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NUCLEAR
Theodore Taylor, a Designer of A-Bombs Who Turned Against Them, Dies at 79
Peace & The New Corporate Liberation Theology
Atomic Power Station Halted in Russia, No Radiation
Accident at Russian nuclear power plant sows fear among residents
Parents hear details of school evacuation plan
Another nuclear plant fails siren test
Revealed: the huge mountain of 'unofficial' nuclear waste
Breathing Uranium Oxides
MoD admits Gulf War mistakes
MoD dismisses reports on 'Gulf War Syndrome'
Defence says no deal signed on weapons testing
War Crimes and Iraq
Environmentalists express concern about smart bombs
The lowly, ill-regarded tumbleweed might be good for something after all.
Iran: U.S. Nuclear Fears Overblown
Iran, EU Nuke Talks Progress, But No Deal Yet
Khamenei denies Iran seeking nuclear weapons, hits out at Bush
Japan to increase inspections of Kansai Electric
UN nuclear watchdog ends inspections in South Korea
North Korea wants big concessions from second-term Bush
U.N.: Traces of Plutonium Found in Egypt
Slim majority oppose missile defence: poll
Report: Terrorists prowling Yucca site?
Islamic site links to Nevada info
UN nuclear chief rejects charges he has attacked Bush over Iraq
Top U.N. arms inspector slams Bush
Nuclear laundry to be razed
Vermont Yankee Power Uprate Application
NRC calls off meetings, will reschedule to allow public
DOE OKs North Anna demo
Survey: Majority of Nevadans still support Yucca fight
Nuclear waste gridlock looms, officials warn
9th Circuit overturns ruling on reclassifying nuclear waste
MILITARY
Karzai Vows to Crack Down On Warlords, Drug Dealers
KABUL Afghan Leader Promises Security and Stability
Darfur Increasingly Unstable, U.N. Envoy Warns
Japan: Bush Reelection Means Even Closer Ties
U.S. Awards Anthrax Vaccine Deal
Three British Troops Killed In Iraq Attack
Hoon Fury at Black Watch Deaths 'Duplicity' Charge
U.S. military gear on sale at dangerous Baghdad bazaar
Raytheon To Continue NASA Contract
Bush win seen lifting drug, defense, oil stocks
Colombia: Bush's Triumph Gladdens Uribe, Scares Others
'My brother died for oil'
Bush laments coalition of the unwilling
G.I.'s Itch to Prove Their Mettle in Falluja
U.S. Warplanes Pound Targets in Fallujah
UN Warns on Iraq, U.S. Urges Civilians to Flee City
Arafat Wants to Be Buried in Jerusalem
Palestinians Choose Two To Assume Arafat Roles
Brazil minister quits in army row
NATO chief hails alliance relations with Armenia
New Russian army chief appointed
Clarke: Nations using internet to spy
CIA's Goss Names Undercover Officer To No. 3 Position
Retired Official Defends the CIA's Performance
Jury in Siberia Convicts Physicist of Spying for China
Air Force report calls for $7.5M to study psychic teleportation
Warplane Strafes a School in New Jersey
F-16 fighter jet accidentally fires on New Jersey school
Injured Troops Look for Courage, Face Fears
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
Despite G.O.P. Gain, Fight Over Judges Remains
Go West to use medical marijuana
'No-Fly List' discriminates against some
700 arrests made to avert election terrorist attack
Police Create Panel on Abuse Claims at Convention
Dead Inmate Exonerated in a Murder
POLITICS
Dollar Falls On Fears of U.S. Deficits
US Lost Evidence of Saddam's Abuses
Bush victory infuriates world press
Report Says Problems Led to Skewed Surveying Data
Bush will now celebrate by putting Falluja to the torch
The End Game - Divide And Conquer
Foreign policy: More to worry about
Confident Bush Vows to Move Aggressively
Knuckleheaded politics
ENERGY
Colorado voters back renewable energy measure
Eagles overshadow world's biggest land windfarm
OTHER
New Jersey Writes Nation's Strictest Mercury, Arsenic Rules
ACTIVISTS
Ballot Initiative to Ease California "Three Strikes Law" Fails to Pass
-------- NUCLEAR
Theodore Taylor, a Designer of A-Bombs Who Turned Against Them, Dies at 79
November 5, 2004
By MARGALIT FOX
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/05/national/05taylor.html?pagewanted=all&position=
Theodore Taylor, a theoretical physicist who spent his early career as a designer of streamlined nuclear weapons and his later career as an antinuclear campaigner, died on Oct. 28 at a nursing home in Silver Spring, Md. He was 79 and until recently lived in the western New York community of Wellsville.
The cause was complications of coronary artery disease, his family said.
Dr. Taylor, who worked at the Los Alamos National Laboratory at the height of the cold war, was renowned as a designer of fission bombs of minimal size and maximal bang. He later directed Project Orion, whose mission was to develop a nuclear-powered interplanetary spacecraft.
"His trade, basically, was the miniaturizing of weapons," the physicist Freeman Dyson says in "The Curve of Binding Energy" (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1974), a book-length profile of Dr. Taylor by John McPhee. "He was the first man in the world to understand what you can do with three or four kilograms of plutonium, that making bombs is an easy thing to do, that you can, so to speak, design them freehand."
But by the mid-1960's, Dr. Taylor had become, in his own words, a "nuclear dropout." A frequent adviser on nuclear safeguards, he wrote and lectured widely on the threat of nuclear terrorism and the risks of nuclear power. He believed that a small clandestine group, or even an individual, could easily steal nuclear material and, with publicly available information, build a homemade atomic bomb.
"The nuclear genie has proliferated considerably since it was first released," he said in a 1996 lecture. His mission, he often stated, was to put it back into the bottle, and by the end of his life he had become an archetypal figure: the creator compelled to destroy his own creation after it runs menacingly amok.
Theodore Brewster Taylor was born on July 11, 1925, in Mexico City. His grandparents had been missionaries, and his father was general secretary of the Y.M.C.A. in Mexico. A brilliant boy (he completed sixth grade the same year he started fourth), Ted was enthralled by his chemistry set, or, more precisely, its explosive possibilities.
"He enjoyed putting potassium chlorate and sulfur under Mexico City streetcars," Mr. McPhee wrote. "There was a flash, and a terrific bang."
Dr. Taylor received a bachelor's degree from the California Institute of Technology in 1945 and pursued a doctorate in physics at the University of California. But he failed his oral examinations - he lacked the capacity to focus on things that did not interest him - and he left the department in 1949. (He would eventually earn a Ph.D. from Cornell in 1954.)
He found a job at Los Alamos. "Within a week, I was deeply immersed in nuclear weaponry," Dr. Taylor wrote in a 1996 article in Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. "I was fascinated by every bit of information I was given during those first few days."
Preternaturally inept at ordinary tasks (parking a car defeated him), he became an artist of the fission bomb, taking the massive nuclear weapons developed for the Manhattan Project and making them smaller and lighter without sacrificing explosive power. Over the next seven years, he designed a series of ever-smaller bombs, whose cunning names - Scorpion, Wasp, Bee, Hornet - captured both their size and their sting.
Dr. Taylor would develop the smallest fission bomb of its time, Davy Crockett, which weighed less than 50 pounds. (By contrast, Little Boy, dropped on Hiroshima, weighed almost 9,000 pounds.) At the other extreme, he designed Super Oralloy, which was at the time, Mr. McPhee wrote, "the largest-yield pure-fission bomb ever constructed in the world."
Viewed as a theoretical abstraction, Dr. Taylor's work had a cool, compelling elegance. Exploded in the Nevada desert, it made a satisfying flash and bang. The weapons, he often reminded himself, were meant to deter nuclear war, and if the United States did not develop them, the Soviets soon would.
In his 1996 article, he recalled how he spent Nov. 15, 1950, the day his daughter Katherine was born:
"Instead of being with my wife, Caro, I had spent the day at a military intelligence office, poring over aerial photographs of Moscow, placing the sharp point of a compass in Red Square and drawing circles corresponding to distances at which moderate and severe damage would result from the explosion at different heights of a 500-kiloton made-in-America bomb. I remember feeling disappointed because none of the circles included all of Moscow."
Dr. Taylor's marriage, to the former Caro Arnim, whom he wed in 1948, ended in divorce in 1992. He is survived by their five children: Clare Hastings of Washington; Katherine Robertson of Davis, Calif.; Christopher, of Colorado Springs; Robert, of Rockville, Md.; and Jeffrey, of Brooklyn; two half-brothers, John Barber of Irvine, Calif., and Ralph Thompson of Issaquah, Wash.; 10 grandchildren; and 9 great-grandchildren.
In 1956, Dr. Taylor left Los Alamos to work on Orion. The size of a 16-story building, Orion was to be propelled by 2,000 nuclear bombs, ejected one by one from the bottom of the spaceship (the designers modeled this feature on the technology of Coke machines) and detonated in space. He dreamed of visiting Mars and Saturn, but the Limited Test Ban Treaty of 1963, which banned nuclear explosions in the atmosphere and in space, put an end to the project.
In the late 1950's, working for a division of General Dynamics, Dr. Taylor and several colleagues developed Triga, a small reactor used for research and considered safer than conventional reactors.
In 1964, he went to work for the Defense Department as deputy director of the Defense Atomic Support Agency. There, he later said, he came to see the real-world implications of the elegant little bombs he had designed at Los Alamos.
"I became privy to the actual characteristics and deployments of what, by then, were thousands of nuclear weapons," he wrote in 1996. "The nuclear arms race had a force and a momentum I had never dreamed of."
He left in 1966 and the following year started the International Research and Technology Corporation, a consulting business. In 1980 he started Nova Inc., which developed alternatives to nuclear energy.
His books include "The Restoration of the Earth" (1973, with Charles C. Humpstone), "Nuclear Theft: Risks and Safeguards" (1974, with Mason Willrich) and "Nuclear Proliferation: Motivations, Capabilities and Strategies for Control" (1977, with Ted Greenwood and Harold A. Feiveson).
He also taught at Princeton for a number of years, and was a member of the president's commission on the Three Mile Island accident.
Dr. Taylor approached his work with the zeal of a convert and, perhaps, the attitude of a penitent.
"Rationalize how you will, the bombs were designed to kill many, many people," he says in Mr. McPhee's book. "If it were possible to wave a wand and make fission impossible - fission of any kind - I would quickly wave the wand."
--------
Peace & The New Corporate Liberation Theology
Scoop Media
Arundhati Roy
5 November 2004
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/PO0411/S00054.htm
The 2004 Sydney Peace Prize lecture delivered by Arundhati Roy, at the Seymour Theatre Centre, University of Sydney, 4 November 2004
Peace & The New Corporate Liberation Theology
It's official now. The Sydney Peace Foundation is neck deep in the business of gambling and calculated risk. Last year, very courageously, it chose Dr Hanan Ashrawi of Palestine for the Sydney Peace Prize. And, as if that were not enough, this year - of all the people in the world - it goes and chooses me!
However I'd like to make a complaint. My sources inform me that Dr Ashrawi had a picket all to herself. This is discriminatory. I demand equal treatment for all Peace Prizees. May I formally request the Foundation to organize a picket against me after the lecture? From what I've heard, it shouldn't be hard to organize. If this is insufficient notice, then tomorrow will suit me just as well.
When this year's Sydney Peace Prize was announced, I was subjected to some pretty arch remarks from those who know me well: Why did they give it to the biggest trouble-maker we know? Didn't anybody tell them that you don't have a peaceful bone in your body? And, memorably, Arundhati didi what's the Sydney Peace Prize? Was there a war in Sydney that you helped to stop?
Speaking for myself, I am utterly delighted to receive the Sydney Peace Prize. But I must accept it as a literary prize that honors a writer for her writing, because contrary to the many virtues that are falsely attributed to me, I'm not an activist, nor the leader of any mass movement, and I'm certainly not the "voice of the voiceless". (We know of course there's really no such thing as the 'voiceless'. There are only the deliberately silenced, or the preferably unheard.) I am a writer who cannot claim to represent anybody but herself. So even though I would like to, it would be presumptuous of me to say that I accept this prize on behalf of those who are involved in the struggle of the powerless and the disenfranchised against the powerful. However, may I say I accept it as the Sydney Peace Foundation's expression of solidarity with a kind of politics, a kind of world-view, that millions of us around the world subscribe to?
It might seem ironic that a person who spends most of her time thinking of strategies of resistance and plotting to disrupt the putative peace, is given a peace prize. You must remember that I come from an essentially feudal country -and there are few things more disquieting than a feudal peace. Sometimes there's truth in old cliches. There can be no real peace without justice. And without resistance there will be no justice.
Today, it is not merely justice itself, but the idea of justice that is under attack. The assault on vulnerable, fragile sections of society is at once so complete, so cruel and so clever - all encompassing and yet specifically targeted, blatantly brutal and yet unbelievably insidious - that its sheer audacity has eroded our definition of justice. It has forced us to lower our sights, and curtail our expectations. Even among the well-intentioned, the expansive, magnificent concept of justice is gradually being substituted with the reduced, far more fragile discourse of 'human rights'.
If you think about it, this is an alarming shift of paradigm. The difference is that notions of equality, of parity have been pried loose and eased out of the equation. It's a process of attrition. Almost unconsciously, we begin to think of justice for the rich and human rights for the poor. Justice for the corporate world, human rights for its victims. Justice for Americans, human rights for Afghans and Iraqis. Justice for the Indian upper castes, human rights for Dalits and Adivasis (if that.) Justice for white Australians, human rights for Aboriginals and immigrants (most times, not even that.)
It is becoming more than clear that violating human rights is an inherent and necessary part of the process of implementing a coercive and unjust political and economic structure on the world. Without the violation of human rights on an enormous scale, the neo-liberal project would remain in the dreamy realm of policy. But increasingly Human Rights violations are being portrayed as the unfortunate, almost accidental fallout of an otherwise acceptable political and economic system. As though they're a small problem that can be mopped up with a little extra attention from some NGOs. This is why in areas of heightened conflict - in Kashmir and in Iraq for example - Human Rights Professionals are regarded with a degree of suspicion. Many resistance movements in poor countries which are fighting huge injustice and questioning the underlying principles of what constitutes "liberation" and "development", view Human Rights NGOs as modern day missionaries who've come to take the ugly edge off Imperialism. To defuse political anger and to maintain the status quo.
It has been only a few weeks since a majority of Australians voted to re-elect Prime Minister John Howard who, among other things, led Australia to participate in the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq. The invasion of Iraq will surely go down in history as one of the most cowardly wars ever fought. It was a war in which a band of rich nations, armed with enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world several times over, rounded on a poor nation, falsely accused it of having nuclear weapons, used the United Nations to force it to disarm, then invaded it, occupied it and are now in the process of selling it.
I speak of Iraq, not because everybody is talking about it, (sadly at the cost of leaving other horrors in other places to unfurl in the dark), but because it is a sign of things to come. Iraq marks the beginning of a new cycle. It offers us an opportunity to watch the Corporate-Military cabal that has come to be known as 'Empire' at work. In the new Iraq the gloves are off.
As the battle to control the world's resources intensifies, economic colonialism through formal military aggression is staging a comeback. Iraq is the logical culmination of the process of corporate globalization in which neo-colonialism and neo-liberalism have fused. If we can find it in ourselves to peep behind the curtain of blood, we would glimpse the pitiless transactions taking place backstage. But first, briefly, the stage itself.
In 1991 US President George Bush senior mounted Operation Desert Storm. Tens of thousands of Iraqis were killed in the war. Iraq's fields were bombed with more than 300 tonnes of depleted uranium, causing a fourfold increase in cancer among children. For more than 13 years, twenty four million Iraqi people have lived in a war zone and been denied food and medicine and clean water. In the frenzy around the US elections, let's remember that the levels of cruelty did not fluctuate whether the Democrats or the Republicans were in the White House. Half a million Iraqi children died because of the regime of economic sanctions in the run up to Operation Shock and Awe. Until recently, while there was a careful record of how many US soldiers had lost their lives, we had no idea of how many Iraqis had been killed. US General Tommy Franks said "We don't do body counts" (meaning Iraqi body counts). He could have added "We don't do the Geneva Convention either." A new, detailed study, fast-tracked by the Lancet medical journal and extensively peer reviewed, estimates that 100,000 Iraqis have lost their lives since the 2003 invasion. That's one hundred halls full of people - like this one. That's one hundred halls full of friends, parents, siblings, colleagues, lovers.like you. The difference is that there aren't many children here todaylet's not forget Iraq's children. Technically that bloodbath is called precision bombing. In ordinary language, it's called butchering,
Most of this is common knowledge now. Those who support the invasion and vote for the invaders cannot take refuge in ignorance. They must truly believe that this epic brutality is right and just or, at the very least, acceptable because it's in their interest.
So the 'civilized' 'modern' world - built painstakingly on a legacy of genocide, slavery and colonialism - now controls most of the world's oil. And most of the world's weapons, most of the world's money, and most of the world's media. The embedded, corporate media in which the doctrine of Free Speech has been substituted by the doctrine of Free If You Agree Speech.
The UN's Chief Weapons Inspector Hans Blix said he found no evidence of nuclear weapons in Iraq. Every scrap of evidence produced by the US and British governments was found to be false - whether it was reports of Saddam Hussein buying uranium from Niger, or the report produced by British Intelligence which was discovered to have been plagiarized from an old student dissertation. And yet, in the prelude to the war, day after day the most 'respectable' newspapers and TV channels in the US , headlined the 'evidence' of Iraq's arsenal of weapons of nuclear weapons. It now turns out that the source of the manufactured 'evidence' of Iraq's arsenal of nuclear weapons was Ahmed Chalabi who, (like General Suharto of Indonesia, General Pinochet of Chile, the Shah of Iran, the Taliban and of course, Saddam Hussein himself) - was bankrolled with millions of dollars from the good old CIA.
And so, a country was bombed into oblivion. It's true there have been some murmurs of apology. Sorry 'bout that folks, but we have really have to move on. Fresh rumours are coming in about nuclear weapons in Eye-ran and Syria. And guess who is reporting on these fresh rumours? The same reporters who ran the bogus 'scoops' on Iraq. The seriously embedded A Team.
The head of Britain's BBC had to step down and one man committed suicide because a BBC reporter accused the Blair administration of 'sexing up' intelligence reports about Iraq's WMD programme. But the head of Britain retains his job even though his government did much more than 'sex up' intelligence reports. It is responsible for the illegal invasion of a country and the mass murder of its people.
Visitors to Australia like myself, are expected to answer the following question when they fill in the visa form: Have you ever committed or been involved in the commission of war crimes or crimes against humanity or human rights? Would George Bush and Tony Blair get visas to Australia? Under the tenets of International Law they must surely qualify as war criminals.
However, to imagine that the world would change if they were removed from office is naive. The tragedy is that their political rivals have no real dispute with their policies. The fire and brimstone of the US election campaign was about who would make a better 'Commander-in-Chief' and a more effective manager of the American Empire. Democracy no longer offers voters real choice. Only specious choice.
Even though no weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq - stunning new evidence has revealed that Saddam Hussein was planning a weapons programme. (Like I was planning to win an Olympic Gold in synchronized swimming.) Thank goodness for the doctrine of pre-emptive strike. God knows what other evil thoughts he harbored - sending Tampax in the mail to American senators, or releasing female rabbits in burqas into the London underground. No doubt all will be revealed in the free and fair trial of Saddam Hussein that's coming up soon in the New Iraq.
All except the chapter in which we would learn of how the US and Britain plied him with money and material assistance at the time he was carrying out murderous attacks on Iraqi Kurds and Shias. All except the chapter in which we would learn that a 12,000 page report submitted by the Saddam Hussein government to the UN, was censored by the United States because it lists twenty-four US corporations that participated in Iraq's pre-Gulf War nuclear and conventional weapons programme. (They include Bechtel, DuPont, , Eastman Kodak, Hewlett Packard, International Computer Systems and Unisys.)
So Iraq has been 'liberated.' Its people have been subjugated and its markets have been 'freed'. That's the anthem of neo-liberalism. Free the markets. Screw the people.
The US government has privatized and sold entire sectors of Iraq's economy. Economic policies and tax laws have been re-written. Foreign companies can now buy 100% of Iraqi firms and expatriate the profits. This is an outright violation of international laws that govern an occupying force, and is among the main reasons for the stealthy, hurried charade in which power was 'handed over' to an 'interim Iraqi government'. Once handing over of Iraq to the Multi-nationals is complete, a mild dose of genuine democracy won't do any harm. In fact it might be good PR for the Corporate version of Liberation Theology, otherwise known as New Democracy.
Not surprisingly, the auctioning of Iraq caused a stampede at the feeding trough. Corporations like Bechtel and Halliburton, the company that US Vice-president Dick Cheney once headed, have won huge contracts for 'reconstruction' work. A brief c.v of any one of these corporations would give us a lay person's grasp of how it all works. - not just in Iraq, but all over the world. Say we pick Bechtel - only because poor little Halliburton is under investigation on charges of overpricing fuel deliveries to Iraq and for its contracts to 'restore' Iraq's oil industry which came with a pretty serious price-tag - 2.5 billion dollars.
The Bechtel Group and Saddam Hussein are old business acquaintances. Many of their dealings were negotiated by none other than Donald Rumsfeld. In 1988, after Saddam Hussein gassed thousands of Kurds, Bechtel signed contracts with his government to build a dual-use chemical plant in Baghdad.
Historically, the Bechtel Group has had and continues to have inextricably close links to the Republican establishment. You could call Bechtel and the Reagan Bush administration a team. Former Secretary of Defense, Caspar Weinberger was a Bechtel general counsel. Former Deputy Secretary of Energy, W. Kenneth Davis was Bechtel's vice president. Riley Bechtel, the company chairman, is on the President's Export Council. Jack Sheehan, a retired marine corps general, is a senior vice president at Bechtel and a member of the US Defense Policy Board. Former Secretary of State George Shultz, who is on the Board of Directors of the Bechtel Group, was the chairman of the advisory board of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq.
When he was asked by the New York Times whether he was concerned about the appearance of a conflict of interest between his two 'jobs', he said, "I don't know that Bechtel would particularly benefit from it [The invasion of Iraq]. But if there's work to be done, Bechtel is the type of company that could do it." Bechtel has been awarded reconstruction contracts in Iraq worth over a billion dollars, which include contracts to re-build power generation plants, electrical grids, water supply, sewage systems, and airport facilities. Never mind revolving doors, this -if it weren't so drenched in blood- would be a bedroom farce.
Between 2001 and 2002, nine out of thirty members of the US Defense Policy Group were connected to companies that were awarded Defense contracts worth 76 billion dollars. Time was when weapons were manufactured in order to fight wars. Now wars are manufactured in order to sell weapons.
Between 1990 and 2002 the Bechtel group has contributed $3.3 million to campaign funds, both Republican and Democrat. Since 1990 it has won more than 2000 government contracts worth more than 11 billion dollars. That's an incredible return on investment, wouldn't you say?
And Bechtel has footprints around the world. That's what being a multi-national means.
The Bechtel Group first attracted international attention when it signed a contract with Hugo Banzer, the former Bolivian dictator, to privatize the water supply in the city of Cochabamba. The first thing Bechtel did was to raise the price of water. Hundreds of thousands of people who simply couldn't afford to pay Bechtel's bills came out onto the streets. A huge strike paralyzed the city. Martial law was declared. Although eventually Bechtel was forced to flee its offices, it is currently negotiating an exit payment of millions of dollars from the Bolivian government for the loss of potential profits. Which, as we'll see, is growing into a popular corporate sport.
In India, Bechtel along with General Electric are the new owners of the notorious and currently defunct Enron power project. The Enron contract, which legally binds the Government of the State of Maharashtra to pay Enron a sum of 30 billion dollars, was the largest contract ever signed in India. Enron was not shy to boast about the millions of dollars it had spent to "educate" Indian politicians and bureaucrats. The Enron contract in Maharashtra, which was India's first 'fast-track' private power project, has come to be known as the most massive fraud in the country's history. (Enron was another of the Republican Party's major campaign contributors). The electricity that Enron produced was so exorbitant that the government decided it was cheaper not to buy electricity and pay Enron the mandatory fixed charges specified in the contract. This means that the government of one of the poorest countries in the world was paying Enron 220 million US dollars a year not to produce electricity!
Now that Enron has ceased to exist, Bechtel and GE are suing the Indian Government for 5.6 billion US dollars. This is not even a minute fraction of the sum of money that they (or Enron) actually invested in the project. Once more, it's a projection of profit they would have made had the project materialized. To give you an idea of scale 5.6 billion dollars a little more than the amount that the Government of India would need annually, for a rural employment guarantee scheme that would provide a subsistence wage to millions of people currently living in abject poverty, crushed by debt, displacement, chronic malnutrition and the WTO. This in a country where farmers steeped in debt are being driven to suicide, not in their hundreds, but in their thousands. The proposal for a Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme is being mocked by India's corporate class as an unreasonable, utopian demand being floated by the 'lunatic' and newly powerful left. Where will the money come from? they ask derisively. And yet, any talk of reneging on a bad contract with a notoriously corrupt corporation like Enron, has the same cynics hyperventilating about capital flight and the terrible risks of 'creating a bad investment climate'. The arbitration between Bechtel, GE and the Government of India is taking place right now in London. Bechtel and GE have reason for hope. The Indian Finance Secretary who was instrumental in approving the disastrous Enron contract has come home after a few years with the IMF. Not just home, home with a promotion. He is now Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission.
Think about it: The notional profits of a single corporate project would be enough to provide a hundred days of employment a year at minimum wages (calculated at a weighted average across different states) for 25 million people. That's five million more than the population of Australia. That is the scale of the horror of neo-liberalism.
The Bechtel story gets worse. In what can only be called unconscionable, Naomi Klein writes that Bechtel has successfully sued war-torn Iraq for 'war reparations' and 'lost profits'. It has been awarded 7 million dollars.
So, all you young management graduates don't bother with Harvard and Wharton - here's the Lazy Manager's Guide to Corporate Success: First, stock your Board with senior government servants. Next, stock the government with members of your board. Add oil and stir. When no one can tell where the government ends and your company begins, collude with your government to equip and arm a cold-blooded dictator in an oil-rich country. Look away while he kills his own people. Simmer gently. Use the time collect to collect a few billion dollars in government contracts. Then collude with your government once again while it topples the dictator and bombs his subjects, taking to specifically target essential infrastructure, killing a hundred thousand people on the side. Pick up another billion dollars or so worth of contracts to 'reconstruct' the infrastructure. To cover travel and incidentals, sue for reparations for lost profits from the devastated country. Finally, diversify. Buy a TV station, so that next war around you can showcase your hardware and weapons technology masquerading as coverage of the war. And finally finally, institute a Human Rights Prize in your company's name. You could give the first one posthumously to Mother Teresa. She won't be able to turn it down or argue back.
Invaded and occupied Iraq has been made to pay out 200 million dollars in "reparations" for lost profits to corporations like Halliburton, Shell, Mobil, Nestle, Pepsi, Kentucky Fried Chicken and Toys R Us. That's apart from its 125 billion dollar sovereign debt forcing it to turn to the IMF, waiting in the wings like the angel of death, with its Structural Adjustment program. (Though in Iraq there don't seem to be many structures left to adjust. Except the shadowy Al Qaeda.)
In New Iraq, privatization has broken new ground. The US Army is increasingly recruiting private mercenaries to help in the occupation. The advantage with mercenaries is that when they're killed they're not included in the US soldiers' body count. It helps to manage public opinion, which is particularly important in an election year. Prisons have been privatized. Torture has been privatized. We have seen what that leads to. Other attractions in New Iraq include newspapers being shut down. Television stations bombed. Reporters killed. US soldiers have opened fire on crowds of unarmed protestors killing scores of people. The only kind of resistance that has managed to survive is as crazed and brutal as the occupation itself. Is there space for a secular, democratic, feminist, non-violent resistance in Iraq? There isn't really.
That is why it falls to those of us living outside Iraq to create that mass-based, secular and non-violent resistance to the US occupation. If we fail to do that, then we run the risk of allowing the idea of resistance to be hi-jacked and conflated with terrorism and that will be a pity because they are not the same thing.
So what does peace mean in this savage, corporatized, militarized world? What does it mean in a world where an entrenched system of appropriation has created a situation in which poor countries which have been plundered by colonizing regimes for centuries are steeped in debt to the very same countries that plundered them, and have to repay that debt at the rate of 382 billion dollars a year? What does peace mean in a world in which the combined wealth of the world's 587 billionaires exceeds the combined gross domestic product of the world's 135 poorest countries? Or when rich countries that pay farm subsidies of a billion dollars a day, try and force poor countries to drop their subsidies? What does peace mean to people in occupied Iraq, Palestine, Kashmir, Tibet and Chechnya? Or to the aboriginal people of Australia? Or the Ogoni of Nigeria? Or the Kurds in Turkey? Or the Dalits and Adivasis of India? What does peace mean to non-muslims in Islamic countries, or to women in Iran, Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan? What does it mean to the millions who are being uprooted from their lands by dams and development projects? What does peace mean to the poor who are being actively robbed of their resources and for whom everyday life is a grim battle for water, shelter, survival and, above all, some semblance of dignity? For them, peace is war.
We know very well who benefits from war in the age of Empire. But we must also ask ourselves honestly who benefits from peace in the age of Empire? War mongering is criminal. But talking of peace without talking of justice could easily become advocacy for a kind of capitulation. And talking of justice without unmasking the institutions and the systems that perpetrate injustice, is beyond hypocritical.
It's easy to blame the poor for being poor. It's easy to believe that the world is being caught up in an escalating spiral of terrorism and war. That's what allows the American President to say "You're either with us or with the terrorists." But we know that that's a spurious choice. We know that terrorism is only the privatization of war. That terrorists are the free marketers of war. They believe that the legitimate use of violence is not the sole prerogative of the State.
It is mendacious to make moral distinction between the unspeakable brutality of terrorism and the indiscriminate carnage of war and occupation. Both kinds of violence are unacceptable. We cannot support one and condemn the other.
The real tragedy is that most people in the world are trapped between the horror of a putative peace and the terror of war. Those are the two sheer cliffs we're hemmed in by. The question is: How do we climb out of this crevasse?
For those who are materially well-off, but morally uncomfortable, the first question you must ask yourself is do you really want to climb out of it? How far are you prepared to go? Has the crevasse become too comfortable?
If you really want to climb out, there's good news and bad news.
The good news is that the advance party began the climb some time ago. They're already half way up. Thousands of activists across the world have been hard at work preparing footholds and securing the ropes to make it easier for the rest of us. There isn't only one path up. There are hundreds of ways of doing it. There are hundreds of battles being fought around the world that need your skills, your minds, your resources. No battle is irrelevant. No victory is too small.
The bad news is that colorful demonstrations, weekend marches and annual trips to the World Social Forum are not enough. There have to be targeted acts of real civil disobedience with real consequences. Maybe we can't flip a switch and conjure up a revolution. But there are several things we could do. For example, you could make a list of those corporations who have profited from the invasion of Iraq and have offices here in Australia. You could name them, boycott them, occupy their offices and force them out of business. If it can happen in Bolivia, it can happen in India. It can happen in Australia. Why not?
That's only a small suggestion. But remember that if the struggle were to resort to violence, it will lose vision, beauty and imagination. Most dangerous of all, it will marginalize and eventually victimize women. And a political struggle that does not have women at the heart of it, above it, below it and within it is no struggle at all.
The point is that the battle must be joined. As the wonderful American historian Howard Zinn put it: You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train.
-------- accidents and safety
Atomic Power Station Halted in Russia, No Radiation
(Reuters)
Nov 5, 2004
http://reuters.myway.com/article/20041105/2004-11-05T185008Z_01_N05354622_RTRIDST_0_NEWS-NUCLEAR-RUSSIA-DC.html
MOSCOW - One reactor at a Russian nuclear power station was closed down after a malfunction, but there was no leak of radiation at the site near the city of Saratov on the Volga river, Russian news agencies reported on Friday.
"What happened at (Balakovskaya) power station was not an accident. It was just a malfunction," RIA Novosti news agency quoted a spokesman for the Russian atomic agency as saying.
"There were no radioactive consequences, there were no emissions ... There is no threat to health."
----
Accident at Russian nuclear power plant sows fear among residents
MOSCOW (AFP)
Nov 05, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041105153518.fr8ndcyq.html
A reported accident at a nuclear power plant in central Russia spread panic Friday, as residents rushed to buy radiation antidotes despite official assurances that the malfunction was a minor glitch.
Fears spread in the regions surrounding the Balakovskaya nuclear power plant, some 800 kilometers (500 miles) southeast of Moscow, after reports that a leak forced one of its blocks to shut down on Thursday.
"As a result of turbine malfunction, block number two of Balakovskaya nuclear power station underwent an emergency shutdown at 1:24 p.m.on November 4," said a press release from Russia's federal nuclear agency.
"There was no increase of radioactivity," it said. "The event does not endanger security and under international standards of nuclear events is classified as zero."
On Friday, officials said that the shut-down block had been restarted, ITAR-TASS reported.
"There is no cause for concern," said Viktor Bychkov, a deputy head of the emergencies ministry in the Saratov region, where the nuclear power plant is located.
"The situation is under control, security measures at Balakovskaya plant are high and in line with international norms," he said.
But, with haunting memories of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, residents in the surrounding regions rushed to pharmacies to buy up iodine, which doctors recommend in cases of exposure to radioactivity, witnesses and news agencies said.
Teachers in Saransk, some 300 kilometers (180 miles) northwest from the station, advised parents to administer iodine to their children, according to a regional internet site. Several pharmacies had run out of the substance, RIA Novosti reported.
Meanwhile universities in Samara, 300 kilometers northeast from the plant, were closed and businesses advised employees to stay home and close the windows.
A representative of Greenpeace Russia said reactions by the school threw doubt onto official assurances about the accident.
"It's not the first time that the reactor has stopped," said Vera Pissaryova. "Why this panic? It makes you think that there was a leak."
The accident revived the memories of April 1986, when a reactor at the Chernobyl power plant in Ukraine exploded and spewed radioactive material into the air for 10 days, contaminating large swaths of Europe.
The Soviet government did not acknowledge the disaster for days.
According to UN figures, between 15,000 and 30,000 have died since the disaster and nearly six million people continue to live in contaminated zones.
-------
Parents hear details of school evacuation plan
reformer.com
By CAROLYN LORIé
November 05, 2004
http://www.reformer.com/Stories/0,1413,102~8862~2515028,00.html#
BRATTLEBORO -- Approximately 50 people gathered at the Academy School to discuss the evacuation plan for Brattleboro schools, in the event of a Vermont Yankee emergency.
The concerns voiced by parents were many: Would bus drivers actually show up to transport the children if there was a serious accident at the plant? Are parents allowed to come and pick up their children or are they expected to meet up with them at the reception center in Bellows Falls? Will potassium iodide pills be distributed by school personnel and who would decide when it should be taken?
Town and school officials did their best to answer the questions but many remained unanswerable.
"We're not here to tell you that this plan is a 100 percent plan. We're never going to get a 100 percent plan. It will always be a work in progress," said Town Manager Jerry Remillard.
In addition to Remillard, WSESU superintendent Ron Stahley, Brattleboro Fire Chief Dave Emery and emergency management official Steve Goldsmith were also at Thursday's meeting.
The meeting was prompted by a letter sent to Stahley last June by a group of concerned parents.
According to Stahley, he had confidence that the plan was workable and that school personnel were prepared to implement it if necessary.
Two teachers who attended the meeting, however, said that they were unsure about what was expected of them and that there had not been enough discussion among school personnel.
"I feel in the dark about this," said Kevin O'Donnell, a math teacher at Brattleboro Union High School.
Upon hearing that students and staff may be ordered to shelter in place under certain accident conditions, O'Donnell pointed out how problematic that would be given the amount of construction going on at the school.
According to O'Donnell, for some time a large bookcase was used to cover a section of missing wall in his classroom. The gaps around the bookcase were large enough "for a raccoon to climb through," making the school unsafe if a radioactive plume were passing over it.
After the meeting, Stahley said that drills would be done at the school, including an unplanned one where the bus drivers would be paged. During the school bus drill, children would be loaded on the buses but not transported.
Stahley anticipated that the unplanned drill would happen some time early next year.
Although the superintendent stated at the start of the meeting that he wanted to avoid the "politics of Vermont Yankee," parent Randy Knaggs said that the best way to deal with a risk is to eliminate it. He asked the officials to go on record saying that the best strategy would be to close the plant.
The comment drew applause from others in the audience.
Stahley and Emery pointed out that the plan is necessary for any emergency. Emery went on to state that Vermont Yankee will continue to pose a threat even after it shuts down, as the spent fuel may be there for many years to come.
At the close of the meeting, which lasted almost three hours, Remillard said that it was clear that increased communication about the plan between the public and officials was necessary.
"These meetings aren't necessarily easy but this was a good meeting," said Remillard afterwards.
Carolyn Lorié can be reached at clorie@reformer.com.
-----
Another nuclear plant fails siren test
Charlotte Observer
BRUCE HENDERSON
Nov 5, 2004
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/krcharlotte/20041105/lo_krcharlotte/anothernuclearplantfailssirentest
For the second time since midsummer, emergency sirens around one of Duke Power's nuclear plants near Charlotte failed routine tests because of radio frequency interference.
On Oct. 28, Duke told the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, all 34 Mecklenburg County sirens around the McGuire nuclear plant on Lake Norman failed a weekly test the county conducts. Another 33 sirens in four neighboring counties performed as expected.
In July, 26 of the 89 sirens around the Catawba nuclear plant on Lake Wylie also failed a weekly test for the same reason. Two hours later, all but three of the 26 were working.
-------- britain
Revealed: the huge mountain of 'unofficial' nuclear waste
Contamination nine times worse than admitted
sundayherald
By Rob Edwards
07 November 2004
http://www.sundayherald.com/45831
The mountain of radioactive waste that will be left by Britain's nuclear programme is at least nine times higher than previously admitted, a new report by government advisers has revealed.
A massive 18 million cubic metres of soil and rubble is now known to have been con taminated by leaks, spills and discharges at 30 nuclear sites across the country over the past 60 years. That figure could double to 36 million cubic metres when the full extent of the problem is revealed. Only 1.9 million cubic metres of low-level radio active waste has been declared in the official inventory.
The news follows revelations in the Sunday Herald last week that a large area of land around the Hunterston nuclear power station in North Ayrshire had been contaminated .
The latest report, by the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management (CoRWM), which advises the Scottish Executive, warns that there is currently "no solution" for dealing with the waste.
"This report reveals the vastness of the problem ," said Dr David Lowry, consultant editor of the land contamination newsletter, Brownfield Briefing. "It is extraordinary to learn that such large volumes are not included in the official UK inventory of nuclear waste."
CoRWM's report, released last week, is the most comprehensive assessment to date of Britain's legacy of radioactive rubbish. The waste comes from defunct and operating nuclear power plants, military nuclear bases and medical radioisotope factories.
In Scotland, the waste has been generated at six sites: Hunterston, Dounreay in Caithness, Torness in East Lothian, Chapelcross in Dumfries and Galloway, Rosyth in Fife and the Clyde naval base, near Helensburgh.
CoRWM concludes that there are 2000 cubic metres of high-level radioactive waste, 349,000 cubic metres of medium-level waste and 1.93 million cubic metres of low-level waste. But it adds that there will also be a huge volume of contaminated soil, rubble and other wastes from cleaning up the nuclear sites over the next century.
It estimates this will amount to 18 million cubic metres - enough to fill 200,000 double-decker buses. This is a "rough figure", CoRWM says, which may end up being two times too low, or two times too high.
The figure includes the 81,000 cubic metres of contaminated land at Hunterston . It also includes an estimated one million cubic metres of contamination from the Sellafield nuclear plant in Cumbria.
At Dounreay, the UK Atomic Energy Authority says that 7500 square metres of land is contaminated - 5% of the open ground on the site. The amount of radioactive soil, rubble and other "low-activity" wastes planned for disposal over the next 30 years is between 26,000 and 45,000 cubic metres.
All these wastes - low in radioactivity but high in volume - pose a dilemma. While regulatory agencies say they might need to be buried at special sites with other radioactive waste, the nuclear industry would like to leave them where they are.
"Owing to the increase in future volumes of site clearance waste, it will be necessary to review the scale of, and arrangements for dealing with, these wastes," says CoRWM.
Green MSP for the South of Scotland Chris Ballance, who was instrumental in uncovering the contamination at Hunterston, accused the nuclear industry of " playing Russian roulette with public health, public money and the environment" .
It also raised questions about nuclear secrecy, and suggested that there may be other radiation leaks which have been covered up, he argued. "The cost to the taxpayer of cleaning this up - if that can be done - is anybody's guess."
The Green Party will next week be questioning ministers on how much contamination has been found around Hunterston, Dounreay, Torness and Chapelcross. And last week, party co-leader, Robin Harper, quizzed First Minister Jack McConnell on the Hunterston contamination.
CoRWM was set up by ministers in Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland in 2003 to recommend what should be done with nuclear waste. It includes 13 experts from universities and consultancies and has promised to make its final recommendations in July 2006.
CoRWM's chairman Gordon MacKerron pointed out that low-level wastes were not part of its remit, which is restricted to medium and high-level wastes. But another government group which had been looking at low-level wastes, the Radioactive Waste Management Advisory Committee (RWMAC), had been suspended.
"Government has no source of independent advice on the low and very low-level waste," MacKerron said. "CoRWM cannot make credible recommendations to government without looking at the whole picture and that includes low and very low-level waste." David Lowry said that RWMAC had flagged up the looming problem of high- volume decommissioning wastes a year ago. "But it seems that the Executive and the ministries in Westminster have paid no heed," he said.
The Executive said it was aware of the nuclear industry's legacy. "We do not accept that putting a figure on the amount of low-level nuclear waste adds any risk to human health or the environment," said a spokesman. "The scale and scope of the issue is being reviewed. Proposals on how these wastes can best be managed for the long term will be brought forward shortly."
The British Nuclear Group, which runs 10 nuclear plants in the UK, including Hunterston A and Chapelcross, said that "no firm decisions" had been taken on what to do with the waste. Most of it would probably be left where it is for the moment, and would be dealt with in the future by the government's Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, which starts up next year.
British Energy, which runs Hunterston B and Torness, accepted that there could be 18 million cubic metres of site clearance waste. "We have contributed to that figure and we are totally supportive of CoRWM," a spokeswoman said.
Friends of the Earth, however, dismissed suggestions that there was nothing to worry about. "This latest revelation of the problems of nuclear power should act as a warning to all those who think building new nuclear power stations is a smart idea," said the environmental group's chief executive, Duncan McLaren.
-------- depleted uranium
Breathing Uranium Oxides:
Global Medical Crisis of Depleted Uranium
Nov 5, 2004
axisoflogic.com
By John Lewallen
http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_13342.shtml
I begin my report on the health effects of uranium munitions with a heartfelt personal appeal: stop using uranium munitions now!
If you are the President of the United States, or under the President's command, you are commiting a war crime by using, or ordering the use, of uranium munitions.
If you are a soldier about to use a uranium bullet, missile or bomb, don't do it. The uranium oxide vapors unleashed when you pull the trigger put both you and your target in a battlefield gas environment of tiny, deadly, mutagenic uranium oxide particles. These tiny uranium oxide particles made when up to seventy per cent of the uranium projectile you shoot burns on friction and impact will stay in the environment as long as the Earth exists, bringing death, a host of diseases, and mutation to many living creatures.
Summary:
Uranium is the leading deep-penetration metal used today in United States military munitions worldwide. Uranium combines superior density with the tendency to sharpen and burn on impact. The first wartime use of uranium munitions was in 1991, when United Nations forces used an estimated 320 tons of uranium munitions in Iraq, primarily in anti-tank munitions in desert warfare. These munitions contributed to the complete neutralization of the Iraqi tank forces, so much so that during the 2003 U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq, many Iraqi tanks were abandoned unused.
All commentary on uranium munitions is colored by the fact that U.S. armed forces worldwide are fully committed to the use of uranium munitions. The official U.S. military position is that uranium munitions pose no toxic or radioactive health danger to anyone.
In fact, as has been known by the U.S. military since 1943, when the inventors of the atomic bomb described uranium vapor as an agent of chemical and radiological warfare, breathable uranium is a horrific weapon with both chemical and radiological toxicity. Extensive testing of uranium munitions show that from ten to seventy per cent of the uranium vaporizes on impact, in particle sizes ranging down to the microscopic.
Today in 2004, thirteen years after the first massive use of uranium munitions, countless thousands or millions of its victims cry in vain for relief as the United States and other military forces continue to use uranium munitions. Anyone seeking to end this suicidal chemical and radiological gas warfare is confronting one of the biggest institutional lies in history, the lie that uranium munitions pose no long-term or widespread health hazard. This lie is so huge, and has so many tentacles and subtleties, that it has become institutional orthodoxy in the United States.
The truth, as it is being pieced together by dedicated, disciplined, peer-reviewed scientists worldwide, is too horrifying for most people to contemplate. The vaporized, ceramic uranium oxides which billow as smoke from an impacting uranium munition have poisoned the human environment with minute, undetectable uranium oxide particles which will remain radioactive and toxic for the lifetime of Earth. Unlike natural uranium, which is soluble, breathed uranium oxide particles are insoluble, and become lodged in the human body if breathed, remaining there for many years, causing a host of diseases. Uranium oxides are mutagenic, attacking the genetic code which allows the human race to reproduce without crippling mutation.
Today the United States military forces are fully committed to a munition metal which, based on U.S. Veterans Affairs disability statistics on veterans of the 1991 Gulf War, will, along with the effects of other toxins in Iraq, disable one out of three battlefield troops who use uranium munitions within a decade of their exposure. To repeat: ONE-THIRD OF THE VETERANS OF THE 1991 GULF WAR ARE DISABLED TEN YEARS AFTER THE WAR.
THE AGES-OLD CLASH OF SPEAR AND SHIELD
"Briefing on Depleted Uranium," Colonel James Naughton, U.S. Army Materiel Command, March 14, 2003:
(Image of burned, blackened, and shattered Iraqi tank on screen)
"Why do we use it (depleted uranium)? This is the result. What we want to be able to do is strike the target from farther away than we can be hit back, and we want the target to be destroyed when we shoot at it. We don't want to see rounds bouncing off. We don't want to put our soldiers in the position that you see, if you watch 'Kelly's Heroes,' where they load tank rounds with paint in order to blind the target. And I'm sure everybody in here has probably seen 'Kelly's Heroes' once, because in World War II we faced a problem of not having the overreach we have today. "We don't ever want to go back to that. And we don't want to fight even. Nobody goes into a war and wants to be even with the enemy. We want to be ahead, and depleted uranium gives us that advantage. We can hit, and they can't hit us."
The story of how uranium munitions, and uranium armoring, became today's state-of-the-art metal of war worldwide begins with the ages-old desire of military forces to have superior spears and shields: spears that will fly farther than the enemy's and penetrate the opponent's best armor, and armor that will stop any spear the enemy can throw.
In the 1960s tungsten carbide was the primary metal used by the U.S. armed forces for armor-piercing projectiles. Tungsten carbide could not reliably penetrate the double-and triple-plated armor developed in the 1960s, touching off a scramble to invent a better armor penetrator. That decade the military began experimenting with uranium as an armor-piercing metal. Tungsten carbide continued to be favored over uranium, for two reasons: problems in developing a consistent alloy, and penetration tests that failed to show clear superiority of uranium over tungsten carbide against older-model Soviet tanks.
In the early seventies, it became clear that the latest-generation armors would be impenetrable by tungsten carbide. Also, tests by the Air Force and Navy using small-caliber uranium rounds (20-,25-, and 30mm) clearly showed the penetration superiority of uranium rounds.
Extensive Army testing for a better tank round metal for the 105mm M68 tank gun led to the XM774 Cartride Program in 1973, which used an alloy of uranium and titanium in an improved design that allowed the uranium core to withstand high acceleration without breaking up.
In the words of John Pike of : "Since the selection of depleted uranium for the XM774 cartridge, all major developments in tank ammunition have selected depleted uranium, including the 105mm M833 series and the 120mm M829 series (the latter being the primary anti-armor round used in the Gulf War). This pattern continues today, with the latest generation of the 105mm M900 series and the 25mm M919 for the Bradley Fighting Vehicle."
When a uranium round is fired, friction and impact vaporize from ten to seventy per cent of the uranium, depending on what the round hits. Uranium is pyrophoric, meaning it burns on friction and impact. Also, unlike tungsten which dulls when it penetrates, uranium rounds shatter and burn as they penetrate armor, sharpening the round as it goes. In 1991, uranium munitions turned Iraqi tanks into hellish crematoria thick with breathable, burning particles of uranium.
Today very few people know the full extent of the use of uranium, depleted or fully radioactive uranium, as a metal of penetration by the world's armed forces. A cloak of secrecy and web of deception make it impossible for an ordinary soul to know when, where, and how much uranium has been used on bullets, artillery rounds, bombs and missiles worldwide.
The Groves Memo: Gas Warfare With Uranium Vapor
In 1943, the Manhattan Project scientists, racing to beat Hitler in inventing the atomic bomb, realized the Germans might use vaporized uranium as a gas warfare agent, or that U.S. forces might want to use it. Here is a quote from the "Groves Memo" written by Drs. James B. Conant, A.H. Compton, and H.C. Urey to General L.R. Groves on October 30, 1943 (the "material" referred to is uranium):
"As a gas warfare instrument the material would be ground into particles of microscopic size to form dust and smoke and distributed by a ground-fired projectile, land vehicles, or aerial bombs. In this form it would be inhaled by personnel. The amount necessary to cause death to a person inhaling the material is extremely small. It is estimated that one millionth of a gram accumulating in a person's body would be fatal. There are no known methods of treatment for such a casualty.
"Two factors appear to increase the effectiveness of radioactive dust or smoke as a weapon. These are: 1) It cannot be detected by the senses; 2) It can be distributed in a dust or smoke form so finely powdered that it will permeate a standard gas mask filter in quantities large enough to be extremely damaging. An off-setting factor in its effectiveness as a weapon is that in a dust or smoke form the material is so finely pulverized that it takes on the characteristic of a quickly dissipating gas and is therefore subject to all the factors (such as wind) working against maintenance of high concentrations for more than a few minutes over a given area....
"Areas so contaminated by radioactive dusts and smokes, would be dangerous as long as a high enough concentration of material could be maintained...they can be stirred up as a fine dust from the terrain by winds, movement of vehicles or troops, etc., and would remain a potential hazard for a long time.... "Particles larger than 1 micron in size are likely to be deposited in nose, trachea or bronchi and then be brought up with mucus on the walls at the rate of 1/2-1 cm/min. Particles smaller than 1 micron are more likely to be deposited in the alveoli where they will either remain indefinitely or be absorbed into the lympatics or blood." .
The Clouds of Hell: Baghdad, October 1, 2003
The Uranium Medical Research Centre, a nonprofit research group, sent a bold team of sample-collectors into Baghdad in the fall of 2003 to collect soil, water and urine samples for uranium contamination testing. Here is part of their report on the U.S. battlefield cleanup effort in Baghdad, October, 2003:
"The most disturbing circumstance was observed in the U.S. occupied base in south-western Baghdad in the Auweirj district. It is close to the International Airport and hosts one of the largest Coalition bases around Baghdad....The area was subject to considerable aerial bombing and rocket fire prior to the Coalition ground forces' arrival followed by several ground skirmishes along the main routes to the International Airport and western entrances to the city.
"Leaving the downtown core for Auweirj requires crossing one of the elevated bridges over the Tigris Rover. The raised bridge provides a long view towards the south/southwest. On October 1, the team's third day in Baghdad, this view was interrupted by an enormous dust cloud hovering over a several hectare area, rising upwards of 300 meters (1000 ft.). The cloud slowly traversed Auweirj...Auweirj contains a wealthy residential neighbourhood...Some of the highest overall ambient air and ground surface radioactivity readings were measured in Auweirj...
"As the team's vehicle approached Auweirj, the cloud was blanketing the Coalition-occupied base, depositing a layer of fresh dust on people, houses, automobiles, and the highway. We had to turn on the windshield wipers. Departing the Coalition-occupied base was a long, steady stream of tandem-axle dump trucks carrying full loads of sand, heading south away from the city. Returning from the south was a second stream of fully loaded dump trucks waiting to enter the base....The soil removal was lofting tonnes of fine, light dust into the local environment, which was then falling back to inundate square kilometores of residential neighbourhoods and Coalition occupied facilities."
A Deadly Pack of Pentagon Lies: Michael Kilpatrick, M.D.
Representing the U.S. Department of Defense Iraq Deployment Health Support Directorate, Dr. Michael Kilpatrick made the following statements on March 14, 2003:
"Depleted uranium is 40 percent less radioactive than natural uranium around us. And so when it's outside the body it's just not an issue. It's only when it's internalized--either by inhaling the dust, the oxide, as Colonel Naughton said when there is penetration of armor, it does self-sharpen and it does create an oxide dust. And there are people who were in or on the vehicles that were struck in friendly fire, who did inhale that oxide, and we have not seen any medical consequence from that....
"When DU does strike armor and that oxide is created, it falls to the ground very quickly--usually within about a 50-meter range. As Colonel Naughton said, it's heavy. It's 1.7 times as heavy as lead. So even if it's a small dust particle, it's still very heavy. And it stays on the ground....
"Our studies in the United States over 15 years have not shown depleted uranium going from the soil into the groundwater. It just does not move from the round that is in the soil. And the bottom line is there is going to be no impact on the health of the people in the environment, or people who were there at the time it was shot."
The Vanishing Urine Samples
In 1991 the victorious Gulf War veterans returned outwardly unscathed from the Iraqi battlefields, having taken only small numbers of visible casualties. However, they had been exposed to a staggering array of toxins, including rushed vaccinations and breathable vapors from uranium munitions.
That same year Dr. Asaf Durakovic, who at the time was also a Colonel in the U.S. Army, became aware that Major Doug Rokke, who had been doing cleanup work to remove U.S. military vehicles destroyed by "friendly fire" in Kuwait and Iraq, was seeking medical treatment for several U.S. and British soldiers who were showing a wide array of symptoms which suggested the possibility of poisoning by inhaled uranium oxides.
Both Maj. (also Dr.) Rokke and Col. Durakovic were under specific orders to protect U.S. troops from the health hazards of uranium munitions. Dr. Durakovic, Director of Nuclear Medicine at a VA hospital, immediately agreed to treat the sick troops. An expert in the toxicology of uranium and other radioactive materials, Dr. Durakovic took urine samples from the sick soldiers, and sent them by registered mail to a lab in Aberdeen, Maryland for analysis of uranium content, broken down into the different uranium isopopes, which could indicate the source of the contamination.
"The urine samples never arrived in Aberdeen," Dr.Durkovic recalled in a 2003 interview. "All my inquiries were futile. Patients had renal surgeries, they were very sick, and some died."
Dr. Durkovic then had to endure constant verbal attack from many quarters to continue his work of protecting U.S. troops from battlefield uranium vapor contamination. The same thing happened to Major Rokke.
Then began an internal struggle of the soul within the United States military establishment, as the impulse to find out the truth and protect human health gave way first to the deeper military instinct to cling to the superior metal of penetration at all costs, and now also to the chilling knowledge that everyone in a responsible position who has claimed that uranium munitions pose no significant chemical or radiologcal hazard to human or environmental health is potentially liable for damages and guilty of crimes under U.S. and international law.
Today, Dr. Asaf Durakovic and Major Doug Rokke, are two leaders of an international movement to stop the use of uranium munitions. As Director of the Uranium Medical Research Center, Dr. Durakovic brings his lifelong expertise in the medical effects of radiation to the field study of the leavings of uranium munitions in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. Every serious student of the health and environmental effects of uranium munitions is well-advised to read Dr. Durakovic's two key articles, "Medical Effects of Internal Contamination With Radiation," and "Undiagnosed Illnesses and Radioactive Warfare." These two scientific, peer-reviewed articles thick with references to actual research studies offer an ordinary person the best basis for sorting out the truth about the health effects of uranium munitions from the multitude of misunderstandings, lies and distortions.
Doug Rokke has become "The Flying Squirrel," his nickname as a B52 pilot in Vietnam, a short and very energetic speaker hopping, shouting and gesticulating in an Oct. 2,2003 speech before the Humboldt County, California, Veterans for Peace. Major Rokke believes a lot of his superior officers are lying war criminals who should be brought to prosecution, and he read written, signed orders and statements to lie and cover-up the horrible toxicity of uranium munitions.
The Disappearing Medical Records
In 1995, Congressman Christopher Shays (R-CT), contacted his friend Robert Newman, a retired journalist, to help him investigate a strange new disease, or diseases, sweeing through Gulf War veterans.
"The Congressman was receiving a disturbing number of letters and e-mails from sick veterans in his district complaining that, when trying to get treatment at veterans hospitals, they were told, 'It's all in your head.' They weren't getting any help," Mr. Newman recalled in a 2001 interview. 16. Congressman Shays held fifteen hearings on what came to be called "Gulf War Syndrome" for the committe he chaired, the Subcommittee on Security, Veterans Issues, and International Relations, beginning March, 1996. After interviewing veterans and experts in various fields, the subcommittee concluded that Gulf War Syndrome was caused by radiation and/or chemical substances they encountered during their military service in Iraq, such as PB and untested vaccines they were forced to take.
"We learned that the medical records of nearly all the veterans had disappeared," Newman said. "For the five years or so it took Congress to launch this investigation, the Defense Department and Veterans Administration took their time responding to veterans who sought treatment or compensation. In the end, the requests were refused. At best, they took folks in but insisted the symptoms were just due to stress.." .
Disability Compensation Without Investigating Cause
In October, 1998, Congress passed two laws based on the findings of the 14 bipartisan members of Congressman Shay's subcommittee. "The gist of those laws," Robert Newman explained, "is this. One stipulates that even without medical records, the illneses of Gulf War veterans must be recognized as due to their service in the Middle East, and the Defense Department and the Veterans Administration are required to offer prompt and appropriate treatment and compensation. The other one...prohibits the administration of any experimental drugs to soldiers without their consent."
This law opened the way for the Veterans Administration to award full disability to 221,000 Gulf War veterans with a host of symptoms by September, 2002, with thousands of cases still pending. It also diverted attention away from any scientific inquiry into the causes of Gulf War Syndrome.
When Hiroshima newsman Akira Tashiro interviewed Robert Newman in 2001, he was still devoted to monitoring the Veterans Administration for just treatment and compensation for Gulf War Syndrome victims. "The laws are absolutely inadequate," Robert Newman said, because full treatment and compensation would cost an impossibly large sum of money. Based on what he had learned about the probable long-term medical effects of breathing battlefield uranium vapors, Newman expressed worries that, for the next ten years, cancer and neurological disorder will increase among Gulf War veterans.
Mutant Science: The 1998 Rand Report
A prime example of what one might call "Mutant Science" --truth chopped up and spliced with lie to make the Big Institutional Lie--is the 1999 Rand Report which concluded, and I quote,
"Although any increase in radiation to the human body can be calculated to be harmful from extrapolation from higher levels, there are no peer reviewed published reports of detectable increases of cancer or other negative health effects from radiation exposure to inhaled or ingested natural uranium at levels far exceeding those likely in the Gulf. This is mainly because the body is very effective at eliminating ingested and inhaled natural uranium and because the low radioactivity per unit mass of natural uranium and DU means that the mass of uranium needed for significant internal exposure is virtually impossible to obtain....Large variations in exposure to radioactivity from natural uranium in the normal environment have not been associated with negative health effects."
The 1999 Rand Report on Depleted Uranium, prepared by a research think-tank on contract with the U.S. Department of Defense, provides the "scientific basis" for the Pentagon's claim that uranium munitions pose no hazard to human health or the environment. It is a review of the literature, brushing aside such evidence as Major Rokke has gained by doing actual clean-up and testing of uranium munitions as not being "peer-reviewed published reports."
It says first, "any increase in radiation to the human body can be calculated to be harmful from extrapolation from higher levels." In reality, since 1991, worldwide evidence of horrific casualties with multiple symptoms has been found wherever uranium munitions have been used.
The lack of "peer-reviewed published reports" linking negative health effects to inhaled battlefield uranium vapors is a flat-out lie; see Dr. Durkavoic's two key studies referred to above.
"...the mass of uranium needed for significant internal exposure is virtually impossible to obtain." This is blatantly untrue, both because battlefield concentrations of uranium vapor are massive, and because even one minute particle of uranium oxide lodged inside a person's body can cause the destruction of dna in adjoining cells.
Toxic Forever, Radioactive for The Expected Lifetime of Earth
As the armies of the United States range across the Earth showering bullets, artillery rounds, bombs and missiles, it is known only to insiders what type of uranium is being used, how much, or where. Quoting the Rand report, "The material generally used by the U.S. Department of Defense is 40 percent less radioactive than natural uranium."
However, Uranium Medical Research Center field investigations found that natural uranium bombs and munitions had been used by the United States in Afghanistan during 2002, heavily contaminating the population and environment. Even the March, 2003 Pentagon briefing on uranium munitions noted that some reactor-generated "transuranics" are used in uranium munitions, indicating that nuclear reactor waste is used in uranium munitions.
Whether the munition is natural or so-called "depleted uranium", the tons of breathable, alpha-emitting uranium oxides being generated as I write will penetrate throughout the entire environment and remain, virtually undetectable, chemically and radioactively toxic for the lifetime of Earth.
The Big Lie is Institutional Truth, The Truth is Heresy: Dan Fahey and Dr. Robert Gould
Anyone seeking to rescue the human race from this ongoing suicide mission to permeate the biosphere with breathable uranium oxide particles is confronting one of the most elaborately constructed institutional lies in history.
Consider the work of Dan Fahey, "an independent policy analyst on the uses and effects of depleted uranium munitions." Dan Fahey's credentials are similar to mine: I am also an independent policy analyst studying the health and environmental effects of using uranium munitions. I have a record of military analysis writing going back to my book "Ecology of Devastation: Indochina" (Penguin Books, 1972), an ecological analysis of the U.S. war in Indochina, including early information on the effects of the herbicide Agent Orange. Today I finance my research and writing with my cottage industry, the Mendocino Sea Vegetable Company.
Dr. Robert Gould, President of Physicians for Social Responsibility, recommended Dan Fahey as an authoritative expert on uranium munitions to me. In a phone conversation with me, Dr. Gould rejected the idea that uranium munitions pose a major danger to the human race. "It's not Hiroshima," he said. (In fact, the 320 tons or more of uranium munitions used in Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War constituted the greatest environmental release of vaporized radioactivity in human history until the recent hostilities in Afghanistan and Iraq, much greater than Hiroshima.
At an October, 2003, meeting of activists which I facilitated in Philo, California, Dr. Gould heard information brought by Humboldt County Veterans for Peace, who had just heard a speech and received information about uranium munitions from Dr. Doug Rokke.
Dr. Gould sent me this email message on November 19, 2003: "As I mentioned at the teach-in, I believe that DU is a toxic material because of its heavy-metal and radioactive qualities, and I think it should be banned as a weapon, that there should be good studies of civilians and soldiers and that clean-up should proceed without waiting for the results of these studies. But I don't believe that DU is the most toxic material around (compared with highly radioactive waste, for example), and I think that much of the material presented at the teach-in is overstated based on available evidence and knowledge of the chemistry, and when so presented, obscures other significant potential contributors to observed health effects (oil fires and leaks, release of CW agents from warfare, the legacy of dirty Iraqi industrialization, immunization of troops, nutritional effects of sanctions, etc.) Particularly since most of 'us' will agree on 'what needs to be done,' I remain puzzled by the apparent need for many in the progressive movement to put out such limited monocausal 'science' to convince people, since there are abundant credible arguments (as in the Dan Fahey material I sent you prior to the meeting) that better make the points."
Reading Dan Fahey's initial assessment on uranium munitions used in Iraq during 2003, this researcher has concluded that I am witnessing the Big Institutional Lie being used to delude, and to keep the uranium munitions reform movement from making any serious efforts to stop the use of uranium munitions.
Dan Fahey's assessment begins by noting that although "there is little known about the actual quantities of DU released or the locations of contamination, it appears approximately 100 to 200 netric tons was shot at tanks, trucks, buildings and people in largely densely populated areas." As Tedd Weyman noted in the "Iraq Gulf War II Field Investigation Report," "there is a significant discrepancy between the independent reports that rely on official government and defence department numbers (i.e. 100-200 metric tonnes) and the 1000 to 2000 metric tonnes of DU attributed to estimates by unnamed United Nations Environment Program and Pentagon sources."
Mr. Fahey denounced the "pre-war propaganda" of lies used by the White House and Pentagon early in 2003 "to justify the use of DU munitions as a military necessity, and to dismiss concerns about the health and environmental effects of the use of DU munitions." Quoting a January 2003 White House report which stated that "scientists working for the World Health Organization, the UN Environmental Program, and the European Union could find no health effects linked to exposure to depleted uranium," Dan Fahey noted that "scientists from these organizations never looked for health effects linked to exposure in DU in any post-combat environment." Fahey went on to document several of the lies used by Dr. Michael Kilpatrick at the March 14, 2003 press conference on uranium munitions, which, he wrote, "perhaps reflected an urgency to deflect criticism and concern about DU on the eve of war."
Mr. Fahey's vigorous critique of the Big Pentagon Lie that uranium munitions pose no major hazard to human or environmental health is followed by an equally vigorous assertion of that lie. Mr. Fahey does not want to see uranium munitions banned, or use of uranium munitions stopped. Dan Fahey's policy recommendations are limited to better informing U.S. troops about uranium munitions, bioassays of U.S. troops with extreme battlefield exposure, revelation of when and where uranium munitions have been used, cleanup of "DU sites," and more studies of the problem. Mr.Fahey urges a health assessment of all the troops who, in his estimate, were extremely exposed to uranium munitions in 1991, who, he wrote, are just 900 in number.
Then Dan Fahey's report attacks "anti-DU activists and people using the DU issue to further other political agendas or raise money." First, Mr. Fahey quotes an unnamed source from the "UK Green Party" making various unfounded claims about uranium munitions. Then he tars Drs. Doug Rokke and Asaf Durakovic with the same brush, to discredit and dismiss their devoted life's work to discover and reveal the true health effects of uranium munitions. Dan Fahey accuses Doug Rokke of making "exaggerated and unsubstantiated claims."
Then comes this blood-chilling paragraph by Dan Fahey, independent researcher on depleted uranium munitions:
"The old myth that large quantities of DU are used in missiles and bombs has taken a new twist with the claim that 'non-depleted uranium' is being secretly used in hard target, deep penetration, and DBHT (deeply buried hard target) weapons that combine uranium with high explosives. Citing unspecified 'government reports and independent research,' the Uranium Medical Research Centre (UMRC) claims these new warheads contain '100s to1000s of kilograms' of uranium that is 'extracted from the nuclear fuels and nuclear weapons production cycles prior to the uranium enrichment phase.' UMRC claims that secret use of uranium is responsible for illnesses in Afghanistan, but this assertion is undermined by the lack of any evidence that any missiles or bombs used in Afghanistan contain any natural or depleted uranium."
Is The United States Military Using Uranium in Bombs and Missiles?
The full scope of U.S. military use of uranium munitions is secret. So how the hell does Dan Fahey, an independent researcher like me, know that it is an unsubstantiated "myth" that uranium is used by the U.S. in bombs and missiles?
The Uranium Medical Research Centre discovery that non-depleted uranium was used in bullets and bombs in Afghanistan is based on field work and sophisticated urine analysis for the different isotopes of uranium. First the UMRC found that the isotope content indicated natural uranium contamination in Afghanistan, not depleted uranium. Testing further, the UMRC found ceramic uranium in the urine of Afghans, indicating that the extreme heat of burning munitions had produced the uranium. This, according to Dr. Durakovic, has made some Afghan valleys permanently uninhabitable.
Dr. Doug Rokke also is sure there is uranium in many of the bombs and missiles used by US armed forces today. His evidence and proof? Here's a verbatim email Dr. Rokke sent me on April 2, 2004: "Primary on-site radiological measurements, photo, video, direct observations, and discussions with military personnel verify DU is in all of these weapons--from 50 cal through bunker busters. And heck, we did a lot of work too."
Major Rokke has been taken part in U.S. military uranium munitions testing, clean-up, and remediation efforts since 1991. Here is his current list of uranium munitions used in weapons, part of his May 4, 2004 article titled "Immediate Action Required on Depleted Uranium":
"DU is used to manufacture kinetic energy penetrators- giant pencils or rods. Each kinetic penetrator consists of almost entirely uranium 238. The United States munitions industry produces the following DU munitions with the corresponding mass of uranium 238:
7.62 mm with unspecified mass
50 caliber with unspecified mass
20 mm with a mass of approximately 180 grams.
25 mm with a mass of approximately 200 grams.
30 mm with a mass of approximately 280 grams.
105 mm with a mass of approximately 3500 grams.
120 mm with a mass of approximately 4500 grams.
Sub-munitions / land mines such as the PDM and ADAM whose structural bodies contain a small proportion of DU.
Cruise missiles with unknown quantity of DU Bunker buster bombs with unknown quantity of DU.
A Call to Action: Stop Using Uranium Munitions Now!
In today's competition for attention to issues, the issue of uranium munitions is easily buried and forgotten. Dr. Robert Gould, President of the Physicians for Social Responsibility, advised me to worry about something more dangerous like "high-level radioactive waste" in the email quoted above. In order to cause effective change, groups such as Veterans for Peace and Physicians for Social Responsibility will need to focus on uranium munitions, and organize long-term, relentless campaigns to end the use of uranium munitions. Is this going to happen?
The only Congressional bill dealing with the hazards of uranium munitions--the "Depleted Uranium Munitions Study Act of 2003" (HR 1483, sponsored by Rep. McDermott)--is, in my view, not worthy of support. In calling only for studies of the problem and cleaup of US uranium munitions test sites, it deludes and defuses the worldwide effort to halt the ongoing catastrophe of uranium munition use.
How likely is it that the U.S. military, fully committed to uranium munitions and uranium armor as state-of-the-art, involved in shooting wars in several nations worldwide now--how likely is it that they are going to drop their radioactive munitions and be like "Kelly's Heroes" again, with the second-best metal of war in the world?
I actually dropped the topic in despair last fall, until I heard that my future son-in-law was about to be deployed to Iraq with his private company. Now we're talking about the genetic integrity of my bloodline! So I tossed off a brief piece, "Do Not Force Our Children to Breathe Uranium!" My daughter's fiance quit that job and stayed out of Iraq.
It is time for everyone on Earth to stop using uranium munitions now! A campaign of nonviolent noncooperation, informed by group effort, seems the most effective strategy. The Big Institutional Lie is going to keep uranium munitions poisoning people and environments for some time, but we can, in small and big ways, refuse to pull the trigger on uranium munitions.
Notes
1.John Lewallen is a writer and peace activist focused in 2004 on uranium munitions and their health and environmental consequences. His published books include "Ecology of Devastation: Indochina" (Penguin Books, 1972), and "High-Altitude Nuclear War" (NuclearPress.com, 2002), an analysis of today's great-power nuclear weapons confrontation available from Amazon.com Books. He supports himself with income from his cottage industry, the Mendocino Sea Vegetable Company, and maintains the website .
2. "Briefing on Depleted Uranium," Colonel James Naughton, March 14, 2003 . The use of 320 tons of uranium munitions in Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War is a U.S. Department of Defense estimate. An authoritative Iraqi estimate is that 800 tons of uranium munitions were used by the U.S. and allied forces during the 1991 war, with more than 300 tons used in western Basra, Iraq (Dr. Jawad Al-Ali, Director of the Oncology Center, Basra, Iraq, "Effects of wars and the use of depleted uranium on Iraq," Japan Peace Conference, Naha, Okinawa, Jan.29-Feb.1, 2004 .
3."Briefing on Depleted Uranium," March 2003.
4. "Memorandum to:Brigadier General L.R. Groves, from Drs. Conant, Compton, and Urey," Oct. 30, 1943, declassified June 5, 1974, supplied by Major Doug Rokke , hereinafter referred to as the "Groves Memo."
5."RAND Report on Depleted Uranium," RAND, 1999, p.4, hereinafter referred to as the "RAND Report" .
6. Durakovic, Asaf, "Undiagnosed Illnesses and Radioactive Warfare," Croatian Medical Journal, Vol.44, No.5, 2003, pps. 520-532.
7. See the National Gulf War Resource Center website for the latest Veterans Affairs disability statistics .
8. "Briefing on Depleted Uranium, 2003."
9. John Pike, , page on "Depleted Uranium," is my source for this thumbnail history of uranium munitions as a super-metal.
10. Groves Memo.
11. Weyman, Tedd, Iraq Field Team Lead, "Abu Khasib to Ah'qua: Iraq Gulf War II Field Investigation Report" , p. 14.
12. "Briefing on Depleted Uranium, 2003."
13. Dr. Asaf Durakovic, audio interview, 2003 .
14. Durakovic, Asaf, "Medical Effects of Internal Contamination With Uranium," Croatian Medical Journal, Vol. 40, No. 1, March, 1999; and "Undiagnosed Illnesses and Radioactive Warfare," Croatian Medical Journal, Vol.44, No.5, 2003, pps. 520-532.
15. Major Doug Rokke, Oct. 2,2003 speech for Veterans for Peace, Humboldt County, California, on video.
16. Tashiro, Akira, "Discounted Casualties: The Human Cost of Depleted Uranium," published 2001 in Hiroshima, Japan, by The Chugoku Shimbun, p. 34.
17. Ibid., p. 35.
18. Ibid.
19. Rand Report, Chapter 3, p. 1.
20. Rand Report, p. 2.
21. Durakovic, Asaf, "Undiagnosed Illnesses and Radioactive Warfare," section on "Afghanistan Uranium Studies."
22. "Briefing on Depleted Uranium," March, 2003.
23. Fahey, Dan, "The Use of Depleted Uranium in the 2003 Iraq War: An Initial Assessment of Information and Policies," June 24, 2003, available at .
24. Durakovic, Asaf, "Undiagnosed Illnesses and Radioactive Warfare."
25. Fahey, Dan, op. cit., p.1.
26. Weyman, Tedd, op. cit., p.11.
27. Fahey, Dan, op. cit., p.2.
28. Ibid., pp.8-10.
29. Ibid., p.11.
30. Ibid., p.12.
31. Dr.Asaf Durakovic, audio interview, 2003, available at .
32. Major Doug Rokke,"Immediate Action Required on Depleted Uranium," May 4, 2004.
http://www.nuclearpress.com/view.lasso?id=0032&-token.f=3
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MoD admits Gulf War mistakes
The Times
By Michael Evans
November 05, 2004
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1344812,00.html
THE Ministry of Defence admitted for the first time yesterday the mistakes it had made in preparing thousands of British troops for a feared chemical and biological war in the Gulf in 1991.
Thirteen years after the Gulf War, the MoD published a report, Health and Personnel-Related Lessons Identified, which outlined numerous policies which had to be changed and implemented for the latest war in Iraq. However, defence officials remained adamant that there was still no evidence of a Gulf War Syndrome.
The report was published in advance of the conclusions of an independent inquiry into Gulf War Syndrome, conducted by Lord Lloyd of Berwick. His report, which is expected to be critical of the MoD's treatment of the 6,000 Gulf War veterans suffering from ill health, is due in the next two weeks.
The MoD acknowledged that it had not been open about its anti-biological warfare vaccination programme which included giving many of the frontline troops a cocktail of injections to counter anthrax, plague and other bio-chemical attacks.
The report said: "The fact that the MoD was not open about the UK's anti-biological warfare immunisation, did not provide sufficient information to forces about the vaccinations they were receiving, did not explain the reasons for offering them, or provide information on the assessments of safety of the vaccines, sideeffects and so forth, has led to uncertainty, suspicion and doubt."
Gulf War veterans, suffering from illnesses ranging from cancers and motor neurone disease to chronic fatigue, skin rashes, traumatic stress and aching joints, have blamed the multiple vaccines for causing the health problems. However, the defence officials said the interim findings of an important study into the "medical counter-measures" given to service personnel in 1990 and 1991 showed there had been "no apparent adverse health consequences". The final report by the research team is due to be published in a medical journal by the end of the year.
The MoD also admitted yesterday it had failed to point out the potential hazards presented by the firing of shells by American and British forces which had depleted uranium (DU) warheads. Information about DU "was not always fully disseminated nor was information on the simple precautions which could have been taken to minimise these risks".
The MoD said all these lessons had been taken into account for Operation Telic, the current campaign in Iraq. Commanders now had to ensure all their soldiers were regularly immunised against the usual health risks.
Outlining the results of the MoD's Gulf veterans' medical assessment programme which started in 1993, the report said that of the 3,244 seen so far, 75per cent were well. Of the 25per cent unwell, 83per cent of ill-health was accounted for by psychiatric illness, such as post-traumatic stress disorder.
According to Tony Flint of the National Gulf Veterans and Families Association, the only reason the MoD refused to acknowledge the existence of a Gulf War Syndrome was "because they don't want to pay out money".
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MoD dismisses reports on 'Gulf War Syndrome'
05/11/2004
telegraph.co.uk
By Michael Smith
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/11/05/ngulf05.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/11/05/ixhome.html
The Ministry of Defence yesterday dismissed evidence from a number of scientific studies suggesting that troops who fought in the 1991 Gulf war were suffering from illnesses caused by their service.
The United States Department of Veterans Affairs is about to publish research that concluded that many veterans of the war suffer from neurological damage caused by exposure to toxic chemicals.
The report found that many had unusual brain damage that would cause some of the symptoms and might have been caused by exposure to chemicals or vaccines.
It pointed to organo-phosphate pesticides at British and US bases in the Gulf, vaccines given to troops, or the release of Iraqi sarin nerve gas as possible causes.
Meanwhile, Prof Simon Wesseley, who led an MoD-funded survey of 20,000 British troops, told Lord Lloyd's inquiry in August that it found that the more vaccines soldiers were given the more likely they were to be ill. But the MoD insisted yesterday that "there is no clinical evidence to suggest that the known effects of the suspected exposures have affected the health of veterans". Officials argued that "the vast body of research undertaken has found no link between specific causes and the symptoms".
The officials were speaking on the publication of a new report by the MoD entitled: The 1990/1991 Gulf Conflict: Health and Personnel Related Lesson Identified.
They denied that the date of publication almost 14 years after the war was aimed at trying to counter the anticipated effects of the publication of the US report and Lord Lloyd's independent inquiry, which is expected to publish its report this month.
The officials declined to comment on the US government's Binns Report until after it was published and denied that there was any contradiction between Prof Wesseley's findings and their stance. Although the MoD funded his study they did not accept his conclusions on the use of vaccines because they were not matched in any other studies and they had to consider the research as a whole, officials said.
Prof Wesseley told the inquiry: "Those [veterans] who had the most vaccinations were nearly twice as likely to get ill." Those who had a combination of the anthrax and whooping cough vaccines were 40 per cent more likely to suffer symptoms, he said.
On the use of depleted uranium ammunition, blamed by some veterans for their illnesses, the report says "there is no scientific or medical evidence to link DU to ill-health".
Of organo-phosphate pesticides, it merely says that the conflict "pointed up the need for greater awareness of the risks associated with a range of potentially lethal materials - like pesticides". The report does not mention the other most frequently cited cause - release of sarin nerve gas when US troops demolished an Iraqi weapons dump.
About 6,000 British servicemen and women claim to have "Gulf War Syndrome".
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Defence says no deal signed on weapons testing
ABC
5 November 2004
http://www.abc.net.au/centralqld/news/200411/s1235755.htm
The Defence Department says nothing has been finalised in regard to allowing the US to test new-generation weapons in Australia.
Australian defence expert Ross Babbage has revealed the plan, saying the US military could be testing its new smart bombs in Queensland and the Northern Territory within three years.
The department says that under a training concept announced in July, Australia and the US will maintain a mutually beneficial program of joint exercises in Australia.
It says negotiations over the details are at an early stage and no agreement for the testing of next-generation 'smart' bombs has been signed.
The department says talks will continue over coming months and it will consult state and local governments, as well as local communities.
Professor Babbage has recently been involved in high-level talks in Washington.
He says up to 20,000 United States troops will descend on Queensland's Shoalwater Bay, north of Rockhampton, in 2007 to participate in new warfare training and experimentation exercises.
Professor Babbage says smart bombs may be used.
"I think there'll be occasionally phases where they do that within impact zones that are already well-known and often used," he said.
"I think what we are really going to be seeing though is more innovative defence force movements, more widespread defence force movements in exercises and trialing just to try some of these concepts out."
Professor Babbage says training exercises involving the US will also be expanded in the Northern Territory, and some exercises may include bombing runs into Top End training areas.
"You won't see an aircraft carrier conducting operations in the immediate Darwin area I don't expect," he said. "You might have an occasional carrier visit.
"But what you might see for instance at Delamere Range down the track a bit, and the Bradshaw training area over in the western side of the Northern Territory ... is aircraft movements in to the Delamere Range from let's say an aircraft carrier operating down the west coast."
The Federal Opposition has thrown its support behind any increase in US military exercises in Australia.
Opposition defence spokesman Robert McClelland says Labor supports the move if Australia's neighbours are informed.
"It's important for the Government to keep our Asian neighbours in the loop of what's going on so they can be assured there's nothing clandestine occurring," he said.
"It's part of the process of developing new technologies, which of course happens all around the world in all modern countries. It's important to keep that dialogue going."
However, some people living in areas near the training sites have concerns.
Yeppoon resident Peter Murray organised a protest rally when the idea of increased military training was first raised. He says he has major concerns about the latest proposal.
"The actual specifics of the weapons is a major concern," he said. "We know the Americans are using plutonium and uranium-depleted weapons in some of their casings and some of their armoury.
"Also, the use of nuclear-powered ships coming into the regions and the prospects of maybe a mishap."
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War Crimes and Iraq
CounterPunch
By CONN HALLINAN
November 5, 2004
http://www.counterpunch.org/hallinan11052004.html
"...The Parties to the conflict shall at all times distinguish between the civilian population and combatants and between civilian objects and military objectives and accordingly shall direct their operations only against military objectives"
Article 48, 1977 addition to the Geneva Conventions, Part IV
The above "Basic Rule" is at the heart of the Geneva Conventions, the international treaty that tries to be the thin line that separates civilization from savagery. It is not something the Bush Administration has paid much attention to as it goes about the "pacification" of Iraqi cities where local insurgents are resisting the American occupation.
Consider the following.
On Oct. 8, U.S. fighter bombers carried out what the Pentagon called a "precision strike" against "terrorist leaders" in Falluja, a sprawling city of 300,000 west of Baghdad. For the past two months Falluja has been the target of a bombing campaign. According to the New York Times, the attack wounded 17 people, nine of whom were women and children. The victims were apparently from a wedding party that had just dispersed.
The Times went on to quote a "senior Pentagon official" who said, "We know what the strike was supposed to hit and we hit it. If a wedding party was going on, well, it was in concert with a meeting of a top Zarqawi lieutenant." Zarqawi is a Jordanian who has claimed credit for numerous roadside bombings and assassinations in Iraq.
But according to Article 50 of the Conventions, "The presence within the civilian population of individuals who do not come within the definition of civilians does not deprive the population of its civilian character."
In short, the attack violated the Conventions, and the "Pentagon official"---most likely Assistant Secretary of Defense, Paul Wolfowitz--- should be arrested and tried for violating international law. Since the attack constituted a "grave breach" of the Conventions, the official could also be charged under the 1996 U.S. War Crimes Act.
In the same article, the Times also quoted a "senior Bush Administration official" as saying that the bombing was helpful for exploiting "fault lines" in Falluja, and that it would push the "citizenry" of Falluja to deny sanctuary and assistance to the insurgents, "adding "that's a good thing."
The "official" might, indeed, think it was "a good thing," but it also violated Article 51, which states: "The civilian population as such, as well as individual civilians, shall not be the object of attack."
A "Pentagon official" also told the Times: "If there are civilians dying in connection with these attacks, and with the destruction, the locals at some point have to make a decision. Do they want to harbor the insurgents and suffer the consequences that come with that?"
In other words, terrify the civilian population into cooperating, a strategy that Article 51 explicitly forbids: "Acts or threats of violence, the primary purpose of which is to spread terror among the civilian population, are prohibited."
The violations of the Convention are not limited to the bombing campaigns. The Washington Post recently revealed that the Bush Administration allowed the CIA to transfer Iraqi combatants out of the country (a violation of Article 49) and to hide them from the Red Cross (a violation of Article 63).
According to an FBI report, FBI agents visiting Abu Ghraib Prison, witnessed hooded and chained Iraqi prisoners being slapped by U.S. soldiers, who told the agents it was a sleep depravation technique. The agents also saw prisoners held naked in tiny isolation cells. The Defense Department readily admits it uses loud music, painful restraints, and a semi-drowning technique called "water boarding," to "soften up" prisoners for interrogation.
All of the above behavior breaks numerous parts of the Convention. Article 85, for instance, says that, "Sleeping quarters shall be sufficiently spacious and well ventilated." Article 90 instructs that, "The clothing supplied by the Detaining Power to internees and the outward marking placed on their clothing shall not be ignominious or expose them to ridicule." Article 117 says, "Imprisonment in premises without daylight, and in general, all forms of cruelty without exception are prohibited"
Besides transgressions of Geneva, the agents also witnessed violations of several other international treaties the U.S. is a signatory to.
Article 5 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states: "No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment."
The UN Convention Against Torture prohibits, "any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession," adding "no exceptional circumstances whatsoever may be invoked as a justification for torture."
On Oct. 27, Theo van Boven, UN director of reports on torture, expressed "serious concern" over "allegations of attempts to circumvent the absolute nature of the prohibition of torture and other forms of ill treatment in the name of countering terrorism, particularly in relationship to interrogation and conditions of detention of prisoners." While he did not charge the U.S. by name, there is no argument about to whom he was referring to.
The Bush Administration likes to invoke the so-called changed nature of the post-9/11 world as the attacks created new conditions that the Conventions no longer apply to, somehow trumping U.S. adherence to international law. White House counsel Alberto Gonzales dismisses the Geneva Conventions as "quaint," and the U.S. Justice Department wrote up memos giving the CIA the right to violate both international laws and the U.S. War Crimes Act.
But systematic violations of the Geneva Conventions by the U.S. hardly started with 9/11. Indeed, they are characteristic of virtually every conflict the U.S. has been involved in since the end of World War II. The following are just a few examples:
Bombing attacks in the first Gulf War and the Kosovo War, systematically targeted power plants and grids, railway stations, refineries, communication networks, sewerage treatment facilities, and water purification plants, in spite of Article 54 of the Geneva Conventions which prohibits attacking any objectives "indispensable to the survival of the civilian population."
One could even make a case that the use of hundreds of tons of Depleted Uranium Ammunition (DUA) in Kosovo and the two Gulf wars constitutes a war crime. The Conventions clearly require the victorious party to assume responsibility for the conquered civilian population and to clean up the chaos of war. DUA has poisoned water supplies in Iraq, parts of Kuwait, and Yugoslavia, and birth defectsand cancer incidences are far higher in areas where DUA was used. The U.S., however, claims that DUA poses no potential health risks,therefore it doesn't have to remove the low- level radioactive debris.
It is not only a record Americans should be ashamed of, it is one that should make us afraid. The Geneva Conventions and other international laws were not drawn up by bleeding heart liberals, nor were they designed to protect weaker nations. They were a response to the enormous numbers of civilian casualties inflicted by World War II, and as a practical way to shield everyone's armed forces from humiliation, torture and death at the hands of an adversary.
If we are cavalier or dismissive about international law, it will encourage others to be so as well. The most likely victims of that policy will be we civilians, as well as our own uniformed forces. If we torture prisoners and hide them from the eyes of organizations like the Red Cross, why shouldn't others do the same to our soldiers and civilians?
In a recent commentary in the Financial Times, Jakob Kellenberger, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, wrote: "The struggle against terrorism cannot be legitimate if it undermines basic values shared by humanity. The right to life and protection against murder, torture and degrading treatment must be at the heart of the actions of those engaged in this struggle. The struggle will lose credibility if it is used to justify acts otherwise considered unacceptable, such as the killing of people not participating in hostilities."
Apart from the inhumanity our actions engender, as an entirely practical matter, to do anything less than Kellenberger suggests is to place our own people in harm's way.
Conn Hallinan is a Lecturer in Journalism at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
-----
Environmentalists express concern about smart bombs
The World Today
Reporter: Ian Townsend
5 November, 2004
http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2004/s1235637.htm
ELEANOR HALL: As we've just been hearing from Professor Babbage in that report, the prospect of more US troops training and testing weapons in Australia is likely to raise concerns in some quarters.
Environmental lobbyists say they are particularly worried about the impact of the training on the Shoalwater Bay region in Central Queensland, as Ian Townsend reports.
IAN TOWNSEND: Shoalwater Bay is on the Tropic of Capricorn, inside the Great Barrier Reef. Nearby is the city of Rockhampton and resort communities on the coast.
They've been living together relatively well for decades, but there's increasing concern amongst many people about the upgrading of the base, about more troops, more exercises and weapons testing. Peter Murray lives in nearby Yeppoon and organised a protest in August when the upgrade of Shoalwater Bay to a joint training facility was announced.
PETER MURRAY: The actual specifics of the weapons is a major concern. We know the Americans are using plutonium and uranium depleted weapons in some of their casings and some of their armoury. Also the use of nuclear powered ships coming into the region and the prospects of maybe a mishap, which we certainly would hate to see happen.
IAN TOWNSEND: Is there much concern in the local community?
PETER MURRAY: Look, there's been a tremendous... you know, I would say that eight out of 10 people are very concerned.
IAN TOWNSEND: Many locals have long been concerned about the accuracy of weapons being fired on the base.
That's been heightened this morning by reports from the US that a fighter plane has accidentally fired 25 rounds of ammunition at a school in New Jersey, instead of at a military target range more than five kilometres away. No one was hurt, but this makes Peter Murray who lives near the Shoalwater Base in Queensland even more uneasy.
PETER MURRAY: Well my fears there are numbered, obviously because they're going to be testing new technology, there may be some doubts about their accuracy, their effect on the environment and you know, it's a marine mammal breeding area. The dugongs, the whales pass through there every year.
IAN TOWNSEND: And there are the environmental concerns for the area. Pat O'Brien is the president of the Wildlife Protection Association of Australia, who also lived at Yeppoon, until recently.
PAT O'BRIEN: The damage that some of these things are capable of doing is just horrific, you know, and it certainly is going to put, I think there's going to be a feeling within a lot of people in the central Queensland community that they're now going to be a target. And you know, I can see a lot of anger coming over this, and I can see a lot of political heads rolling unless a politicians get on top of the bureaucrats and say okay, we've got to have a good effective community-based advisory system in place so that the community actually knows what's happening. And unless that happens, I can see a lot of trouble in the wind.
IAN TOWNSEND: Denis Doherty is coordinator the Australia Anti-bases Coalition, which has held regular protests at American bases in Australia in the past. It's already planning a campaign to fight this new move.
DENIS DOHERTY: So we see that as a quantitative leap of US military presence in Australia and we are implacably opposed to it, and we are already organising to resist it.
IAN TOWNSEND: How would you do that?
DENIS DOHERTY: We will be ah... we'll do the full range of non-violent direct action down to petitions and letter writing and full and protests right across as many states and capitals as we can.
ELEANOR HALL: Denis Doherty from the Australian Anti Bases Coalition speaking there to Ian Townsend.
------
The lowly, ill-regarded tumbleweed might be good for something after all.
05.11.2004
Geological Society of America
http://www.innovations-report.de/html/berichte/geowissenschaften/bericht-35816.html
A preliminary study reveals that tumbleweeds, a.k.a. Russian thistle, and some other weeds common to dry Western lands have a knack for soaking up depleted uranium from contaminated soils at weapons testing grounds and battlefields. "There is some use to what we consider noxious weeds," said geologist Dana Ulmer-Scholle of the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology in Socorro.
Depleted uranium (DU) is used in armor-piercing munitions. Although it produces only a low level of radiation, the metal poses a hazard in soils because it - like some other heavy metals - is toxic if ingested. Other plants have been known to draw out DU from soils in wetter climes "but no one wanted to try doing it in arid regions," said Ulmer-Scholle.
Ulmer-Scholle's work is underwritten by the US Department of Defense, which is looking for innovative, cost-effective, and efficient ways of cleaning up soils at weapons testing areas and battlefields where DU has been used. Ulmer-Scholle will be presenting the promising results of tumbleweeds and other weeds in arid lands on 10 November at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America in Denver.
In her study, Ulmer-Scholle and her colleagues Bonnie Frey, Terry Thomas, and Michael Blaylock first sought out DU contaminated soils at an inactive munitions testing ground in New Mexico. Then they planted selected native and non-native plants in a test garden and in pots to see how much DU the plants absorbed from the soil.
Among the plants that sucked up lots of DU was Indian mustard (Brassica juncea), she reports. But that plant it is not well suited to deserts and needed irrigation. Better adapted to the dry environs, she said, were Russian thistle (Salsola tragus), the grain crop quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa) and purple amaranth (Amaranthus blitum). "Our goal is to use plants with the least amount of water and the minimum amount of care," said Ulmer-Scholle. They also found that sprinkling the ground with citric acid enhanced the plants' ability to absorb DU.
Russian thistle is a non-native plant to North America and is considered a nuisance in most parts of the western US. It springs up almost anywhere soils have been disturbed and each plant scatters its hundreds of seeds by detaching from its roots and tumbling along the ground in the wind.
Using tumbleweeds and other unpopular plants for DU clean-up needn't spread noxious weeds either, Ulmer-Scholle explained. It turns out that the plants tested do their best DU absorbing before they flower and long before they set seeds. So part of the trick to using weeds to clean up DU is to harvest the plants before they flower, she said.
The fact that plants absorb uranium is not news, since old uranium prospectors used to use Geiger counters on junipers to find buried uranium lodes. But finding a plant that grows fast on little water and can be easily harvested to carry away the depleted uranium - that's another story. "We tried it here (in Southern New Mexico) and also in a natural uranium mine site in northern New Mexico," she said. The weeds picked up even more uranium in more contaminated soils. "So we got more where there was more in the soils."
As for why some plants absorb uranium, that's still a mystery, says Ulmer-Scholle. It could be that the plants use the metal to create pigments. One way she hopes to test that possibility is to grow native plants used for dyes, she said.
Phytoremediation of Depleted Uranium in an Arid Environment Environmental Geosciences, Poster Session II Wednesday, 10 November, 1:30 -5:30 p.m., CCC Exhibit Hall
-------- iran
Iran: U.S. Nuclear Fears Overblown
Los Angeles Times
By Javad Zarif
November 5, 2004
http://fairuse.1accesshost.com/news2/latimes381.htm
More than 18 months of intrusive inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency in Iran failed to produce a smoking gun. In fact, the report released in September by the IAEA confirmed the organization's original finding from November 2003 that "to date there is no evidence that the previously undeclared nuclear material and activities ... were related to a nuclear weapons program."
But what good did that do Iran? While the IAEA was making "steady progress" in understanding the Iranian program and resolving the outstanding issues, the United States mobilized its substantial power and influence on the IAEA board of governors, which may very well push us all to an unwanted confrontation of uncontrollable magnitude that will benefit no country, group or cause, save for few extremists on all sides.
American officials apparently believe that Iran's declared peaceful nuclear program is just a cover for developing atomic weapons. But this is based on two erroneous assumptions, which have been repeated often enough to become conventional wisdom.
The first is that Iran has vast oil and gas resources and therefore does not need nuclear energy. Although it is true that Iran is rich in oil and gas, these resources are finite and, given the pace of Iran's economic development, they will be depleted within two to five decades. Further, it is much more economically advantageous for Iran to export these resources than to burn them; they are the major source of our hard currency.
Thus diversification - including the development of nuclear energy - is the only sound and responsible strategy for Iran.
Even the State Department was convinced of this in 1978 when it stated in a memo that the U.S. was encouraged by Iran's efforts to expand its non-oil energy base and was hopeful that the U.S.-Iran Nuclear Energy Agreement would be concluded soon and that U.S. companies would be able to play a role in Iran's nuclear energy projects.
The second assumption is that because Iran is surrounded by nuclear weapons in all directions - the U.S., Russia, Pakistan and Israel - any sound Iranian strategists must be seeking to develop a nuclear deterrent capability for Iran as well.
It is true that Iran has neighbors with abundant nuclear weapons, but this does not mean that Iran must follow suit. In fact, the predominant view among Iranian decision-makers is that possession or pursuit of nuclear weapons would only undermine Iranian security. Viable security for Iran can be attained only through inclusion and regional and global engagement.
Iran today is the strongest country in its immediate neighborhood. It does not need nuclear weapons to protect its regional interests. In fact, to augment Iranian influence in the region, it has been necessary for Iran to win the confidence of its neighbors, who have historically been concerned with size and power disparities.
More globally, Iran, with its current state of technological development and military capability, cannot reasonably rely on nuclear deterrence against its adversaries in the international arena or in the wider region of the Middle East.
There are also serious ideological restrictions against weapons of mass destruction, including a religious decree issued by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, prohibiting the development and use of nuclear weapons. Moreover, such an unrealistic option would be prohibitively expensive, draining the limited economic resources of the country.
In sum, a costly nuclear-weapon option would reduce Iran's regional influence and increase its global vulnerabilities without providing any credible deterrence.
At the same time, Iran has a right under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to develop nuclear technology for peaceful purposes, and it is determined to exercise its rights like many other countries.
To build international confidence, Iran agreed to the most comprehensive and intrusive IAEA inspection regime and started its implementation in December. It has also maintained a voluntary suspension of its rightful uranium enrichment activities since November 2003. Iran is also negotiating with France, Germany and Britain to reach long-term assurances on nuclear cooperation and transparency. These negotiations will be difficult and require political will and good faith.
Yet dialogue is the only approach that can allay the concerns of all. If history and Iranian political psychology are any guide, pressure, intimidation and attempts to deprive Iran of its rights can only backfire.
----
Iran, EU Nuke Talks Progress, But No Deal Yet
By REUTERS
November 5, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-nuclear-iran.html?pagewanted=all
PARIS (Reuters) - A senior Iranian negotiator said Tehran had made progress in talks on Friday with French, British and German diplomats seeking to persuade the Islamic republic to give up its uranium enrichment program.
But Hossein Mousavian, head of the Iranian delegation, said it was unclear whether the remaining differences would be resolved in the afternoon session despite compromises made in an initial three hours of talks.
``We have reached a satisfactory compromise on some issues,'' Mousavian told reporters during a short break in the talks at the French foreign ministry.
``But there are some other issues left. We are going to have a second round of negotiations. Maybe this will take another three or four hours before we can say whether we are able to agree on a compromise or not,'' he said.
Iran is offering a six-month suspension of its enrichment program, which Washington believes will be used to produce atomic weapons, diplomats close to the talks said.
But the European Union's ``Big Three'' powers are pushing Iran to agree to an indefinite suspension.
``We still want a termination of the enrichment program and all related activities,'' a Western diplomat close to the EU-Iran talks said. ``I don't expect a breakthrough (on Friday).''
``This was the compromise with the G8 -- no compromises,'' the diplomat added, referring to a recent meeting of the Group of Eight industrial countries in Washington on Iran.
Tehran has said uranium enrichment, a process of purifying uranium for use as fuel in atomic power plants or in weapons, is a sovereign right that it will never abandon.
LONG DAY EXPECTED
Sirus Naseri, one of the Iranian delegates, told Reuters in a telephone interview he was ``expecting a long day'' as the two sides haggled over a draft deal covering political and economic issues ranging from trade relations to terrorism.
``It will take time. They (the talks) will not be easy because we are at the point of exchanging drafts,'' Naseri said before the meeting. A European diplomat said it was possible the talks would spill over into Saturday.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the last word on all state matters, said Iran had no intention of producing atomic weapons.
``They accuse us of pursuing nuclear weapons. I am telling them as I have said before that we are not even thinking about nuclear weapons. Our nuclear weapon is our young and devoted youth and our believing nation,'' Khamenei told worshippers at Friday prayers at Tehran University.
Shahin Gobadi, spokesman for Iranian exiles protesting against the meeting outside the French parliament, accused the EU of trying to buy off Tehran by offering to keep the France-based People's Mujahideen and National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) on its terror list.
``The listing was a dirty deal with the terrorist mullahs and has no legal or technical justification,'' said Gobadi, whose NCRI has been a key whistleblower for Iran's atomic sites.
Iran's Naseri said he hoped the two sides would at least inch closer to a deal before the Nov. 25 meeting of the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
If no deal is struck before the IAEA meeting, the EU is expected to support Washington's demand for a referral to the U.N. Security Council and possible economic sanctions.
IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei has encouraged Iran to reach a deal with the Europeans and has even offered to guarantee Iran's supply of nuclear fuel if it abandons its fuel production capabilities, diplomats said.
--------
Khamenei denies Iran seeking nuclear weapons, hits out at Bush
TEHRAN (AFP)
Nov 05, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041105162221.qhnu5b84.html
Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Friday insisted that nuclear weapons were forbidden under Islam, as he lashed out against "the gang" of newly re-elected US President George W. Bush
Addressing himself directly to Bush, Khamenei said: "No sir, we are not seeking to have nuclear weapons.
"Our nuclear weapon is this country, and the youth of its people."
Khamenei was delivering a rare sermon at Friday prayers three days after Bush -- who put Iran in his "axis of evil" of dangerous states for allegedly seeking nuclear weapons -- was re-elected.
As for the arms themselves, Khamenei said that to "manufacture, possess or use them, that all poses a problem. I have expressed my religious convictions about this, and everyone knows it."
The foreign ministry has previously stated that Khamenei has issued a fatwa (religious decree) that nuclear weapons are proscribed by Islam.
However, Khamenei did not mention crucial talks in Paris, where representatives from Britain, France and Germany Friday tried to convince Iran to suspend all uranium enrichment activities in order to avert the threat of UN sanctions.
The United States accuses Iran of secretly trying to develop nuclear weapons under cover of its civilian atomic energy program, a charge vehemently denied by Tehran.
Europe's three main powers are offering Iran nuclear technology, including access to nuclear fuel, increased trade and help with Tehran's regional security concerns if it halts enrichment.
Uranium enrichment is the process which makes fuel for civilian reactors but can also be used to manufacture the material for the explosive core of nuclear weapons.
A senior Iranian negotiator expressed optimism over the talks, while describing them as "tough".
"I am optimistic because the two parties are determined to reach an accord satisfactory to both," Hossen Mousavian told state television.
"We have some tough negotiations ahead of us," he said, adding that both sides are "serious about (reaching) a workable accord, which makes the work more complicated."
Mousavian spoke of new proposals from both sides which he said were "more concrete and achievable" than previous ones.
That "has made things more difficult for us," he said, while adding "we have reached the point where we should achieve results."
The International Atomic Energy Agency will meet on November 25 to decide whether to haul Tehran before the UN Security Council over its nuclear program.
"The United States cannot stand the idea that a country gains its own independence," Khamenei said.
He did not refer directly to Bush's re-election, but two days after commemorating the 25th anniversary of the storming of the former American embassy in Tehran during the Islamic revolution, Khamenei accused Washington of involvement in "atrocities" carried out aginst Palestinians.
If a trial were held to judge such "atrocities ... Sharon and the Zionists will not be the only accused. The Bush gang, his administration and American governments will be first in line," he said.
He also laid into "the Europeans (who) are on the side of the oppressors".
Khamenei responded to recent European accusations of a deteriorating human rights situation in Iran by saying that "European governments know nothing about human rights and do not respect them."
-------- japan
Japan to increase inspections of Kansai Electric
(Reuters)
Nov 5, 2004
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=B1QTG4AJP5KTKCRBAELCFFA?type=topNews&storyID=6724887
TOKYO, Nov 5 - The Japanese government said on Friday it would step up inspections of thermal power plants owned by Kansai Electric Power Co. (9503.T: Quote, Profile, Research) following the utility's involvement in the falsification of inspection records.
As a result of the administrative punishment, Japan's second biggest utility will be removed from Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry's preferential treatment list, which allowed it to conduct many of its own inspections rather than undergo official reviews.
"We will carry strict inspections until we are convinced there is no problem in Kansai's power plants," a ministry official said. The official said it was not known how long the stricter inspection criteria would apply.
The official also said METI had issued a warning to Kansai and downgraded its rating of the utility's safety management.
The company, heavily criticised over maintenance procedures after a fatal accident at one of its nuclear power plants in August, has said there had been more than 100 cases where data for inspections records at its thermal plants had been falsified.
The utility said the incorrect data related to such matters as the width of gaps between bolts in cooling fans and other technical issues at five plants.
Kansai had said in June that data on regular inspections at 11 thermal plants had been falsified and reports had been submitted to the government on checks that never took place.
That followed an admission by Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) (9501.T: Quote, Profile, Research) , Japan's biggest utility, in August 2002 that it had falsified nuclear plant safety data for more than a decade.
Kansai's shares closed up 0.3 percent at 2,005 yen on Friday.
-------- korea
UN nuclear watchdog ends inspections in South Korea
SEOUL (AFP)
Nov 07, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041107061423.vzppf3rr.html
The UN nuclear watchdog agency on Sunday completed its latest investigation into South Korea's past nuclear experiments and will present a report later this month, officials said.
Five International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) investigators left the country after a third round of investigations which began last Tuesday, the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute said.
South Korea has been under IAEA scrutiny since its revelation in early September that its scientists secretly enriched a tiny amount of plutonium in 1982 and of uranium in 2000.
Seoul officials said the latest inspection was the last before UN inspectors present a report to an IAEA board meeting on November 25. The board will decide whether to refer the case to the UN Security Council, which can impose sanctions on nuclear arms proliferators.
Seoul has said the nuclear experiments, which were conducted without the government's knowledge and thus undeclared, were scientific research not linked to any weapons programs.
The IAEA has sent inspectors to South Korea three times to inspect nuclear facilities, interview scientists and take samples.
North Korea, citing concern about Seoul's secret nuclear experiments and "hostile" US policy, boycotted a planned new round of six-nation talks aimed at ending the communist state's atomic weapons drive.
South Korea operates 19 nuclear power plants producing 40 percent of its energy needs.
--------
North Korea wants big concessions from second-term Bush
SEOUL (AFP)
Nov 05, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041105070001.z92q45yq.html
North Korea wants big concessions from second-term US President George W. Bush before it will even discuss ending its nuclear weapons drive, a top Pyongyang envoy said in a report Friday.
"Such discussions are possible only when we see evidence of a substantial change in the US policy towards North Korea," said Han Song-Ryol, deputy chief of North Korea's mission to the United Nations, in an interview published here.
The liberal Hankyoreh newspaper said the comments were North Korea's first official reaction to the reelection of Republican Bush on Tuesday for a new four-year term.
However, South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-Moon cautioned that Han's comments may not fully reflect Pyongyang's policy towards the next US administration.
"I don't think his comment reflects North Korea's official position," he said in a KBS radio talk show.
Ban urged North Korea to return to the dialogue saying Washington would not adopt a tougher stand.
"There will be no major changes in US policy as (Bush) has maintained the principle of a peaceful settlement of the North Korean nuclear issue over the past four years," Ban said.
"I think the basic policy tone ... will continue as it is."
North Korea boycotted six-party talks involving the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States scheduled for September following three inconclusive earlier rounds.
Pyongyang watchers said the regime may have been awaiting the outcome of the November 2 US poll.
Since the nuclear standoff erupted in October 2002 North Korea has repeatedly demanded an end to Washington's "hostile" policy towards the regime, as well as economic, political and other concessions.
Han indicated that those demands were unchanged and his country was not thinking of returning to the talks unless the Bush administration was prepared to meet them.
"We have never discussed with anyone the issue of holding six-party talks in November or at an early date," he said.
He warned that unless changes occurred, the standoff that has lasted more than two years would only get worse.
"We have already witnessed the Bush administration's North Korea policy," he said.
North Korea believes Bush may change course during his second term in office, Han said, adding any such shift had better be towards a more accommodating policy on North Korea.
"Otherwise there will be an unpredictable situation," he said.
The envoy said North Korea does not oppose the framework of six-party talks but was deeply suspicious of US motives.
"We suspect the United States has been using the six-way talks to earn time for its invasion of our country," he said, adding Washington's hostility had prompted Pyongyang to strengthen its "nuclear deterrent force".
The stand-off erupted in October 2002 when the United States said North Korea had acknowledged it was developing nuclear weapons through enriched uranium, violating a 1994 international agreement.
North Korea has since boasted openly of its plutonium-producing program at its Yongbyon complex, north of Pyongyang, but publicly denies any uranium-enriching activities.
It offered to freeze its Yongbyon complex in return for major concessions earlier this year, an offer Washington turned down.
-------- mideast
U.N.: Traces of Plutonium Found in Egypt
November 5, 2004
By GEORGE JAHN
Associated Press Writer
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/N/NUCLEAR_AGENCY_EGYPT?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
VIENNA, Austria (AP) -- U.N. experts have found traces of plutonium near an Egyptian nuclear facility and are investigating whether it could be weapons-related or simply a byproduct of the country's peaceful atomic activities, diplomats told The Associated Press on Friday.
The diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity, warned against assuming that Egypt might have contravened the Nonproliferation Treaty by trying to separate plutonium, a substance used in nuclear weapons. The traces could be from a cracked research reactor fuel element or have other origins that have nothing to do with weapons research, they said.
"From time to time, these things pop up in places they should not be at," said a diplomat familiar with the investigations of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency. "Most of the time, there is a reasonable answer."
Still, he said IAEA experts were considering all scenarios that would explain the origin of the particles pending the completion of analysis of the environmental samples in several European laboratories.
The diplomat said the IAEA's information was still too sketchy to firmly establish how old the plutonium traces were but suggested they appeared to have been released into the environment no later than the 1980s.
Egypt appeared to turn away from the pursuit of a nuclear weapons program decades ago. The Soviet Union and China reportedly rebuffed its requests for nuclear arms in the 1960s, and by the 1970s, Egypt gave up the idea of building a plutonium production reactor and reprocessing plant.
Egypt runs small-scale nuclear programs for medical and research purposes. Plans were floated as recently as 2002 to build the country's first nuclear power reactor, but no construction date has been announced.
-------- missile defense
Slim majority oppose missile defence: poll
05 Nov 2004
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2004/11/04/poll_missile041104.html?print
OTTAWA - A new survey suggests 52 per cent of Canadians don't want Prime Minister Paul Martin to sign on to the U.S. Ballistic Missile Defence System.
Washington is already moving ahead on the plan. It has placed 10 of the land-based missiles in western states, poised to shoot down incoming threats to the United States.
On this side of the border, Martin has repeatedly said Canada must do its part in defending North America as long as there's a guarantee it won't lead to putting weapons in space.
A poll released Thursday suggests a decision to join the American system poses a major political risk for Martin's minority government, however.
The poll, conducted by the Centre for Research and Information on Canada and called "Portraits of Canada," questioned more than 3,000 people between mid-September and mid-October.
It showed more than half of Canadians don't want any part of the plan, though 46 per cent support this country's involvement.
Opposition to the plan was strongest among people polled in Quebec. In the province where Martin's Liberals lost more than a dozen seats in the June 28 election, 65 per cent of those surveyed said they oppose Canada joining the missile defence system.
Support for the system is strongest in Newfoundland and Labrador (66 per cent) and in Alberta (54 per cent).
More passion among those opposed
Donna Dasko is the vice-president of the polling firm Environics, which conducted the survey in English Canada.
She said the key finding was that people who oppose missile defence feel much more strongly about the issue than those who support it.
"The passion is on the side of not participating. That's where the voices are going to be strongest in saying, 'This country shouldn't be doing this.'"
Members of the Liberal caucus are also deeply divided over whether Canada should join in the missile defence system.
Defence Minister Bill Graham said he has long thought the government needs to do a better job of explaining what's at stake.
"This is an issue of some complexity, but very important to our U.S. relations," he said.
The poll also found that most Canadians want good relations with the United States, but are increasingly wary of getting too close to their southern neighbour.
That concern was fuelled by the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq 19 months ago, as well as the divisive presidential election campaign that returned George W. Bush to the White House this week.
The survey is considered accurate to within 1.7 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
-------- terrorism
Report: Terrorists prowling Yucca site?
November 05, 2004
(UPI)
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20041105-113306-1471r.htm
Las Vegas, NV, Nov. 5 -- Terrorists may have been nosing around the Web site for the Yucca Mountain project, possibly planning for a raid on radioactive waste shipments.
KLAS-TV, Las Vegas, said some experts suspect al-Qaida or some other terrorist group has been exploring the possibility of someday intercepting such a shipment and either destroying it or stealing the material for use in a radioactive dirty bomb.
KLAS said a volunteer group that monitors radical Islamic Internet activity noticed a Hamas Web site included a link to the State of Nevada's site, which in turn led to a report on Yucca Mountain, the location of a planned national repository for nuclear waste.
One of the volunteers said it was concluded the site's description of the elaborate safety measures that would surround shipments of waste was being perused.
KLAS said federal Homeland Security officials asked the state to remove the Yucca report; however, state officials denied such a request had been made.
----
Islamic site links to Nevada info
November 05, 2004
LAS VEGAS SUN
By Jace Radke <jace@lasvegassun.com>
http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/sun/2004/nov/05/517780683.html?yucca%20mountain%20nuclear%20waste%20repository
An Islamic Web site points out that the state of Nevada Web site includes information about routes that nuclear waste might take to Yucca Mountain, according to an unclassified FBI threat assessment released to the Nevada Homeland Security Commission and the public last week.
KLAS Channel 8 Thursday night highlighted that a state site includes a report about how terrorists could target nuclear waste shipments to Yucca Mountain as "dirty bombs." That information is part of Nevada's argument against the proposed nuclear waste repository.
FBI officials say plenty of possible security threats can be found on the Internet.
Daniel DeSimone, FBI supervisory special agent for the Nevada Regional Intelligence Center, showed commissioners a six-inch stack of information about federal buildings, monuments and other possible targets all pulled from various Internet sites.
"There is information out there that anyone can get," DeSimone said, adding that Web sites for military entities, such as U.S. Northern Command, in charge of homeland defense, provide some of the information.
Adjutant Gen. Giles Vanderhoof, the commander of the Nevada National Guard and state homeland security adviser, said that there has to be a balance between a free society and security concerns.
"We can't let ourselves become so security crazy that we diminish our freedoms because that's what we love about this country," Vanderhoof said. "We want to keep things as safe as possible, but we don't want to turn into a police state."
Vanderhoof said he is very aware of the amount of information available on the Internet, but said that routes for nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain are not something that could be easily hidden.
"There are several ways for the waste to get here if Yucca Mountain happens, but most of the routes are pretty obvious," Vanderhoof said. "If Yucca Mountain happens I think we'll see some different security measures in place, maybe varying the times of shipments." Special Agent Todd Palmer, spokesman for the Las Vegas office of the FBI, said that agents do look at what is on the Internet, but added that there are massive amounts of information available on the web.
Dr. Dale Carrison, chairman of the state homeland security commission, agreed that the information is out there, and said that the focus needs to be on protecting the details of security plans.
"You could probably go on the Internet and print out a 1,000-page packet that details how every hotel in town was built," Carrison said. "It's the age-old conflict that if you are going to have a democracy you are going to give up some security.
"People need to know that we have security plans in place, to test drinking water for example. They need to know that we are testing it, but its the details about how we are going about it that need to stay secret."
Vanderhoof said that there is a classified level of information that he sees that details how different terrorist targets in Nevada are being protected that is kept out of public view.
Still, floor plans and layouts of Las Vegas hotel-casinos and convention centers, as well as the route of the Las Vegas Monorail can all be found online.
Even the FBI's threat assessment lists several possible terrorist targets and how effective an attack on these targets would be.
The assessment notes that the Las Vegas Strip, Hoover Dam, the state capital in Carson City, the Fallon Naval Air Station, the U.S. Army's ammunition dump in Hawthorne and mining sites are all considered to be areas of concern by the FBI.
The intersection of U.S. 95 and Interstate 15, also known as the Spaghetti Bowl, the I-15 corridor between Las Vegas and Southern California and the Las Vegas Monorail are also noted as possible targets.
"Any attack on either of these highway systems would paralyze Southern Nevada by shutting off the major routes of transportation," the assessment states about I-15 and U.S. 95. "This would in turn affect surrounding states including California, Arizona and Utah."
Palmer said the classified version of the assessment continues other details, including investigative methods and sources that are kept secret.
Gary Peck, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada, said that there is a delicate balancing between the public's right to know and security concerns.
"We are advocates for open government and the flow of information, because bringing sunshine to how government works is essential to a democracy," Peck said. "In this post 9/11 world that has to be balanced with security concerns."
-------- u.n.
UN nuclear chief rejects charges he has attacked Bush over Iraq
VIENNA (AFP)
Nov 05, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041105200540.wager8p0.html
UN nuclear watchdog chief Mohamed ElBaradei has rejected charges that he has attacked President George W. Bush by saying the invasion and occupation of Iraq have damaged the credibility of the United States, his spokesman said Friday.
Spokesman Mark Gwozdecky said in a statement: "Some media have misrepresented Dr. ElBaradei's essential message in his speech at Stanford and quoted him out of context."
Gwozdecky was referring to an article published Friday in the San Francisco Chronicle after International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) director general ElBaradei gave a speech at Stanford University in California on Thursday.
"The main message he was trying to convey was that in matters of war and peace, governments must do everything within their power to reach agreement," Gwozdecky said.
"When the international community is not united everyone loses, and in the case of Iraq, no one more than the Iraqi people," Gwozdecky added.
The Chronicle had called ElBaradei's speech "a remarkable challenge to President Bush only two days after his re-election, and it sets the IAEA chief on an open collision course with the administration."
ElBaradei is seeking to be re-elected as IAEA chief for what would be a third term in office. But Washington opposes this, saying international civil servants should serve only two terms.
The Chronicle said ElBaradei had "sharply criticized the Bush administration Thursday, saying the American invasion and occupation of Iraq had damaged the credibility of the United States."
It quoted ElBaradei saying the UN Security Council "had practiced double standards by using a 'good guys versus bad guys approach" that encouraged nations to build weapons secretly, and accusing the Council of having "little to no response" as North Korea built nuclear arms.
The Chronicle added: "Only last week, ElBaradei was accused by some administration supporters of trying to embarrass Bush in the last days of the campaign by releasing information about looted explosives in Iraq.
"Although ElBaradei's remarks Thursday were couched in diplomatic language, his arguments were much more specific and unambiguous than is usual for a UN official," the Chronicle said.
According to a copy of the speech made available to AFP, ElBaradei said IAEA "inspections were working" and had found no weapons of mass destruction but were cut off by the US-led invasion of Iraq.
"We need to exercise maximum restraint before resorting to military force," ElBaradei said, adding: "The Coalition lost in credibility in some people's eyes by proceeding to use force without the endorsement of the Security Council."
The Bush administration has claimed that Iraqis have been freed, but ElBaradei said: "Perhaps it is the Iraqi people who have lost the most. After years of suffering under a brutal dictatorship, and after enduring the hardships brought on through an extended period of sanctions, they have had still more misery brought on by the ravages of war and the unforseen and extended period of insurgency and civil disorder."
ElBaradei last week reported to the UN Security Council about explosives that have disappeared from Iraq since the US invasion, setting off a scandal that embarrassed Bush while he campaigned for re-election.
-----
Top U.N. arms inspector slams Bush
He says invading Iraq has damaged credibility of U.S.
November 5, 2004
San Francisco Chronicle
Robert Collier, James Sterngold
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/11/05/MNGC99MFI91.DTL
The chief U.N. nuclear arms inspector sharply criticized the Bush administration Thursday, saying the American invasion and occupation of Iraq had damaged the credibility of the United States.
In a speech at Stanford University, Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said the Security Council had practiced double standards by using a " 'good guys versus bad guys' approach" that encouraged nations to build weapons secretly, and he accused the council of having "little to no response" as North Korea built nuclear arms.
ElBaradei's speech was a remarkable challenge to President Bush only two days after his re-election, and it sets the IAEA chief on an open collision course with the administration.
Only last week, ElBaradei was accused by some administration supporters of trying to embarrass Bush in the last days of the campaign by releasing information about looted explosives in Iraq. Also last week, administration officials announced that the United States would oppose ElBaradei's bid for a third term at the helm of the IAEA.
Although ElBaradei's remarks Thursday were couched in diplomatic language, his arguments were much more specific and unambiguous than is usual for a U.N official.
ElBaradei opened by noting that his prewar conclusions that Saddam Hussein did not have any nuclear weapons programs had been proved correct, despite Bush administration claims to the contrary. "Inspections were working, " ElBaradei said, referring to the constant scouring of Iraq by U.N. arms experts.
ElBaradei described the U.S.-led coalition's invasion and occupation of Iraq in stark terms.
"The coalition lost in credibility in some people's eyes by proceeding to use force without the endorsement of the Security Council," he said. "The United Nations lost in credibility ... and as a result has come to be perceived in some quarters -- particularly by many in Iraq -- as an adjunct of the coalition force, and not as an independent and impartial institution."
ElBaradei rebutted the U.S. argument that despite the failure to find weapons of mass destruction, the Iraqi people had benefited from the U.S. invasion.
"Perhaps it is the Iraqi people who have lost the most ..." he said. "They have had still more misery brought on by the ravages of war and the unforeseen and extended period of insurgency and civil disorder."
In an interview with The Chronicle before his speech, ElBaradei said that contrary to Bush administration warnings that Iraq's neighbor, Iran, was developing nuclear weapons, no such proof had been found.
"We haven't seen any concrete intelligence that points to a fact that Iran has a nuclear weapons program," he said. "We have seen Iran experimenting with all aspects of the fuel cycle, but we still have lots of work to do" in continuing IAEA inspections inside Iran.
The Bush administration has been pressing the IAEA to declare Iran in violation of its treaty obligations and to send the case to the Security Council, where economic sanctions could be imposed. This push has caused speculation in world capitals that despite its current problems in Iraq, the United States would try for "regime change" to topple Iran's Shiite Muslim government.
ElBaradei said that often-bogus intelligence information about Hussein's alleged arsenal before the Iraq war had made him look closely at information given by Western intelligence agencies. "What I do not want is disinformation, " he said. "There's a difference between robust inspection and harassment, and I do not want to end up in a situation where I'm continuously harassing a country based on misinformation."
In his speech to Stanford's Center for International Security and Cooperation, ElBaradei also pressed for greater urgency in dealing with the nuclear threat from North Korea. He complained that after Pyongyang threw out IAEA inspectors in 2002, neither the Security Council nor the United States had responded promptly.
He also addressed a more fundamental question -- whether all non- nuclear nations should be prevented from developing nuclear weapons, or only those nations that the West viewed as hostile. The Bush administration has implicitly taken the latter position.
ElBaradei called the U.S. policy a " 'good guys versus bad guys' approach that inevitably leaves some nations seeking to achieve parity."
ElBaradei said this arms race could be slowed if the United States and its allies implemented the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which would halt all nuclear weapons testing. The treaty was signed by President Bill Clinton, but the Senate refused to ratify it. The Bush administration has abandoned any efforts to seek ratification, and some officials have said the United States should formally withdraw from the treaty.
ElBaradei also called for adding a significant new power to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the principal mechanism for preventing the spread of nuclear weapons.
He suggested renegotiating the treaty to stop countries from even developing the capabilities for enriching uranium. As it is now, the treaty gives all nations the right to enrich uranium if they claim it is to be used to generate electricity. ElBaradei called these programs "latent weapons programs" because they can quickly be transformed into factories for making the highly enriched uranium or plutonium needed for nuclear weapons.
Many developing nations that rely on nuclear power, such as Brazil and Vietnam, strongly oppose any limits on their right to enrich uranium.
"In my view, we have come to a fork in the road," ElBaradei said. "Either there must be a demonstrated commitment to move toward nuclear disarmament, or we should resign ourselves to the fact that other countries will pursue a more dangerous parity through proliferation."
In the Chronicle interview, ElBaradei warned starkly that "our global survival is at stake."
He predicted "a situation within 20 years when you have 30 to 40 countries that are not far away from developing weapons ... and can do it if they choose."
E-mail the authors at rcollier@sfchronicle.com and jsterngold@sfchronicle.com.
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
-------- south carolina
Nuclear laundry to be razed
New use for Rosewood site is up to city of Columbia
thestate.com
Nov. 05, 2004
By JOHN C. DRAKE
http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/local/10104179.htm
The South Edisto Court neighborhood finally will be rid of a former nuclear laundry facility that area leaders say has stymied residential growth there.
Demolition of the 30-year-old facility begins next week. City officials have $500,000 set aside from surplus funds from a previous budget year to buy the approximately two acres UniTech General Services Inc. owns, said Councilwoman Anne Sinclair.
"This means a lot to our community," said Bessie Watson, the neighborhood president of South Edisto Court in Rosewood, who grew up there.
Watson said residents used to watch as trucks pulled up in front of neighboring homes and unloaded radioactive material for laundering at the site.
"It was not a safe environment for our children, the elderly," she said.
UniTech left the site in May 2003 for a new facility in Barnwell County at the urging of neighborhood and city officials. A $5 million federal grant covered the expense of moving the company and will pay for cleaning up the Edisto site.
Company officials say all radioactive materials have been removed from the above-ground portions of the facility.
A "barely measurable" amount of radioactive materials may remain underground in pipes and pits at the site, said Michael Fuller, manager for health physics and engineering with UniTech General Services Inc. He said the material was not enough to be harmful and would be removed after the building's walls are demolished.
The state Department of Health and Environmental Control will oversee the demolition process, which should be completed in February.
South Edisto Court is at the intersection of several revitalization efforts in the city. That means city officials are primed to move forward on redeveloping the area, but it also means the city must decide on a vision to pursue.
The South Columbia Development Corp., the city's quasi-private development agency for the area, has proposed a complex of live-work units. That typically refers to a complex of small businesses and condominiums or apartments.
The East Central City Consortium, an alliance of inner-city neighborhoods, has suggested building single-family homes on the site.
The Columbia Housing Authority, which is developing a master-planned community on the adjacent former Hendley Homes site, has suggested creating a community park there.
Watson said she would prefer having a community center and park there.
"Our children have to go all the way to the Boys & Girls Club on South Holly Street," she said.
Ultimately the city, which will take over ownership of the property once the facility is demolished, will have to decide what to do there.
Sinclair, who represents the area, said the city should choose "the wisest use, not necessarily the highest use."
The Rev. Russell Moore, pastor of Gilbert Memorial Baptist Church, which is behind the laundry site, said it kept people away from the community.
"The idea of having a nuclear laundry near a church, it just sort of frightened people off."
The removal of the facility makes the neighborhood more inviting, he said.
"Not only have the drugs been removed out of Edisto Court, but now the chemicals are gone."
Reach Drake at (803) 771-8692 or jdrake@thestate.com
-------- vermont
Vermont Yankee Power Uprate Application
NRC
November 05, 2004
http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/plant-specific-items/vermont-yankee-issues/vermont-yankee-application.html
Entergy submitted a 20-percent extended power uprate (EPU) request for staff review on September 10, 2003.
This is the first power uprate application to reference a new topical report, NEDC-33004, Constant Pressure Power Uprate, which utilizes a streamlined methodology and review process. In addition, this is the first use of the new Review Standard PDF Icon for power uprates.
Some of the technical issues associated with the power uprate include: 1) the concerns related to recent steam dryer cracking at other General Electric plants that have been granted EPUs; (2) flow-induced vibration issues; (3) flow-accelerated corrosion; and (4) use of containment overpressure for calculating net positive suction head for emergency core cooling system pumps.
On October 14, 2004, the NRC determined that the original completion date for its review of January 31, 2005, would be extended several months due to issues with the steam dryers.
Request for a Hearing
A notice regarding the application for an EPU was published in the Federal Register on July 1, 2004. This Notice provides 60 days for the public to request a hearing. By letters dated August, 6, 2004, the NRC received requests that the deadline to request a hearing be extended for a reasonable time beyond the completion of the engineering inspection. By Order dated August 18, 2004, the Commission denied the request for extension, stating that hearing requests should focus on information available at the time the application is submitted. If the engineering inspection raises a legitimate question about the adequacy of the application, petitioners may present that issue as a new contention, subject to the late-filing standards. On August 30, 2004, the Vermont Department of Public Service (DPS) and the New England Coalition (NEC) filed requests for hearing in connection with the proposed extended power uprate. The petitions are pending before a panel of three NRC administrative judges (the "Licensing Board"). On September 29, 2004, the NRC staff filed responses to the request from NEC and the Vermont DPS.
Under the NRC's procedural rules, DPS and NEC have seven days in which to file replies to the NRC staff and Entergy filings. Thereafter, the Licensing Board has 45 days to issue a decision on whether to accept or reject each hearing request.
On October 13, 2004, the Licensing Board conducted a prehearing conference call at which time the lawyers for the Vermont DPS, NEC, Entergy and the NRC staff presented legal arguments associated with the issues raised in their filings. The purpose of the call was to discuss the need for oral argument on standing, the admissibility of contentions, and any other preliminary issues raised.
The Board met with the participants on October 21, 2004 to hear oral argument on such issues as standing, admissibility of contentions, and other preliminary issues that may assist the Board in deciding such matters. This meeting was open for public observation but not participation. Members of the public may submit written "limited appearance" statement for consideration by the Board. For more information, see the Licensing Board Order dated October 1, 2004. For information on hearings, please see our web page on Public Involvement in Hearings.
Request from the Vermont Public Service Board
In addition to NRC approval, Entergy must get approval from the Vermont Public Service Board (PSB) to increase rated power. On March 15, 2004, the state PSB approved the uprate if certain conditions are met. One of these conditions is that the PSB request that the NRC conduct its analysis in a way "that will provide Vermont with a level of assurance about reliability equivalent to an independent engineering assessment."
The type of analysis recommended by the PSB focuses on the reliability of the plant and not the plant's safety. The PSB is precluded under federal law from reviewing radiological concerns regarding the power uprate. Specifically, the PSB's stated concern is the effect that a large power uprate will have on the reliability of the plant output in light of recent difficulties that have been experienced by other boiling water reactors following extended power uprate implementation.
The NRC responded to the PSB's request by letter dated May 4, 2004. The NRC has decided to conduct a detailed engineering inspection that we believe will be appropriate for addressing our oversight responsibilities and is also responsive to the PSB's concerns. Temporary Instruction 2515/158 will be used to develop the plan for this inspection. The NRC has concluded that its detailed technical review, prescribed by the Extended Power Uprate Review Standard, coupled with a program of power uprate and engineering inspections, will assist in addressing the Board's concerns regarding the future reliability of Vermont Yankee. The NRC addressed the PSB on June 28,2004, to more fully explain its review process and answer questions from the Board.
The Vermont State Senate also approved a resolution on March 16, 2004, that urges the NRC to condition approval of any uprate at the Vermont Yankee nuclear power facility upon performance of an "independent engineering assessment" as called for in the PSB ruling. The NRC responded to this letter on May 24, 2004.
Engineering Inspection
To improve the effectiveness of the Reactor Oversight Process at identifying significant engineering issues, the NRC is piloting a new type of engineering inspection that will focus on verifying that design bases have been correctly implemented for select risk significant components. Temporary Instruction 2515/158 was issued on June 14, 2004, to guide these inspections. One of the criteria for selecting sites for the pilot inspections is recent licensing basis changes, such as a power uprate, that could reduce safety analysis margins. The NRC concluded that Vermont Yankee is a suitable candidate for one of the pilot inspections. This inspection is appropriate for addressing our oversight responsibilities and is also responsive to the Public Service Board's request that we conduct an independent engineering assessment. The on-site portion of the inspection concluded on September 3.
The NRC has received several requests that the draft inspection report be issued prior to the exit meeting. We appreciate that external stakeholders are interested in the results of the engineering inspection. The NRC strives to conduct our work in an environment where we balance the openness of our regulatory processes, through the flow of information to interested stakeholders, within the orderly conduct of government business. NRC inspection results are a product of a deliberative process that includes an exit meeting with the licensee. This meeting is a normal part of our inspection process, and it provides an opportunity for the licensee to provide additional information that may be relevant to the inspection results. Although the inspection report itself will not be finalized until after the exit meeting, the staff has released a summary of the preliminary findings PDF Icon.
The NRC staff is working with local and state officials to reschedule the public exit meeting originally set for Nov. 9 in Vernon, Vt. Local officials told the NRC a larger-than-anticipated audience made them unable to support the meeting between the NRC and Entergy to discuss the preliminary findings. Because another suitable location could not be located in time to adequately notify the public, the public meetings are postponed. Information on the date and location for the rescheduled meeting will be posted on this webpage Inspection Scope
The NRC will use this inspection to verify that design bases have been correctly implemented for a sampling of components across multiple systems and to identify latent design issues. The inspection process uses operating experience, risk assessment, and engineering analysis to select risk-significant components and operator actions, for detailed reviews. It includes both safety and non-safety related components that are risk significant. A significant portion of the inspection sample is from systems or components that would be potentially affected by a power uprate. Three weeks of on-site inspection and over 700 hours of direct inspection time have been conducted. Inspection Team Members
The Vermont Yankee inspection was performed by a team of 8 inspectors. The team leader is from the NRC office in headquarters. He has extensive experience leading engineering team inspections, no previous involvement or inspection experience at Vermont Yankee, and does not report to those responsible for Vermont Yankee oversight. The three contractors have diverse backgrounds in electrical, mechanical, and instrumentation, and have not been employed by Vermont Yankee or its owner, Entergy for the last two years. The other NRC inspection team members have not have been involved in engineering inspections at Vermont Yankee during the past two years.
----
NRC calls off meetings, will reschedule to allow public
reformer.com
By CAROLYN LORIé
November 05, 2004
http://www.reformer.com/Stories/0,1413,102~8860~2515022,00.html#
BRATTLEBORO - A pair of meetings scheduled next week on the missing fuel inspection and the engineering inspection report for Vermont Yankee have been cancelled, Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman Neil Sheehan said. The so-called "exit meetings" will be rescheduled at a later date and will be open to the public and press, Sheehan confirmed with the Reformer this morning. Scheduled for Tuesday, the meetings were initially slated to be public, but safety concerns voiced by Vernon town officials about a large turnout at the elementary school prompted NRC officials to switch to a closed meeting. That decision was made Thursday. However, this morning, the NRC reversed its decision to close the meetings to the public and press. Sheehan said the NRC would seek a larger venue to accommodate a heavy public turnout.
The concern about an exceptionally large turnout was evidently triggered by a press release issued earlier this week by the nuclear power watchdog group, the New England Coalition, encouraging the public to attend the evening meeting.
Sent out by e-mail, the release was forwarded to school or town officials, who then contacted the NRC.
According to Vernon Fire Chief Terrance Parker, the elementary school gym cannot safely accommodate more than 500 people.
"We didn't want to turn people away," said Parker.
There was concern that as many as 1,000 people could show up, overwhelming the town's ability to manage the crowd safely. Even before Thursday's announcement, there was concern about the meeting as only the preliminary findings from the inspection report are going to be made public. According to Sheehan, that plan has not changed and the initial findings will be posted today on the NRC Web site. NRC calls off meetings, will reschedule to allow public
reformer.com By CAROLYN LORIé November 05, 2004
http://www.reformer.com/Stories/0,1413,102~8860~2515022,00.html#
BRATTLEBORO - A pair of meetings scheduled next week on the missing fuel inspection and the engineering inspection report for Vermont Yankee have been cancelled, Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman Neil Sheehan said. The so-called "exit meetings" will be rescheduled at a later date and will be open to the public and press, Sheehan confirmed with the Reformer this morning. Scheduled for Tuesday, the meetings were initially slated to be public, but safety concerns voiced by Vernon town officials about a large turnout at the elementary school prompted NRC officials to switch to a closed meeting. That decision was made Thursday. However, this morning, the NRC reversed its decision to close the meetings to the public and press. Sheehan said the NRC would seek a larger venue to accommodate a heavy public turnout.
The concern about an exceptionally large turnout was evidently triggered by a press release issued earlier this week by the nuclear power watchdog group, the New England Coalition, encouraging the public to attend the evening meeting.
Sent out by e-mail, the release was forwarded to school or town officials, who then contacted the NRC.
According to Vernon Fire Chief Terrance Parker, the elementary school gym cannot safely accommodate more than 500 people.
"We didn't want to turn people away," said Parker.
There was concern that as many as 1,000 people could show up, overwhelming the town's ability to manage the crowd safely. Even before Thursday's announcement, there was concern about the meeting as only the preliminary findings from the inspection report are going to be made public. According to Sheehan, that plan has not changed and the initial findings will be posted today on the NRC Web site.
-------- virginia
DOE OKs North Anna demo
11/5/2004
By RUSTY DENNEN
The Free Lance-Star
http://www.fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2004/112004/11052004/1562128
The Dominion energy company has received the go-ahead from the U.S. Department of Energy to test a new licensing process that could lead to one or more new nuclear reactors at North Anna Power Station.
DOE announced yesterday that two industry-led consortia, headed by Dominion and NuStart Energy of Pennsylvania, will be the first to work through an untested Nuclear Regulatory Commission process for licensing the construction and operation of new nuclear plants.
It's part of the Nuclear Power 2010 Program, set forth in February 2002 by Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham.
The Dominion project could lead to a license to build and operate an Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. advanced reactor at North Anna. The Dominion consortia includes AECL, its U.S. subsidiary AECL Technologies, and Bechtel Power Corp. of Frederick, Md.; and Hitachi America Inc., in Tarrytown, N.Y. Dominion is the parent company of Dominion Virginia Power.
The demonstration project will take approximately six years. If at the end, Dominion were to apply to the NRC for a combined construction and operating license, it could have a new reactor in operation as early as 2014, DOE said.
"This is all about testing the process. It does not commit us to building a nuclear plant, we don't have any [current] plan to build a plant, and we don't have to apply to the NRC," Richard Zuercher, spokesman for Dominion's nuclear operations, said yesterday.
Cooperative agreements for each of the two projects will be completed by December and detailed planning will be done by the end of next year, DOE said.
Last September, Dominion applied to the NRC for an early site permit that would allow it to, within 20 years, build one or more new reactors at North Anna on the Louisa County shore of Lake Anna.
DOE is picking up about half the $11 million cost of the early site permit application, and Dominion stands to get $366 million in DOE funds to develop and build any new reactors.
Dominion has said a new reactor at North Anna could cost about $1.4 billion and take four years to build.
Nuclear power generates about 20 percent of the nation's electricity and the industry maintains that it needs more reactors to maintain a diversified energy supply.
Dominion's early site permit application, which is still wending its way through the regulatory system, has drawn fire from environmental groups. They argue that more reactors are not needed to meet future demand, would present new potential targets for terrorists and harm aquatic life in the lake.
Dominion has said that any new reactor would be safe and environmentally sound. The company argues that even though it has no plans for any now, it wants to have the option should market conditions make it desirable.
The company has said, if that happens, North Anna would be the best possible site.
The plant was designed for four reactors, but only two were built.
To reach RUSTY DENNEN: 540/374-5431 rdennen@freelancestar.com
-------- us nuc waste
Survey: Majority of Nevadans still support Yucca fight
November 05, 2004
Las Vegas SUN
By Benjamin Grove <grove@lasvegassun.com>
http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/sun/2004/nov/05/517780632.html?yucca%20mountain%20nuclear%20waste%20repository
WASHINGTON -- Nearly 73 percent of Nevadans believe the state should continue fighting Yucca Mountain, according to a new state-sponsored survey.
Almost three-quarters of those surveyed said the state should continue its long battle against Yucca rather than negotiate for benefits. In the latest phase of the fight, a federal court dealt the Energy Department project a setback when it ruled that a radiation protection standard did not match a National Academy of Sciences recommendation.
"With a federal court decision that can kill the project, Nevadans understand that the dump is far from a done deal," Nevada Attorney General Brian Sandoval said.
The survey also asked respondents if the Energy Department "can be trusted to live up to any benefits agreement the federal government would make with Nevada." Twenty-seven percent agreed and 69 percent disagreed.
"They are saying, 'We don't want this and we won't be fooled into cutting any deals,' " Nevada Nuclear Projects Agency executive director Bob Loux said.
The survey, conducted by Oregon-based Northwest Survey and Data Services, polled 402 randomly selected state residents between Oct. 7 and 18. The margin of error is 4.8 percent.
The same survey was conducted last year and this year's results show a slight increase in opposition to Yucca. This year nearly 77 percent of respondents said they would vote against Yucca Mountain if given a chance to vote, with 19 percent responding that they would vote for it.
In 2003, 76 percent said they would vote for it, 22 percent against.
The annual survey is more credible and consistent than others because the same core questions and sample size have been used for 15 years, Sandoval said.
A September Las Vegas Sun/Channel 8 Eyewitness News/KNPR Nevada Public Radio poll of 600 likely voters done by Belden Russonello & Stewart of Washington, D.C. showed 66 percent of Nevadans opposed to Yucca Mountain. But 57 percent of those polled said the candidates' positions on Yucca Mountain were not important to the way they would vote.
A September poll of 625 people, conducted by Washington-based Mason-Dixon Polling & Research Inc., for the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported that 50 percent of Nevadans said the state should fight Yucca, and 46 percent said Nevada officials should negotiate for benefits.
In a poll conducted in May by the Nuclear Energy Institute, the leading pro-Yucca lobby group, 47 percent of 1,000 Nevada voters said they "strongly disapprove" of Yucca, down from 59 percent in 2002 and 54 percent in 2003 who strongly disapproved.
Former Gov. Bob List, now a paid consultant for NEI who has argued that the state should negotiate for benefits, questioned the scientific sample and the questions on the latest survey.
"The questions are a little bit cooked to get the results they want to see," List said.
Most Nevadans don't want Yucca if given a choice, but they are also increasingly coming to want to negotiate for benefits, List said. List pointed to surveys that indicate voters do not rank Yucca Mountain among the most important election issues.
"It has fallen down to the level of, 'By the way, I really don't want it here, but I think it's coming and it's time to negotiate for the upside,' " List said. "There is a sense of inevitability."
Election Day reflected that, List said. Yucca Mountain was an issue in the presidential election as the campaigns sparred over the issue in Nevada. President Bush approved Yucca Mountain. Sen. John Kerry said he would kill the project. Nevada voters gave Bush a 50-48 percent win in the state.
So the latest poll also doesn't appear to mesh with Election Day results. By a margin of 22,000 votes, Nevadans voted to return Bush to the White House just two years after he approved the project.
Several Nevada Democrats said this week that Nevada's vote for Bush makes it harder to argue on a national stage that the state opposes Yucca.
Observers said Nevadans don't base their votes solely on Yucca -- even though they don't want the nation's first underground repository for highly radioactive waste constructed 90 miles from Las Vegas. Nevadans voted more based on economic and security issues than on Yucca, Gov. Kenny Guinn, co-chairman of the Bush campaign in Nevada, said this week.
"We went the entire election without a terrorist attack," Guinn said. "People want security No. 1."
The Yucca issue has little to do with who is president, Sandoval spokesman Tom Sargent said, although Kerry had outlined several steps he would have taken to effectively kill the project. The matter will be settled by the courts, Sargent said.
"We feel very confident we will prevail in the courts," he said.
The survey results were compiled before the election, but Nevada Nuclear Projects Agency officials did not want the results lost in the din of the pre-election media frenzy, Loux said. The timing of the report's release was not politically motivated, said Loux, whose office answers to Guinn. The survey is typically released around the first of November, he said, although last year it was released Oct. 30.
"The election didn't have anything to do with it, per se," Loux said. "We wanted it to have some visibility."
--------
Nuclear waste gridlock looms, officials warn
tri-cityherald.com
By Annette Cary
November 5th, 2004
http://www.tri-cityherald.com/tch/local/story/5747124p-5681125c.html
PORTLAND -- Concerned that national plans will not move forward to dispose of nuclear weapons waste, the chairmen of the advisory boards for nine Department of Energy nuclear sites have drafted a joint letter calling for a national forum.
"We're staring gridlock in the face," Todd Martin, chairman of the Hanford Advisory Board, said Thursday as the board met in Portland.
DOE's plan for cleaning up Hanford and other sites with radioactive waste left from the Cold War buildup of the nation's arsenal of nuclear weapons is to ship waste to various sites around the nation for treatment or permanent disposal.
But DOE is facing legal issues, including attempts by Washington voters to block waste from being imported to Hanford, and attempts by Nevada to prevent Yucca Mountain from becoming the nation's high-level waste repository. In addition, the chairmen have questions about waste that is orphaned and pre-1970s waste for which DOE does not have a plan, they wrote in a letter to be sent to Paul Golan, DOE's acting assistant secretary for environmental management.
"These and other disposition challenges raise concerns of potential gridlock resulting in skyrocketing costs and completion delays throughout the DOE system," the chairmen wrote.
The letter calls for a national forum to produce "technically sound, fiscally responsible, politically acceptable, sustainable and comprehensive solutions to DOE's system-wide waste and material disposition challenges."
The latest blow to DOE's national plan was Tuesday's passage of Initiative 297, which would block DOE from sending low-level waste, some mixed with chemicals, to Hanford until waste generated there during the past production of plutonium is cleaned up.
The initiative, which passed in every county except Benton, takes effect in 30 days, but is expected to face legal challenges.
Most of the other sites have been watching the initiative, concerned about what will become of their waste that is planned to go to Hanford, Martin said.
DOE has plans to ship about 5,800 truckloads of waste from other sites to Hanford. Heart of America Northwest, a Hanford watchdog group, believes that number is low.
Much of the waste would be permanently buried in Hanford landfills, under DOE's plan. Other waste would be treated at Hanford and sent elsewhere.
That includes some transuranic waste, usually debris contaminated with plutonium, that would be treated and packaged at Hanford, then sent on to the federal repository for transuranic waste in the New Mexico desert, according to the DOE plan.
Other sites are concerned not only that their waste will not be sent to Hanford for burial, but that they will be left with no treatment capabilities if the waste cannot be treated at Hanford, Martin said.
In turn, DOE has planned to send Hanford's most radioactive waste elsewhere. Spent fuel and high-level radioactive and chemical waste now in huge underground tanks would be sent to Yucca Mountain. Plutonium-contaminated waste is already being sent to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) for transuranic waste in New Mexico.
If no waste is sent to Hanford, that could mean far more waste would be sent to the Nevada Test Site. Like Hanford, it is designated by DOE to accept low-level radioactive waste and low-level waste mixed with chemicals.
The Nevada Test Site is already threatening to sue if waste from Fernald, Ohio, which had a uranium plant, is sent there, Martin said. That site is supposed to close in two years.
Nevada also is fighting Yucca Mountain's designation as the nation's high-level waste repository.
Advisory board chairmen are concerned it may never open.
A survey to be released today by the Nevada Office of the Governor found 77 percent of Nevadans opposed to using Yucca Mountain for disposing of nuclear waste. That's up from 65 percent in 2003.
In September the state sued to challenge DOE's transportation plan that it believes would allow many of the waste shipments to Yucca Mountain to travel through Las Vegas. In addition, in July it won a U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision that a standard that considered whether waste would be safe at Yucca Mountain for 10,000 years was inadequate.
Also troubling to the chairmen of the advisory boards is the large amount of transuranic waste at many sites that was generated before the 1970s. In the 1970s, the Atomic Energy Commission ruled that waste contaminated with certain levels of plutonium, or transuranic waste, must be buried in a deep geological repository. WIPP was later made the repository.
But transuranic waste produced before the '70s does not have a clear path for disposal. At Hanford, which produced two-thirds of its plutonium before the '70s, the waste was buried. DOE is working on a plan for that waste that's legally required to be submitted to the Washington state Department of Ecology before the end of the year.
But advisory board chairmen were concerned enough about "the lack of a disposition path for pre-1970 transuranic waste" to name it in their letter.
DOE and nuclear watchdogs disagree about whether WIPP is large enough, even if it were expanded, to take all of the nation's pre-1970s transuranic waste in addition to the newer transuranic waste that's being sent there now.
Martin told the Hanford Advisory Board on Thursday that he had signed the letter, which was drafted in October, on the board's behalf. There was no objection.
A few of the boards for other sites have not signed the letter because they have not met since the letter was drafted, but all are expected to sign, Martin said. They include the Fernald, Idaho, Nevada, Northern New Mexico, Oak Ridge, Paducah, Rocky Flats and Savannah River sites.
The letter asks for DOE to sponsor a national forum organized by an independent group by the end of 2005. The forum should include broad participation by DOE, the National Governors Association, legal regulators of the sites such as the Environmental Protection Agency, tribes, site advisory boards and public interest groups and other members of the public, the letter said.
"Ultimately, the forum should result in principles, priority-setting criteria and recommendations to guide commonsense solutions to current and future waste disposition challenges," the letter said.
-----
9th Circuit overturns ruling on reclassifying nuclear waste
November 5, 2004
ASSOCIATED PRESS
By SHANNON DININNY
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/aplocal_story.asp?category=6420&slug=WA%20Hanford%20Ruling
YAKIMA, Wash. -- An appellate court has overturned a lower court's ruling barring the U.S. Department of Energy from reclassifying high-level waste at a nuclear site in Washington state, saying it was too soon to consider opponents' claims.
A federal judge in Idaho last year barred the Energy Department from reclassifying the waste after the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Snake River Alliance, the Yakama Nation and the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes filed suit.
The Energy Department maintains that some highly radioactive residue in the waste tanks is too expensive to extract. The department has proposed reclassifying it as less dangerous, combining it with concrete grout and leaving it where it is.
U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill of Boise ruled the Energy Department's plans conflicted with provisions of the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act.
The appellate court said Friday it was too soon to say if those plans violated the act. All parties must adopt a wait-and-see attitude rather than make assumptions about the Energy Department's intentions and ability to dispose of waste, a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said.
"There might be some danger in waiting, but that is not a greater hardship for NRDC and the rest of our society than the one already imposed by our high-level-waste Frankenstein," the court said.
The court sent the case back to the lower court with directions to dismiss.
"The good news, from our perspective, is that the court did not rule on the merits of the case, and as far as we're concerned, it's a sound case. All it said is that the timing is off," said Elliott Negin, spokesman for the Natural Resources Defense Council.
The lawsuit had been filed to block waste reclassification in Idaho, South Carolina and Washington. Earlier this year, however, Congress approved a measure reclassifying sludge in the South Carolina and Idaho tanks from high level to incidental, a category that means it can be left in the tanks and combined with concrete grout.
The move essentially made the lawsuit moot for South Carolina and Idaho, but the reclassification did not apply to Washington state.
Washington state and five other states had filed "friend of the court" briefs to the appellate court, asking it to uphold the Idaho judge's decision.
David Mears, senior assistant attorney general for Washington state, said the state's concern all along has been that the Energy Department not violate the statute.
"The court recognizes how extremely important this issue is, the disposal of highly radioactive waste," Mears said. "We'll be watching DOE's actions very closely and making sure they follow this appropriately and will file a legal challenge if they don't."
Colleen French, an Energy Department spokeswoman, said the agency was reviewing the ruling and would not comment further.
As much as 100 million gallons of nuclear waste were stored over the years in 239 tanks in Idaho, Washington and South Carolina. Some of it has been removed and processed for permanent disposal. But about 85 million gallons remains to be processed in some manner.
Critics contended that leaving any waste in those tanks will threaten the Columbia River at south-central Washington's Hanford site, as well as the Snake River aquifer under the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory and the groundwater at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina.
About 53 million gallons of highly radioactive waste from World War II and Cold War-era plutonium production is buried in Hanford's 177 aging underground tanks. An estimated 67 of the tanks have leaked radioactive brew into the soil, contaminating the aquifer and threatening the Columbia River less than 10 miles away.
The 1989 Tri-Party Agreement, a Hanford cleanup pact signed by Washington state, the Energy Department and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, requires the Energy Department to remove as much waste as technically feasible, but not less than 99 percent.
Initiative 297, which state voters overwhelming approved Tuesday, requires the Energy Department to clean up all of the tank waste. The initiative bars the federal government from sending more out-of-state nuclear waste to Hanford until all the existing waste at the site is cleaned up.
The initiative is expected to face legal challenges.
-------- MILITARY
-------- afghanistan
Karzai Vows to Crack Down On Warlords, Drug Dealers
Afghan President Offers Amnesty to Taliban Fighters, Loyalists
By Keith B. Richburg
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, November 5, 2004; Page A14
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A25205-2004Nov4.html
KABUL, Afghanistan, Nov. 4 -- In his first public comments since handily winning Afghanistan's first democratic election, President Hamid Karzai promised Thursday to assemble a "representative" government. But he said he did not feel bound to offer top cabinet positions to his defeated rivals, and he vowed that drug dealers and militia commanders would have no part in the new Afghanistan.
"The Afghan people have voted for a government based on laws, based on institutions, and that is what we are going to provide for them," said Karzai, who was officially declared the winner Wednesday after a protracted vote count and an investigation of alleged fraud at the polls. The election was held Oct. 9.
Asked if his new government would be rid of the "warlords and drug money" that have tainted his interim administration, Karzai was adamant. "There will not be any private militia forces in Afghanistan. That's the first demand of the Afghan people," he said. "There will definitely, definitely not be any drug thing in Afghanistan."
But the Afghan president did make an amnesty offer to fighters and supporters of the defeated Taliban movement, some of whom have been waging an insurgency against Afghan and U.S. troops from havens in neighboring Pakistan. He said thousands of Taliban loyalists were welcome to return, except for the handful linked to al Qaeda or terrorist acts.
"We would like all Afghans to come and participate in the rebuilding of this country -- all Afghans. The Taliban as well. There are a few of them, maybe 50 to a hundred of them, that have an association with al Qaeda or terrorism, or have committed crimes against the people -- they are not welcome," Karzai said. "The rest . . . are welcome to participate in the making of this country."
Karzai pledged to make security "our first priority." He spoke on the grounds of his fortified palace, surrounded by private American guards carrying assault rifles -- a reminder that even as this country enters a new, democratic phase, security is far from assured. The president has already survived at least two apparent attempts on his life.
Another reminder of the tense situation was the unresolved fate of three foreign U.N. workers, kidnapped more than a week ago by a Taliban splinter group. The group, Jaish-e-Muslimeen, or Army of Muslims, has threatened to kill the three if Taliban and al Qaeda prisoners were not freed from U.S. military jails. The kidnappers originally set a Wednesday deadline but have extended it through Friday while they negotiate with a government intermediary.
Karzai did not comment on the hostage situation, except to say, "We hope, with the help of God, that we have success in releasing them." Diplomatic sources said one of the three being held, Annetta Flanigan, who holds joint British and Irish citizenship, was seriously ill and in need of immediate medical attention.
Karzai has served as interim president since being appointed by an international conference near Bonn shortly after the Taliban was driven from power in late 2001. As part of the Bonn accord, Karzai formed a coalition government with regional power bosses and local militia commanders. These warlords, as they are called, fought against the Taliban, but some were implicated in human rights abuses, corruption and drug trafficking.
Karzai at first moved gingerly against the militia leaders despite international pressure to curb their powers. But many Afghan and foreign analysts said Karzai's commanding election victory -- he won 55.4 percent of the vote over 17 rivals -- gives him the legitimacy and mandate to move aggressively to disarm militia commanders.
Karzai's political strength was reinforced Wednesday, when a group of his opponents pledged to accept him as the winner, despite lingering concerns about scattered irregularities at the polls.
"For me, Afghanistan's national interests are the most important," said Yonus Qanooni, the former interior and education minister, who finished second with 16 percent of the vote. "If we don't accept the result, the country will go toward a crisis."
A spokesman for Gen. Abdurrashid Dostum, an Uzbek militia leader who also ran for president, said that the public had a "historical desire" for elections and that it was "good that Afghans will now live through ballots and not bullets."
While the election confirmed support for Karzai, a Pashtun, the results underscored ethnic and regional divisions in the country. Qanooni, a Tajik, won heavily in Tajik areas; Dostum scored strongly in Uzbek areas; and another ex-militia leader, Mohamed Mohaqiq, won a majority in his ethnic Hazara community.
--------
KABUL Afghan Leader Promises Security and Stability
November 5, 2004
By CARLOTTA GALL
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/05/international/asia/05afghan.html
KABUL, Afghanistan, Nov. 4 - In the floodlit gardens of the presidential palace, President Hamid Karzai promised Thursday in his first speech since he was declared the official winner of the election on Oct. 9 to bring security and stability to his people.
"The Afghan people voted for me and other candidates,'' he said. "But every vote from the Afghans was for the benefit of Afghanistan. These votes were for stability."
He affirmed his campaign promise to put an end to private militias and pledged to fight narcotics production, and to help the country's many poor, homeless and disabled.
"There will not be any private militia forces in Afghanistan, that's the first demand of the Afghan people," he said. "There will definitely, definitely not be any drug thing in Afghanistan, we are going to be dedicated, strong in working against that."
The high voter turnout - 70 percent, despite bad weather and threats of violence - was a sign of trust from the people, he said. "We hope with great love and friendship to help them."
Mr. Karzai's election victory was marred by accusations of fraud by his opponents and by the kidnapping of three foreign election workers last week by a militant group. The group, Jaish-e-Muslimeen, or Army of Muslims, has threatened to kill the hostages if demands for the release of Taliban prisoners are not met.
A man claiming to be a spokesman for the group told The Associated Press that negotiations were stalled and that the three would be killed Friday if there was no progress.
The three foreigners - Annetta Flanigan, a dual British-Irish citizen; Angelito Nayan, a Filipino diplomat; and Shqipe Hebibi, an ethnic Albanian from Kosovo - were kidnapped a week ago in Kabul.
In his speech on Thursday, Mr. Karzai condemned the kidnapping and called the kidnappers enemies of Afghanistan. Nevertheless, he was in confident mood and made clear that he considered his victory, with 55.4 percent of the vote, a clear mandate to push ahead with his program of reconstruction and institution-building.
But in a gesture characteristic of his approach during the three years of his interim administration, he reached out to his opponents and their supporters, promising participation and representation for all in his new government.
The four leading candidates who ran against Mr. Karzai won 40 percent of the vote among them and together could present a formidable opposition in a future parliament.
There was some speculation that Mr. Karzai would invite at least some of them into his new cabinet to prevent the formation of a confrontational opposition. But he declined to comment.
"This government will be a mirror of the people and representative of the people," he said.
Muhammad Yunus Qanooni, the former education minister who came in second to Mr. Karzai with 16.3 percent of the votes, said, "We are facing a crossroads."
He added, "We should accept the result of these elections with bitterness and participate in the spiritual and material reconstruction of our country."
-------- africa
Darfur Increasingly Unstable, U.N. Envoy Warns
By Colum Lynch
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 5, 2004; Page A21
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26473-2004Nov4.html
UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 4 -- The United Nations' special envoy to Sudan told the Security Council on Thursday that Darfur is sliding into anarchy as government and rebel forces battle over control of the territory. The U.N. official, Jan Pronk of the Netherlands, said that U.S.-supported plans to send 3,300 African troops to halt the violence in the Darfur region are inadequate and that more than twice that number is needed to restore calm.
Pronk said that the Sudanese government is losing control of the Arab militias it equipped and recruited last year to counter black rebel forces and their kin, and that the militias have killed thousands and forced more than 1.8 million from their homes. But he blamed the rebel Sudanese Liberation Army for stirring up the latest round of violence by stepping up attacks against local police and robbing Arab traders of their camels, which are vital to Arab tribes. "They are provoking the militia to attack," he said in an interview after the meeting.
Pronk appealed to the 15-nation council to increase pressure on Khartoum and Darfur's rebels to strike a political deal ending the violence at a rare council meeting in Nairobi scheduled for Nov. 18 to 19. The meeting is being organized by John C. Danforth, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, to encourage Khartoum to sign an agreement with a separate rebel force it has been battling in another part of Sudan for more than two decades. Danforth hopes that such an accord will help lead to a peace deal in Darfur.
"I am afraid the situation in Darfur may become unmanageable unless more efforts are made, both at the negotiation table and on the ground," Pronk told the council. "Darfur may easily enter a state of anarchy -- a total collapse of law and order."
"We may soon find that Darfur is ruled by warlords," he said.
The worsening violence in Darfur poses a serious challenge to U.S. efforts to end what Secretary of State Colin L. Powell has described as a campaign of genocide there by Sudanese forces and the Arab militias it has sponsored.
Last month, President Bush authorized the use of two C-130 transport planes to ferry Rwandan and Nigerian troops into Darfur, bringing the number of African troops there to 670. The State Department has authorized more than $20 million to fund Los Angeles-based Pacific Architects and Engineers and Reston-based DynCorp International to give the Africans logistical support.
But the foreign forces have not contained the violence. Pronk said small groups of Arab fighters, known as the Janjaweed, have staged attacks on civilians in Darfur over the past month. Thousands more are regrouping for a military offensive against the rebels, he added.
Pronk said that although the links between Sudanese authorities and the militias are becoming "blurred," Sudan's military has incorporated police and Janjaweed militias into its operations in Darfur. African Union monitors are also investigating reports that Sudan bombed villages using attack helicopters in violation of commitments that the government has made to the United Nations.
Such action could constitute a violation of two Security Council resolutions that threaten sanctions against Sudan if it does not crack down on the militias. But Pronk told reporters that sanctions would be counterproductive.
-------- asia
Japan: Bush Reelection Means Even Closer Ties
November 5, 2004
(Inter Press Service)
by Suvendrini Kakuchi
http://www.antiwar.com/ips/kakuchi.php?articleid=3906
TOKYO - Japan's role in the U.S.-led war on terror is expected to grow in the wake of the reelection of U.S. President George W Bush, analysts here say.
"The pressure on Japan to get more involved in the American-led war on terrorism is obvious with the reelection of Bush," Azaho Mizushima, professor on constitutional issues at Waseda University, said in an interview.
Jitsuo Terashima, spokesman on defense issues of the Democratic Party in Japan, predicted a "period of uncertainty for Japan after Bush, as [Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro] Koizumi moves closer to support the U.S. was in Iraq."
Indeed, the Defense Agency said on Thursday that it has decided to form a contingent to replace Japan's troops, called the Self-Defense Forces (SDF), currently in Iraq. This, according to Japanese press reports, readies the SDF for an extension after the end of its mission on Dec. 14.
The next contingent is reported to comprise fresh troops numbering 600 and will continue to provide humanitarian help in Samawah, southern Iraq next year. This would be the fourth contingent of SDF troops sent by Japan so far, according to the Defense Agency.
Koizumi, who has forged close personal ties with Bush, was quick to point out that bilateral ties would be served well under the U.S. president's second term.
"I think his stance of putting emphasis on Japan will not change, and the relations of trust we have developed will have a positive effect on the future of Japan-U.S relations," he told reporters Thursday.
But despite the continued warmth between the United States and Japan at the government level, the dispatch of SDF troops to support U.S. troops - Japan's first postwar SDF deployment to a conflict area - remains controversial among the pacifist public.
Indeed, while the Nov. 2 election in the United States was closely followed here in Japan, the United States' closest ally in Asia, this took place against the backdrop of the cost of Tokyo's links with U.S. international foreign policy - the return Wednesday evening of the body of a Japanese national slain by militants in Iraq.
Militants claimed responsibility for the execution of 24-year-old Shosei Koda, a backpacker. On Oct. 27, they threatened to behead him if Japan did not withdraw SDF forces from Samawah in 48 hours.
Koda is the latest of a small number of Japanese casualties in Iraq. Koizumi has rejected demands by hostage-takers.
The latest poll, taken in October, shows that 63 percent of Japanese are against getting embroiled in Iraq.
But hope that Japan will change its approach of following U.S. international policy is all but gone at this point, says Yuko Akiyama of Peace Depot, a non-governmental organization.
She sees the emergence of a stronger Bush as sending Japan on a slippery path away from its postwar pacifism. The United Nations will also increasingly be called on to support U.S aspirations to flex its superpower muscle in the world, she adds.
Worried by the expectation that Koizumi would be even more cooperative with a U.S. foreign policy criticized for its unilateralism, Japanese opposition parties have urged Tokyo to become more independent from Washington.
"It is important for the Japanese government to be outspoken and not be a mere subcontractor of the United States," they said in a statement.
Analysts add that stronger ties between the United States and Japan may see Japan easing its arms control and even moving into arms exports, which is being advocated by the private sector and the Defense Agency. At present, Japan is involved in the joint development and production of missile defense systems with the United States.
The current arms control policy effectively prevents Japan from the development or export of arms.
Meantime, local media reports say that members of the SDF expressed resignation over Bush's victory. "To be honest, nobody wants to go to Iraq, even though it is our job to follow orders," said an SDF member stationed in Komaki base in Aichi prefecture, central Japan.
In editorials, even conservative newspapers such as Sankei, a national daily, warn Bush to take care to observe international standards in U.S. foreign policy during his second term in office. "The world's only superpower must also take heed of its responsibilities," the Sankei editorial pointed out Thursday.
-------- biological weapons
U.S. Awards Anthrax Vaccine Deal
Under Project Bioshield, Firm Will Make Doses for Stockpile
Washington Post
By Marc Kaufman
November 5, 2004
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A26564-2004Nov4?language=printer
The government awarded its first contract under the Project Bioshield program yesterday -- an $877 million deal with a small California company to make 75 million doses of a newly developed anthrax vaccine.
Under the contract, VaxGen Inc. will begin delivering the vaccine to the strategic national stockpile within two years at a fixed price negotiated with the Department of Health and Human Services.
The Food and Drug Administration has not reviewed the vaccine for safety or effectiveness, and yesterday officials said that will not happen until 2007. But under the Bioshield legislation, the vaccine can be distributed and used before official approval if the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention declares a health emergency.
The new vaccine will be made using purified proteins created by cloning. The proteins stimulate the immune system to produce antibodies that can neutralize anthrax toxins.
HHS Secretary Tommy G. Thompson said no company would produce the anthrax vaccine if the government did not agree to buy a specified amount in advance. "Acquiring a stockpile of this new anthrax vaccine is a key step toward protecting the American public against another anthrax attack," he said. In October 2001, five people died and six were hospitalized after inhaling anthrax spores released from mailed envelopes; no one has been charged.
The first 75 million doses will be stored in the national stockpile for use in an emergency, but the vaccine could be available to the general public and the military after FDA review and approval. As currently formulated, the anthrax immunization requires three separate injections and, according to VaxGen officials, is effective both before and after exposure to the deadly bacteria. Initial work on the vaccine was done by the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Md. In 2002, VaxGen licensed the product and, working largely with public money from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, developed a manufacturing process.
VaxGen, founded in 1995 as a spinoff from biotech giant Genentech Inc., was involved in the development of a much-anticipated, but ultimately unsuccessful, AIDS vaccine in the late 1990s. In August, the company stumbled again, announcing that the Nasdaq exchange was delisting its stock because the company had not filed two quarterly reports with the Securities and Exchange Commission. VaxGen said the reports were delayed because it was implementing new accounting policies and would need to restate earnings reports dating to 2002.
Nasdaq informed VaxGen that the issues did not appear to result from impropriety, the company said. VaxGen said it would file the reports in October, but they have yet to be filed.
The company has also faced several class-action lawsuits by shareholders who allege the company "misled investors about the progress of certain clinical trials and our future manufacturing and marketing plans," according to VaxGen filings with the SEC.
The $5.6 billion Bioshield program was signed into law by President Bush on July 21 in an effort to develop defenses against possible biological weapons.
The new anthrax vaccine is a centerpiece of Bioshield, but many questions remain about its effectiveness and how long it can be stored. In a conference call, VaxGen CEO and President Lance K. Gordon said its shelf life is expected to be two or three years.
Another anthrax vaccine that is already available was, until last week, a required immunization for many active-duty military personnel. That vaccine, an older type that is cultured in a growth medium, was approved by the FDA in late 2003, but a federal judge ruled last week that the agency did not follow proper procedures and the Defense Department has stopped its inoculations. The vaccine is manufactured by BioPort Corp. of Lansing, Mich., under a $245 million Pentagon contract.
BioPort spokeswoman Kim Brennen Root said HHS also announced yesterday its intention to purchase at least 5 million doses of its product, BioThrax, for the strategic stockpile. "This is an important first step in the overall preparedness of the nation, and especially for potential first responders," she said.
Staff writer Michael Rosenwald contributed to this report.
-------- britain
Three British Troops Killed In Iraq Attack
Associated Press
Friday, November 5, 2004; Page A19
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26489-2004Nov4.html
BAGHDAD, Nov. 4 -- Insurgents attacked British troops at a checkpoint in central Iraq on Thursday, killing three and wounding eight in a suicide bomb and mortar barrage aimed at soldiers sent to the high-risk area to free U.S. forces for an assault on the militant stronghold of Fallujah.
U.S. troops pounded Fallujah with airstrikes and artillery fire, softening up militants ahead of the expected assault. Loudspeakers at Fallujah mosques blared out Koranic verses and shouts of "Allahu Akbar," or "God is great," during the assault, residents said.
The three British soldiers killed were from the Black Watch Regiment, which was moved last month from southern Iraq to the dangerous area just south of Baghdad.
An Iraqi interpreter also was killed in the attack, British officials said. Britain's armed forces minister, Adam Ingram, said in London that the attack was carried out by a suicide bomber in a vehicle and that the British checkpoint also came under mortar fire.
A suicide car bomber targeted a U.S. Marine convoy near Ramadi, 60 miles west of Baghdad, but only the attacker died in the explosion, U.S. officials said.
--------
Hoon Fury at Black Watch Deaths 'Duplicity' Charge
PA News
5 Nov 2004
By James Lyons
http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=3721726
The deaths of three Black Watch soldiers in Iraq provoked a fierce row today between Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon and his anti-war opponents.
Scottish Nationalists leader Alex Salmond accused ministers of "duplicity" over the deployment which led to Thursday's ambush.
Mr Hoon responded angrily saying the SNP chief's comments "demonstrate clearly there are no depths to which he will not sink".
Mr Salmond was also rebuked by a fellow opponent of the war, Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman Sir Menzies Campbell.
But former Labour defence minister Peter Kilfoyle backed the SNP leader's claim that the moving the Black Watch troops to Iraq hot-spots had been political.
The acrimonious exchanges went against the convention that politicians avoid wrangling over casualties.
Mr Salmond sparked the row by repeating his charge that the Scottish Battalion was only sent north towards Baghdad to help United States President George Bush in his re-election campaign.
Mr Hoon and fellow ministers have repeatedly insisted that the deployment was made on a "purely military basis".
However, Mr Salmond told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "This deployment was political in its nature.
"We think the request was political, the answer was political during an American Presidential election."
The Black Watch had been given "an impossible job" filling in for "4,000 American Marines", the SNP leader claimed.
"I know the families and I have spoken to some of them and there is a general concern about the nature of this deployment and there is anger - anger - that they should be left in this position," he said.
Anger was the response from Mr Hoon who stressed that UK military commanders ordered the Battalion into Camp Dogwood only after thorough consideration of a request from American counterparts.
"I cannot understand why he does this. I cannot understand why someone should seek to take political advantage about the tragic deaths of three brave men and their interpreter," he said.
Sir Menzies Campbell said reaction to the deaths had been "of great sadness and a determination, with one notable exception, to make no effort to try and make any kind of political capital out of this."
He added: "We should not allow ourselves to be seduced into political comment until, if you like, the proprieties have been properly observed."
Mr Kilfoyle said sending the Black Watch to Camp Dogwood only made sense politically.
"What I have never understood is what the military thinking behind this is," he told BBC Radio 4's The World At One.
"Politically, I can see a case being made by the Government for showing their support to the Americans.
"But whether that is in our soldiers' interests - indeed, whether it is in our national interests or not - is another thing."
Mr Kilfoyle said the fact that there were relatively few combat-ready US troops "just underlines how ill-prepared the Americans were, certainly".
He added: "We are, I would argue, taking a disproportionate share of what is a very, very difficult function."
-------- business
U.S. military gear on sale at dangerous Baghdad bazaar
Stars and Stripes
By Ward Sanderson,
November 5, 2004
http://stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=24446&archive=true
Ward Sanderson / S&S U.S. military-style uniforms such as this are sold at Baghdad's dangerous downtown bazaar. This uniform, including a new Army and Air Force Exchange Service backpack, were all purchased for about $55.
BAGHDAD - A bazaar in Baghdad's perilous downtown sells U.S. military uniforms at discount prices.
One shop displayed about 40 U.S. desert camouflage uniforms, along with beige boots, headgear and backpacks. At least one backpack still had an Army and Air Force Exchange Service tag affixed to it.
An entire outfit, boots and backpack included, could be had for about $55 - about half the original cost of legitimate boots alone.
The sales take on a sinister air considering the deaths of about 50 members of the Iraqi National Guard found shot in the head, execution-style, on Oct. 24 some 95 miles east of the capital. The unarmed troops, destined for home leave, had apparently stopped at a checkpoint manned by terrorists dressed as police, officials have said.
The Baghdad market also sold local uniforms of the same type issued to the executed Iraqis.
A U.S. military spokesman, Tech. Sgt. Eric Grill, said he was unaware the uniforms were circulating, but would alert the chain of command.
Another spokesman, Lt. Col. Steve Boylan, said military items routinely appear in local markets abroad. He said it was no different at his previous post in the Far East.
"Things destined for AAFES or bought by servicemembers do show up on local economies," Boylan said. "Sometimes they're thrown away. Sometimes they're knockoffs."
He said Internet sites sold similar equipment, as did surplus stores in the United States.
An AAFES spokesman, Maj. Dave Accetta, said some of the items may have been stolen from exchange trucks or convoy shipments, but had no details regarding the merchandise in Iraq. One exchange employee in Iraq said this past summer, a single such robbery resulted in the loss of $85,000 in merchandise.
The bazaar hawking the uniforms, Bab Al Sharji, is dubbed a "thieves market" by locals. Customers watch their wallets while perusing the wares. The video vendor sells copies of beheadings of foreigners in Fallujah alongside pornography. The optics vendor sells U.S. military night-vision equipment.
The precise origin of the U.S. uniforms was unclear. Some had no patches. At least one was marked as if it had originated with the Kuwaiti military, but its inside tag showed it was otherwise identical to U.S. issue. Hats and trousers, too, were of standard American design. Boots looked like U.S. desert models, but were tagged with a Middle Eastern company name. A Bugout Gear Frag Bag backpack was clearly marked as new merchandise intended for sale at an AAFES base store.
The uniform vendor said many of his items are purchased by Kurds. When asked where his military outfits originate, the salesman was more vague.
"There are people supplying this stuff to us," he said.
-----
Raytheon To Continue NASA Contract For Airspace Concepts Evaluation System
Marlboro MA (SPX)
Nov 05, 2004
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/aerospace-04z.html
Raytheon has been awarded a follow-on contract from NASA's Ames Research Center to expand the Airspace Concepts Evaluation System (ACES). The follow-on contract is valued at $3 million for the base period of one year, with two option years valued at $3 million each.
The Raytheon team and NASA are committed to the enhancements of this critically needed modeling capability that assesses the new technology air traffic management tools to increase National Airspace System (NAS) capacity and efficiency.
The enhancements to this simulation tool are an important step toward establishing a methodology for successful development and operation of complex simulations on a national scale.
ACES is a NAS-wide framework of tools and models that is used to validate advanced concepts that are being developed within NASA's VAMS (Virtual Airspace Modeling and Simulation) project.
ACES is a comprehensive and flexible modeling approach that allows for additional models to be added by developers.
The ACES follow on contract will allow for further enhancement to the infrastructure, increased models of higher fidelity, and additional tools for use in the data management and analyses.
"This sets the stage for NASA and Raytheon to continue developing advanced tools and concepts for the future National Airspace System," said Bob Eckel, vice president of Raytheon Air Traffic Management Systems.
ACES was originally developed by Raytheon under the Air Traffic Management System Development and Integration contract, with a team consisting of Intelligent Automation of Rockville, Md.; Science Applications International of Arlington, Va.; and Seagull Technology of Campbell, Calif.
--------
Bush win seen lifting drug, defense, oil stocks
by Arindam Nag
November 5, 2004
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/28005/story.htm
NEW YORK - It was a big bonanza this week for stocks seen benefiting most from a second term for President George W. Bush.
Winners included big oil companies, drillers and coal companies, which rode higher on confidence of four more years of Bush's fossil-fuel-friendly policies.
The Bush victory also boosted defense companies, which are expected to continue to benefit from the costly war in Iraq, which began in March 2003.
Pharmaceutical investors were encouraged by the prospect of the Bush win reducing the threat of government-imposed price cuts and pushed shares of drug stocks higher.
Utilities stocks rallied on the prospect that the president's dividend tax cut will be preserved. Gas and electric companies typically pay higher dividends.
On the downside, however, stocks seen most aligned to policies favored by Sen. John Kerry had a hard day as the Massachusetts Democrat conceded the race to Bush. Those included a handful of biotechnology stocks focused on stem cell research, alternative energy companies and the government-backed mortgage finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
The combined muscle of Bush-friendly stocks boosted the Dow Jones industrial average more than 101 points, or just over 1 percent, to a close of 10,137.05.
"I expect this rally to stay at least in the short term, at least for a couple of weeks," said Som Dasgupta, head of equities trading, PNC Corporate Bank in Pittsburgh. "After that it depends on what President Bush says about fiscal policy going forward and how the market interprets what he says on the budget deficit."
The impact of the Bush victory was particularly felt in the pharma sector worldwide. For most global companies in this industry, the United States is still the biggest market and a Republican win reduces the risk of cut-price drug reimportation from Canada, industry analysts said.
"A Bush win will drive a relief rally in the (drug) sector," ABN Amro wrote in a note to clients. Pfizer (PFE.N: Quote, Profile, Research) rose nearly 3 percent to $29.50 while Bristol Myers Squibb (BMY.N: Quote, Profile, Research) rose 2.5 percent.
The oil industry is expected to benefit from Bush's ambition to increase America's own sources of oil.
"The Bush White House believes that high commodity prices would direct investment flow to supply and distribution infrastructure," said James Lucier, an energy policy analyst at Prudential Equity Group, earlier this week. The defense sector rally was led by Boeing Co. (BA.N: Quote, Profile, Research) , Raytheon Co (RTN.N: Quote, Profile, Research) and Lockheed Martin Corp. (LMT.N: Quote, Profile, Research) . Along with a couple of others, these three companies make the updated version of the "Star Wars" anti-missile defense system which Bush supports. Kerry had said he would slash the program.
"With Bush likely having won re-election, we expect defense spending trends to remain roughly unchanged, with risks of curtailed spending on missile defense much lower than before the election," said Jared Muroff, an analyst with Prudential Equity Group.
The banking sector took warm on speculation that the administration would continue with current fiscal policies and would ease regulatory pressure on Wall Street.
That helped send shares of No. 2 U.S. bank J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. (JPM.N: Quote, Profile, Research) , brokerage giant Merrill Lynch & Co. (MER.N: Quote, Profile, Research) and Wachovia Corp. (WB.N: Quote, Profile, Research) up more than 2 percent.
Bank of America Corp. (BAC.N: Quote, Profile, Research) , the third-largest bank, advanced 1.6 percent, while the KBW Bank Index , a broad measure for large banks, gained 1.2 percent.
"The regulatory environment has been hostile for the past three or four years," said Dick Bove, veteran bank analyst at Punk, Ziegel & Co. "It was a convincing win by the GOP: they got the Senate, the House and the presidency. The speculation among investors is that regulators will back off."
A media company to benefit from Bush's re-election would be Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc. (SBGI.O: Quote, Profile, Research) , the largest owner of television stations, which could have suffered in the hands of a Kerry administration. The firm had drawn fire from Democrats last month over plans to air a documentay critical of Kerry's Vietnam War record.
Harris Nesbitt media analyst Lee Westerfield said that for Sinclair, which "...might have faced a Kerry administration wrath for its coverage of the POW story...that concern disappears". Sinclair's stock rose 4 percent to $7.15.
Among the losers were companies involved in alternative energy like FuelCell Energy Inc. (FCEL.O: Quote, Profile, Research) , Ballard Power Systems (BLD.TO: Quote, Profile, Research) (BLDP.O: Quote, Profile, Research) and Plug Power Inc. (PLUG.O: Quote, Profile, Research) as Kerry favored policies focused on energy conservation, use of alternative energy sources and cutting dependence on foreign oil.
The re-election of Bush could also bode negative for Fannie Mae (FNM.N: Quote, Profile, Research) and Freddie Mac (FRE.N: Quote, Profile, Research) , the two government sponsored mortgage finance companies, as they are likely to face more regulations that could stifle their growth, analysts said.
(Additional reporting by Ben Hirschler in London, Dan Burns, Chelsea Emery, Anna Driver, Deepa Babington and Joseph Giannone in New York)
-------- colombia
Colombia: Bush's Triumph Gladdens Uribe, Scares Others
(Inter Press Service)
by Constanza Vieira
November 5, 2004
http://www.antiwar.com/ips/vieira.php?articleid=3908
BOGOTA - Many Colombians have expressed deep concern over U.S. President George W. Bush's reelection, while others share the enthusiasm of right-wing Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, Washington's closest ally in Latin America.
"I want to congratulate President Bush on his victory, Senator [John] Kerry for this beautiful campaign, both of them for this example of democracy, and the people of the United States for the efficiency and efficaciousness of their democracy," Uribe told the press Wednesday.
Merci Viana, a spokeswoman for the governing U.S. Republican Party in Miami, told the Colombian television newscast RCN that the vote of Colombian immigrants weighed in favor of Bush in southern Florida.
An elderly Colombian woman who lives in Miami said she urged her 30 relatives, "all naturalized U.S. citizens," to vote for Bush as a Christmas present to her, "which they all did," she told the cameras, smiling.
Viana also said the aid to Colombia will continue to flow. She was referring to the $2.37 billion in military and police assistance that the Bush administration has sent to Colombia so far, according to the Washington-based Center for International Policy.
Colombia is the third-largest recipient of U.S. military aid in the world, after Israel and Egypt. In the past five years, a total of $4 billion has gone into the Plan Colombia anti-drug and counterinsurgency strategy and, more recently, the Plan Patriot military offensive.
In June, the U.S. Senate voted in favor of doubling the number of U.S. military personnel in Colombia, to a total of 800, and to increase the official number of civilians contracted by the Pentagon (the U.S. Defense Department) for Colombia to 600.
The advisers, soldiers, and contractors are providing military assistance to the Colombian army in the Plan Patriot offensive in southern Colombia, which was launched this year against the rearguard of the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
FARC is a guerrilla group that has been fighting for 40 years. It is classified as a "terrorist organization" by the U.S. government.
According to Uribe, there is no armed conflict in Colombia, but merely "a society fighting against terrorist outlaws."
The Colombian leader identifies with Bush in his "war on terrorism," and went so far as to comment, when the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq began in early 2003, that once "that problem" was solved, the occupation forces could intervene in Colombia to fight the leftist rebels.
"I am going to say something very frank: the hope is that the situation in the Middle East will become so complicated for the United States that it will not focus on the crisis in the Andean region, and in Colombia in particular," historian and political scientist Jaime Zuluaga, with the Institute of Political and International Studies (IEPRI) at the National University of Colombia, told IPS.
"Because if they are able to somehow straighten out the situation in Iraq, I have no doubt that the military pressure will increase greatly" in this region, he added.
The anti-drug and counterinsurgency Plan Colombia was initially designed by members of the U.S. State Department under Democratic President Bill Clinton (1993-2001).
But the U.S. government claims that its military phase, Plan Patriot, for which the United States is providing advisers, was designed by the Colombian military.
Both Bush and his Democratic Party rival Kerry, who was defeated in Tuesday's elections, announced in their campaigns that they would continue to provide Uribe with military support.
But Kerry also pledged that if he won, his government would have less tolerance for human rights violations in Colombia, and he expressed concern over attacks on trade unionists and human rights activists in this South American country.
Kerry further stated that he would demand that the Colombian government sever the proven ties between the armed forces and the rightist paramilitary militias, which are responsible for 80 percent of the atrocities committed in the civil war, according to United Nations and Organization of American States (OAS) bodies.
Zuluaga noted that "the Bush administration certified that the Colombian government was complying with human rights standards," a requirement under U.S. law before military aid can be disbursed.
The U.S. Embassy in Bogota has warned that drug barons, including several who are facing extradition requests from the United States, are taking part in the negotiations between the Uribe administration and the paramilitaries, aimed at achieving the demobilization of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), the paramilitary umbrella.
Nevertheless, Bush is financing the OAS mission led by Argentine sociologist Sergio Caramagna, sent to verify compliance with agreements reached in the talks.
Bush's triumph "demonstrates that a majority of people in the United States are still afraid of the possibility of terrorist attacks, and are willing to sacrifice, as they are sacrificing in the United States, basic rights and freedoms in order to take what they see as a strong stance against terrorism, even though it has not been shown to be effective," said Zuluaga.
"Defeating Bush was one way to repudiate the unilateralist politics of the United States, its disregard for the role played by the United Nations, and its strategy of 'preemptive war,' which was applied in Afghanistan and Iraq."
In Colombia, "what will happen is, first, the Uribe-Bush alliance will be consolidated. I'm sure the American president will somehow reward Uribe's loyalty," he added.
"Second, I believe there will be a 'Plan Colombia II,'" he predicted. "If the United States is at least able to avoid being further bogged down in the quagmire it has found itself in, in Iraq, it will very likely commit itself, as has already been approved by the U.S. Congress, to an expansion of the military intervention in Colombia."
U.S. Ambassador to Colombia William Wood, the head of the U.S. army Southern Command James T. Hill, as well as State Department officials say the situation in Colombia is a threat to the entire region, and that FARC poses a real threat to U.S. national security.
"That has to do with the fact that they see the guerrillas as being financed by the drug trade, and also has to do with the three U.S. [military contractors] that the FARC has held" since February 2003, when they were kidnapped to be held along with the Colombian politicians, soldiers, and other captives that the rebels want to swap for imprisoned insurgents, said Zuluaga.
In the analyst's view, "there is a strategic design to develop new forms of intervention [by Washington] in Latin America, and control over Colombia is very important in order to have an influence over the Andean region, which remains one of the most unstable and politically explosive areas in the subcontinent."
In that scenario, "at least Ecuador and Peru will try to obtain stronger U.S. support to protect themselves from what they consider a threat from Colombia," especially from the flood of Colombian refugees into Ecuador, he predicted.
"In their weakness, and in their need for significant support from abroad, I believe they will continue to lend themselves to trying to seal off their borders with Colombia. What we will see are governments that are more committed to the fight against drug trafficking in line with the U.S. model," he said.
Both countries, which border Colombia to the south, have complained that the civil war is leaking out of Colombia, creating a security problem in the frontier regions.
-------- iraq
'My brother died for oil'
5 November 2004
Evening Standard
By Paul Waugh, Valentine Low and Jason Beattie in Brussels,
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/articles/14512903
The brother of a Black Watch soldier killed in Iraq said today that he had died in a war over "money and oil".
Craig Lowe, 18, a serving soldier with the regiment, added: "I think they should just get them all out of there now, because if not we are going to lose a lot more than this."
Private Paul Lowe, 19, Private Scott McArdle, 22, and Sergeant Stuart Gray, 31, were killed by a suicide bomber at a checkpoint yesterday south of Baghdad.
It was only the second day of the regiment's controversial deployment in support of US troops.
Craig said his brother had thought little of George Bush and what he believed were the President's reasons for going to war.
He added: "He just thought he was an arsehole for starting a war over nothing, trying to get money and oil. That's what we thought ourselves, that's what Paul thought as well, we all thought that."
His attack joined the growing clamour of Black Watch families venting their anger in a series of messages on the regiment's website. Relatives bitterly criticised the Government for sending the men into the so-called " triangle of death".
Some messages called for the soldiers to be brought home immediately and "let President Bush take care of his own mess".
A visibly shaken Tony Blair today spoke of his "pride and gratitude" for the British soldiers in Iraq but he would not be drawn on the criticism from the families. Craig returned home from Iraq last month to attend a drumming course.
He said the whole family, including his younger brothers, Stuart, Shaun and Jordan, and their mother Helen, 42, were "heartbroken".
Craig added: "We're still upset at his loss, it's just not sinking in at all." He said they had learned of the news last night shortly after it was announced in Parliament.
Speaking at his family's home in Kelty, Fife, Craig said his brother had loved his work, adding: "What he lived for was his job in the Army.
"But he said he didn't think he should be there because the regiment has already done their time over there, the first time, so he didn't think they should be back.
"But he just took it on the chin and went back and got on with his job."
He said he last spoke to his brother on Sunday. "He was just saying he was missing us all, that he couldn't wait to come home to see us and hoped he would be home for Christmas." One close family friend described Paul as "a great lad and a loveable rogue," adding: "He lived for the Army and he died for his country."
Mrs Lowe was too upset to speak today and was being comforted by relatives at the family home.
However, only days ago she voiced her fears about Paul, who had been due to come home on leave when the regiment was sent north from Basra where they had been stationed.
Mrs Lowe told the interviewer: "We are sick with worry and do not know what to do. Not knowing is absolutely terrible. It is a living nightmare.
"Paul was due to arrive back on Sunday, so you can imagine just how tough this has been for us all. He's only 19 and he says he's had enough, he just wants to come home."
Paul also had his own worries. In his last email home before the regiment moved to Camp Dogwood, he wrote: "I just want to get home."
-----
Bush laments coalition of the unwilling
November 5, 2004
Sydney Morning Herald
http://fairuse.1accesshost.com/news2/smh31.htm
US President George W Bush's "coalition of the willing" in Iraq isn't quite so willing any more.
In a blow to US efforts to keep countries from deserting the multinational force, Hungary said this week it won't keep troops there beyond March 31. The Czechs plan to pull out by the end of February, the Dutch by the end of March, and Japan is feeling pressure to withdraw.
There's no mad scramble to leave, but that could change after Iraq holds elections in January and nations feel their obligations have ended.
"We should never have sent troops to Iraq. Bringing them back now is already too late," Janos Fekete, a Budapest shopkeeper, said.
Key allies said this week they'll hold firm in Iraq.
Britain said Hungary's decision would not prompt a rethink, and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said his country's 3,000 troops will stay for as long as the Iraqi government wants. Staying on, he said, was part of Italy's duty in "defending democracy in the world."
Denmark said its 501 troops in the southern Iraqi port city of Basra also will stay as long as needed, and Romania is even considering bolstering its 730-member force for the elections.
Nevertheless, Hungary's announcement that it won't keep its 300 non-combat soldiers in Iraq beyond the end of March dealt a blow to the coalition.
The ex-communist country and many of its neighbours across the former East Bloc have been steadfast in their commitment to the force, in part out of gratitude for US support during the Cold War and help in joining the European Union and NATO. Early last year, Hungary declared it would stay in Iraq through the end of 2004 as a message to the insurgents targeting US-led forces.
Hungary's new prime minister, Ferenc Gyurcsany, says he doesn't believe in pre-emptive war and has been receptive to public calls for a withdrawal despite an Iraqi request that the troops stay another year. Polls show 60 per cent of Hungarians want them home now.
"The intention of our government is to bring back our troops and complete the mission," Gyurcsany told reporters.
Parliament next week will debate his proposal to extend the troops' mandate, which expires on December 31, by three months. But that would require a two-thirds majority vote, and the country's main opposition party has said it will consider an extension only if the troops are given a UN mandate to stay.
"Right now, we feel there are more arguments in favour of bringing the troops home," Mihaly Varga, a prominent Hungarian opposition leader and former finance minister, told The Associated Press.
If lawmakers reject the extension, which seems likely, Hungary's troops could be on their way home by New Year's Day.
In Washington, US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher played down the threat of significant drawdowns or pullouts. The administration has worked to preserve and expand the coalition since Spain withdrew its 1,300 troops earlier this year.
"It's too early now to start predicting a mass exodus or departure," Boucher said.
"There are a number of countries that have stepped up. There are number of countries going down ... We have always felt that the situation on the ground should determine how people stay and how they work."
For many Japanese, mourning the beheading this week of a 24-year-old Japanese backpacker slain by militants in Iraq, the situation is simply too dangerous.
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has been beset by fresh calls for a pullout of his country's 500 troops from the opposition, which blames his pro-US policy for the slaying. Koizumi hasn't said whether the forces will extend their aid mission beyond mid-December.
Lawmakers in the Czech Republic voted to keep 100 military police in Iraq through to February 28, but Czech leaders have made it clear they see the Iraqi elections as a logical end to their commitment.
Bulgaria said this week it may "slightly reduce" its contingent of 480 infantry soldiers next year. The Netherlands said its 1,400 troops will finish their mission in March. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania all plan to stay through next June.
Dutch Defence Ministry spokesman Joop Veen said the country is pulling its troops mainly because it feels it's paid its dues. "We think that other countries who didn't have forces in Iraq should pick up the responsibility," he said.
Portugal's 120 police in Iraq are set to end their current tour on November 12. The government was expected to decide on Friday whether to keep them there, and Foreign Minister Antonio Monteiro hinted that it would.
"Are we going to give Iraq a chance at sovereignty, or are we going to say 'no' and leave them at the mercy of people with guns?" Monteiro said.
--------
G.I.'s Itch to Prove Their Mettle in Falluja
November 5, 2004
By ROBERT F. WORTH
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/05/international/middleeast/05cnd-falluja.html?hp&ex=1099717200&en=dadc987eb25f9a88&ei=5094&partner=homepage
NEAR FALLUJA, Iraq, Nov. 5 - The marines crept forward, glancing warily at each other as they approached a bomb-scarred building covered with Arabic lettering. Suddenly, one of them shouted "Sniper!" and another dropped to the ground as if wounded.
But instead of firing back, the men raised their guns and trilled their tongues to imitate the sound of machine-gun fire. Within a few seconds, one of them called out "Sniper neutralized!" and they lowered their weapons.
It was one of the many urban warfare drills taking place in and around this bleak desert encampment in recent days, where the Marines expect to lead an all-out attack on Falluja soon. Peace negotiations continue between the Iraqi government and delegates from the city, but American commanders seem convinced that it is only a matter of time before the Iraqi prime minister, Ayad Allawi, gives the order for them to retake the city, which has been held by insurgents since the Marines withdrew in April.
In Brussels today, Dr. Allawi told leaders of the European Union that "the window is closing'' on the opportunity for a peaceful settlement in Falluja. "We intend to liberate the people,'' he said, according to Reuters. "The insurgents and the terrorists are still operating there. We hope they will come to their senses, otherwise we will have to bring them to face justice.''
For many marines here, the order cannot come too soon. After a long summer of cat-and-mouse games with shadowy insurgents, they are hungry for a decisive battle.
"Locked, cocked and ready to rock," said Lance Cpl. Dimitri Gavriel, 29, who left an investment banking job in Manhattan 18 months ago to enlist, using a popular Marine expression. "That's about how we feel."
In the meantime, preparations continue at this makeshift military base. Tanks rumble through a barren landscape littered with shrapnel and husks of old vehicles, while helicopters throb overhead. Detonations shake the ground at all hours - artillery units firing on guerrilla positions, or other military units blowing up old explosives. Occasional enemy mortars explode nearby. American jets soar overhead on their way to and from bombing runs, and at night fires glow on the horizon.
Many of the young marines expected to lead the attack have not yet been part of a major battle. Most of those who took part in the operation in Falluja in April have been sent home. And though some of the commanders here fought the first phase of the war last year, many of the rank and file arrived here for the first time in June.
All of them, though, seem eager to prove their mettle and at last confront the insurgency head on.
"It's kind of like the cancer of Iraq," said Lt. Steven Berch, a lanky platoon commander, speaking of Falluja. "It's become a kind of hotel for the insurgents. Hopefully getting rid of them will help to stabilize the whole country."
Others point to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian militant who is said to be using Falluja as a base.
"We're doing the right thing here," said First Lt. Christopher Wilkens, pausing for breath during a drill. "These guys are terrorists, there are connections to Al Qaeda, and fighting them is what we came here to do."
The marines are housed in a network of bomb-scarred barracks once used by Saddam Hussein to train an Iranian exile opposition group. Arabic slogans meant to inspire the trainees remain on the walls, and a mural of Mr. Hussein's face still stares down from the wall of a converted mess hall.
Commanders would not reveal any details of how or when an attack might happen. But the invading force will certainly be larger than the one that struck at the insurgents here in April, and marines will be backed up by Iraqi troops as well as Army units.
Iraqi soldiers are already training here alongside the marines, and officers said their discipline has improved in recent months. After the Marines withdrew from Falluja in April, the Iraqi security forces there quickly collapsed.
"We are improving day by day," said Major Abdul Jabar, executive officer of one of the Iraqi companies that will take part in the attack, as his men practiced disembarking from armored personnel carriers in the hot afternoon sun.
Before the fighting ends, American civil affairs units will move into the city to begin working on health and reconstruction projects, for which at least $20 million has been set aside, American officers said. Marine lawyers will be ready to handle compensation claims for battle damage and to help verify any violations of the laws of warfare. The goal, commanders emphasize, is to hand over control of the city to Iraqi security forces.
Commanders say they expect the insurgents to use plenty of terrorist-style tactics like suicide bombs in cars or trucks. Last Saturday, nine marines were killed and nine wounded when a suicide bomber in a car rammed their convoy near here, in the deadliest day for American troops in more than half a year.
The marines also expect heavy house-to-house fighting once they enter the city, and they are fully aware of the risks. During drills they do test runs of their arrival in Falluja, running out the back of the armored personnel carriers that will bring them into the city while carrying all their weapons and a 45-pound pack.
None of the dangers seem to rattle their confidence. Between drills, they do pull-ups and play touch football. In the evening, laughter echoes around the barracks where they live, along with heavy metal music blasting from CD players. "I don't think about it," said Pfc. Anthony Mells, a 20 year-old marine from Queens, when asked about the risks of battle. "It's all about motivation. Getting wounded is not in my job description."
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U.S. Warplanes Pound Targets in Fallujah
Nov 5, 2004
By JIM KRANE
Associated Press
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=540&ncid=736&e=1&u=/ap/20041105/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq
NEAR FALLUJAH, Iraq - U.S. warplanes pounded Fallujah late Friday in what residents called the strongest attacks in months, as more than 10,000 American soldiers and Marines massed for an expected assault. Iraq (news - web sites)'s prime minister warned the "window is closing" to avert an offensive.
Residents reached by telephone said the aircraft were striking targets in the central city market that had not been hit since April as well as neighborhoods in the north, south and east of Fallujah. There was no confirmation from U.S. officials. Earlier Friday, residents said U.S. planes dropped leaflets urging women and children to leave the city, 40 miles west of the capital, Baghdad.
Meanwhile, the insurgent group al-Qaida in Iraq called for the release of the kidnapped executive of the CARE charity, Margaret Hassan, and promised to free her if she fell into their hands.
In a message posted on the Internet, the group led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi said it wanted the world to know "if (the kidnappers of Margaret Hassan) handed us this captive, we will release her immediately unless it is proven she was conspiring against Muslims."
The authenticity of the statement could not be verified, but it was signed "al-Qaida in Iraq" and it appeared Friday on a Web site known for publishing messages from Islamic militant groups.
As pressure mounted on the guerrilla stronghold, the insurgents struck back, killing one U.S. soldier and wounding five in a rocket attack. Clashes were reported at other checkpoints around the city and in the east and north of Fallujah late in the day.
In Baghdad, a huge column of black smoke rose over the city's Karrada district after midnight, and residents said they heard heavy gunfire, presumably between police and militants. No one answered the phone at the local police station.
For the past three nights, long convoys of American soldiers from Baghdad and Baqouba have rolled onto a dust-blown base on the outskirts of Fallujah, a city that has become the symbol of Iraqi resistance. U.S. commanders here have been coordinating plans either to fight their way into the city or isolate it from the rest of Iraq's Sunni Muslim heartland.
If they fight, American troops will face an estimated 3,000 insurgents dug in behind defenses and booby traps. Military planners believe there are about 1,200 hardcore insurgents in Fallujah - at least half of them Iraqis. They are bolstered by insurgent cells with up to 2,000 fighters in the surrounding towns and countryside.
In Brussels, Belgium, Iraq's interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, warned that the "window is closing" to avert an assault on Fallujah. Allawi must give the final go-ahead for the offensive, part of a campaign to curb the insurgency ahead of national elections planned for January.
Sunni clerics have threatened to boycott the election if Fallujah is attacked, and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan (news - web sites) has warned U.S., British and Iraqi authorities that a military campaign and "increased insurgent violence" could put elections at risk.
U.S. aircraft struck targets around Fallujah in numerous raids starting late Thursday and continuing into Friday night. Targets included a system of barriers rigged with bombs, a command post, suspected fighting positions and a weapons cache, according to Lt. Nathan Braden of the 1st Marine Division.
Late Friday, U.S. jets went into action again, striking several targets in the Jolan sector of northern Fallujah, residents said. Jolan is considered one of the most heavily defended neighborhoods in the city.
As the night dragged on, the attack was expanded to targets in many areas of city, according to residents. Artillery fire could also be heard. The drone of U.S. aircraft heading toward Fallujah could be heard over Baghdad.
Earlier, mortar shells exploded on a small U.S. base at Saqlawiyah west of Fallujah, the military said. U.S. troops returned fire, killing a number of insurgents, the military said.
Iraqi authorities closed a border crossing point with Syria, and U.S. troops set up checkpoints along major routes into the city. Marines fired on a civilian vehicle that did not stop at a checkpoint in Fallujah, killing an Iraqi woman and wounding her husband, according to the U.S. military and witnesses. The car didn't notice the checkpoint, witnesses said.
"Marines fire upon vehicles only as a last resort when verbal and visual warnings to stop fail. Such was the case today," the Marines said in a statement.
The violence came a day after two Marines were killed and four were wounded in fighting west of Baghdad. The Marine command gave no further details, citing security.
A U.S. soldier was killed and another wounded when a roadside bomb hit their vehicle north of Baghdad on Thursday.
Elsewhere, U.S. Cobra attack helicopters fired Friday on insurgents operating an illegal checkpoint south of Baghdad, killing or wounding an "unknown number" of people, the military said.
Allawi has demanded that Fallujah hand over foreign extremists, including Jordanian terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his followers, and allow government troops to enter the city.
"We intend to liberate the people and to bring the rule of law to Fallujah," Allawi said in Brussels after meeting with European Union (news - web sites) leaders. "The window really is closing for a peaceful settlement."
Zarqawi's followers claimed responsibility for the suicide attack that killed three British soldiers south of Baghdad on Thursday, according to a statement posted on an Islamist Web site. The claim could not be verified but appeared on a Web site often used by militants to post claims.
Allawi, a secular Shiite Muslim with strong ties to the CIA (news - web sites) and State Department, urged the Europeans to forge a "close and strategic partnership" with Iraq and called on NATO (news - web sites) to step up plans to train 1,000 officers a year for the Iraqi military.
EU leaders responded with a nearly $40 million offer to fund elections, including training for Iraqi vote monitors.
French President Jacques Chirac - who opposed the Iraq war - skipped a meeting with Allawi to fly to Abu Dhabi to pay his respects to the new president of the United Arab Emirates, who took over after the death of his father. Many saw it as a snub of Allawi, although Chirac denied that, describing his relations with the new Iraqi authorities as "excellent." Allawi faces strong opposition to a Fallujah offensive from the Sunni minority. The Sunni clerical Association of Muslim Scholars has threatened to boycott the January election and mount a nationwide civil disobedience campaign.
A public outcry over civilian casualties prompted the Bush administration to call off the siege of Fallujah in April, after which the city fell under control of radical clerics and their followers.
Those warnings were echoed by Annan in a letter dated Oct. 31 to American, British and Iraqi leaders. A copy was obtained by The Associated Press.
"I have in mind not only the risk of increased insurgent violence, but also reports of major military offensives being planned by the multinational force in key localities such as Fallujah," Annan wrote.
Nevertheless, U.S. and Iraqi authorities appear committed to a showdown with the city of an estimated 300,000 residents.
In hopes of assuaging public outrage, Iraqi authorities have put together a team of administrators to run Fallujah after the offensive and have earmarked $75 million to repair the damage, Marine Maj. Jim West said. The strategy is similar to one used when U.S. troops restored government authority in the Shiite holy city Najaf last August after weeks of fighting with militiamen.
-----
UN Warns on Iraq, U.S. Urges Civilians to Flee City
Reuters
Nov 5, 2004
By Terry Friel
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=574&ncid=721&e=2&u=/nm/20041105/wl_nm/iraq_dc
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.N. chief Kofi Annan (news - web sites) warned against an all-out military offensive to capture the rebel-held Iraqi city of Falluja, which U.S. forces urged civilians to flee as they launched fresh air and artillery strikes on Friday.
An assault would further anger Iraqis and threaten polls due on Jan. 27., Annan said in letters to President Bush (news - web sites), British Prime Minister Tony Blair (news - web sites) and Iraqi interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, U.N. officials said on Friday.
Allawi and his U.S.-led backers see taking Falluja, which they say is the center of the insurgency in Iraq (news - web sites), as critical to ensuring the polls go ahead and are free and fair.
Annan's comments highlight longstanding differences with Washington over how best to restore peace in Iraq.
"The threat or actual use of force not only risks deepening the sense of alienation of certain communities, but would also reinforce perceptions among the Iraqi population of a continued military occupation," the Los Angeles Times quoted him as writing.
U.S. troops sealed all roads to Falluja on Friday and in Arabic leaflets and loudspeaker messages urged women, children and non-fighting age men to flee, but said they would arrest an man under 45 trying to enter or leave the city.
'IT WILL BE SOON'
"The American forces call on women, children and civilians to leave Falluja for their own safety," said the leaflet.
Most of the Sunni Muslim city's 300,000 people have already left after weeks of intensive air and ground bombardments and clashes between insurgents and U.S. marines.
"We are making last preparations. It will be soon. We are just awaiting orders from Prime Minister Allawi," Marines Colonel Michael Shupp told Reuters near Falluja.
U.S. warplanes and artillery bombarded the city 50 km (32 miles) west of Baghdad on Friday, residents said. Rebels fired mortars and rocket-propelled grenades at U.S. forces on the city outskirts, killing a U.S. soldier and wounding five more.
There was no immediate word on civilian casualties. Ambulances were waiting for fighting to ease.
The U.S. military said overnight air raids had destroyed a command post, arms caches and rebel positions in the city. Hospital workers said the raids had killed three people, wounded four and destroyed five houses.
Two marines were killed and four wounded in combat on Thursday in Anbar province that includes Falluja and the city of Ramadi, also expected to be included in any offensive.
Allawi met European Union (news - web sites) leaders in Brussels on Friday and was expected to return to Iraq after that.
He secured a modest 16.5 million euro ($21 million) package from the 25-member bloc to support the elections and to help fund a possible U.N. protection force for the voting. The United States and Britain hope a successful election will help defuse the increasingly bloody insurgency that has blighted their success in toppling Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) last year.
In a speech to EU leaders, Allawi also sought help to choke off the flow of foreign Islamic militants his government and the United States say form the core of the insurgency.
"We need your help in persuading Iraq's neighbors that fueling violence in Iraq will only damage their own security in the long term," he said, in a copy of a speech given to journalists by Britain's foreign secretary.
"I hope the European Union will use its relations with Syria and Iran to deliver that message in the clearest of terms."
The U.S. military says about 1,000 to 6,000 Saddam loyalists and militants led by Jordanian al Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi are holed up in Falluja.
Zarqawi's fighters have claimed responsibility for hostage beheadings and some of Iraq's bloodiest bombings.
The U.S. military says the assault on Falluja will succeed where an April one failed because this time it will be ordered by an Iraqi government and Iraqi forces will be involved. In April, Iraqi units refused to fight with U.S. troops.
The April battles, which coincided with a Shi'ite revolt in the south, sparked a wave of kidnappings of foreigners aimed at driving U.S.-led forces and foreign workers from Iraq.
A Nepali cook abducted on Monday from an office in Baghdad has been freed, the Nepali government said.
Captors have also released two Lebanese hostages held in Iraq for five weeks, a Lebanese Foreign Ministry source said. (With reporting by Michael Georgy near Falluja, Fadel al- Badrani in Falluja, Lin Noueihed and Khaled Yacoub Oweis in Baghdad, Irwin Arieff in New York and bureaux in London, Brussels, Beirut and Kathmandu)
-------- israel / palestine
Arafat Wants to Be Buried in Jerusalem
November 5, 2004
By ARTHUR MAX
Associated Press Writer
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/ARAFAT_ISRAEL?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
JERUSALEM (AP) -- The top Palestinian Islamic cleric said Friday it was Yasser Arafat's wish to be buried in Jerusalem, increasing pressure on Israel, which has sharply refused to allow the Palestinian leader to be laid to rest in the city if he dies.
The Mufti of Jerusalem, Ikrema Sabri, said that during a meeting four months ago, Arafat asked to be buried near the city's Al Aqsa Mosque, Islam's third holiest shrine. Jews revere the site, built on the ruins of the biblical Jewish temples, as the Temple Mount.
"The president has shown a desire to be buried in Jerusalem, and in a place that is close to the Al Aqsa Mosque," Sabri told The Associated Press. Sabri, the top Muslim official in Jerusalem, said he did not know whether the 75-year-old Arafat has a written will.
Israel's justice minister, Yosef Lapid, however, said Israel would not permit a Jerusalem funeral, saying the city is "where Jewish kings are buried and not Arab terrorists."
The comments from both sides portended a likely political fight over any funeral arrangements for Arafat. The Palestinian leader was in a coma on Friday, fighting for his life.
Palestinian leaders hope to enlist international support for his burial at Al Aqsa, a Palestinian official said on condition of anonymity. Negotiations with Israel would only begin after Arafat's death, the official said.
Burial in Jerusalem would be seen as strengthening Palestinian claims to the traditionally Arab sector of the city as a future capital.
The Palestinians have not been in contact with Israeli officials over the question of burying Arafat, officials said. "It's premature at this stage to talk about burying or not burying," Palestinian lawmaker Saeb Erekat said.
Israeli security officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Gaza Strip was the only burial option, and that they oppose allowing Arafat to be interred in the West Bank, including the Jerusalem suburb of Abu Dis.
Lapid did not refer to a possible ban on a West Bank burial, but told Israel TV's Channel Two: "Now we are talking about Gaza. We have no problems with Gaza, of course."
But he underlined that Jerusalem is off-limits. "They (the Palestinians) will choose where to bury him, but he will not be buried in Jerusalem because Jerusalem is the city where Jewish kings are buried and not Arab terrorists," he told Associated Press Television News.
Israel has sought to keep a low profile in dealing with the deterioration in Arafat's health, with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon instructing government officials to avoid speaking to reporters on the issue. Lapid, a longtime journalist, is known for speaking bluntly.
Arafat had spent the last three years in his headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah, which effectively became his prison after Israel besieged his compound more than two years ago.
Palestinian Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath said there have been no contacts with Israel on funeral arrangements, telling The Associated Press from Gaza that officials have heard of Israel's plans only from the media.
Arafat's clan, the Al-Kidwas, are originally from Gaza, though the Palestinian leader grew up in Jerusalem and Cairo. The family has a small plot of 25 to 30 graves in the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis. The overgrown patch is in the middle of a busy vegetable market and would not be considered appropriate.
Other burial options include a seaside plot next to his old headquarters in Gaza City, or Gaza City's "martyrs' cemetery" east of the city, close to Israel.
A funeral in Gaza would pose a security nightmare for foreign dignitaries attending the event. There has been increasing chaos in the coastal strip in recent months, with rival groups of gunmen and security chiefs battling for control ahead of a planned Israeli troop withdrawal next year.
Israeli officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they were instructed to prepare for the arrival of foreign envoys for the funeral, but the Palestinians weren't ready yet to cooperate in the planning.
Israel anticipated receiving envoys from countries with which it has diplomatic relations and providing security for them until they pass into Palestinian-controlled territory, officials said. Envoys from other countries would likely arrive across the border from Jordan or Egypt, depending on the location of the grave site.
It was unclear who would attend. Although Arafat was elected president of the Palestinian Authority formed after he returned from exile in 1994, it is not a widely recognized government. The Palestinians have observer status at the United Nations.
Erekat chided Israel after some people celebrated the reports that Arafat had died.
"I hope the Israeli public will show sensitivities. I've seen some Israelis dancing in the streets, hugging each other other yesterday," Erekat told CNN. "I think it's alien... I cannot describe my feelings. It's heartbreaking to see Israelis hugging and kissing in such circumstances."
After Israeli media reported Thursday night that Arafat had died, some young Orthodox Jews gathered in a downtown Jerusalem square to celebrate - singing, dancing, distributing sweets and declaring that one of their greatest enemies was "on his way to hell."
--------
Palestinians Choose Two To Assume Arafat Roles
Leader's Medical Condition Grows 'More Complicated'
By John Ward Anderson and Molly Moore
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, November 5, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A26548-2004Nov4?language=printer
JERUSALEM, Nov. 4 -- With Yasser Arafat gravely ill in a hospital near Paris, Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia and his predecessor, Mahmoud Abbas, were chosen Thursday to temporarily assume the Palestinian leader's duties, according to senior Palestinians familiar with the arrangements.
Arafat, 75, had reportedly slipped into unconsciousness, and a former adviser said he was on a respirator, but the day was marked by confusion, including false reports that he had died. A spokesman at Percy military hospital outside Paris said Arafat had not died but that his condition had become "more complicated."
The French military spokesman, reading a brief statement he said was authorized by Arafat's wife, Suha, also confirmed that the Palestinian leader had been transferred Wednesday afternoon to a hospital unit "suitable for his condition."
Palestinians from the key organizations headed by Arafat met in emergency sessions at his headquarters compound in Ramallah, north of Jerusalem, and at other locations in the West Bank to decide how to run Palestinian affairs.
They decided that Qureia would retain control of operations for the Palestinian Authority, the self-governing entity in the West Bank and Gaza Strip established 10 years ago by the Oslo peace accords. He will also head the National Security Council. Arafat is president of the authority and chairman of the council.
Abbas will be in charge of both the Palestine Liberation Organization, the umbrella group that represents Palestinians living in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and abroad, and of the Fatah political movement, the most powerful Palestinian political organization, the officials said. Arafat is chairman of both.
The selection of two men to replace Arafat reflects his status among Palestinians as the unrivaled symbol of their cause. No one else matches his stature and ability to unite the diverse factions and groups in Palestinian society.
"Palestinians look at Arafat not as the president and chairman, but as the father of the nation," said Ahmed Tibi, a former adviser to Arafat who is now a member of the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, and who attended several meetings in Ramallah. "The only one who deserves to raise the flag over an independent and free Palestine is Yasser Arafat."
The decisions to put Qureia and Abbas at the helm of the most important Palestinian institutions during the current crisis were made at a series of high-level meetings Thursday in Ramallah, according to Cabinet Minister Saeb Erekat, the Palestinians' chief negotiator with Israel.
The meetings and appointments "are intended to show there's no vacuum, and that Palestinian institutions can function and will function" regardless of Arafat's condition, Erekat said.
Neither Qureia, 66, nor Abbas, 69, has Arafat's charisma, and neither is particularly popular among Palestinians, who in opinion polls have complained that their government is ineffectual.
But both Qureia and Abbas are well-known establishment figures who over the years have developed good working relations with senior Israeli politicians, including Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Both also are well-known internationally and have had substantial contacts with senior U.S. officials.
Both, but particularly Abbas, have been outspoken critics of Palestinian terrorism and have condemned the decision by radical groups to wage a suicide bombing campaign against Israelis. Both have also engaged in power struggles with Arafat, trying to force him to relinquish his control over Palestinian security organizations and implement democratic reforms.
Neither succeeded. Abbas, the first person ever to hold the prime minister's job, resigned in September 2003 after four months in office. One of his main complaints was that Arafat would not reform the security agencies. Qureia, his replacement, resigned in July, but retracted the resignation when Arafat agreed to security reforms. However, Arafat never delivered on the pledge, and the two have continued to feud over the issue.
As Arafat's health deteriorated Thursday, Palestinian officials met in nearly nonstop emergency sessions. Some meetings were held in Arafat's heavily damaged compound in Ramallah, then continued at Abbas's home nearby, Palestinian officials said. In the official meeting chambers of Arafat's governmental center, officials left his chair at the head of the table empty.
Arafat never groomed a successor and often thwarted rivals from gaining power.
In recent months, well before Arafat's illness, the Palestinian Authority was embroiled in factionalism and dissent. Younger members demanded change, rival security forces in Gaza battled in the streets and militant organizations agitated for more financial support for their members and for the impoverished refugee camps where most of their families live.
Reaction to Arafat's deteriorating condition was subdued in the face of a barrage of conflicting media reports of his imminent death and statements from Palestinian officials attempting to play down the severity of the situation.
"He created this monument, the Palestinian entity," said Hind Barghouti, 50, a high school principal who stood outside the Ramallah compound with her two children and about 300 others in an impromptu vigil. "He is the symbol of the Palestinian people. The least I could do is come and rally around the compound to show my support."
But crowds outside the headquarters where Arafat spent the last 2 1/2 years -- never leaving for fear that Israeli soldiers would force him into exile or kill him -- were subdued compared with the boisterous mobs of thousands who have collected there during past Palestinian crises.
In Israel, there were high-level meetings much of the day as senior government officials from various agencies debated how to deal with potentially thorny problems should Arafat die. Sharon said at a cabinet meeting Sunday that he would not allow Arafat to be buried in Jerusalem, which both Israelis and Palestinians claim as their capital, and senior officials were discussing what to do if the Palestinians demanded a Jerusalem burial.
Another potential problem was how Israel would react to a state funeral in the West Bank that could draw Arab and Islamic dignitaries from such enemies of Israel as Libya and Iran. Leaders of those countries and others from the Middle East would likely fly into Amman, the Jordanian capital, then attempt to enter the West Bank over the Allenby Bridge, a major border crossing under Israeli army control about 25 miles east of Jerusalem.
Special correspondent Sufian Taha in Ramallah contributed to this report.
-------- latin america
Brazil minister quits in army row
BBC
5 November, 2004
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3984363.stm
The Brazilian defence minister has resigned from his post following a row with the army over the country's 1964-85 military dictatorship.
Jose Viegas was angered by a statement issued by the army which defended the conduct of the military government.
He tendered his resignation nearly two weeks ago but it was only publicly accepted by President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva ("Lula") on Thursday.
Vice-President Jose Alencar has been named as his successor.
The row erupted on 17 October when a newspaper published photographs of a naked man in a prison cell, said to be a journalist who died in military custody in 1975.
In response, the Brazilian army put out a statement defending the military government's actions, which it suggested constituted "a legitimate answer to the violence of those who refused dialogue".
The statement was not cleared with politicians, and a furious Mr Viegas failed to be pacified by a later statement from an army commander regretting the deaths of political prisoners.
In his resignation letter, Mr Viegas said the army statement, "in totally inadequate language, tried to justify deplorable episodes from the past".
The statement "represents the persistence of an authoritarian thinking, connected to an old and anachronistic doctrine of national security, incompatible with democracy and Brazil in the 21st century," he said, in a copy of the letter published by news service Folha Online.
Dark past
The military ruled Brazil by decree, giving free reign to army units repressing dissenters and imposing harsh restrictions on the press.
Some 400 opposition figures were killed, and many more faced kidnap and torture.
Like many other South American nations, evidence of the abuses of the military dictatorship has been kept classified.
What makes this all the more explosive is the fact that some of those who opposed the military regime are now members of Lula's left-leaning government, says the BBC's Steve Kingstone in Sao Paulo.
In 1980 Lula himself was briefly imprisoned, he says.
Mr Viegas oversaw the dispatch of Brazilian troops as part of a peacekeeping mission to Haiti, and a new law allowing suspected drug-smuggling aircraft to be shot down over the Amazon.
-------- nato
NATO chief hails alliance relations with Armenia
YEREVAN (AFP)
Nov 05, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041105153155.bpmcwqxn.html
NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer Friday hailed the alliance's relations with the former Soviet republic of Armenia as he wrapped up a tour of the Caucasus.
"Armenia has agreed in principle to start work on an Individual Partnership Action Plan (IPAP) with NATO," he said after arriving in Armenia from Azerbaijan.
"This is quite a significant step in the development of our relations," he said.
De Hoop Scheffer arrived in Armenia at the tail end of his tour of the Caucasus that also took him to Georgia and Azerbaijan.
Earlier in Baku on Friday, he told Azerbaijan to "turn a page" in its relations with archrival Armenia, its neighbor with which it remains in a state of war.
"At a certain stage you'll have to turn a page," de Hoop Scheffer said as he prepared to fly out of oil-rich Azerbaijan, where he met with President Ilham Aliyev, to neighboring Armenia to hold talks with its President Robert Kocharian.
The former Soviet republics of Azerbaijan and Armenia fought a war in the 1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, over Nagorno-Karabakh, an ethnic Armenian enclave in Azeri territory.
A cease-fire agreement was signed in 1994 with Nagorno-Karabakh effectively remaining in Armenian hands, but with Baku still claiming rights to it. The two sides have yet to sign a peace treaty and formally remain in a state of war.
In September, Azerbaijan refused to let officers from Armenia take part in NATO-sponsored war games on its territory. The games were called off as a result.
"These kind of activities should be accessible for anybody and everybody," De Hoop Scheffer said Friday. "My advice would be if there is Armenian representation, what is a better way ... to discuss these fundamental problems. Let the Azeri voice be heard also in the presence of (Armenians)."
The war between Armenia and Azerbaijan killed an estimated 35,000 people and displace close to one million.
Years of negotiations chaired by the so-called Minsk group -- chaired by France, Russia and the United States and operating under a mandate from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe -- have failed to find a solution and today no transport or communication lines link the two neighbors.
Nagorno-Karabakh "is a big problem which has created a lot of suffering already for much too many years and which urgently needs a solution," De Hoop Scheffer said.
The NATO chief arrived in Baku from neighboring Georgia, where he met with President Mikhail Saakashvili, who aims to join the alliance within four years.
-------- russia / chechnya
New Russian army chief appointed
MOSCOW (AFP)
Nov 05, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041105154421.6rlb4cbe.html
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday appointed the current deputy commander of Russian forces in the northern Caucasus commander in chief of the Russian army, news agencies reported.
Alexei Maslov's appointment comes at a time when there are signs of discontent in the senior ranks of the Russian military at a reorganisation programme.
Maslov, 51, and his predecessor, General Nikolai Kormiltsev, were received by Putin, who expressed the wish that by the end of 2007 "there will be no more troops involved in serving in the northern Caucasus."
The Russian army is largely made up of conscripts and has about 1.3 million men and women under arms. It is engaged in turning itself into a partially-professional force though the process has fallen behind schedule.
In August the general staff had to suspend the reform and reorganisation of the armed forces while it reshuffled its central command.
The shake-up caused considerable discontent among senior officers opposed to the modernisation of the armed forces, according to the weekly military commentary in Friday's edition of the daily newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta.
Kormiltsev "practically slammed the door" following the reform, according to the paper, because he not only "lost the title of deputy defence minister" but was compelled to take on duties "which have nothing to do with strengthening the defence of the country."
"Generals and officers are running away from the administrative reforms of (Defence Minister) Sergei Ivanov", a close Putin ally, according to a headline in the paper, which claims several senior officers, among them deputy air force commander General Dmitri Morozov, recently handed in their resignations.
-------- spies
Clarke: Nations using internet to spy
Friday 05 November 2004,
Reuters
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/D29B0874-8690-4929-9BFE-44E59F217582.htm
The world's most advanced military powers are using the internet to spy on their enemies and prepare digital attacks against targets, a leading cyber security expert has said. "When there's a major cyber incident it's very difficult to prove most of the time who did it," said Richard Clarke on Friday, former White House adviser on national security and cyber threats.
"There are incidents, I think, where governments are involved, doing either reconnaissance or testing out concepts, probing for weaknesses."
Clarke said he suspects Russia and China are the most pervasive users of internet for intelligence-gathering on suspected enemy states and plotting ways to use the information for military purposes.
"Maybe the United States too," he said.
Increasing sophistication
Clarke worked for the last three US presidents as a White House national security adviser. He resigned after the September 11 2001 attacks on America and has been a vocal critic of the Bush administration's so-called war on terror and Iraq campaign.
His latest comments come as network security experts report a growing sophistication of attacks on business and government websites, either knocking them offline for long periods or cracking their defences to steal trade secrets.
Clarke resigned after the September 11 2001 attacks With more of the world's crucial national infrastructure - from emergency police hotlines to power grids - connected, at times, to the public internet, the risk of cyber attacks is growing.
In addition, a new crop of elaborate computer programmes has been unleashed on the internet, capable of snooping on security networks for top secret information.
Experts agree there is scant evidence so far of state-sponsored efforts to hack into military computer systems or compromise national security networks.
But the growing severity of internet attacks and the rise of malicious spying programmes have led many to conclude this is the handiwork of professionals with advanced computing skills, ample funding and a military mindset.
Organised crime
Law enforcement officials believe organised crime is behind much of the new so-called "spyware" that emerges on the internet daily. The programmes have proved adept at conning consumers out of money or stealing their banking details and major companies have been hit as well.
"Organised hacking is mainly done for economic purposes," said Ira Winkler, a former network security specialist for America's National Security Agency.
"I would hope that one of the lessons we learned from September 11 is that you don't wait for a disaster to occur before we fix the problems we know exist"
Richard Clarke, Ex-White House security adviser He added some governments are also interested in using the medium to steal a march on their economic rivals, as the internet has proved to be one of the best resources for corporate espionage.
For that reason, security experts have begun to warn the world's most visible multi-national conglomerates to shore up their networks defences against cyber snooping - with mixed results.
Clarke said the most industrialised nations of the world remain at risk to some form of cyber attacks against both the corporate sector and their national infrastructure because investment in shoring up these networks has been weak.
"I would hope that one of the lessons we learned from September 11 is that you don't wait for a disaster to occur before we fix the problems we know exist," he said.
----
CIA's Goss Names Undercover Officer To No. 3 Position
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 5, 2004; Page A02
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26468-2004Nov4.html
CIA Director Porter J. Goss has selected a 22-year undercover logistics officer nicknamed "Dusty" as executive director, the third-ranking position at the agency.
A public announcement of the choice is being delayed until his name can be "cleared" and made public, a senior administration official said yesterday. "He is undercover at this time but will become public fairly soon," the official said. Because Dusty has had five overseas tours in undercover roles, the agency must "roll back his name" to ensure that those holding embassy positions he once occupied are no longer agency personnel, a former CIA official said.
The executive director manages the day-to-day administrative activities of the $5 billion agency, including personnel and budgeting matters, while the director and deputy director focus on intelligence and clandestine operations.
Described as a logistician, Dusty has served at home and abroad, including work for the counterterrorism center, the directorate of science and technology, and the administrative directorate, officials said. Several retired and active agency officials noted that although he had run offices overseas, Dusty had no experience managing an operation as big as the CIA.
Three retired officials noted that Dusty had maintained a close relationship in recent years with several Republican staff members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence whom Goss, the panel's former chairman, has brought to the agency as his top assistants.
Dusty is also a critic of a controversial new pay-for-performance compensation reform plan that was put together by A.B. "Buzzy" Krongard, who served as executive director under former CIA director George J. Tenet.
Goss's initial pick for executive director, Michael V. Kostiw, a former committee staff member, withdrew last month after it was disclosed that he had resigned from the agency under pressure more than 20 years ago. Kostiw was named a special assistant to Goss.
--------
Retired Official Defends the CIA's Performance
By Dana Priest
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 5, 2004; Page A23
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A26485-2004Nov4?language=printer
In April, James L. Pavitt became the first director of the CIA's clandestine service ever to testify publicly before Congress. While he was not technically undercover as the deputy director of operations, just about everything he was in charge of for five years was.
Having retired in August after 31 years at the CIA, Pavitt has become the agency's most senior public advocate, defending the spies and analysts who have come under attack by Congress, the 9/11 commission, the White House and, most recently, their new CIA director, former House Intelligence Committee chairman Porter J. Goss.
Pavitt thinks invading Iraq "was the right thing to do" because, even though no weapons of mass destruction were found and no direct link to al Qaeda was established, Saddam Hussein had tried to assassinate former president George H.W. Bush.
"Were they terrorists in their own right?" he said. "Yes, I believe they were."
At the same time, Pavitt believes the postwar occupation has been marred by misguided initial decisions to exclude the State Department from managing relations with an emerging Iraqi leadership, as well as decisions to disband the army and disqualify all former Baath Party members from working in the new government.
The way the United States encouraged reconciliation of former Communist Party members in Eastern Europe after the Soviet Union dissolved "offered some insights on the way we could deal with Iraq," Pavitt said in the first lengthy newspaper interview since his retirement. "Not everyone who was a Baathist was an ardent supporter of Saddam Hussein, or some kind of criminal. There were people who felt they had to be part of the party."
Earlier this year, the Bush administration softened its de-Baathification program. It has also allowed some former military officers to join the new army and has put a U.S. ambassador in charge of the reconstruction and of nonmilitary U.S. relations with Iraq's interim government.
But on the more general chaos of the occupation, Pavitt said the CIA "made it clear, as I recall it, that the possibility and prospect for insurgency was real and genuine."
"The window we had on the ground in Iraq after the fighting stopped was a brief window. . . . Anyone who believed we could walk into Baghdad and be greeted as liberators for very long, I think simply didn't know very much about the history of Iraq. . . . Trying to hold Iraq together with concepts that are important to us -- democratic institutions and so forth -- is going to take some time. I don't think anybody should be surprised it's rough going," he said.
To succeed in Iraq now, he said, sitting in his family room in front of a crackling fire and surrounded by original art that he has collected over the years, "will require flexibility, perhaps more flexibility than we've seen in the past."
Pavitt's directorate of operations was responsible for knowing the plans and intentions of Osama bin Laden and other terrorists, for inserting CIA paramilitary units into Afghanistan after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and for sending secret teams into Pakistan, Indonesia, Thailand and Somalia to snatch al Qaeda members with the help of local security forces.
His operatives were the first to fire Hellfire missiles mounted on an unmanned aerial vehicle at an al Qaeda convoy in Sudan, killing them all, including a U.S. citizen. They interrogate the likes of Khalid Sheik Mohammed and Ramzi Binalshibh and have secretly transported dozens of terrorists around the world. They recruited and debriefed foreign agents with information about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction before the war and were assigned to kill or capture the Iraqi leader once the war began.
In the aftermath of Sept. 11, the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and the surprisingly strong and growing insurgency in Iraq, Pavitt's department has been chastised frequently, and in public, for what it did and did not do in Iraq and to stop al Qaeda.
In one recent authorization bill, the Republican-led House Intelligence Committee, then chaired by Goss, warned that the CIA's spy operations were headed "over the proverbial cliff" and that "the nimble, flexible, core-mission-oriented enterprise the D.O. [directorate of operations] once was, is becoming just a fleeting memory."
The criticism makes Pavitt bristle.
"I think there needs to be a clearer understanding that human intelligence is extraordinarily valuable, but those who expect perfection out of it will always be disappointed," he said. "If we are right 40 to 50 percent of the time, we're batting pretty well."
Creating a national intelligence director as was proposed by congressional committees and the 9/11 commission, will not necessarily fix the problems, he said. "And to suggest that if we don't act" to create such a director that terrorist strikes against the United States are more likely "is simply not right," he said. "There are no easy fixes."
Terrorism, said Pavitt, "is not going to be gone a year from now. My children, your children are going to have to worry about this a long time from now. If that's true, we're not going to just make it all better, make the nation safer overnight by making a new bureaucratic structure."
Pavitt, who plans to join the private sector soon, although he declines to say in what capacity, said it will take years to train and season the numbers and kinds of American spies the CIA needs to infiltrate al Qaeda -- or, more likely, to recruit foreign agents who can get inside the terrorist group.
"There seemed to be shock and dismay when [former CIA director George J. Tenet] said it would take five years until the human service is healthy again. Spare me! Stop! It's no surprise to anyone," Pavitt said.
Actually, he contends it will take longer: "I can't produce case officers overnight. It takes seven, eight, nine years" before a clandestine case officer is experienced enough to be successful against these toughest of targets.
Although Congress and the White House have given the CIA healthy increases in funding since Sept. 11, Pavitt said too much of the new money, to stay within deficit ceilings, is given in yearly supplemental funds. Without a sustained financial commitment to pay for larger recruiting and training programs, he said, managers cannot put the necessary infrastructure in place.
"It's a hell of a way to run a railroad, by the way," he said. "We've got money now to deal with the crisis of the moment and the crisis of the moment is Iraq and terrorism. There's some other money, but nowhere near the kind of investment that's necessary."
---------
Jury in Siberia Convicts Physicist of Spying for China
November 5, 2004
By STEVEN LEE MYERS
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/05/international/europe/05cnd-russia.html
MOSCOW, Nov. 5 - A jury in Siberia convicted a physicist today of spying for China, overturning a previous jury's acquittal after a closed trial that highlighted flaws in Russia's judicial system.
The jury rendered its verdict on the central espionage charge against the physicist, Valentin V. Danilov, even though the court's judges have yet to hold a hearing to decide whether the information he is accused of passing along is even secret, his lawyer said. That hearing is now scheduled for Nov. 10.
"This has no legal or logical justification," the lawyer, Yelena V. Yevlinova, said in a telephone interview from Krasnoyarsk, the regional capital in central Siberia where the trial was held.
Mr. Danilov, a researcher at Krasnoyarsk State University who was first charged in 2001, has acknowledged selling information about satellite technology to a Chinese company but argued that all of it was readily available from public sources.
Mr. Danilov was initially acquitted last December. His trial was the first of a recent flurry of espionage cases against scientists and researchers to be decided by a jury. Jury trials are still a relative novelty in Russia, having become an option for defendants in some serious cases only in 2002.
Although a new criminal code adopted that year was supposed to end double jeopardy except in extreme cases of judicial misconduct, prosecutors appealed his acquittal, citing "significant procedural violations" during his first trial. Among them was the fact that Mr. Danilov's lawyers discussed material in front of jurors that had not been accepted as evidence.
In June, the Supreme Court ordered a new trial, which began in September and was closed to the media and the public. Ms. Yevlinova said that the court's chief judge refused to let her present evidence showing that the information Mr. Danilov showed was not classified as secret. She said that, in effect, the jury's 12 members found that he signed a contract with the Chinese company, known as the Export and Import Company of Precise Machine Building.
"It is not clear what crime he was convicted of," she said.
Mr. Danilov, in a telephone interview, questioned the selection of the jury and the fact a list of the jurors was never published. He said he suspected they acted under pressure. "Not one of the jurors looked me in the face when the verdict was read," he said. "When someone does not look you in the eyes, it means that they have problems with their conscience."
Mr. Danilov's case - like the more prominent trial of Russia's richest man, Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky - has dashed the hopes of some that the legal reforms adopted in 2002 would give the judiciary greater independence. In practice, courts remain subject to the powerful influence of prosecutors and agencies like the Federal Security Service, the successor of the Soviet K.G.B.
In April, a jury convicted an arms control researcher, Igor Sutyagin, on charges similar to those against Mr. Danilov. Human-rights organizations have criticized such prosecutions, saying they reflect a wariness of contacts between scientists and foreigners under President Vladimir V. Putin, especially those involving sensitive matters of the military.
Mr. Sutyagin, who worked for the U.S.A. and Canada Institute, was accused of passing secrets to a British company that prosecutors said was a front for the Central Intelligence Agency. Mr. Sutyagin, who argued that he could not have passed on secrets since he had no access to state secrets, was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
Sophia Kishkovsky contributed reporting for this article.
-------- us
Air Force report calls for $7.5M to study psychic teleportation
11/5/2004
USA TODAY
By Dan Vergano
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2004-11-05-teleportation_x.htm
Star Trek fans may be happy to hear that the Air Force has paid to study psychic teleportation.
But scientists aren't so thrilled.
The Air Force Research Lab's August "Teleportation Physics Report," posted earlier this week on the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) Web site, struck a raw nerve with physicists and critics of wasteful military spending.
In the report, author Eric Davis says psychic teleportation, moving yourself from location to location through mind powers, is "quite real and can be controlled." The 88-page report also reviews a range of teleportation concepts and experiments:
• Quantum teleportation, a technique demonstrated in the last decade that shifts the characteristics, but not the location, of sub-atomic particles at great distances.
• Wormholes, a highly theoretical possibility whereby the intense gravitational field near black holes could rip open entrances to distant locales.
• Psychokinesis, or psychic teleportation. In support of the idea, the report cites UFO reports, Soviet and Chinese studies of psychics and U.S. military studies of spoon-bending phenomena.
"It is in large part crackpot physics," says physicist Lawrence Krauss of Case Western Reserve University, author of The Physics of Star Trek, a book detailing the physical limits that prevent teleportation. He describes the Air Force report as "some things adapted from reasonable theoretical studies, and other things from nonsensical ones."
Some experts have long criticized what they see as a military sweet tooth for junk science. A "remote viewing" project, for example, undertaken by defense intelligence services and declassified in 1994, sought to see whether psychic powers could be employed to spy on the Soviet Union. The teleportation report "raises questions of scientific quality control at the Air Force," the FAS' Steven Aftergood says.
Davis, a physicist with Warp Drive Metrics of Las Vegas, couldn't be reached for comment. The Air Force paid $25,000 for the report, part of a $20.5 million advanced rocket and missile design contract. The report calls for $7.5 million to conduct psychic teleportation experiments.
"The views expressed in the report are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy of the Air Force, the Department of Defense or the U.S. Government," says an Air Force Research Lab (AFRL) statement sent to USA TODAY. "There are no plans by the AFRL Propulsion Directorate for additional funding on this contract."
Explaining why the lab sponsored the study, AFRL spokesman Ranney Adams said, "If we don't turn over stones, we don't know if we have missed something."
--------
Warplane Strafes a School in New Jersey
November 5, 2004
The New York Times
By ROBERT D. McFADDEN and ROBERT HANLEY
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/05/nyregion/05strafe.html?hp&ex=1099717200&en=532b0e2b70d21ff5&ei=5094&partner=homepage
It sounded like somebody running across the roof of the elementary school in a New Jersey township Wednesday night, said the cleaning woman who called the police. No prowler was found. But yesterday, what had seemed a minor item in a police blotter touched off state and federal military investigations after it was disclosed that an F-16 warplane had strafed the school with cannon fire.
The Air National Guard warplane, flying a night training mission out of Andrews Air Force Base near Washington, fired a burst of 27 rounds from its 20-millimeter cannon shortly before 10:15 p.m. as it streaked over Little Egg Harbor Township, 20 miles north of Atlantic City, New Jersey military officials said last night.
Col. Brian Webster, commander of the 177th Fighter Wing of the New Jersey Air National Guard, said that the pilot, who was not identified, fired the cannon inadvertently just as he turned into a dive to strafe a target at the Warren Grove firing range in Ocean County, a sprawling military reservation in the Pine Barrens that has been used for bombing and strafing practice since World War II.
The pilot was to have fired the half-second burst of shells well into the dive, at about 5,000 feet, the colonel said, but instead the cannon went off at an altitude of 7,000 feet, and at least eight of the bullets - non-explosive lead slugs more than 2 inches long - crashed through the roof of Little Egg Harbor Intermediate School, three miles south of the target range. No one was hurt, and the damage was minor.
It was unclear whether any other structures were hit. Five slugs were found in the school parking lot, and 14 others apparently came down harmlessly in the neighborhood, where houses are set far apart and surrounded by woods. Fewer than 16,000 people live in the 50-square-mile township.
"The National Guard takes this situation very seriously," Lt. Col. Roberta Niedt, a spokeswoman for the New Jersey Department of Military and Veterans Affairs, said. "The safety of our people and the surrounding communities are our foremost concern."
At the time of the firing, the one-story school on Frog Pond Road, two miles south of the Garden State Parkway, was unoccupied except for four members of the night custodial staff. One of them, a woman cleaning a third-grade classroom who asked not to be identified, thought the shots sounded like scurrying footsteps overhead. Concerned about a possible prowler, she called the police.
"It sounded like someone was running across the roof to her," Lt. John O'Brien, of the township police, recalled in an interview yesterday. Officers were dispatched, but in the darkness they found no one on the roof and no signs of a prowler. The incident was duly recorded in the police log.
Yesterday, however, custodians arriving at the school found 13 cannon slugs - 5 in a parking lot and 8 inside the school in various classrooms and offices, said Fred Zimmerman, the director of instructional services.
The police said there were holes in the roof and in the ceilings and floors of several classrooms, a hallway and an office. At least one desk was hit, ceiling tiles had fallen in some classrooms, and there were scratch marks on the building's brick exterior.
The school's 970 pupils, in grades three through six, had no classes yesterday or today because the state's teachers were at an annual convention in Atlantic City. They will return on Monday, school officials said.
Michael Dupuis, the president of the township school board, said that residents and school officials were concerned over the incident, but not unduly so, and had no misgivings about living near the firing range. "There will be concerns, but I feel confident that the military has done and is doing everything it can to safeguard against any occurrences of this nature," he said.
Colonel Webster said the incident yesterday was under investigation by the Pentagon and state officials. "We have no idea why the gun went off," he said. "This is a very unusual and unique thing." He said the range at Warren Grove had been open for more than 40 years and that this was the first time bullets fired from the air had struck off the range. It was unclear who reported the incident to military officials.
But there have been problems from time to time. In January 2002, a New Jersey Air National Guard jet crashed near the Garden State Parkway, but the pilot parachuted safely, and no one was injured. In June 2001, an F-16 on practice run dropped a 25-pound smoke bomb that burned 1,600 acres of pine forests in Ocean County. And in 1999, another bombing run went awry and 11,000 acres of pine forests burned.
The planes, assigned to the 113th Wing of the District of Columbia Air National Guard, had taken off earlier in the evening from Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland. The 20-millimeter cannon of an F-16, an M61-A1 Vulcan, normally holds 540 rounds, but on training missions, the colonel said, limiting devices allow only 110 bullets to be fired on a flight.
Colonel Webster said the F-16 was north of the target range and the school and was turning toward the southeast to begin a 30-degree strafing dive when the cannon went off prematurely some 2,000 feet above the normal level for opening fire. "It was not an intentional release," the colonel said. "We do not engage targets unless we're aimed at them. He was aimed at space."
---------
F-16 fighter jet accidentally fires on New Jersey school
WASHINGTON (AFP)
Nov 05, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041105193252.51o9fkne.html
The US air force is investigating an incident in which an F-16 fighter on a training mission accidentally sprayed a New Jersey school with non-explosive rounds of 20-mm ammunition, a spokeswoman for the New Jersey Air National Guard said Friday.
No one was injured in the incident which occurred at around 9:00 pm Wednesday (0200 GMT Thursday), said Lieutenant Colonel Roberta Niedt.
Niedt said the F-16, which was assigned to the District of Columbia Air National Guard, was in the airspace of a New Jersey gunnery range when it accidentally discharged 25 training rounds.
"An undetermined number of rounds hit the Little Egg Harbor Township Intermediate School," she said.
She said a couple of rounds hit the parking lot, and police reported that five rounds went through the school roof.
No one was in the building at the time.
Damage to the school was described as minor, and classes were expected to resume Monday on schedule.
Operations have been suspended at the 2,400 acre Warren Grove Gunnery Range, the largest of its kind in the United States and a primary training site in the northeastern United States.
The air force as well as local authorities are investigating the incident, Neidt said.
"The National Guard takes this situation very seriously," she said. "The safety of our people and the surrounding communities are our foremost concern."
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Injured Troops Look for Courage, Face Fears
Amid Traumatized Marines, Field Hospital Staff Prepares for Possible Fallujah Offensive
By Jackie Spinner
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 5, 2004; Page A18
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A25528-2004Nov4?language=printer
NEAR FALLUJAH, Iraq, Nov. 4 -- He wants to get back into the fight, but Dennis Astor has to first work up the courage to go outside by himself at night.
"That's the only thing that bothers me," said the 22-year-old U.S. Navy hospital corpsman 3rd class, who was injured five days ago when a suicide bomber blew up next to his military convoy, killing eight Marines and injuring nine others. "I'm just afraid my friends are going to pop up outside, and I'll see them, see my dead friends."
Astor, a medic with the Marine Battalion Landing Team 13 based in Kaneohe, Hawaii, was recuperating Thursday in a ward of the Bravo Surgical Company hospital at a Marine outpost not far from where his convoy was attacked.
While two of his injured platoon members played a video game, "Ghost Recon," Astor, a slight sailor with a baby face pocked with scabs, stretched out on a cot, his radio tuned to a U.S. music station. His left arm, with second-degree burns, was cradled in a green sling and his forehead was stitched where doctors had removed a piece of shrapnel.
"I think there might still be a piece in there," Astor said, rubbing his index finger across the stitches.
Like the rest of the Marine outpost, this field hospital is preparing for a potential battle in Fallujah, which insurgents have controlled for six months. A few days ago, Marines unloaded racks of body bags, and the staff at the hospital has more than doubled so it can handle one of the few near certainties in any upcoming operation: There will be casualties.
The hospital has three operating rooms to handle the wounded and a mortuary affairs unit that handles those killed in action. "Wounded and angels coming in," said Cmdr. Loch Noyes, a general surgeon at the hospital. "That's our abbreviation."
On a busy day, the hospital handles nearly 30 casualties, including Iraqi civilians and insurgents who are wounded in clashes with American forces. Doctors expect the number to double during an offensive, said Capt. Eric Lovell, an emergency medicine physician.
Unfortunately, he said, "if we build it, they will come, and we're building for it."
On Thursday afternoon, medics brought in two Marines and an American photographer who were injured when a roadside bomb blew up as their light armored vehicle passed during a patrol near Fallujah. None of the injuries was life-threatening.
The photographer, Stephanie Kuykendal, 28, of St. Louis, who was working for Corbis, a photo agency, was the first journalist injured in the lead-up to the possible offensive. Kuykendal, whose photographs have appeared in The Washington Post, was embedded with a Marine unit when the attack occurred. She was injured in her face and mouth and evacuated by helicopter to a military hospital in Baghdad. The Marines, whose identities were withheld by the military, suffered burns.
Noyes, the surgeon, said doctors at the field hospital mostly do "damage control."
"We do what we can to stop the bleeding," he said. "All we're trying to do is stop them from dying."
The stress can take its toll, doctors and nurses at the hospital said. But "there is a job to be done," Noyes added.
"We don't make policy," he said. "We take care of patients who walk through our doorstep. Sometimes it brings tears to our eyes. But that doesn't help the patient."
Lovell, the emergency physician, said a rocket hit the Marine outpost six hours after he arrived to join the hospital in August. "The first day they missed me," he said, then dropped his voice and added, "They didn't miss someone."
In a back ward at the hospital, doctors and nurses have kept together the platoon members injured in the ambush last Saturday. Marine Staff Sgt. Jason Benedict, 28, of West Milford, N.J., whose face and arm were burned, said some of the injured were having nightmares. The events are hard to forget, he said.
The unit had been in Iraq only two weeks when it was hit.
"It was a bad day," he said. "We had no losses before that."
The platoon was riding in the middle of a truck, sitting back to back on sandbags, a protective measure against an attack.
Benedict said he didn't see the bomber and only remembered hearing a loud noise and then looking to his right where a column of Marines had been sitting. "There wasn't anybody else," he said. "There was just smoke."
As soon as the car bomb exploded, insurgents began firing weapons and rockets at the convoy, he said. The heat from the truck began setting off ammunition and mortar rounds in the packs on the truck.
Benedict said the attack was clearly coordinated between the bomber and fighters hiding in the fields off the road.
"There were a lot of hard lessons learned," he said. "We know the tactics and techniques used by the insurgents. We're more alert to our enemies hiding among the locals. I think that's why everyone was mad at first. There was no way" the locals did not know what was going on.
But Benedict said if the unit took part in an offensive on Fallujah, they would not seek revenge on the city's residents.
"We know you can't get angry with the locals, the regular people who want freedoms," he said. "It's the insurgents."
Benedict said the unit was eager to return to duty and to whatever operation that might be planned for Fallujah.
"We're anxious to get back and go back in," he said. "Nobody wants to remain here."
Astor said he knew he would probably be left behind because his burns were not healing fast enough.
"It's hard to get over it, but you just have to," he said. His buddies from his unit come to visit at the hospital and Astor said he tells them he is fine. But "deep inside, every now and then you still see the faces of your dead friends."
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
-------- courts / tribunals
Despite G.O.P. Gain, Fight Over Judges Remains
November 5, 2004
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/05/politics/campaign/05judges.html?pagewanted=all&position=
WASHINGTON, Nov. 4 - When Senator Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, faced the toughest primary race of his political career, President Bush went to his rescue, campaigning with Mr. Specter at every turn. But when both men were re-elected this week, Mr. Specter promptly made remarks that seemed to warn the president against nominating Supreme Court justices who would overturn the 1973 ruling legalizing abortion.
The Senate, Mr. Specter said, would be unlikely to approve "judges who would change the right of a woman to choose.'' On Thursday, as outraged conservatives demanded that the Senate block Mr. Specter's rise to the chairmanship of the Senate Judiciary Committee, the senator issued a statement clarifying those remarks.
"I did not warn the president about anything and was very respectful of his constitutional authority on the appointment of federal judges," Mr. Specter said, adding, "I have never and would never apply any litmus test on the abortion issue."
The controversy suggests that, despite talk of a political mandate, the long-running battle over federal judgeships will be in full bloom when the new Congress convenes next year under strengthened Republican control. Although Republicans made significant gains on Election Day, their majority of 55 senators still falls five votes short of the 60 needed to break a Democratic filibuster.
"The magic number in the Senate is 60, not 50," Senator Charles E. Schumer, the New York Democrat who sits on the Judiciary Committee, said in an interview. Mr. Schumer added, "If the president nominates people who are not part of the mainstream but who are far off, who will try to make law, not interpret it, and who will be way over to the ideological extreme, the controversy over judges will be alive."
But Senator Rick Santorum, another Pennsylvania Republican and a staunch opponent of abortion, said in a statement he looked forward to getting more judges approved.
"Senate Republicans are committed to approving all of the president's judicial nominations, despite the Democrats' rhetoric that they are committed to block judges who fail their litmus tests," Mr. Santorum said. With 55 Republicans, he added, "I am hopeful that with this increase we can overcome the Democrats' filibustering tactics."
In a telephone interview, Mr. Specter, whose support for abortion rights is well known, said he issued his statement at the suggestion of Mr. Santorum, who is a member of the Republican leadership. He said he was not worried about losing the chairmanship and added that he thought he could be a bridge between Democrats and the White House.
"I think I can be helpful to the president on getting his nominees confirmed," Mr. Specter said.
As the second-most-senior Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Mr. Specter is in line to replace the current chairman, Senator Orrin G. Hatch of Utah, who must step down under Senate rules that limit the terms of chairmen to eight years. The position will give Mr. Specter, a centrist known for an independent streak, great influence over the judicial confirmation process.
The issue of judicial nominations percolated throughout the elections, including Mr. Specter's own. This spring, he faced a difficult primary challenge from Representative Patrick J. Toomey, a conservative Republican, who labeled Mr. Specter a Ted Kennedy liberal who would block conservative judges if he ascended to the chairmanship.
With help from the White House, Mr. Specter won that race, and then on Tuesday went on to win a fifth term in the Senate, handily defeating his Democratic challenger, Representative Joseph M. Hoeffel. Fresh from his victory, Mr. Specter was asked at a news conference on Wednesday about possible retirements on the Supreme Court, and what he would do if the president nominated abortion opponents.
"When you talk about judges who would change the right of a woman to choose, overturn Roe v. Wade, I think that is unlikely" that they would be approved, Mr. Specter said at the news conference, referring to the 1973 Supreme Court ruling that made abortion legal.
He added, "The president is well aware of what happened, when a number of his nominees were sent up, with the filibuster."
On Thursday, he said in the interview that he was simply noting "the political reality of the Senate on the Democrats' filibustering."
Political analysts said they had not been surprised by the comments. Jenny Backus, a Democratic strategist, viewed them as "a little bit of payback to the conservative right for making him go through a punishing primary." She said Mr. Specter was "sending a signal that he is a force to be reckoned with inside the Senate."
G. Terry Madonna, a professor of public policy at Franklin and Marshall College in Pennsylvania who has watched Mr. Specter for years, said: "This is in a sense a declaration of independence."
But the reaction was intense. Abortion rights advocates, feeling beleaguered after Senator John Kerry's loss to Mr. Bush, said they were encouraged by Mr. Specter's remarks.
"Welcome back, Senator Specter," said Elizabeth Cavendish, interim president of Naral Pro-Choice America, in a reference to what she views as the senator's recent efforts to distance himself from abortion rights. She called his remarks "an important statement to the president that he should not interpret the election results as a mandate to take away fundamental freedoms."
But abortion opponents were beside themselves. Aides to Senate Republicans who oppose abortion said their phones rang with complaints about Mr. Specter. One group, the Concerned Women of America, declared that Mr. Specter had "Borked himself" - a reference to Judge Robert H. Bork, whose appointment to the Supreme Court was doomed after sharp questioning from Mr. Specter, who crossed party lines to vote against him.
"President Bush says his only litmus test for judges is whether they will interpret the law and not write it," said Jan LaRue, the group's chief legal counsel. She said Mr. Specter had disqualified himself from the chairmanship. "Senator Specter is openly opposed to the president and the Constitution on this."
In his statement, Mr. Santorum did not go so far as to say Mr. Specter would be chairman, but nor did he indicate that Mr. Specter was in danger of losing the chairmanship. "In the new Congress," he said, "I look forward to working with Senator Specter to guarantee that every judicial nominee put forth by President Bush has an up-or-down vote on the floor of the United States Senate."
-------- drug war
Go West to use medical marijuana
November 05, 2004
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20041104-113014-8069r.htm
With Montana's approval of a medical-marijuana initiative, nearly three-fourths of Western states now have such laws - while only two of the 37 states outside the West have adopted them. Why is the West so much more receptive to the idea?
From a procedural standpoint, it's just easier to get pot issues on Western ballots because most states in the region allow such initiatives. Nationwide, just 24 states allow citizens to put issues on the ballot by petition, bypassing the legislature. Eleven of those states are in the West.
But activists and political scientists also say Westerners are less willing than other Americans to tell their neighbors what they can and can't do. And historically, Western states tend to be in front on social trends.
"I would guess many of the people that voted for it probably don't use marijuana, but they don't want to say their neighbors can't," said Steven Stehr, political science professor at Washington State University.
"Westerners have a stronger belief in kind of individualism in the old-fashioned frontier sense," said Sven Steinmo, a University of Colorado political scientist and board member for the Center of the American West.
The population also is newer than the rest of the country and states don't have deeply ingrained traditions, said David Olson, political scientist at the University of Washington.
"Our politics in the West are much less constrained... and it gives opportunities for initiatives like the death-with-dignity issue in Oregon or medicinal marijuana. You name it," Mr. Olson said.
Montana has become the 11th state in the country - and the ninth Western state - to allow medical marijuana. The approval came even as Montana voted by wide margins to ban homosexual "marriage" and to re-elect President Bush.
"We always say in Montana we're extraordinarily independent, so we'll vote for contradictory things," said Jerry Calvert, political science professor at Montana State University in Bozeman.
The Montana initiative passed 62 percent to 38 percent, support that marijuana-reform groups say was the highest ever for a medical-marijuana ballot initiative.
Oregon voters rejected a measure that dramatically would have expanded its existing medical-marijuana program. That may have been too ambitious even for the West, said Bruce Mirken, spokesman for the Marijuana Policy Project.
Alaska, which also has an existing medical-marijuana law, rejected a measure to decriminalize the drug, though marijuana groups were impressed that 43 percent of voters there supported it. Outside the region, voters in Ann Arbor, Mich., and Columbia, Mo., approved local medical-marijuana measures.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco has ruled that states are free to adopt medical-marijuana laws as long as the marijuana is not sold, transported across state lines or used for nonmedicinal purposes. The ruling covers only those Western states in the circuit. The Bush administration has appealed the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Besides the favorable initiative process in the West, the region also usually is the point of origin of progressive political movements that work their way east, said Keith Stroup, executive director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.
In addition to Montana, Western states that allow medical-marijuana use are Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon and Washington. Arizona has a law permitting marijuana prescriptions, but no active program. Maine and Vermont are the only states outside the West with existing medical-marijuana laws.
-------- homeland security / national intelligence
'No-Fly List' discriminates against some
November 05, 2004
(UPI)
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20041105-115215-6783r.htm
SEATTLE, WA, Nov. 5 -- An attorney says the U.S. government's "No-Fly List" discriminates against his clients who are repeatedly subjected to extensive searches.
American Civil Liberties Union attorney Reginald Shuford said in federal court in Seattle Thursday that his clients have been repeatedly been required to undergo airport searches and delays because their names are similar to ones on the No-Fly list, reported the Seattle Post-Intelligencer Friday.
Shuford said his clients understand the need for careful scrutiny, but such scrutiny has been repeated over and over again after they have been confirmed not being on the No-Fly list.
Federal prosecutors said there is no right to proceed through an airport without delay. Courts have consistently held that searches of airline passengers are constitutional.
Ultimately all of the ACLU's clients that had been stopped for the secondary screening were cleared and boarded their flights with a delay of 25 to 45 minutes, said U.S. Department of Justice attorney Joseph LoBue.
--------
700 arrests made to avert election terrorist attack
November 05, 2004
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20041104-113016-1322r.htm
More than 700 people were arrested on immigration violations and thousands more subjected to FBI interviews in an intense government effort to avert a terrorist attack aimed at disrupting the election.
As with past unrealized al Qaeda threats, law-enforcement officials said yesterday they don't know for sure whether any of those arrests or interviews foiled an attack.
"It's very hard to prove a negative," said Michael Garcia, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) official. "We did cases and operations for people we thought posed national security concerns. We didn't arrest anyone who had a bomb."
For example, ICE agents arrested a 23-year-old Pakistani man in late October who had entered the United States illegally through Mexico in 2000 and was working as a fuel-tanker truck driver with access to a major U.S. seaport. The man, who was not further identified, is charged with making false statements about how he entered the country, and remains under investigation for any links to terrorism.
He was one of the 237 persons arrested in October alone on immigration violations, for a total of more than 700 since the enforcement effort began last year, Mr. Garcia said. "It was a broad approach that led us to have a very disruptive effect, we believe," he said.
Although the election season passed without an attack, officials say, al Qaeda remains a dangerous foe intent on striking the United States again. The day after the election, Attorney General John Ashcroft told his senior staff not to not let down their guard.
The Jan. 20 presidential inauguration heads the list of upcoming high-profile events that officials say could draw terrorist interest. Others include the Feb. 6 Super Bowl in Jacksonville, Fla., and the December holiday travel season, which last year saw several threats against trans-Atlantic flights.
There still is concern the Osama bin Laden videotape aired last week could be a signal for an attack. Despite asking for help from the public, the FBI still has not identified a man calling himself "Azzam the American," whose lengthy videotape aired last month promised attacks that will make U.S. streets "run red with blood."
The FBI interviewed about 10,000 Muslims and Arab-Americans in the months prior to Election Day in an effort to gain intelligence about people who might pose a threat and to build bridges to those communities.
Many of those interviews led officials to persons in the United States who might be linked to terrorism but had previously escaped government detection, said a senior Justice Department official speaking on the condition of anonymity because of national security concerns. The official did not provide any details.
Still, there were reports of heavy-handed tactics in some places. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) provided several examples, including a young Pakistani man who was held for five hours in Las Vegas after books on the Muslim holiday of Ramadan and Arabic grammar were found in his possession.
"This was viewed as an extension of the ongoing policies that have been targeting Muslim and Arab-American communities," CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper said. "These communities view themselves as law-abiding and contributing to society in a very positive way."
-------- police
Police Create Panel on Abuse Claims at Convention
November 5, 2004
By WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/05/nyregion/05nypd.html
In an unusual move, the New York Police Department has set up a special internal panel to examine civilian complaints of police abuse during the protests surrounding the Republican National Convention, the police and union officials said yesterday.
The panel, made up of four department chiefs, will evaluate protest-related complaints filed with the independent city agency that investigates accusations of police abuse that do not rise to the level of a crime, police officials said.
Normally, the agency, the Civilian Complaint Review Board, investigates complaints of police abuse and, in cases in which it finds misconduct, recommends whether administrative charges should be brought, officials said. But the move to set up a special panel will add another level of scrutiny to the process, which normally includes a review by lower-level department officials, who decide whether to bring charges or mete out other discipline.
The creation of the panel, first reported yesterday by The Chief-Leader, a civil service newspaper, puzzled and surprised some board officials, who said they learned of it through the article. And it prompted the New York Civil Liberties Union, a frequent critic of the department, to suggest that the additional review was an effort to insulate officers from discipline for complaints stemming from the convention, an accusation the department denied.
The review board was part of the Police Department for several decades until the City Council made it an independent, all-civilian agency in 1993. Since then, its relations with the department have ranged from tense to acrimonious. Deputy Commissioner Paul J. Browne, the department's chief spokesman, said that Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly created the panel in August before the convention largely because he was concerned about what Mr. Browne called an unusual outreach effort by the board in the run-up to the convention.
The board, Mr. Browne said, sent e-mail messages explaining how to file complaints to more than 700 protest organizations nationwide, "many of which had said publicly that it was their intention to break the law during the R.N.C., through civil disobedience or so-called direct action." Nearly 1,800 people were arrested during the convention, and some complained about the actions of some police officers. Civil liberties lawyers have sued the city, charging the department subjected protesters to wrongful arrest, improper fingerprinting and lengthy detention.
Mr. Browne said that some of the protest groups had advocated tactics to bog down the arrest system, "so it's not unreasonable to suspect that some may use the complaint procedure to do the same thing."
He said, however, that the department was not criticizing the agency's outreach efforts, which include community meetings and the use of the Internet and the city's 311 hot line to take complaints; such efforts are part of the board's mandate under the city charter.
The Chief-Leader article said the panel would review only substantiated cases, but Mr. Browne said yesterday that its mandate was broader: to review all convention-related complaints in an effort to determine whether any were frivolous. Mr. Browne also said that Mr. Kelly was concerned in August before the convention that a high number of complaints from the upcoming protests - including possibly some frivolous accusations - could skew the annual figures and that officials wanted to be able to parse those numbers.
But the board's executive director, Florence L. Finkle, said yesterday that she was confused by the department's explanation, saying that the board was investigating only 59 complaints stemming from the week of protests, and that the department had so far requested no additional documents from the agency. (The investigations have just begun, she said, and no complaints have yet been substantiated and thus none have forwarded to the department.)
She also noted that the agency releases information about its complaint numbers each month and that last year it provided detailed information about the 54 complaints that stemmed from the Feb. 15 antiwar protest on First Avenue near the United Nations. Two of those complaints were substantiated.
"The department did not notify us about the panel and I don't understand what its purpose is," said Ms. Finkle, adding that such a move was unprecedented in her eight years at the board. She said the 59 complaints on the protest statistically "does not seem like a significant number because we're on pace to receive approximately 6,300 complaints this year."
She also noted that the three review board members who heard the convention complaints included a former first deputy police commissioner; the board's chairman, Hector Gonzalez; and a third board member, noting that they had developed some expertise in this area by handling the complaints from the Feb. 15 protests.
Also leading to the creation of the new panel were concerns brought to Mr. Kelly before the convention by the five unions that represent police officers, detectives, sergeants, lieutenants and captains and other ranking officials, according to union leaders and Mr. Browne.
The unions, according to John F. Driscoll, the president of the police captains' union, met with Mr. Kelly before the convention because they were worried that officers who were the subject of substantiated complaints would lose their indemnification in any possible lawsuits brought in connection with the complaints and thus would not be represented by city lawyers.
Mr. Driscoll said he and the other union leaders made clear to Mr. Kelly that they needed assurances that their members would be indemnified for any legitimate action if they were to properly police the convention. The new panel, he said, will have the power to trump the board's findings if it views the action taken by the officer was appropriate.
-------- prisons / prisoners
Dead Inmate Exonerated in a Murder
November 5, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/05/national/05mob.html
BOSTON, Nov. 4 (AP) - A man who died in prison after serving 30 years for a mob-related murder that the authorities now acknowledge he did not commit has been posthumously exonerated by prosecutors who say he was framed.
The man, Louis Greco, who died in prison in 1995, was set up by Joseph Barboza, a hit man who became a government witness, the Suffolk County district attorney's office said in a motion filed quietly in Suffolk Superior Court in September. Also in September, a judge ruled that a civil suit in the case could go forward. The dropping of charges was reported on Thursday by The Boston Herald.
The case was part of a series of embarrassing episodes involving the Boston office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, whose relationship with mob informers has been the subject of a Congressional inquiry.
"It appears that justice may not have been done," Mark Lee, an assistant district attorney, said in the motion exonerating Mr. Greco. The motion also cites "legal and ethical considerations."
Mr. Greco always maintained he was in Florida on March 12, 1965, when Edward Deegan was gunned down in an alley. Mr. Greco was 78 when he died in a prison hospital of colon cancer and heart disease.
In 2000, a Justice Department task force uncovered secret F.B.I. memorandums showing that Mr. Greco and three co-defendants, Peter J. Limone, Joseph Salvati and Edward Tameleo, had been wrongly convicted based on perjured testimony.
The next year, a judge exonerated the surviving co-defendants, Mr. Limone, who spent 33 years in prison, and Mr. Salvati, behind bars for 30 years. Mr. Tameleo died in prison in 1985. The judge found that F.B.I. agents hid testimony that would have cleared the men because they wanted to protect Mr. Barboza, who became a witness in three mob trials.
Mr. Limone, Mr. Salvati and Mr. Greco's family sued the government for malicious prosecution, wrongful imprisonment and other claims.
In her Sept. 17 ruling allowing the suits to go forward, Judge Nancy Gertner of Federal District Court, rejected the government's argument that no laws allowed the men to sue at the time they went to prison. Congress did not vote to waive immunity to such claims until 1974.
Howard Friedman, a lawyer who represents Mr. Greco's son, Edward, told The Herald that the district attorney's decision to drop the charges would aid his lawsuit. "This was an innocent man who was framed,'' Mr. Friedman said, "and the most amazing part is the government knew it."
-------- POLITICS
-------- budget
Dollar Falls On Fears of U.S. Deficits
Big Sell-Off Unlikely, Treasury Official Says
By Paul Blustein and Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, November 5, 2004; Page E01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A26581-2004Nov4?language=printer
The dollar continued its decline in global currency markets yesterday, intensifying worries among some economists that mounting U.S. budget and trade deficits could send the U.S. currency into a tailspin.
But John B. Taylor, the Treasury undersecretary for international affairs, defended the Bush administration view that the deficits pose no danger of a dollar collapse. He issued a detailed rebuttal of what he called "scare stories."
The dollar fell yesterday to within a fraction of a cent of its all-time low against the euro of $1.2930 , trading as low as $1.2898 before rallying slightly to close at $1.2867. It fell modestly against the Japanese yen, and continued a sharp slide against the Canadian dollar, which rose to 83 U.S. cents yesterday for the first time in 12 years.
It was the second straight day that the dollar has fallen despite a surge in the stock market, continuing a trend that began in early October when it started slipping against the currencies of major U.S. trading partners. The declined rekindled the fears of some analysts that the dollar could be headed for a severe sell-off unless the White House and Congress make a major effort to shrink the budget gap.
"As the dust settles after the U.S. elections, the one theme that is developing is the growing recognition [in the markets] of the need for more dollar depreciation," economists at J.P. Morgan told clients yesterday, citing as one major reason the likelihood that "there will be no serious new policies to trim the U.S. budget deficit."
Behind such sentiments is the belief that the U.S. economy is too dependent on foreign investors, and that they may balk at pouring money into U.S. securities if the country's debt continues to soar. Foreigners have provided much of the money the government borrows to cover its deficit, which was $413 billion in the fiscal year ended Sept. 30.
"One of the big drivers in the whole big picture the markets are looking at now is our being dependent on foreign sources of funds," said David Solin, managing partner at Foreign Exchange Analytics in Essex, Conn. "Obviously, if the foreigners step back [from investing in U.S. bonds and stocks], there are going to be serious problems, not only for the dollar, but for all financial markets."
The trade deficit also creates a dependence on money from abroad because many foreigners supplying goods to the United States take the dollars they receive and effectively lend them to the United States. The simplest example of such lending is their purchase of U.S. government bonds.
Because of concerns that the United States is too much in debt, the rise in the trade gap, which is running at an anual rate of about $600 billion, also raises the specter that foreigners might dump U.S. holdings.
Those scenarios were dismissed as fanciful by Taylor, who spoke yesterday at an American Enterprise Institute seminar on the current account deficit, the broadest measure of the trade gap.
The large influx of foreign money shows that "sound, growth enhancing economic policies are continuing to make the U.S. an attractive place to invest," he said.
Taylor said administration policies already in place will help shrink the trade deficit. One is President Bush's pledge to cut the budget deficit in half, as a percentage of the U.S. gross domestic product, by 2009. That would decrease the trade deficit because lower government spending or higher taxes would reduce the amount of money consumers spend on imported goods.
Taylor pointed out that the Treasury is also prodding foreign governments to achieve faster economic growth, which should increase demand for U.S. exports, and it is trying to persuade China to change its fixed-exchange rate policy by allowing its currency, the yuan, to rise. A higher yuan would be likely to slow the flood of Chinese goods into the U.S. market because those products would become more expensive for U.S. consumers.
"Even if those policies take some time" to reduce the trade deficit, Taylor said, "there is no reason to think there will be problems in the meantime" in continuing to obtain enough money to cover the gap.
Taking issue with analysts who have voiced concern about a recent drop in investment by foreigners in U.S. Treasury bonds, Taylor said: "It is important to put the current account in the perspective of the total amount of financial flows crossing U.S. borders in large, open and flexible markets."
He cited the fact that the current account deficit increased by $19 billion in the second quarter even though government data showed a decline of about $180 billion in purchases of U.S. assets by both foreign central banks and private investors. The U.S. economy experienced no turbulence because U.S. buyers in effect replaced the foreigners.
Taylor's views were seconded by some of the other speakers at the seminar, including Allan H. Meltzer, a professor at Carnegie-Mellon University. But others maintained that the current account gap is certain to drive the dollar down one way or another -- either gently and gradually, or suddenly and sharply. Although a gradual move downward would help the economy by boosting exports, it would erode U.S. living standards below what they would be by making imported goods more expensive.
President Bush's news conference yesterday did little to lessen concerns over the deficits, Wall Street analysts and currency traders said. Bush simultaneously promised not to raise taxes under the guise of tax simplification, to pursue a costly restructuring of Social Security and to cut the budget deficit in half by 2009.
The currency markets aren't buying it, said William G. Gale, an economist at the Brookings Institution.
White House officials "have Alan Greenspan to help keep interest rates down, but they can't control the foreign exchange markets," Gale said. "I think investors are acting appropriately."
-------- investigations
US Lost Evidence of Saddam's Abuses
(Inter Press Service)
by Jim Lobe
November 5, 2004
http://www.antiwar.com/lobe/?articleid=3907
Crucial evidence of alleged human rights abuses that could be used in upcoming trials of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and his top aides has apparently been lost or damaged due to U.S. neglect, says a report released Thursday.
While charges continue to fly that U.S.-led coalition forces failed to secure stockpiles of arms and explosives after invading Iraq, weapons now turned against them in the violence-ridden occupied nation, U.S.-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) says Pentagon planners also did not protect potential evidence of massive rights abuses.
In a 41-page report, "Iraq: The State of the Evidence," the group charged that the failure to secure the evidence, particularly mass burial sites, has frustrated the efforts of families of thousands of relatives who were "disappeared" during Hussein's rule to recover records or remains.
"Given what's at stake here, the extent of this negligence is alarming," said Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of HRW's Middle East and North Africa Division.
"The U.S. and Iraqi authorities were aware that these documents and remains would be crucial to the prosecution of Saddam Hussein and other former officials, but they did little to safeguard them," she added in a statement.
The report comes at a time of some uncertainty about the fate of the Iraqi Special Tribunal (IST), the body created in December 2003 by the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) to take up a range of crimes allegedly committed by the Iraqi ex-dictator, including war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.
The IST's administrator, Salem Chalabi, was summarily fired by Iraq's interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi earlier this summer, apparently for political reasons. Allawi has called for expediting the planned trials of Hussein, who was captured last December, and some two dozen of his top aides.
In a second blow to the IST, the United Nations last month refused a request by Allawi and the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush to assist the tribunal in its work.
The world body declined because defendants who are convicted by the IST could face the death penalty and because, in the view of UN experts who have worked on war-crimes tribunals for Yugoslavia, Rwanda, and Sierra Leone, its procedures do not meet minimum international standards of justice.
The tribunal's founding statute, for example, allows for defendants' attorneys to be excluded from interrogations and even court appearances and also permits the admission of testimony obtained under coercion. HRW, as well as other independent human rights groups, have also called the tribunal "fundamentally flawed."
That Hussein and his henchmen ruled with exceptional brutality is widely accepted, although many of his victims fell in wartime - probably about one million Iraqis and Iranians during the bloody war the two Gulf powers waged between 1980 and 1988.
As many as 100,000 more - mostly Iraqi soldiers - are believed to have been killed during the 1991 Gulf War over Kuwait.
But the former leader's killing of real or suspected dissidents, including the murder of as many as 70,000 Kurds during the notorious Operation Anfal during the Iraq-Iran war and another 30,000 to 60,000 Shi'ites in the immediate aftermath of the Gulf War, are also notorious.
Altogether, Hussein is believed to be responsible for the executions of as many as 250,000 civilians since his Ba'ath Party took power in 1968.
The documentary records of these abuses were left largely intact by Iraqi officials as U.S. and coalition forces made their way to Baghdad in March and April 2003. Since the invasion, more than 250 mass graves that hold the remains of thousands of victims have been identified throughout the country.
But HRW noted that in the weeks and months that followed the invasion, U.S. and coalition forces failed to prevent people from looting thousands of documents or to keep relatives of "disappeared" persons from digging up remains found in many of the grave sites.
Moreover, once seized with the problem of disappearing evidence, the coalition proved slow to secure the offices and deploy forensic experts to the graves in order to excavate, exhume and classify the remains, both to ensure that families could know the fate of their relatives and that the evidence obtained could be used in a court of law.
The situation has not much improved since Allawi's government took over last June, adds the report, which called on him to set up a joint Iraqi and international Commission for Missing Persons to establish effective procedures for securing what documentary and forensic evidence remains.
"The extent of the negligence with which key documentary and forensic evidence has been treated to date is surprising, given that the U.S.-led coalition and Iraqi authorities alike knew that trials of Hussein and key Ba'ath government officials would be important landmarks in Iraq's political recovery, that successful trials require solid evidence and that, as international experience has shown, preserving trial-ready evidence is a difficult task," the report said.
Still, it continued, "It is not too late to assume custody of millions of additional pieces of evidence [that] may prove critical in the proceedings of the upcoming trials."
-------- propaganda wars
Bush victory infuriates world press
November 05, 2004
By Gareth Harding
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20041104-113008-5262r.htm
BRUSSELS - A mixture of dismay, despair - and in one case an unflattering assessment of the IQ of Americans who voted for President Bush - dominated European newspapers yesterday.
"How can 59,054,087 people be so dumb?" asked British Daily Mirror in a front-page banner headline that described the election result as a "disaster" and lamented "war more years."
"March of the Moral Majority," bellowed the headline on the Daily Mail.
The Independent let its pictures do the talking, with the top of Page One featuring images of Iraqis being tortured at the Abu Ghraib prison, hooded suspects on their knees in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and a Republican supporter with a sign saying, "Finally a Christian fighting evil, thank you George Bush."
The Guardian, a left-leaning British daily that encouraged readers to send letters to U.S. voters urging them to back Democratic challenger Sen. John Kerry, commented:
"We may not like it. In fact, to tell the truth, we don't like it one bit. But if it isn't a mandate, then the word has no meaning. Mr. Bush has won fair (so far as we can see) and square. He and his country - and the rest of the world - now have to deal with it."
Not all British papers were depressed at the prospect of four more years of conservative rule.
"The world is a safer place today with George W. Bush back in the Oval Office," said the Sun, Britain's best-selling daily.
"His re-election is bad news for terrorists everywhere. They know President Bush means it when he vows to root out terrorism wherever it exists. John Kerry was weak on terrorism and weak on Iraq. His one moment of strength came when he conceded defeat with dignity instead of demanding recounts."
The conservative Daily Telegraph similarly said U.S. voters "have demonstrated once and for all that no power on earth can intimidate a free nation."
But the Telegraph - like papers from Scandinavia, the Netherlands, Switzerland and in Eastern Europe - also struck a note of concern about the trans-Atlantic chasm.
It urged Europe to come to terms with an America that "is diverging from Europe: It is younger, more self-confident, more prosperous, more devout, more diligent, more democratic and, in short, more conservative."
French newspapers, which had covered the election campaign in all its gory detail, could not hide their disappointment at Mr. Bush's victory.
Describing the result as a "revolution," an editorial in leftist daily Liberation declared: "A new reactionary majority has consolidated its hold on American democracy. The rest of the world may deplore it, but it will have to adapt to this reality."
Grudging respect for the free choice of American voters was a recurrent theme in many European newspapers .
Spain's leading daily, El Pais, commented: "George W. Bush is probably not the president the rest of the world would have wanted, but it is he who American voters have democratically elected."
Winning more votes than his opponent - unlike four years ago - and not having to rely on a Supreme Court ruling for victory mattered a lot to European newspapers, many of which never regarded Mr. Bush as the legitimate leader of the United States for the past four years.
"The American people have made their choice," said a front-page editorial in Belgian daily Le Soir. "It is now up to us to manage our relations with this key nation."
Many papers said Europe's response should be to get its act together, rather than grumble endlessly about American unilateralism.
"With or without us, America will continue its foreign policy of the past four years," said Hungary's Nepszabadsag. "Europe must close ranks and build a military force in keeping with its economic weight."
Germany's Der Tagesspiegel argued, "Europe should reconsider its ambitions, which seem naive, to act as a political counterweight to the USA."
Most German papers viewed Mr. Bush's re-election with dread.
In an editorial titled "The Fundamentalist Majority," the center-left Berliner Zeitung commented: "The re-elected Bush claims he wants to reunite an extremely divided country.
"That's exactly what he promised four years ago, but he has done the opposite."
An editorial in Austria's Der Standard said of the Republican win: "The 11th of September prepared the U.S. for a man like Bush. He is the man of the dark hour."
For most European newspapers, this was not a contest between Mr. Kerry and the sitting president - it was a referendum on Mr. Bush's muscular foreign policy and conservative social values.
"Bush!" is the one-word headline on the front-page of Belgium's Le Soir, while the paper's rival La Libre Belgique was even pithier in its banner, opting for "W."
The only man more delighted with the result than Mr. Bush is "a skinny, bearded man hiding somewhere on the Afghan-Pakistani border," wrote Czech business daily Hospodarske Noviny.
The paper argued that Osama bin Laden "needs not only his faith in God Almighty but also a clearly defined enemy."
In Mr. Bush, the Saudi terrorist has one for the next four years. So do tens of millions of Europeans, the newspaper said.
--------
THE POLLING
Report Says Problems Led to Skewed Surveying Data
November 5, 2004
By JIM RUTENBERG
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/05/politics/campaign/05poll.html
The new $10 million polling system used by many news organizations to predict the outcome of the presidential race had a number of problems that led to the early erroneous impression that John Kerry was heading for victory, according to a report prepared by the system's architects.
The report, written by Joe Lenski and Warren Mitofsky and obtained by The New York Times, details systemic glitches that skewed the data in ways of which several news organizations, who paid tens of thousands of dollars for the service, were not aware.
In some cases, the report said, survey takers could not get close enough to the polls to collect adequate samples of voters opinion. They were often stopped by legal barriers devised to keep people electioneering - not necessarily bona fide poll canvassers - away from voters.
The report also theorized that the poll results more frequently overstated support for Mr. Kerry than for President Bush because the Democratic nominee's supporters were more open to pollsters. Whatever the case, according to the report, the surveys had the biggest partisan skew since at least 1988, the earliest election the report tracked.
"We share all the members' concerns about the inaccuracies in the projections produced by the early waves of exit poll data and we are personally miffed about the early results,'' the report said.
The new system was engineered to avoid such problems. It was built by the National Election Pool, a consortium of the major television networks and The Associated Press, after an earlier set-up, the Voter News Service, helped lead the networks to call the state of Florida in the 2000 election first for Al Gore, then for George W. Bush, then for neither. The system broke down almost entirely on Election Day 2002.
Since Tuesday, the networks have played down errors caused by the system. They said that the data problems were rectified as the night went on, so that the final poll, highlighting why certain blocs voted the way they did, was accurate. Perhaps most important, they say, it never led them to make a wrong call. And even critics of the system agree that many of the problems highlighted in the report are typical of such polls, which are devised to correct themselves as more data accrues.
But the problems with the data seemed seriously exacerbated this year, resulting in a number of angry subscribers.
Officials with some of the newspapers that subscribed to the service said the ultimately misleading polling data forced them to scramble late at night to change some articles. The presumption of a Kerry victory built a head of steam late in the day, when the national survey showed the senator with a statistically significant lead, one falling outside the survey's margin of error.
"The last wave of national exit polls we received, along with many other subscribers, showed Kerry winning the popular vote by 51 percent to 48 percent, if true, surely enough to carry the Electoral College,'' Steve Coll, managing editor of The Washington Post, wrote in an online chat with readers Wednesday.
In an interview yesterday, Mr. Coll said his newspaper had to scramble to make last-minute changes to an article analyzing why voters voted the way they did that was based in part on the poll data when it was clear that no such victory for Mr. Kerry was possible.
"We think it wasn't worth what we paid for it, that's for sure,'' Mr. Coll said of the survey data.
The New York Times removed an analytical piece about the vote based in part on the Election Day survey from its later editions.
Officials with the consortium said they did not yet have a full explanation for why the national poll skewed in Mr. Kerry's favor. But Mr. Lenski acknowledged that subscribers should have been made more aware of the problems that were becoming apparent through the day, as all of the partners running the system were. He said no subscribers had asked for their money back.
But while newspapers and the networks avoided any major missteps that might have been caused by the flawed data, the report struck an alarmed tone over the way the information spread throughout Internet sites. Millions of people viewing those sites may not have approached the data with enough skepticism, the report said, in part because many of the sites did not include specific or detailed caveats that the results were preliminary and many fell within margins of error.
The report saved some of its harshest words for the networks and subscribers, whom it accused of allowing the data to leak.
"If it were not for leaks we would not have much of the problem forced on us by the leakees: the nonsubscribing media and the politicos,'' the report said. "They don't know how to evaluate what is being leaked, and then they demand that the leaked results be accurate in midday before it is vetted and before it is complete."
It went on, "We made a mistake in not realizing the full impact of these leaked exit poll numbers on the political discourse of the day.''
Even Tony Blair, the British prime minister, was fooled. In an interview with The Times of London, Mr. Blair said he had gone to bed thinking Mr. Kerry was the next president of the United States, only to wake up to learn otherwise.
It is unclear if the poll information affected the vote. Mark Mellman, a Democratic pollster who worked for Mr. Kerry, said it was a matter of debate whether information about how one side or another is doing ever affects turnout significantly.
But the survey data this time around certainly created a sense of demoralization among Democrats who had seen the Election Day polling data, leading some of Mr. Kerry's supporters to speculate that the data was accurate but the actual vote was fraudulent. A participant in Mr. Coll's online chat asked him, "What about the possibility that the exit polls are right and the vote count is wrong?'' The report debunked that as a possibility.
Bill Wheatley, a vice president at NBC News, a partner overseeing the operation, said he would suggest that in future elections the survey data be reported later in the day, to shorten the time in which it could be leaked.
"We have begun discussions already with the group to see if it's feasible to delay the release of the data,'' Mr. Wheatley said.
-------- us politics
Bush will now celebrate by putting Falluja to the torch
The world is fated to four more years of brutal confrontation
The Guardian
Robin Cook
November 5, 2004
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1344029,00.html
If you imagine the rest of us have a problem living with George Bush for another four years, spare a thought for the 55 million Americans who voted against him. John Kerry is fated to be stuck with the label of a loser and is already being blamed for his lack of charisma, his absence of passion and his electoral misjudgment of being born on the eastern seaboard rather than the deep south. Yet in fairness to Kerry, more Americans backed him than supported Bill Clinton or Jimmy Carter, and some of them queued for two hours in their determination to vote for him. There may be more conservatives in America than ever before, but there are also more Democrats.
Unfortunately this does not add up to a case for a recount. The US does not run a proportional system and the winner takes all. In George Bush's case, he not only took the White House, but he also took a clean sweep of the Senate and the House of Representatives, and he will now have the opportunity to take a majority of the supreme court. All the checks and balances that the founding fathers constructed to restrain presidential power are broken instruments.
It is to be hoped that the obsession of President Bush with fitness will guarantee his health for the length of his renewed tenancy of the White House. Otherwise we get President Cheney. I met Dick Cheney immediately after he had been installed as vice-president in what was the most bizarre en counter of my time at the Foreign Office. He could not disguise his irritation that a European pinko had somehow wormed a way into his diary and for half an hour mostly confined himself to monosyllabic replies. By contrast, this week he was in full triumphalist flood, claiming Bush's election as the greatest "of any presidential candidate in history".
Cheney himself may not go the distance if the rumours about Halliburton continue to lap closer to his desk, but while he is in post it is hard to see an administration so dripping in contacts with the oil industry taking serious action on global warming. This is a real problem for Tony Blair, who has identified climate change as a major priority for Britain's presidency of the G8 next year. The dilemma for Blair will be whether he uses the role to lever the Bush administration towards the consensus among the other seven, or cajoles the rest to accommodate the idiosyncratic Washington position. If he wants to signal a break from Bush, he will not get a clearer opportunity to do so.
The first sign as to whether the Bush second term will be more flexible will be what now happens to the neoconservatives. Will Paul Wolfowitz, the Pentagon No 2 who lobbied for the invasion of Iraq, be promoted to the front rank? Will John Bolton, the No 3 at the state department who has overseen the Bush campaign to torpedo the International Criminal Court, survive in any rank? Bolton has been responsible for much of the sabre-rattling towards Iran and responded to a question about whether he would support Europe's attempt to offer Iran incentives with the terse one-liner: "I don't do carrots."
What makes this web of reactionary ideologues a menace to the world is that they believe complex, historic problems have simple, instant, military solutions. And it is an article of faith with them that America must acquire full-spectrum dominance of military capabilities in order that it can impose such solutions unilaterally. They are the product of an era in which America has emerged as the sole hyperpower, and they regard allies not as proof of diplomatic strength but as evidence of military weakness.
They will now celebrate their election victory by putting Falluja to the torch. Wolfowitz was furious last spring when the outcry among both Sunnis and Shias obliged the marine corps to abandon its siege; this time he will insist on military victory in Falluja regardless of the political cost across Iraq from civilian casualties. The administration remained sensitive enough to the potential domestic cost of another major offensive in Iraq to delay it until after the presidential polling day, but it will not give a second thought to the adverse impact on public opinion in Britain of escalating civilian casualties.
The unpopularity at home and abroad of his ally's reliance on overwhelming firepower will make it even more essential for Blair to obtain something in return for his support. The first test will be whether it is possible for him to engage the Bush administration in a serious effort to secure peace for the troubled peoples of Israel and Palestine. There has been some imaginative speculation that Bush might be more courageous in putting pressure on the government of Israel now that he does not face re-election.
The problem with such hopes is that they rest on the theory that the Bush administration has been indulgent to Ariel Sharon for reasons of electoral calculation. This is to underestimate the extent to which Bush identifies with Sharon's conviction that terrorism requires a military and not a political solution, and the religious faith with which the southern born-again Christians, of which he is one, believe in the right of Israel to its biblical borders.
It is notable that all the comment this week from the Bush camp on prospects for the Middle East has built on the failing health of Yasser Arafat, as if he alone had been the obstacle to peace. But it is a delusion to imagine that a peace agreement can be established by the simple strategy of finding a more pliable successor to sign up to it. There will be no lasting peace or viable Palestine unless Israel withdraws from its settlements on the West Bank. Far from pressuring Sharon for such a concession, there is no evidence that Bush even supports dismantling the settlements, or that he could get agreement to it from the neoconservatives in his administration, who regard Likud as the nearest thing they have to a sister party.
The paradox may be beyond Bush, but the best way he could make progress in his war on terror would be by winning peace in the Middle East. When Osama bin Laden launched his attack on the twin towers he intended it as a demonstration of his malign belief that the only relationship acceptable between the west and Islam was one of violent confrontation. As George Soros has argued, the Bush administration walked into a trap by responding in a way that accepted the terms of the relationship set down by its enemy.
Now the world is fated to four more years of confrontation, which will widen rather than narrow the gulf between the west and the east. It is ironic, given that terrorism played such a central role in the election, but Osama bin Laden must be as gratified as Dick Cheney that George Bush is back.
-----
The End Game - Divide And Conquer
11-5-4
Rense.com
http://www.rense.com/general59/dfkig.htm
How clever it all was.
And what a joke. Kerry's tent-folding, whimped-out, contrived 'unity' concession speech revealed the final page of the whole story: the entire campaign, especially after the elimination of front-runner Gov Howard Dean, was all a set-up...a tawdry, clever, masterfully executed circus of deception, manipulation and deceit. Kerry ran off so fast November 3, all you could see were elbows and dust...and the back of his Skull and Bones t-shirt. Can America spell 'betrayed'?
The election wasn't 'stolen' - the vote totals were simply and easily manipulated to ensure the Bushmen got the numbers needed to score the 'official' win.
The whole 'campaign' was designed, brilliantly, to rouse, excite and rile-up the still mentally-functional, caring, legitimately moral portion of society into actually thinking their votes counted... and that they could 'throw the criminals out' at the polls. There was never a chance of that happening.
The result - equally as planned - was to polarize, fracture and split Americans into two diametrically opposed camps...which was deftly accomplished. There will be no reconciliation. Divide and Conquer.
The Neocon-Zionist duped 'Christian' fundamentalist-evangelical-maniacal, brain-impaired, ignorant and/or brainwashed, dumbed into near oblivion 'half' of the public that voted for and
In short: dissention, depression, dismay and mass
There will be no reconciliation. There will be no 'healing.' Divide and Conquer.'
--------
Foreign policy: More to worry about
The Associated Press
By Barry Schweid
November 5, 2004
http://www.iht.com/bin/print_ipub.php?file=/articles/2004/11/04/news/policy.html
WASHINGTON Will the re-elected president, George W. Bush, encounter more of the same troubles and attack them in the same way?
Yes and no.
There are constants on the global horizon to bedevil Bush in his second term.
Terrorists have not gone out of business: Osama bin Laden and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi are still threatening the United States and its friends with an unprecedented 21st-century kind of warfare for which there is no sure playbook.
The insurgency in Iraq and the specter of terror remain the overriding challenges for Bush in his second term, just as they were in his first. And this time around there is much more to worry about.
North Korea's nuclear program remains unchecked, a threat to its neighbors. Negotiations to make the Korean Peninsula nuclear-free are stalemated.
Iran may be on the verge of making nuclear weapons and is increasing its support for militant groups. European intermediaries have been unable to strike a deal with Tehran to stop enriching uranium.
Bush grappled with these problems and many more in his first term, with mixed results.
He went to war with Iraq and was accused by friends and foes around the world of a trigger-happy, go-it-alone mind-set.
A possible clue to the way he may operate in his second term is the use Bush made of diplomacy after overthrowing Saddam Hussein as an alternative to force to try to stop the North Korean and Iranian nuclear programs.
And he succeeded in bringing allies and other concerned countries along with him.
Bush emphasized consistency at any price during the campaign.
But "one may assume there now is an ability to draw conclusions and to adopt a more international posture," said James Dobbins, a former U.S. diplomat who specialized in nation-building in Afghanistan and other troubled countries over a long U.S. diplomatic career.
"The election is over, there is no need to maintain we never made a mistake," said Dobbins, director of global security and defense policy at the Rand Corporation, a California-based research group.
In fact, Dobbins said in an interview, Bush already has made a course correction, realizing the limits of unilateralism and taking a more centrist approach.
"People learn," he said.
Dimitri Simes, president of the Nixon Center, offered Ronald Reagan as an example of a president who focused on his legacy - and not on his political supporters - in his second term.
While Bush used "rigid rhetoric" in the campaign, "there is much more understanding of the complexity of foreign policy and of errors and the circle around him," Simes said in a separate interview. While conservative "polemicists" were key advisers in the first term, "the president realizes that some of these people let him down," Simes said.
Dov Zakheim, an under secretary of defense for part of Bush's first term, notes that "the core team that is making Iraq policy is not the same core team that was making the policy six months ago."
Zakheim, in an interview, cited Robert Blackwill, of the National Security Council, and John Negroponte, ambassador to Iraq, as relatively new to the team. Zakheim also cited U.S. military commanders now in Iraq as "people who have a good feel for how to manage the trends in the country."
James Phillips, Middle East analyst at the Heritage Foundation, is inclined to the view that "it will be the same Bush." But, Phillips said in an interview, "he may make tactical adjustments in policy."
Iran looms as important in Bush's second term as Iraq was in his first, Phillips said. "Bush may try to pull the European allies into a multilateral strategy, especially on the nuclear issue, even if only to prove he is open to that," Phillips said.
--------
Confident Bush Vows to Move Aggressively
Second-Term Agenda Includes Social Security, Tax Code
Washington Post
By Mike Allen
November 5, 2004
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A26467-2004Nov4?language=printer
President Bush vowed yesterday to use the "political capital" gained from his victory on Tuesday to push an aggressive domestic agenda in a second term, beginning with limiting medical malpractice lawsuits and continuing with revamping the tax code and adding private accounts to Social Security.
At a news conference a day after Sen. John F. Kerry conceded, Bush spoke repeatedly about his desire to unify the country, including Democrats who did their best to evict him from power. But he also made it clear that he views the election returns -- especially a 3 percent margin of victory in the popular vote that he said reflected "the will of the people" -- as a mandate to pursue conservative priorities and to continue a governing style that has rarely accommodated the opposition.
"I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it. It is my style," he said. "I'm going to spend it for what I told the people I'd spend it on, which is -- you've heard the agenda: Social Security and tax reform, moving this economy forward, education, fighting and winning the war on terror."
In both words and tone, Bush conveyed exceptional self-assurance as he jauntily parried with reporters and served notice that he expects Congress to move with dispatch on his agenda. The message was unmistakable: that Bush intends to be the capital's dominant political and policy force, and that the election returns mean that other players should move to accommodate his priorities, not simply meet in the middle.
"I really didn't come here to hold the office just to say, 'Gosh, it was fun to serve,' " he said. "I came here to get some things done, and we are doing it."
Bush, whose domestic agenda has been largely overshadowed by war and terrorism, said he will "start on Social Security now" by beginning to work with lawmakers who support allowing workers to put some of their payroll taxes into stocks and bonds. "We must lead on Social Security because the system is not going to be whole for our children and our grandchildren," he said.
But several officials said a detailed proposal on Social Security is likely to be held until 2006, ensuring that it looms large before the congressional midterm election. Democrats contend Bush's plan is a way to weaken the federal retirement system. Bush said he will "readily concede I've laid out some very difficult issues for people to deal with."
"Reforming the Social Security system for generations to come is a difficult issue; otherwise, it would have already been done," he said. "But it is necessary to confront it. And I would hope to be able to work with Democrats to get this done."
Bush said the "groundwork has been laid" on Capitol Hill for his longtime interest in limiting lawsuits, and administration officials said they are ready to move quickly with a legislative package on curbing the amount of damages that can be won with lawsuits against doctors. The idea was among his biggest applause lines this year when speaking to GOP donors at campaign fundraisers.
As another top priority, Bush said he will work to make the tax code simpler and more fair. He said he believes certain incentives should be built into a rewritten code -- for example, provisions to encourage charitable giving and homeownership. He said the changes would be "revenue-neutral" -- not a hidden way of raising taxes and reducing the deficit, as some of his critics have charged.
"If there was a need to raise taxes, I'd say, 'Let's have a tax bill that raises taxes,' as opposed to 'Let's simply the tax code and sneak a tax increase on the people.' It's just not my style. I don't believe we need to raise taxes. I've said that to the American people. And so the simplification would be the goal."
Facing a huge federal deficit and his promise to cut it in half over five years, Bush made no mention of a tax cut, and administration officials said none is in the offing.
Bush also said he plans to move quickly on his education proposals, including a plan to add accountability for high schools.
On foreign policy, Bush listed the fight against terrorism first when he was citing his priorities. He declined to estimate the cost of continuing operations in Iraq, saying that the United States would work with the government of Iraq's interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, to "achieve our objective, which is elections, on the path to stability, and we'll continue to train the troops."
"Our commanders will have that which they need to complete their missions," he said.
Bush asserted that democracy is still possible in Iraq and throughout the Middle East: "If we are interested in protecting our country for the long term, the best way to do so is to promote freedom and democracy."
He said he will continue to work for a Palestinian state coexisting peacefully with Israel, saying that when he laid out that vision in the Rose Garden in 2002, he "meant it when I said it, and I mean it now."
Other administration officials said they expect relations with Iran to dominate the foreign policy agenda. The administration has accused Iran of harboring terrorists and running a nuclear weapons program.
Bush made no effort to hide his high spirits, teasing reporters and calling on them by last name only, in the fashion of a football coach. He has always chafed at reporters' tendency to ask follow-ups and to string multiple questions into one, and yesterday he announced that he will no longer permit it. "Now that I've got the will of the people at my back, I'm going to start enforcing the one-question rule," he said.
The news conference's most reflective moments concerned the reaction of former president George H.W. Bush to his son's achievement of the reelection he was denied. The president recalled that his father, who spent election night in the White House, was still sitting upstairs at 3:30 a.m. as returns came in. Kerry did not concede until later that day.
"I finally said, 'Go to bed,' " Bush recalled. "He was awaiting the outcome and was hopeful that we would go over and be able to talk to our supporters, and it just didn't happen that way."
Bush said that when his father woke up, he asked him to come by the Oval Office before heading home to Houston.
"We had a good talk," the president said. "There was some uncertainty about that morning as to when the election would actually end. And it wasn't clear at that point in time, so I never got to see him face to face to watch his, I guess, pride in his tired eyes as his son got a second term. I did talk to him, and he was relieved. I told him to get a nap. I was worried about him staying up too late."
Presidential advisers said Bush is relishing the prospect of a freer hand with Congress, as the expanded margin of GOP control will give him more flexibility to pursue his policies.
"After hundreds of speeches and three debates and interviews and the whole process, where you keep basically saying the same thing over and over again, that when you win, there is a feeling that the people have spoken and embraced your point of view, and that's what I intend to tell the Congress," he said.
Bush hedged when asked about changes in his Cabinet, and declined to speculate about possible nominees to the Supreme Court.
For the second day in a row, Bush said he plans to reach out to his opponents, joking at the start of the 40-minute session, "I pledged to reach out to the whole nation, and today I'm proving that I'm willing to reach out to everybody by including the White House press corps."
But one key adviser said the White House has calculated there is little to be gained from courting Democrats, since the expected fights over Supreme Court nominations would just undo the goodwill.
"This isn't a guy who pivots," said a presidential adviser who spoke on the condition of anonymity so White House officials will continue to talk candidly to him. "There's no point in a lot of outreach in the next 90 days that would be rendered moot by the first retirement from the court, and he's not going to do it."
Another adviser said after speaking to Bush's top aides, "They feel the Bush brand is strong, and they feel no need to re-brand him."
Bush has held the fewest news conferences of any president since records have been kept. This was Bush's 16th solo news conference. At this point in their presidencies, Bill Clinton had held 42 news conferences and Bush's father had held 83, according to figures compiled by Martha Joynt Kumar of Towson University.
The meeting was in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, next to the White House -- a setting that is more formal than the briefing room but less imposing than the East Room, the traditional site of prime-time news conferences.
Bush said he feels refreshed, both by the outcome and by the sleep he got after a marathon night that some of his aides in what is ordinarily an early-to-bed White House were calling "the Republican Woodstock."
Staff writer John F. Harris contributed to this report.
-----
Knuckleheaded politics
His merciless opportunism on three-strikes shows Arnold Schwarzenegger's true colours, despite the odd liberal sop, writes Dan Glaister
guardian.co.uk
November 5, 2004
http://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/journalist/story/0,7792,1344566,00.html
At a Beverly Hills victory party on election night, Arnold Schwarzenegger, the governor of California, crowed that he liked nothing more than an election. "When the people flex their muscles," he declared in the now compulsory reference to his body-building, action-hero past, "then the state gets much stronger."
Come Wednesday, Schwarzenegger had good reason to feel pleased with himself. While the presidential election was a distant irrelevance for California - the result may matter but the state with the most electoral college votes in the country had little influence on the outcome - voters did have a chance to "flex their muscles" on a variety of propositions, ranging from medical insurance to gambling to stem cell research.
Schwarzenegger invested much of his political capital in these issues, and that investment paid a hefty dividend: voters agreed with the governor on 11 of the 14 propositions on which he took a stand.
The spread of positions taken by Schwarzenegger shows what an agile strategy he has pursued in his relentless accumulation of power. He won over liberal supporters with his well-publicised backing for Proposition 71, the measure to grant $3bn (£1.67bn) of state money for embryonic stem cell research. Had a Democrat governor backed that sort of investment in a state, such as California, with a rolling multi-billion dollar deficit, he or she would have been crucified by the Republicans. As it was, the only meaningful opposition Mr Schwarzenegger encountered was from a member of a different branch of the cult of celebrity, Mel Gibson.
But while Arnie could use stem cell research to contrast himself with the nation's faith-based president and burnish his liberal credentials, he also needed to talk to his Republican base. The governor may have campaigned for Bush in Ohio four days before the election, but Republican voters in Orange County still needed something to cheer about.
So Schwarzenegger took the easy course: he picked the most emotive proposition he could find - the attempt to reform California's draconian three strikes law.
Even in the surreal universe of three strikes, California's version of the law is extreme. Most states with three strikes legislation confine it to serious violent crime. However, in California felons with two convictions for violent crime can be jailed for life for a third conviction, regardless of the nature of the crime. Shoplifting, burglary, drunken driving, arson of an unoccupied building - all these offences can mean a life sentence in California.
But the campaign to reform the poorly drafted law to make it more faithful to the intentions of those who fought for it 10 years ago came up against a governor intent on playing politics. A week before voting day, with the reform proposal enjoying 70-30 support in the polls, Schwarzenegger weighed in with two television commercials.
Striding through a display of blown up mug shots of convicted criminals, Schwarzenegger tried to scare the wits out of voters, alleging that reform of the law would see thousands of violent criminals back on the streets. In fact, the proposed changes would have led to the review of some 4,000 sentences, all of them involving petty offenders who received life sentences.
"Murders. Rapists. Child molesters. Twenty-six thousand dangerous criminals will be released from prison under Proposition 66," he said. "Keep them behind bars."
Of course it was not true, but this was politics, and Schwarzenegger made his point. By election day, the polls were showing the vote on the measure neck and neck. By Wednesday, it was clear that the governor had succeeded in turning the vote around: 53.4% of people voted to keep the three strikes law as it was.
It was law'n'order populism of the most unabashed sort. Schwarzenegger himself came close to admitting that the reform had become a political football when he said a day ago: "If there's something wrong with it that you know needs to be adjusted, then we should do that." That he did not have the courage to say that before Tuesday's vote reflects poorly on a governor who prides himself on his bipartisanship, and reveals him as just another cigar-lounge Republican.
-------- ENERGY
-------- alternative energy
Colorado voters back renewable energy measure
by Nigel Hunt
November 5, 2004
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/28004/story.htm
LOS ANGELES - Colorado looks set for a five-fold expansion of the state's use of renewable energy resources such as wind following the approval by voters of a ballot measure.
The initiative, known as Amendment 37, calls for major Colorado utilities to raise use of renewable energy to 10 percent by 2015, up from about 2 percent at present. It passed by a narrow margin of around 52 percent to 48 percent.
"It is an ambitious initiative and now there are a lot of questions about how to implement it in our day to day operations," said Jim Van Someren, spokesman for Westminster, Colorado-based Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association Inc.
Van Someren said questions included how increased costs would be handled with the ballot measure capping costs for residential customers but not businesses.
Tri-State, which supplies power to 18 electric co-operatives in Colorado, currently generates less than one percent of its power from renewables with coal-fired power plants providing about 80 percent.
RAPID EXPANSION
Colorado's largest utility, Xcel Energy (XEL.N: Quote, Profile, Research) , is already in the process of rapidly expanding its renewable portfolio.
The utility has bid for up to 500 megawatts of renewable power and earlier this week announced it had received responses from 17 wind projects for 2,000 MW.
"We are already well on our way to exceed the amendment by the end of next year as it relates to wind power," said Xcel spokeswoman Margarita Alarcon.
Alarcon noted, however, it would take longer to meet a requirement that four percent of the renewable energy should come from solar energy.
She said that solar cost 4 to 5 times more than rival resources such as wind.
Jon Chase, deputy director of legislative affairs for the American Wind Energy Association, said there was the potential for a lot more wind power in Colorado. "It has got some good areas for it," he said.
One of the environmental groups which backed the measure, the Union of Concerned Scientists, said success would open the door for similar proposals in other states.
Alan Nogee, UCS' Energy Program Director, noted that of the 23 states with the initiative process, 17 still do not have a renewable energy standard.
He noted one likely target for such as initiative might be Washington state, where recently attempts at legislation to introduce a renewable standard has been narrowly defeated.
-----
Eagles overshadow world's biggest land windfarm
November 5, 2004
by Pete Harrison
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/28003/story.htm
LONDON - British construction group Amec (AMEC.L: Quote, Profile, Research) announced plans this week to build the world's biggest onshore wind farm on a rugged Scottish island, stirring fears for the local landscape and wildlife.
"This is the biggest ever applied for," David Hodkinson, director of Amec's Lewis Wind Power arm told Reuters after the group submitted a planning application for 234 turbines on the island of Lewis - enough to supply green energy to over 20 percent of Scotland.
The group hopes the promise of new jobs will offset opposition from environmentalists.
While the turbines will be imported, Amec anticipates the towers that support them will be constructed by locals who still have steel-working skills learned when the Atlantic island off Scotland's west coast constructed oil rig components in the 1980s and 90s.
Over 300 jobs will be created in the four years it will take to erect the turbines.
The application follows one by Amec last week for a 100-turbine wind farm in the Kyle forest, southeast Scotland.
Amec, which has teamed up with British Energy for the project, says it will help Britain achieve about 6 percent of its targets for renewable energy to help combat climate change.
But benefits for the global environment could come at the expense of the local ecology.
"It is absolutely crucial to get the general support of the islanders," said Hodkinson. "It is vital for any wind farm project, but on an island it is even more important."
Britain's Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) is against the project.
"It would appear that Amec and British Energy have chosen to ignore our consistent advice," it said in a statement.
"On the face of it, their proposed wind farm is of a scale and in a location where the damage it will do will harm this important area, legally protected for its important birds and rare peatland habitat," it added.
Hodkinson said Amec had conducted Europe's largest-ever bird survey to help it minimise damage.
"There are Golden Eagles there, Merlins, divers and wading birds," he said. "We're working hard to minimise impact. There's great uncertainty about the collision risk, but that's something the industry will have to face."
-------- OTHER
-------- environment
New Jersey Writes Nation's Strictest Mercury, Arsenic Rules
November 5, 2004
PRINCETON, New Jersey, (ENS)
http://ens-newswire.com/ens/nov2004/2004-11-05-03.asp
New Jersey has adopted new rules that establish the strongest mercury and arsenic standards in the country. These rules will reduce mercury emissions from certain facilities by up to 90 percent by the end of 2007 and will cut in half the acceptable limit of arsenic in drinking water by 2006.
"If New Jersey's mercury rules were enacted nationally, annual emissions from coal fired power plants alone would decline from approximately 48 tons to about five tons," said Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) Commissioner Bradley Campbell, announcing the new standards on Thursday.
"At the same time," he said, "through existing technologies we can provide greater health protections, reducing the risk of cancers from arsenic in drinking water."
Outgoing Governor James McGreevey (Photo courtesy New Jersey Discharger) The measures are the last environmental rules to be put in place by the administration of Governor James McGreevey, who is leaving office on November 15 over a scandal involving his homosexual relationship with an aide.
Senate President Richard Codey, a fellow Democrat, will to take over as acting governor and serve the remaining 14 months of McGreevey's term. He is expected to uphold and enforce the new mercury and arsenic rules.
The regulations call for a 90 percent reduction of mercury emissions from the state's 10 coal-fired boilers in power plants by the end of 2007. The rules allow for some flexibility, giving plants the option of meeting the standards in 2012 if they also make major reductions in their emissions of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and fine particulates.
The new regulations also mandate a reduction of mercury emissions from the state's six iron and steel melters of 75 percent by the end of 2009. The state estimates that iron and steel manufacturing plants are the largest New Jersey sources of mercury emissions with much of their materials coming from shredded automobiles' scrap metal.
The rules call for a further reduction of mercury emissions from New Jersey's five municipal solid waste incinerators of at least 95 percent below 1990 levels in 2011.
In addition, the mercury rules contain standards for medical waste incinerators that are already being met by the three facilities operating in New Jersey. These protective standards will ensure that these incinerators continue to minimize mercury emissions, allowing for a maximum level of emissions that is one-tenth the current federal limit.
New Jersey State Senate President Richard Codey will take over as governor on November 15, 2004. (Photo courtesy St. Peter's University Hospital) The new arsenic rules establish a maximum contaminant level of five parts per billion (ppb) for arsenic concentrations in drinking water, effective January 23, 2006. In February 2002, the federal government adopted a 10-ppb arsenic drinking water standard, also effective January 23, 2006. No state other than New Jersey has adopted an arsenic standard as protective as five ppb.
New Jersey requires monitoring for arsenic at more than 600 public community water systems and 900 non-transient, non-community systems, which combined serve around 85 percent of the state's population. Based on past data, the DEP predicts approximately 34 community and 101 non-community systems will have arsenic levels exceeding the new five ppb standard.
In addition, the new state arsenic standard will apply to private well owners regulated under New Jersey's Private Well Testing Act, requiring notification of consumers about arsenic concentrations during a real estate transaction and when renting property.
Long term exposure to arsenic through drinking water can cause cancer of the skin, lungs and bladder. As arsenic is a naturally occurring element found throughout New Jersey, it is important for water purveyors to take active steps to reduce arsenic levels in drinking water, Campbell said.
Water systems in the Piedmont region of New Jersey are most likely to be affected by naturally occurring arsenic, including areas of Bergen, Essex, Hudson, Hunterdon, Mercer, Middlesex, Morris, Passaic, Somerset and Union Counties. Arsenic in these areas leaches into the ground due to the erosion of rock deposits that contain arsenic.
Four treatment technologies have been identified as capable of removing arsenic in New Jersey's drinking water supplies below the adopted maximum contaminant level of 5 ppb. The New Jersey Corporation for Advanced Technology (NJCAT) has certified one of these technologies.
Exposure to a toxic form of mercury comes primarily from eating contaminated fish and shellfish. Children and pregnant women are especially susceptible to mercury contamination. Even exposure to low levels can potentially cause permanent brain damage to the fetus, infants, and young children. Scientists estimate up to 60,000 children may be born annually in the United States at elevated risk for neurological problems leading to poor school performance because of mercury exposure while in utero.
Emissions from combustion of coal and incineration of waste deposit mercury on land and water. (Photo courtesy DEP) Mercury is a problem both from long-range sources and from regional and local sources. Contaminated fish have been found in remote areas of the state, such as the Pinelands, as well as in industrialized areas.
Mercury can contaminate waterbodies either directly through runoff or from air pollution that deposits in the water. Once in an aquatic ecosystem, it accumulates in the tissues of animals as methylmercury, a toxic and harmful form of mercury.
New Jersey is one of more than 40 states that issued fish advisories for certain species of fish contaminated with mercury. Studies have shown that reducing mercury emissions can reduce contamination in nearby ecosystems. In Florida, scientists found that mercury concentrations in fish and wading birds in the Everglades have declined by 60 to 70 percent in the last 10 years as a result of controls in mercury emissions in neighboring industries.
The DEP developed the mercury and arsenic rules in consultation with other governmental agencies, universities, scientists, regulated industry officials, and environmental and public health advocates. The adopted rules will appear in the December 6, 2004 New Jersey Register.
See the New Jersey mercury rule here: http://www.nj.gov/dep/rules/adoptions/mercury_rule7-27.pdf
See the New Jersey arsenic rule here: http://www.nj.gov/dep/rules/adoptions/arsenic_rule7-10.pdf
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Ballot Initiative to Ease California "Three Strikes Law" Fails to Pass
democracynow.org
November 5th, 2004
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/11/05/1521232
Proposition 66, which sought to ease California's three-strikes law, failed to pass on November 2nd. We speak with LaDoris Cordell, a retired Superior Court Judge who spent 19 years on the bench in Santa Clara County. [includes rush transcript] Voters in California headed to the polls on November 2nd to vote on one of the most crowded initiative ballots in the state's history. A 3 billion dollar fund for stem cell research was passed while an initiative to require businesses to provide workers with health insurance failed. Two measures that would have expanded gambling in the state failed while a proposition expanding authorities" ability to collect DNA samples was approved.
But none of those measures captured as much attention as Proposition 66, which sought to ease California's three-strikes law.
The initiative sought to limit invoking the three strikes law - which gives prison sentences of 25 years to life - to those convicted only of violent or serious felonies. California is the only state in the country that applies extended sentences to any felony, leading to long sentences for hundreds of offenders for crimes like selling marijuana or stealing from a store.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger was heavily opposed to the measure and reportedly spent about 2 million dollars of his own campaign finances to fight it. This according to the Los Angeles Times.
On Election Day, Proposition 66 failed to pass with only 46.6 percent of the "Yes" vote.
LaDoris Cordell, a retired Superior Court Judge who spent 19 years on the bench in Santa Clara County. This year, she was elected to the Palo Alto City Council.
RUSH TRANSCRIPT
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AMY GOODMAN: We're joined right now by Judge LaDoris Cordell. She is a retired Superior Court judge who spent 19 years on the bench in Santa Clara County. This year, she was elected to the Palo Alto City Council and she is Vice Provost here at Stanford University. Welcome to Democracy Now!
LADORIS CORDELL: Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: It's very good to have you with us. What happened? Explain the proposition and what happened.
LADORIS CORDELL: Sure. This Proposition, the genesis for it, is the Three Strikes Law, which was enacted in 1994 and it was enacted two ways. It was passed by our California legislature and it also became law by way of an initiative. An initiative is insurance that there would be a two-thirds vote to overturn it or to change it. And over the 10 years that the three strikes law has been in effect, there have been some dramatic changes and impact on the criminal justice scene in California. As you stated earlier, California is the only state of all the states (and there are 20 other states that have a three strikes law in effect), but we're the only one where the third strike, which can bring a sentence of 25 to life, can be a violent or nonviolent offense. Other states only have violent offenses as the third strike. So, as a result, California has, under the Three Strikes Law, we incarcerate four times those--the number of those in all of the other remaining Three Strikes states combined. We have 42,000 people serving time under the Three Strikes Law in California and with a population we have of 35 million in the state. If you take the other 20 states with a combined population of 112 million, they incarcerate a total of about 10,200, four times the rate. And it turns out 7,000 people in California are serving life sentences under Three Strikes. 7,000! Of that number, 4,200 are serving life where the third strike was a nonviolent offense.
AMY GOODMAN: Give us an example.
LADORIS CORDELL: Oh, for example, there are so many. And it boggles the mind. People hear this and they say this can't possibly be. Now, understand, these people, and I'm going to give you some of the third strike offenses, are serving life and that's costing Californians about $31,000 a year per inmate and this is at their age now. As they age, it will cost $70,000 to $100,000 per year to maintain them.
AMY GOODMAN: $31,000 a year. How much does it cost to go to Stanford?
LADORIS CORDELL: About $30,000. So, that's exactly it. I'm glad you made the comparison. But let me answer your question. So, we're talking about third strikes. For example of nonviolence: stealing a spare tire, possession of a stolen bicycle, shop lifting a $70 drill from Sears, shoplifting 21 packages of aspirin, possession of less than two grams of marijuana, shoplifting a tube of hair grease, shoplifting a package of AA batteries that were $2.69.
AMY GOODMAN: Shoplifting AA batteries. This was the third offense?
LADORIS CORDELL: That's correct--the third strike. So, because of that strike, the person who did this is now serving 25-to-life. Meaning the person had two violent felonies before this and then shoplifted the third time and now they're out of here.
AMY GOODMAN: And so what was the strategy? What was the campaign? Weren't you winning before election day?
LADORIS CORDELL: One week before this election, the polls showed that voters were favoring Proposition 66 by close to 70%. And in one week there was a turnaround and, you know, I shouldn't be surprised by it and I think those of us now when we look back at it know that this was all about money and the media. The opposition, spearheaded by Governor Schwarzenegger, spearheaded by the Prison Guards Union and also by one individual who's very wealthy, they put together $3 million and bought $3 million of airtime to promote a lie. And the biggest lie told in this, there were two, actually. One was that if this proposition passed, 26,000 or more felons were all of a sudden going to be turned loose on the streets. That is a lie. As I've told you, there are only 7,000 people serving life and of that number, 4200 are serving life for nonviolent offenses. It is not near the 26,000. That was a scare tactic. The other tactic they used in commercials was to showcase victims of crimes and all of them were white females. So they showed and tried to scare people to say "Oh my god, all these felons are going to get loose." By implication, people who are black and brown. And look who are victimized already and these are people who are going to be victimized further. So, it was a campaign based on racism. A campaign based on dollars and money and they completely turned it around in one week. People, unfortunately, fell for the lies.
AMY GOODMAN: How had you organized? How had people organized before that?
LADORIS CORDELL: Well, the organization was very, very good. There were many organizations that came together across political lines to pull this -- to make this happen. And there were debates; the mailings throughout the state and; indeed, a very good grass-roots effort. This is one of the few times I have actually participated in recent years in a grassroots effort, where communities, particularly those of color, are concerned about the impact that three strikes is having on black and brown communities. People all across the board came together. It is just that if you don't have the resources and the money to fight it, the big kind of money, this is what happens.
AMY GOODMAN: Where do you go from here, especially as we move into this new Bush Administration?
LADORIS CORDELL: Well, you know, it's very easy to become frustrated and the day after the election, there were many of us who were very frustrated and downcast. But what it does, those of us who have been around long enough and I've been around quite a while, is to say that we need to regroup and look at what happened and to learn from it. And one of the things that will likely happen is perhaps we need to look at Proposition 66 and readjust it and look at what we proposed and maybe take out some things and make it so that there are less areas that could be subject to attack, but it means we're going to regroup. And this grassroots effort will continue. An effort has been going on for 10 years, since the enactment of the three strikes law to try to reform it. And indeed in California, we couldn't even get a bill passed to just study the effects of the three strikes law. And that's why we turned to the initiatives. I'm not a great supporter of initiatives, quite frankly. I think that they've kind of taken over the political landscape, especially in California. But in this case, efforts were made to try to change the law through the legislature and as I said, we couldn't even get a study. So, this is one where I think we were forced to go this route and reform of the criminal justice system in California, bottom line, it's political. It ends up always being political and people begin to stop looking at the substance and begin looking generally at, oh, you're trying to change the law and make it softer, which we're not. So, we're going to gear up again and fight it more.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Judge LaDoris Cordell, I want to thank you very much for being here with us. Judge Cordell is Vice Provost here at Stanford University and was just elected to the Palo Alto City Council.
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