, 2004
http://www.thesunlink.com/bsun/local/article/0,2403,BSUN_19088_3294489,00.html
Not if, but when.
The chilling prospect of another September 11th-type attack on Americans, on American soil and against American landmarks is not in question.
All agree we must assume the worst, do all we can to prevent it and be prepared to meet it when it comes.
Still, two central questions cloud the issue of how best to protect America: Are we spending enough? And are we spending it on the right things? On these, our leaders are far from agreement.
The $450 million for port protection that Washington Sen. Patty Murray hoped to add to the $32 billion homeland security authorization bill ran into near-solid Republican resistance. Ditto the extra $2 billion Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia proposed for emergency workers, railroads and other security, along with $15.8 billion Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut wanted for a broad range of emergency response measures.
All are Democrats and, while every vote didn't split evenly down party lines, Republican leaders were candid about their reluctance to spend more on homeland security in the face of growing deficits and mounting war costs.
"We need a balance between providing money for homeland security and keeping deficits from going higher," Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., told the Associated Press.
Over in the House, which has its own version of the bill, things haven't been much different, said Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Belfair. Dicks and Bellevue Republican Jennifer Dunn sit on the 50-member House Select Committee on Homeland Security. Dicks estimates the nation needs to spend $15 to $25 billion more than the $29.8 billion slotted for discretionary homeland security for next year. He contends much more is needed to safeguard the nation's critically underprotected chemical and nuclear plants, and expand inspections of airline and ship cargoes.
After ABC News broached container cargo security by twice shipping 15 pounds of depleted uranium into the country, the Department of Homeland Security's inspector general two weeks ago acknowledged serious deficiencies and opened a review of customs and border-protection procedures.
Attempts over a three-week period to obtain the Republicans' take brought no response from Dunn. Similarly, Rep. Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania, a former fire chief reputed to favor more money for first-reponder preparedness, did not respond to repeated inquiries. Nor did the office of Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Colo. Both sit on the select committee with Dunn and Dicks.
"Here's what keeps me awake at night," said Dicks, ticking off the numbers of ports and containers arriving at them every day. Only 5 percent are properly inspected for dirty bombs and other terror-related hazards, he said.
It's no secret there is no adequate procedure or equipment to screen air cargo that goes on the same planes with passengers, whose persons and property undergo close scrutiny.
"I don't know how this administration gets away with it," said Dicks.
Two weeks ago, the Senate and House approved the new spending bill for the Department of Homeland Security, about a half billion dollars more than President George Bush's proposal. If voters return Bush to office, "We'll just have to keep fighting," said Dicks.
There's little overt fighting over the other key question, though - tying funding to risk.
Congressional leaders from both sides of the aisle have been highly critical of the failure by the 18-month-old Department of Homeland Security to complete work on risk and vulnerability criteria so money will go where it's most needed. The new deadline is December. State officials say the feds are unsure they'll meet it.
"Homeland security assistance should be based strictly on an assessment of risks and vulnerabilities not remain a program for general revenue sharing. It should supplement state and local resources based on the risks or vulnerabilities that merit additional support. Congress should not use this money as a pork barrel."
That's what the bipartisan 9/11 Commission unanimously concluded in July. Shortly after, damning investigations by two California newspapers found massive under-spending in high-target urban areas of the state, silly trickles of cash to rural regions with no identified targets, and questionable-to-absurd misuse of anti-terror money for things like night goggles for gang surveillance, heart defibrillators for shopping centers and police overtime at anti-war rallies.
Whenever there's new money available, competition can be fierce, especially without clearly established criteria for spending. Officials running the state's Region 2 homeland security effort for Kitsap, Jefferson and Clallam counties avoided the problem by setting up strict priorities for funding requests, said Phyllis Mann, director of emergency management in Kitsap.
"We pre-planned the greed factor and we put all of our rules and procedures into place before there was any money," said Mann.
The debate over how much to put where might appear strictly partisan, but the split in opinion and position often cuts across party lines and into the heart of the other national security discussion - Iraq.
The first presidential debate was supposed to be about all areas of national security, but only one homeland security question was asked.
"The best way to protect this homeland is to stay on the offense," President George Bush asserted, a position the administration has stuck to since the war began.
Neither candidate satisfactorily illuminated the home part of homeland security, said journalist Matthew Brzezinski, whose new book "Fortress America - An Inside Look at the Coming Surveillance State" puts DHS under a microscope and finds enough bugs to start a pandemic.
Bush's claim to have "tripled the budget for homeland security" during the last three years ignored the fact that about half the Department of Homeland Security's budget includes the fixed costs of the 22 agencies that got swept into its massive new bureaucracy.
There's really only about $8 billion in new money, Brzezinski's book estimates. His observation echoed less caustic language in a Congressional Budget Office report in April.
As for Kerry's debate charge that Bush has cut money for police and fire stations in the U.S. while spending hundreds of millions on them in Iraq, Brzezinsky said he doesn't think the Democratic hopeful fully understands homeland security. "Homeland security is a lot more than just police and fire stations," he said.
The most urgent spending needs reported by federal and industry sources total $48.6 billion, Brzezinsky asserted in an article derived from the book and published in this month's Mother Jones magazine. But only $1.1 billion was included in the administration's 2005 budget proposal, about what it costs to wage the war in Iraq for 104 hours.
A huge chunk of the estimated need - $36.8 billion - is for firefighter preparation. Much of that is to provide local "interoperability" with radios that allow everyone at an incident scene to talk to everyone else. Lack of connected radio communication was a major scandal at the World Trade Center on September 11th, when first-responders couldn't warn each other that the buildings were coming down.
The local need was most urgent in Jefferson county, where firefighters got 113 new radios in Region 2's first funding round.
But the bureaucratic process makes it hard to get here from there - to Kitsap via Olympia from Washington, D.C. For every discrete spending approval, "I had to go through four governmental steps," said Mann. "That doesn't sound like a lot, but each step takes 30 to 60 days."
Administration and Department of Homeland Security officials insist that most of the funding pipeline problems are being addressed, and there's no doubt that a huge new bureaucracy with 180,000 employees isn't easy to birth.
And yes, we're safer, Dicks, Brzezinsky and other critics concede. Just not safe enough.
Reach reporter Julie McCormick at (360) 415-2683 or jmccormick@kitsdapsun.com.
-------- prisons / prisoners
Spanish Prisons Provide Pool of Recruits for Radical Islam
October 31, 2004
By RENWICK McLEAN
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/31/international/europe/31spain.html
MADRID, Oct. 30 - Rather than scan all of society for recruits, Islamic militants in Spain have found that many of the most promising candidates have already been collected into one bountiful pool, law enforcement experts say.
It is the Spanish prison system, which has become increasingly populated with immigrants from North Africa, many possessing the characteristics that the recruiters are seeking, the law enforcement experts say. The prisoners are often Muslims, even if largely lapsed ones, and they are often bitter about their experiences in the West or their prison experiences.
The Spanish police announced Thursday that they had arrested 13 people they suspected of belonging to a terrorist cell made up almost entirely of North African immigrants recruited in a Spanish prison.
The group, which included 18 others arrested two weeks ago, began as a collection of unacquainted men jailed for minor criminal offenses like weapons possession, document fraud or robbery, the police said.
But their time in prison transformed them into the Martyrs for Morocco, a terrorist group planning to blow up the national court in Madrid, investigators said.
"It has confirmed that the nucleus for recruitment is centered on people convicted of common crimes," Baltasar Garzón, the judge investigating the case, said in a report released this week. He urged the government to tighten controls on the prison population here.
Prisons in other countries have become recruiting grounds as well, experts say.
One of the men accused in the March 11 terror attacks in Madrid had served time in a Morocco prison, though before that he had been just "an ordinary criminal who drank too much," a Spanish intelligence official said.
In Britain, Richard C. Reid, who admitted to trying to blow up a passenger plane with explosives in his shoes, converted to Islam during a stay in prison.
"In the prisons, one finds people who are young, alienated, with a taste for adventure and for risk taking, and who feel their lives have been a waste," Juan Avilés, director of the Institute for the Investigation of National Security, a research and teaching organization in Madrid, said in a telephone interview. "You can find all the raw materials for forming terrorists."
In Spain, "One of every 10 prisoners is from Moroccan or Algerian origin," by Mr. Avilés's calculations.
The ratio here may be far smaller than it is in countries like France, where more than half of the prison population is Muslim. But it represents a sharp increase from just five years ago, according to an official at the Interior Ministry, who said exact figures were not available.
There are about 60,000 inmates in the Spanish prison system, up from 45,000 in 2000.
In response to the Madrid plot, the government has announced a series of steps, including separating inmates considered Islamic militants from one another in the prison population.
But the move has drawn opposition from Muslim groups. Mansur Escudero, the secretary general of the Islamic Commission of Spain, the Muslim population's most influential voice here, said the move might actually make the problem worse. "It could foster radicalism because they will be in more prisons," he said in a telephone interview, adding that recruiters will have access to a broader population of inmates if they are spread throughout the prison system.
Dr. Escudero also questioned whether the government would be able to identify people with such intentions. "How do you tell?" he asked.
But Mr. Avilés said the move was a prudent measure. "Yes there is a risk, but our experience in Spain is that dispersal works," he said, alluding to a policy adopted by the government in dealing with prisoners from ETA, the Basque separatist group with a history of violent attacks.
Even if it works, the separation policy is still only a partial solution, some analysts contend. "Dispersal has its limits because there is no space," Jesús Núñez, director of the Institute for the Study of Conflicts and Humanitarian Action, a research organization in Madrid, said in an interview. "Spanish jails are saturated."
In his report on the Madrid plot, Judge Garzón gave his view of how recruitment takes place. "They are initially exposed to the extremist vision of Islam as a means of atonement for their previous sins," he said.
Later, he added, the vision is presented as a way "to confer purification upon them through, in this case, martyrdom."
He also released a portion of a letter from a man he said was a terrorist operative. "The brothers who are in the mountains fight with bullets and bombs, and those who are in the jails of the infidels fight by preaching Islam with their heart, tongue and pencil," the letter said.
-------- terrorism
NEWS ANALYSIS
Terrorist Tape, Political Angst
October 31, 2004
By ADAM NAGOURNEY
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/31/politics/campaign/31assess.html?ei=5094&en=4933232abf51552e&hp=&ex=1099195200&partner=homepage&pagewanted=all&position=
MIAMI, Oct. 30 - The latest surprise of this campaign arrived less than 100 hours before Election Day, in the form of Osama bin Laden's videotaped message to America. Even Democrats described it as somewhat welcome news for President Bush after a difficult stretch for the White House.
Yes, as some Democrats said, voters were reminded that Mr. bin Laden was healthy and alive, three years after Mr. Bush declared he wanted him "dead or alive," and in the midst of a campaign in which Mr. Kerry had systematically assailed Mr. Bush as allowing his Iraq war to distract from the more lethal threat of Mr. bin Laden.
But there were signs of concern in Mr. Kerry's circles as this campaign took yet another sharp turn in response to events far from Washington. While the candidate's first reaction to the tape was to repeat his standing criticism that Mr. Bush had allowed Mr. bin Laden to escape in the hills of Tora Bora, Kerry aides have said they would just as soon change the topic.
But on Saturday, while avoiding the mention of the tape itself, Mr. Kerry found himself battling with the president about the best way to protect America against terrorism. [Page 29.]
The attempt by the Kerry campaign to play down the topic came as no surprise.
The videotape - in which Mr. bin Laden taunts the president and makes vaguely threatening remarks about the nation's security - reinforced what has been the defining rationale of Mr. Bush's re-election candidacy since the morning that planes slammed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon: that the nation is at war, and that this Republican son of a president can best protect it.
"The more these images are out there now, the more it helps Bush," said Joe Trippi, who was the campaign manager for Howard Dean, one of Mr. Kerry's rivals for the Democratic nomination.
"Every American wants to keep this fight out of the country, and that has been the hallmark of the Bush campaign."
While it seems inevitable that Mr. bin Laden will dominate much of the closing act of this campaign, it is still an open question just how many votes this could sway here or in the other eight swing states where the campaign is being played out in these final hours.
For one thing, the tape was released late on a Friday afternoon, a time when experienced American politicians typically try to sneak out news they do not want to gain much notice (a practice that Mr. bin Laden is presumably unaware of). By now, undecided voters are as scarce as Mr. bin Laden once was: on this late October weekend, the contest is less about swaying undecided voters than about getting supporters to the polls.
And Mr. Bush is certainly vulnerable on this issue, should Mr. Kerry try to turn the tables back on his rival.
"This is going to be the last nail in George Bush's campaign,'' said Jim Jordan, a Democratic strategist working for America Coming Together, a group working to unseat Mr. Bush. "Bin Laden on the loose is arguably Bush's greatest failure as commander in chief."
That said, here in a state at the heart of the presidential battle, the images of Mr. bin Laden speaking ominously into a camera blended seamlessly with Republican advertisements that include the smoldering remains of the World Trade Center, or Mr. Bush comforting the daughter of a Sept. 11 victim.
In this final weekend of a long contest, the campaign appeared to have turned full circle to the moment that has defined Mr. Bush's presidency and shaped his re-election campaign.
Richard N. Bond, a former Republican national chairman, said the tape was a "reminder for all Americans that America is under attack - and who can be the best commander in chief in the war on terror is the central issue of this campaign."
Mr. bin Laden may have managed to do what the White House had not been able to accomplish: turn the page on what had been a troubling run of news for Mr. Bush, ranging from reports of missing explosives from an unsecured warehouse in Iraq to more sluggish economic news.
These events had provided fuel for a steady barrage of attacks by Mr. Kerry and his running mate, Senator John Edwards, this week and have - or had - increasingly left Mr. Bush on the defensive.
That is no small thing. At this point in a campaign, command of the political agenda is critical, and until 4 p.m. on Friday, Mr. Kerry held that. Going into this weekend, confidence in Democratic circles, if cautious, was as palpable as the anxiety in Republican circles.
Mr. Bush, who has never been shy about using the attacks of Sept. 11 to his political advantage, moved quickly to incorporate the videotape into his re-election campaign. On Friday night, in Ohio, he called Mr. Kerry "shameful" for saying that he had let Mr. bin Laden escape in the mountains of Pakistan, an argument Mr. Kerry has in fact been making for two years. Mr. Kerry's advisers reacted with sharp agitation to the Bush charge.
A senior aide, Joe Lockhart, denounced Mr. Bush as having politicized the 9/11 tragedy.
Another senior Kerry aide, Mike McCurry, made it clear in an interview that Mr. Kerry had no intention of using these last hours of his campaign to talk about Mr. bin Laden.
"I think there's going to be a real reaction if news organizations try to make this the only story for the last few days," he said. "There's a lot at stake in this election. There's' going to be a lot of visible anger at the American media if this is the story for the whole weekend."
But Mr. Bush has never made any secret about what he wanted this campaign to be about. His senior political adviser, Karl Rove, flatly announced that security would be a central theme of the 2002 midterm elections at a meeting of the Republican National Committee just four months after the attacks. Terrorism is one of a very few issues on which the president has a clear advantage over Mr. Kerry. And after enduring a week of bad news, Mr. Bush's aides could barely restrain their enthusiasm at what they hoped would be the coda of this campaign - as opposed to, say, the images of a scavenged weapons depot in Iraq.
"When people look at that guy, they understand that we are at war," said Mr. Bush's campaign manager, Ken Mehlman, referring to Mr. bin Laden. "And they want to make sure that their commander in chief does."
More than any campaign in 20 years, this one has repeatedly been buffeted by events beyond the control of either candidate. But nothing has shaped it more than Mr. bin Laden and the attacks he orchestrated three Septembers ago. It has presented what has always been the central challenge for the Democrats: Could they compete with Mr. Bush on national security?
With all his "bring it ons" and Vietnam talk, Mr. Kerry may have thought he had vaulted that hurdle. Mr. bin Laden's weekend re-emergence will put that to a final test.
-------- POLITICS
-------- us politics
Bin Laden focus of race as vote nears
October 31, 2004
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
By Joseph Curl and Charles Hurt
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20041031-125156-4123r.htm
Sen. John Kerry yesterday criticized President Bush for failing to capture Osama bin Laden, but the president and his top aides refused to politicize the latest threat by the al Qaeda terrorist as they continued to portray the Massachusetts senator as weak on national security.
With less than 72 hours until Election Day, both campaigns battled for position over what has become "the October Surprise." The Democratic candidate charged that the new videotape showing a healthy bin Laden warning the re-election of Mr. Bush will spell the doom of America proves his assertion that the president has failed to protect the nation.
"When Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda were cornered in the mountains of Tora Bora, he was wrong to outsource the job of capturing them to Afghan warlords - who a week earlier were fighting against us - instead of using the best-trained troops in the world, who wanted to avenge America for what happened in New York and Pennsylvania and in Washington," Mr. Kerry told a crowd of supporters at a campaign stop in Appleton, Wis., yesterday morning.
Senior Bush officials, however, refused to be drawn into a political debate over the tape's impact on Tuesday's election.
"The president said what he needed to say about it yesterday," senior Bush adviser Karl Rove said during a campaign rally in Green Bay, Wis. "And I'm going to say no more about it until the election. He said what he felt was appropriate yesterday." Other top Bush aides took the same deferential tack.
While the president steered clear of discussing the tape during four campaign stops in Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Florida, campaign spokesman Steve Schmidt called Mr. Kerry's disputed claims about U.S. military laxity in the Tora Bora mountains "Monday-morning quarterbacking" and said it "does not amount to a vision or plan to fight and win the war on terror."
"Once again, John Kerry has resorted to false and baseless claims that have been contradicted by commanders in the field and that are the opposite of Kerry's own statements at the time, when he said that the tactics were effective and should continue," he said.
Meanwhile, the Kerry campaign continued its assault on Mr. Bush for what it called "playing politics with the war on terror."
Campaign spokesman Joe Lockhart noted that Mr. Bush - like Mr. Kerry - had made fairly unifying statements about how Americans would not be bullied by bin Laden, especially on the eve of an election.
Then, he said, Mr. Bush "went off and gave one of the most partisan, negative personal attacks on Senator Kerry and his commitment to defending this country."
Mr. Lockhart was referring to a speech in which Mr. Bush leveled his criticisms about Mr. Kerry's not having the unwavering fortitude to carry out a global war on terrorism.
The Kerry campaign also began polling voters about the new tape, asking them if it indicates that "George W. Bush took his eye off the ball in Afghanistan and diverted his resources to Iraq" or if it "underscores the importance of George Bush's approach to terrorism."
"By 10 points, 46 percent to 36 percent, voters responding to the survey agreed with the first statement, rather than the second," according to Kerry pollster Anna Greenberg.
Meanwhile, the president directed his top national-security advisers to take any necessary steps in response to the Osama bin Laden tape threatening America.
Mr. Bush held a secure videoconference call with National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and the heads of the CIA, FBI and Departments of Justice and Homeland Security.
"The president did direct them to make sure we were taking all actions that might be necessary," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said.
Hours later, Mr. Bush delivered a campaign speech near Lambeau Field, home of the NFL's Green Bay Packers, accusing Kerry of weakness and inaction and telling supporters the election revolves around one issue: Trust.
"In less than 72 hours, the American people will be voting, and the decision comes down to who do you trust?" the president said. "The person who sits in the Oval Office for the next four years will set the course of the war on terror and the direction of our economy. America will need strong, determined, optimistic leadership, and I am ready for the job."
Kerry spokesman Phil Singer scoffed at Mr. Bush's "Who do you trust?" question. "The country wants a president who can do two things at once - defend America and fight for the middle class. John Kerry is the only candidate in the race who will do that," he said.
Later in the day, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge announced that the terror-threat level - currently at yellow, the midpoint of a five-point color-coded warning scale - would not be changed in response to the tape, although he did warn state and local officials that a bin Laden message could signal a new terrorist attack.
The secretary urged Americans to go ahead with plans to vote in Tuesday's elections without fear, although he did say that the airing of the tape may be a cue to terrorists.
"We remain concerned about al Qaeda's interest in attacking the American homeland, and we cannot discount the possibility that the video may be intended to promote violence or serve as a signal for an attack," he said.
--------
MANHUNT
U.S. Failure to Capture Bin Laden Is Debated
October 31, 2004
By ERIC SCHMITT
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/31/politics/campaign/31tora.html?pagewanted=all
WASHINGTON, Oct. 30 - The broadcast of a new videotape from Osama bin Laden prompted Senator John Kerry on Friday to renew his criticism that President Bush had the leader of Al Qaeda cornered in the rugged mountains of Tora Bora, Afghanistan, in December 2001, but "outsourced" the job of killing or capturing him to unreliable Afghan warlords.
Mr. Kerry's accusation has elements of truth, but is also somewhat exaggerated, military commanders and Pentagon officials say. Gen. Tommy R. Franks, the commander of American forces in Afghanistan at the time, said this month that Mr. Kerry's "understanding of events doesn't square with reality."
This much is known: in mid-December 2001, the United States intercepted a radio transmission on which analysts believe they could hear Mr. bin Laden giving orders to Qaeda fighters from within Tora Bora. The intercept was the most solid piece of evidence of Mr. bin Laden's location since the war in Afghanistan had started two months earlier, and was corroborated by sightings of the distinctive Qaeda leader.
But in an Op-Ed article in The New York Times on Oct. 19, General Franks said it was never certain where Mr. bin Laden was. "Some intelligence sources said he was" in Tora Bora, General Franks wrote. "Others indicated he was in Pakistan at the time; still others suggested he was in Kashmir."
"Tora Bora was teeming with Taliban and Qaeda operatives, many of whom were killed or captured, but Mr. bin Laden was never within our grasp," General Franks wrote.
At this point in the war, the Pentagon was relying heavily on hundreds of allied Afghan fighters for the ground mission at Tora Bora, even though the shortcomings of those local troops were clear in advance.
"We made a conscious decision, the United States government, that there were organized Afghan forces on the ground that could be helpful to us," Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said at a Pentagon news conference on April 17, 2002. "Did we think they would function exactly the way United States armed services organized units would function? No. We knew they would function differently. And we said to ourselves, 'O.K., on balance, how do we feel about that?' And the answer was, 'Well, we feel pretty good about it. Let's go ahead and use them.' "
General Franks acknowledged the same point in his article, saying the United States relied on "Afghans because they knew Tora Bora, a mountainous, geographically difficult region on the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan."
"It is where Afghan mujahedeen holed up for years, keeping alive their resistance to the Soviet Union," he wrote.
The general said the Afghans were also backed by Special Operations forces from the United States and several other countries, providing tactical leadership and calling in airstrikes. That is true, but no more than about 100 allied commandos, including about 50 American Special Forces soldiers, were in Tora Bora.
In fact, General Franks was so frustrated by the failure to capture Mr. bin Laden that by Dec. 19, 2001, American officials said the general had proposed sending up to several hundred United States marines or Army troops to comb the region's wild terrain. The proposal was a tacit, if perhaps belated, recognition that the Afghan allies may not have had the ability or the will to establish control over Tora Bora.
But the plan was never carried out. Mr. Rumsfeld and other officials in Washington had always worried about alienating Afghan tribal leaders by deploying large numbers of conventional American forces. Moreover, some commanders said it was not at all clear that a few hundred forces would be enough to seal the myriad mountain trails leading out of the region.
By the end of December 2001, an American-backed effort to comb the caves of Tora Bora for signs of Mr. bin Laden, his fighters and intelligence on terrorist attacks that might be in the works had made little progress and seemed to be fading as a top priority. Afghan officials reported that Mr. bin Laden had survived the bombardment at Tora Bora and slipped across the Pakistan border on one of the region's many mountain trails.
-------- voting
Now They're Registered, Now They're Not
Election Officials Express Dismay at Extent of Misinformation, Variety of Tricks Targeting Voters
By Jo Becker and David Finkel
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, October 31, 2004; Page A22
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12514-2004Oct30.html
As if things weren't complicated enough, here comes the dirt.
Registered voters who have been somehow unregistered. Democrats who suddenly find they've been re-registered as Republicans. A flier announcing that Election Day has been extended through Wednesday.
Election supervisor Ion Sancho of Leon County, Fla., sees a "win at any cost" mind-set in the tactics.
Dirty tricks are a staple of campaigns, but election officials say this year's could achieve new highs in numbers and new lows in scope, especially in key battleground states such as Florida and Ohio, where special-interest groups have poured in to influence the neck-and-neck race between President Bush and Sen. John F. Kerry.
"In my 16 years as an election administrator, I've never seen anything like this," said Ion Sancho, supervisor of elections in Leon County, Fla. "I see it as an expression of a political culture that has evolved in the United States of win at any cost. It's not partisan, but it's just lie, cheat and steal, and ethics be damned."
The problem in Leon County: Students at Florida State and Florida A&M universities, some of whom signed petitions to legalize medical marijuana or impose stiffer penalties for child molesters, unknowingly had their party registration switched to Republican and their addresses changed.
Officials say students at the University of Florida in Alachua County have made similar complaints and that about 4,000 potential voters in all have been affected. Local papers have traced some of the problems to a group hired by the Florida Republican Party, which has denounced the shenanigans. Switching voters' party affiliations does not affect their ability to vote, but changing addresses does, because when voters shows up at their proper polling places, they will not be registered there.
The college scam has also made an appearance in Pennsylvania, along with a separate scam last week in Allegheny County, where election officials received a flurry of phone calls about fliers handed out at a Pittsburgh area mall and mailed to an unknown number of homes. The flier, distributed on bogus but official-looking stationery with a county letterhead, told voters that "due to immense voter turnout expected on Tuesday," the election had been extended. Republicans should vote Tuesday, Nov. 2, it said -- and Democrats on Wednesday. A criminal investigation has been launched.
Authorities in several states also are investigating claims, by former employees of groups paid by both the Republican Party and Democratic-leaning interest groups, that they destroyed or did not turn in new registrations by voters of the opposite party.
Clouding investigations are claims and counterclaims not only about tricks, but double dirty tricks.
In Wisconsin, a flier is circulating in Milwaukee's black neighborhoods that purports to be from the "Milwaukee Black Voters League." "If you've already voted in any election this year, you can't vote in the presidential election," the flier reads. "If you violate any of these laws, you can get ten years in prison and your children will get taken away from you."
Chris Lato, a spokesman for the Wisconsin Republican Party, called the fliers "appalling" but wondered whether Democratic interest groups might be to blame. He said circulators falsely claiming to represent the Republican Party might be trying to gin up turnout among black voters.
"First of all, the claim was false, and it seems a little obvious," he said. "We have a lot of these shadowy Democratic groups here in Wisconsin, and I wouldn't put it past 'em to do something like this to muck up the works."
Meanwhile, in Lake County, Ohio, some voters received a memo on bogus Board of Elections letterhead informing voters who registered through Democratic and NACCP drives that they could not vote. Election officials referred the matter to the sheriff.
Lawyers for the Ohio GOP, who have charged Democratic groups with registering fictitious characters such as Mary Poppins, said Friday that they condemned election fraud and misinformation campaigns of any kind. But some local Lake County Republicans have adopted the double-dirty-trick explanation, saying the Democrats are out to make the GOP look bad.
Whatever the motive, election officials say that voters are genuinely confused by the misinformation. In the Cleveland area, election officials said they received a spate of complaints after voters began receiving phone calls incorrectly informing them that their polling place had changed. In addition, unknown volunteers began showing up at voters' doors illegally offering to collect and deliver completed absentee ballots to the election office.
Jane Platten, a spokeswoman for the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections, said officials have not identified who is behind the tricks. "We've never seen anything like this before, where there seems to be a concerted effort to to give voters misinformation," she said.
In South Carolina, Charleston County election officials warned voters Friday to ignore a fake letter that purports to be from the NAACP. The letter threatens voters who have outstanding parking tickets or have failed to pay child support with arrest.
"Thankfully, we got this in time to do something about it," said the Rev. Joe Darby, first vice president of the South Carolina state conference of the NAACP, who learned about the letter his organization supposedly had written when it showed up in his own mailbox. "This isn't new -- it's the South Carolina politics of ignorance. And it's not surprising, because this is one of those every-vote-counts elections. But I don't think people will be fooled."
-------- OTHER
-------- environment
Report Sounds Alarm on Pace of Arctic Climate Change
Warmth, Glacial Melt Linked to Humans; Wide-Ranging Effect on Environment and Industry Forecast
By Juliet Eilperin and Rick Weiss
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, October 31, 2004; Page A08
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12360-2004Oct30.html
The most comprehensive international assessment of Arctic climate change has concluded that Earth's upper latitudes are experiencing unprecedented increases in temperature, glacial melting and weather pattern changes, with most of those changes attributable to the human generation of greenhouse gases from automobiles, power plants and other sources.
The 144-page report is the work of a coalition of eight nations that have Arctic territories -- including the United States, which has hosted and financed the coalition's secretariat at the University of Alaska.
The findings, which reflect four years of study, confirm earlier evidence that the Arctic is warming far more quickly than the earth overall, with temperature increases in some northern regions exceeding by tenfold the average 1 degree Fahrenheit increase experienced on Earth in the past 100 years.
"For the past 30 years, there's been a dramatic increase in temperature and a decrease in the thickness of ice," said Robert W. Corell, a senior fellow with the American Meteorological Society and chairman of the Arctic climate impact assessment group, which produced the report.
Those changes are already having practical impacts, including a reduction in the number of days each year that the tundra is hard enough to be driven on or drilled safely for oil. They can be expected to have even greater impact in the near future, the report predicts, in terms of agriculture, wildlife ranges for terrestrial and marine plants and animals, and global shoreline flooding because of increases in sea level caused by melting ice.
Warming could benefit certain sectors, the report said, by easing marine shipping and improving access to offshore oil and gas resources in the Arctic.
The report is scheduled to be released Nov. 9, but its summary findings were reported yesterday by the New York Times.
Gunnar Palsson, Icelandic chairman of the Arctic Council, predicted in an interview last week that the report "is going to generate a great deal of attention throughout the world."
"Climate change is not something that's going to happen -- it is happening all over the Arctic," Palsson said. "The Arctic is sort of a bellwether" for the rest of the earth.
Iceland has had much warmer summers recently and not much snow in Reykjavik the past two years, Iceland Ambassador Helgi Agustsson said. Palsson said Icelanders fear two of their most commercially valuable fish -- capelin and herring -- are migrating to cooler waters, which "would have a pretty big economic impact."
The report's authors believe Arctic temperatures will rise several degrees in the coming decades, according to a summary prepared by Gunn-Britt Retter, a technical adviser with the council's Indigenous People's Secretariat. Winters are expected to become warmer, and wet periods in the Arctic are expected to become longer, more frequent or both.
If nations want to temper or reverse that trend, Corell said, they will need to act quickly because carbon dioxide, the gas that is the prime culprit in global warming, typically lingers in the atmosphere 100 years before being recycled.
"If you were to put the brakes on right away, it's still going to take a long time for that supertanker to slow down," he said. "So there's a time scale issue here that does relate to how you decide what to do and how quickly."
Palsson said that while his country and a few others are suffering the most immediate effects from warming, other nations would have to take steps to curb climate change. "In order to contain these problems, we cannot think in terms of regional solutions," he said.
The Bush administration has consistently resisted calls for mandatory curbs on carbon dioxide emissions, saying that it would cost too many American jobs. A coalition headed by Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.) is pushing legislation that would establish a pollution trading system aimed at cutting carbon dioxide emissions to 2000 levels by 2010, but it lacks the votes for passage.
Dana Perino, spokeswoman for the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said the council's work "is part of the $8 billion the Bush administration has committed since taking office to climate change research. It reaffirms the importance of moving forward with the president's sensible strategy to address emissions in a way that keeps our economy strong."
Several sources said State Department officials had questioned some of the council's policy recommendations, which are to be released Nov. 24.
Palsson would not address possible administration resistance to aspects of the report, saying, "the Arctic Council is not a political forum for negotiating policies." But he added, "This is a highly political subject."
It is not entirely clear why the Arctic is warming much more quickly than other areas. One factor is probably albedo, or the heat-reflecting value of ice. Once icepacks melt and that reflective power is lost, temperature increases can accelerate more quickly than while icepacks are intact.
Scientists have found that melting icepacks are more porous than previously believed, a factor that speeds their melt rate once melting begins.
Of particular concern is the rate of melting of Greenland's ice, Corell said. Scientists have estimated that a total melt of that icepack would increase global sea levels by more than 25 feet.
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A Gasoline Additive Lingers in New York's Drinking Water
October 31, 2004
By IAN URBINA
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/31/nyregion/31pollute.html?pagewanted=all
FORT MONTGOMERY, N.Y., Oct. 26 - Twelve years ago, when a new gasoline additive held the promise of reducing air pollution, New York State made a huge bet that the technology would work. It supported the use of the additive, M.T.B.E., to be mixed with gasoline at some of the highest concentrations in the nation, from 12 to 15 percent, while also allowing the additive to be used in parts of the state where air pollution was less of a problem.
But six years later, when studies began to show that the chemical was a potential carcinogen, state officials realized that by trying to clean the air, they may have seriously damaged the water supply. M.T.B.E. had been leaching into the underground water table from thousands of gas tanks, and now the state has more than 13,000 spills that must be cleaned up, one of the worst cases of drinking-water pollution in the nation, experts say.
As a result, far fewer people have been staying at Annie Scott's bed and breakfast, a two-story Victorian house with a scenic view of the Bear Mountain Bridge on the Hudson here in Orange County. Even though Sunoco installed a purifier in her basement and the company conducts regular testing on her well, Mrs. Scott says the water still smells like turpentine. She refuses to serve it to her guests, drink it herself or give it to her two teenage children.
"We offer bottled water if guests want to brush their teeth, make coffee, or take a drink," said Mrs. Scott, who estimated that she had lost $15,000 worth of business each year since an underground leak in December 1999 at a nearby gas station contaminated local water with M.T.B.E. "We also warn guests about showering, since M.T.B.E. is worse when it vaporizes."
Along with 49 other residents in town whose wells were polluted, Mrs. Scott, 47, filed a lawsuit seeking to force Sunoco, which owned the station, to pay for her loss of income and property value and to help the town build a pipeline to bring water from a nearby reservoir.
Fort Montgomery's situation is like that of towns and cities throughout the state. Last week, a federal court agreed to speed up New York City's $300 million lawsuit against oil refiners for a huge spill in Jamaica, Queens, the lead case in a group of 115 related lawsuits.
"New York is faced with one of the worst M.T.B.E. problems in the country,'' said Senator Charles Schumer, who has taken up the issue along with other lawmakers in Washington. "And the state is not even done counting the number of spills yet."
While New York and other states have banned gasoline with high levels of M.T.B.E., experts say that New York's troubles are a harbinger of a nationwide problem. Roughly half the country draws its water from underground sources like public and private wells or aquifers.
"People seem to be waiting for some major disaster," said Walter L. T. Hang, president of Toxics Targeting, a firm that provides environmental data to environmental consultants and drinking water suppliers. "But the disaster is already here. It just happens to be occurring underground."
M.T.B.E. contamination has been found in the ground water of at least 28 states, and with estimates ranging from $30 billion to $100 billion for a national cleanup, oil companies have argued that they should not be held accountable since the federal government required the use of oxygenate additives.
Last year, the Bush administration supported a $31 billion national energy bill that would have protected the oil companies from having to pay for the cleanup. Republican supporters of the provision said the companies were not responsible for the decision to use the additive.
"The government mandated the utilization of M.T.B.E.," said Jonathan A. Grella, a spokesman for Representative Tom DeLay, the House majority leader, whose Texas district is home to several of the largest M.T.B.E. makers. "Those who produced it were fulfilling this mandate and therefore they deserve protection." Opposition to the provision was one of the principal reasons the energy bill failed.
In New York, at least 20 municipal water providers, including New York City, have pending lawsuits against oil companies seeking their help in cleaning up M.T.B.E. pollution. More than 150 such lawsuits are pending nationwide, Mr. Hang said.
When tanks leak or trucks spill, gasoline often seeps into the ground, and since most of its ingredients, like benzene, toluene and xylene, are insoluble, the gasoline puddles on top of the water table and evaporates. But M.T.B.E. - methyl tertiary butyl ether - dissolves quickly into water, which is one of the reasons it was popular when, in 1992, the federal government ordered oil companies to add an "oxygenate" to gasoline to make it burn cleaner.
In 1998, having realized the potential damage, New York state officials introduced some of the strictest drinking water standards and cleanup requirements in the country. Experts say that cleanup efforts in the state have been slow, however, because regulators have tended to remove only leaking tanks, often leaving the spilled chemicals to continue leaking through the ground.
Many water officials say the pollution could have been prevented.
"There are reams of documents indicating that oil companies knew the dangers of M.T.B.E., but these companies opted to use M.T.B.E. because it was the cheapest," said Paul J. Granger, the superintendent of the Plainview water system, which serves about 35,000 people on Long Island. Mr. Granger's water district is suing Exxon/Mobil and Shell, whose spills, he said, have polluted his district's ground water with 2,000 times the allowable M.T.B.E. level.
With 3.3 million residents, Long Island has the largest population in the country that depends on a single underground aquifer. Plainview's ground water makes up a section of the larger underground aquifer, but its contamination has not yet spread.
"We just don't have the money to clean up their mess on our own," Mr. Granger said. He added that it would cost $390 million to $1 billion, based on New York State Health Department estimates, to put filters on the 130 wells in Plainview that have been contaminated.
In 1998, the federal government tried to reduce the risk of gasoline leaks by requiring that all faulty underground tanks be upgraded or removed. Older tanks were typically made of a single layer of steel that often corroded and leaked after about 25 years. Newer tanks are double-walled steel.
Mr. Hang said that the biggest part of the problem in New York had been the state's approach to cleanups. Rather than removing all the contamination, regulators often just removed the faulty tank and a limited amount of the surrounding dirt. As a result, there are more than 6,000 sites where the state, having conducted partial cleanups, has administratively closed the file on the site even though pollution in the ground is still seeping toward the ground water.
A spokeswoman for the New York Department of Environmental Conservation, Maureen Wren, did not respond to questions about cleanup methods, but she said that the state was taking ambitious steps to deal with the M.T.B.E. problem. It banned the additive this year, she said, and is providing incentives to municipalities and companies for cleanup.
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Chemical Spill at Arthur Kill Waterway
October 31, 2004
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/31/nyregion/31chem.html?pagewanted=all
Thousands of gallons of a caustic liquid used in household detergents spilled yesterday from a tank near the Arthur Kill in Carteret, N.J., the authorities said.
Three people suffered minor burns, and some of the liquid flowed into the Arthur Kill, a busy shipping lane.
Coast Guard officials said it was unclear how much of the liquid, a solution of sodium hydroxide, escaped into the water. They said the spill, at 1:40 p.m., resulted from the collapse of a tank containing about 460,000 gallons of the liquid at a chemical plant operated by Kinder Morgan Industries.
The solution dilutes quickly in water, and the authorities said no serious environmental damage was expected.
"There are no known threats to people or wildlife," the Coast Guard said in a statement. The spill was first reported by a tug boat operator, who saw the chemical tank fall over.
In addition to the Coast Guard, New Jersey state environmental officials and police and fire officials from Carteret responded to monitor the spill.
The Coast Guard said cleanup operations were being conducted by Kinder Morgan. Shipping activity was limited in the area of the spill but the Arthur Kill "remains open to ship traffic on a case-by-case basis until further notice," the Coast Guard said.
-------- ACTIVISTS
Real Men Don't Let Other Men Bomb Civilians
Press Action
October 31, 2004
By Rosemarie Jackowski
http://www.pressaction.com/news/weblog/full_article/jackowski10312004/
The government of the United States has declared war on civilians. The Guardian (Oct. 29, 2004) reports that the number of civilian casualties in Iraq, since March 20, 2003, now exceeds 100,000...many of them women and children. Every one of those deaths represents a war crime.
It is now time to take to the streets. Free yourself from the chains of the culture and the government. Become all that you can be. Become the captain of your soul. How can any real man stand by silently while this slaughter continues? It is time for all of you to leave your computer monitors and do something. It is time for action. Words alone have never saved one human life. Peace activists have been asking Mr. Government Man to, "Please, stop the bombing," for a very long time. Their requests have not saved one life. Anyone who still believes that words alone will work has not been paying attention.
And to my sisters, I say, "You are no better." What is your problem? Where is your maternal instinct? Are you suffering from a deficiency in estrogen? Women are supposed to be the givers of life, the nurturers, the protectors of children. What action are you willing to take in order to protect some other mother's child? If it was your child who was at risk of death from a cluster bomb, what action would you want someone else to take to protect your loved one? A dropped cluster bomb has no conscience. Do you? It is important that you do something...anything...NOW.
You are guilty. If you in any way support the economy of the U.S., you are now a war criminal. If you have ever paid one cent in taxes, if you have ever bought a pair of socks or a loaf of bread or in any other way have supported the war economy in the U.S., you are guilty. If you support a baseball or football team or if you have been to the movies, you are guilty. You and I, all of us, are implicated in the crimes. Without our support of this government and its economy, the slaughter could not continue. We all are war criminals.
Nuremberg Principle IV states, The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him. Nuremberg Principle VII states, Complicity in the commission of a crime against peace, a war crime, or a crime against humanity as set forth in Principle VI is a crime under international law.
What will it take to move you into action ? Are the deaths of 100,000 in just 18 months, in just one country not enough? What number of deaths will it take to motivate you? What is your magic number, the number beyond which you will no longer support the government of the United States? It seems to me that even one civilian death is one too many. Look at the photographs of the dead children, victims of U.S. cluster bombs. If that does not convince you, look at the photographs of the babies born to mothers who were exposed to U.S. depleted uranium. The photos are easily available on the Internet. Ignorance is no longer an excuse.
If I seem a little more agitated than usual, there is a reason. As this news story about the 100,000 civilian deaths was breaking, six peace activists in Brattleboro, Vermont, were in court being tried for having protested the war. I was not involved in that protest but I attended the trial. All six defendants were allowed to speak. They spoke about their belief systems. They spoke about depleted uranium. They spoke about their hopes for a peaceful world. After some of the most gripping testimony ever heard in any court in the U.S., the jury rendered its verdict (in less than 20 minutes)...Guilty.
During breaks in the trial, some observers in the court room commented that several of the jurors never heard the testimony, because they appeared to be sleeping. I believe that sleeping jurors are symptomatic of what has been going on in this country for a long time. Our national conscience has been asleep for decades.
Because it has come to my attention that I could possibly be a person of special interest to the government, I will sometimes be adding this disclaimer to articles that I write, I never advocate violent or illegal acts. There are however, many legal things that can be done under the cloak of hard-core resistance. Think...be creative. I am sure that you can think of something.
How can we bring about change...in the words of Malcolm X, "BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY."
Rosemarie Jackowski is an advocacy journalist living in Vermont. A jury in Bennington, Vermont, found her "guilty" in September for participating in a peaceful anti-war demonstration on March 20, 2003. She can be reached at dissent@sover.net.
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Hawking to lead anti-war protest on election day
independent.co.uk
By Andy McSmith
31 October 2004
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=577860
Stephen Hawking, Britain's most eminent scientist, has become the latest prominent opponent of the Iraq war by agreeing to take the lead role in a ceremonial protest to coincide with the United States presidential election.
Peace protesters will gather in Trafalgar Square at 5pm on Tuesday, where they will read out the names of 5,000 Iraqi men, women and children known to have died in the conflict.
The full death toll was put last week as high as 100,000.
Playwrights Harold Pinter and David Hare, actress Juliet Stevenson, the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, and relatives of British soldiers killed in action in Iraq have all agreed to take part.
Professor Hawking, the author of the best-selling book A Brief History of Time, is wheelchair-bound as a sufferer from motor neurone disease. He recorded a message on Friday that will be broadcast at the start of the rally.
The oldest protester in Trafalgar Square is likely to be a fellow scientist, the Nobel Peace Prize winner Sir Joseph Rotblat. In the 1940s, he resigned from his job developing the world's first atomic bomb on moral grounds.
Sir Joseph, who will be 96 on Thursday, said: "In this nuclear age, we simply cannot allow others to start military action unless everything else has ... been tried and has failed."
The rally comes at a time when its organisers from the Stop the War Coalition have been embroiled in controversy with one of its biggest backers, the giant public sector union Unison, which has links with the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions, (IFTU) whose general secretary, Subhi al-Mashadani, spent more than 10 years in prison under Saddam Hussein.
Unison leaders were appalled when Mr Mashadani was barracked and jostled at a London conference two weeks ago by left-wing delegates who accused him of being a stooge for the US and British governments. The row is threatening to become an issue inside Unison, where an election is taking place for the post of general secretary - the most powerful job in the trade union movement.
Left-wing activists in the union are trying to unseat the current general secretary, Dave Prentis, for being too close to Tony Blair.
Jon Rogers, the left-wing challenger, has accused two of Mr Prentis's senior advisers, Maggie Jones and Nick Sigler, of trying to split the union from the anti-war movement. Ms Jones, who is Unison's policy director, is a former Labour Party chairman and is expected to become Labour MP for Blaenau Gwent at the next election.
Mr Sigler, who heads the union's international department, worked for many years at Labour Party headquarters.
"It is not in the best interests of Unison for circumstances to arise in which it can appear that our union is being used as a vehicle by the Labour Party leader-ship to sow division in the anti-war movement," Mr Rogers claimed in a letter to Mr Prentis, leaked to The Independent on Sunday.
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