Archive By Date | Today's Links to Search By
Activists' News | Nuclear | Depleted Uranium | Military | Police
Alternative Energy Etc. | From Subscribers
NUCLEAR
Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and subsequent weapons testing
How dead animals dumped in HP Shipyard lead to cancerous human breasts
UN Team: Keep Congolese Uranium Mine Closed
Veterans Day Address to the Nation
France to partially privatise nuclear giant Areva
Europe's chances of securing major nuclear project improve
EU Threatens to Go It Alone on Nuclear Fusion
Iran Official Warns of NPT Pull-Out if West Presses
Japan denies ending bid for nuclear fusion project
Deserter lifts veil on closed regime
Nuclear waste at center stage
MILITARY
Kabul in Touch With Captors of U.N. Aides
Sudan, Rebels Reach Accord On Darfur
Pentagon Widens Procurement Investigation
Europeans Lobby in Washington for Military Work
Moscow complains of lack of financing for destruction of chemical weapons
Rightist Militias Are a Force in Colombia's Congress
U.S. Forces Battle Into Heart of Fallujah
Rebuilding What the Assault Turns to Rubble
Rebel Fighters Who Fled Attack May Now Be Active Elsewhere
U.S.-Led Forces Gain More Ground in Falluja as Battle Rages
Goliath Beats David In Fallujah
Israeli Forces Kill 3 Palestinians
Israel Will Allow Arafat Burial in West Bank, After Cairo Funeral
Netanyahu Drops Resignation Threat
U.S. to defend use of Guantanamo war tribunals
A provision of the No Child Left Behind Act
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
U.S. Takes Oregon Assisted-Suicide Law to High Court
Columbia voters ease marijuana restrictions
Probe of marshals was 'appropriate'
Witch Hunting Air Marshals Is Disputed
Panel Says Census Move on Arab-Americans Recalls World War II Internments
Bush revives bid to legalize illegal aliens
Arizona initiative inspires others
Justices Rule in Immigrant's Favor
Man Charged With Aiding Terrorists
POLITICS
Campaign With No Candidate Keeps Racking Up Expenses
Ashcroft, Evans quit Bush Cabinet
U.S. foreign policy will be 'aggressive'
Ashcroft, Evans To Leave Cabinet
Ashcroft Quits Top Justice Post; Evans Going, Too
Ashcroft's Resignation Letter
Antiterror Campaign Made Ashcroft a Lightning Rod
ENERGY
New Report Refuels Debate on Wind Farm
Floating Natural Gas Plant Is Proposed for L.I. Sound
OTHER
America's Main Street Revisited Pennsylvania Ave. Reopened to Pedestrians
U.S. Genetically Modified Corn Is Assailed
ACTIVISTS
Bush Threatens Mankind, says Caldicott
-------- NUCLEAR
Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and subsequent weapons testing
November 2004
World Nuclear Association
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/printable_information_papers/inf52print.htm
- Two atomic bombs made by the allied powers (USA and UK) from uranium-235 and plutonium-239 were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki respectively early in August 1945. These brought the long Second World War to a sudden end.
- The immense and previously unimaginable power of the atom had been demonstrated. In the following years several governments joined the arms race, while internationally, efforts were focussed on constraining the threat of nuclear weapons proliferation.
- But from the 1950s the power of the atom was harnessed increasingly for peaceful uses, notably electricity generation and medicine. Nowhere is the transition from weapons of destruction to power for good better displayed than Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan which depend substantially on electricity from nuclear energy.
- Today, as the main nuclear arsenals are being dismantled and a comprehensive test ban treaty is in sight, commercial nuclear power provides 16 percent of the world's electricity. Several factors suggest that despite its sometimes controversial image, nuclear power has a much larger role to play in supplying the world's future energy needs.
The First two Atom Bombs in 1945
The Hiroshima bomb was made from highly-enriched uranium-235. This was prepared by diffusion enrichment techniques using the very small differences in mass of the two main isotopes: U-235 (originally 0.7% in the uranium) and U-238, the majority. As UF6, there is about a one percent difference in mass between the molecules, and this enables concentration of the less common isotope. About 60 kilograms of highly-enriched uranium was used in the bomb which was released over Hiroshima, Japan's seventh largest city, on 6 August 1945. Some 90% of the city was destroyed.
The explosive charge for the bomb detonated over Nagasaki three days later was provided by about of 8 kilograms of plutonium-239 (>90% Pu-239), and its preparation depended on the operation of special nuclear reactors. During 1942, under conditions of wartime secrecy, the first human-designed reactor was constructed, in a squash court at the University of Chicago. It used highly purified graphite to slow the neutrons released in fission to enable further fission. This paved the way for more substantial production reactors at Hanford. The plutonium-239 generated in these could be separated by simple chemical methods, with no need for the complexities of isotope separation. The plutonium was first used for the test explosion at Alamogordo in New Mexico on 16 July 1945, ushering in the nuclear age with all its threat and promise.
The Effects of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki Bombs
The devastating effects of both kinds of bombs depended essentially upon the energy released at the moment of the explosion, causing immediate fires, destructive blast pressures, and extreme local radiation exposures. Since the bombs were detonated at a height of some 600 metres above the ground, very little of the fission products were deposited on the ground beneath. Some deposition occurred however in areas near to each city, owing to local rainfall occurring soon after the explosions. This happened at positions a few kilometres to the east of Nagasaki, and in areas to the west and north-west of Hiroshima. For the most part, however, these fission products were carried high into the upper atmosphere by the heat generated in the explosion itself.
In Hiroshima, of a resident civilian population of 250 000 it was estimated that 45 000 died on the first day and a further 19 000 during the subsequent four months. In Nagasaki, out of a population of 174 000, 22 000 died on the first day and another 17 000 within four months. Unrecorded deaths of military personnel and foreign workers may have added considerably to these figures.
It is impossible to estimate the proportion of these 103 000 deaths, or of the further deaths in military personnel, which were due to radiation exposure rather than to the very high temperatures and blast pressures caused by the explosions. From the estimated radiation levels, however, it is apparent that radiation alone would not have been enough cause death in most of those exposed beyond a kilometre of the ground zero below the bombs. Most deaths appear to have been from the explosion rather than the radiation. Beyond 1.5 km the risk would have been much reduced (and 24 Australian prisoners of war about 1.5 km from the Nagasaki ground zero survived and many lived to a healthy old age.)
To the 103 000 deaths from the blast or acute radiation exposure have since been added those due to radiation induced cancers and leukaemia, which amounted to some 400 within 30 years, and which may ultimately reach about 550. (Some 93,000 exposed survivors are still being monitored.)
Teratogenic effects on foetuses was severe among those heavily exposed, resulting in birth deformities and stillbirths over the next 9 months. Beyond this, no genetic damage has been detected in survivors' children, despite careful and continuing investigation by a joint Japanese-US Foundation.
The major source of exposure in both cities was from the penetrating gamma radiations, and to a lesser extent from the neutrons (mostly at Hiroshima), emitted during and shortly after fission. There were two further, and smaller, sources of exposure. One, already mentioned, was due to the 'black rain' which fell in some areas, carrying down radioactive materials from within the rising cloud of fission products. The exposures due to these depositions are in general estimated to have been small, but some increased activity from the fission product radionuclide caesium-137 remained detectable for many years in soil and farm products in the Nishiyama district east of Nagasaki.
The second additional form of exposure resulted from the effect of neutrons in inducing radioactivity in various stable chemical elements such as in iron or concrete structures or roofing tiles. The total absorbed doses of radiation from these activities are estimated to be less than one per cent of that from the neutrons which induced them. They could however have caused a significant exposure of people who entered the city within a few days of the explosions.
See also Radiation Effects Research Foundation (in Japan): frequently-asked questions.
Subsequent Atmospheric Weapons Tests
The atmospheric testing of some 500 nuclear weapons up to 1963 caused people to be exposed to radiation in a quite different way. The Japanese atomic bombs had caused lethal exposures locally from radiation at the time of the explosions, but very little radiation more than a few kilometres away. On the other hand, subsequent atmospheric tests did not cause any substantial direct exposures of people at the time of the tests. However, the fission products released into the atmosphere caused the whole world population to be exposed to very low but continuing annual doses from fallout. In at least two instances these fission products also caused substantial irradiation to small populations exposed to local fallout close to the site of testing.
The atomic bombs used in Japan in 1945, and the bombs or devices testing during the following seven years, depended on the fission of uranium-235 or plutonium-239, mostly the latter. The explosive effect of each was equal to that of up to a few tens of thousand tonnes of the conventional explosive TNT. On this basis of comparison, the Hiroshima bomb was of about 15 kilotonnes - that is, of 15 thousand tonnes of TNT equivalent - and that at Nagasaki was of 25 kilotonnes. In addition, the total equivalent of all atmospheric weapon tests made by the end of 1951 was in the region of 600 kilotonnes.
After 1951, however, devices were being tested which had explosive effects about a thousand times greater, and by the end of 1962 the total of all atmospheric tests had risen from the 1951 value of 0.6 million tonnes of TNT equivalent, to about 500 million tonnes equivalent. This vast increase in scale was due to the testing of 'thermonuclear' weapons or 'hydrogen bombs', which depended, not on the fission of a critical mass of fissile material alone, but on a two or three-stage process initiated by this reaction.
In a thermonuclear bomb, an initial fission, such as occurred in the 'atomic' bomb, momentarily creates conditions of enormously high temperature and atomic disturbance that allows the fusion together of the nuclei of atoms of low atomic number, such as lithium and hydrogen. This fusion liberates further large amounts of energy explosively, such as occurs in the similar reactions in the sun and stars.
In some such bombs, the high energy neutrons released are used to set off a third stage, making it a fission-fusion-fission process. The third stage consists of the fission of a surrounding 'blanket' of uranium-238 isotope which is fissionable by neutrons of this high energy. This third stage provides about half of the yield of such a weapon.
The release of fission products is approximately proportional to the explosive power unleashed, although fusion as such does not give rise to them. From 1952 to 1962 therefore, the amounts of fission products discharged into the atmosphere were of the order of a thousand times greater than all discharged previously.
To complete this tally of the total fallout to date, all atmospheric tests since 1962 appear to have increased by rather less than 20 percent the total of fission products that had been deposited by previous tests, as judged by the measured deposition of strontium-90 in successive years.
The most important radionuclides from testing are now carbon-14, strontium-90 and caesium-137. The global average dose from these is about 0.005 mSv/yr, compared with a peak of more than 0.1 mSv in 1963. Residual dose rates at test sites are mostly low (< 1 msv/yr), apart from semipalatinsk in kazakhstan.
Australian tests
Twelve atmospheric nuclear explosions comprised the main part of UK weapons testing in Australia. Three were at Monte Bello Islands (WA) in 1952 & 1956, two at Emu Field (SA) in 1953 and seven at Maralinga (SA) in 1956-57.
Underground Tests and the NPT
Since the 1963 atmospheric test ban treaty, weapons tests have been mostly underground, the exceptions being by France and China. The underground tests have had no immediate environmental effect and are generally seen as relatively benign compared with the atmospheric tests.
In 1970 the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) was signed, and now has five weapons states: USA, UK, Russia, France and China. The basis of the NPT was that other states who were signatories eschewed the nuclear weapons option and in return were promised assistance in civil nuclear power development by the weapons states.
Today, 187 states have signed the NPT. The only states with significant nuclear facilities that are not party to the NPT or equivalent safeguards agreements are India and Pakistan, which exploded several nuclear devices in 1998, and Israel, which is generally believed to have nuclear capability. South Africa developed some nuclear weapons but then dismantled them, under international scrutiny, and has joined the NPT. Iraq and North Korea sought to circumvent their obligations under the NPT and this was thwarted by international pressure, but North Korea has subsequently resigned from the NPT.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki since 1945
Both cities were rebuilt soon after the war and have become important industrial centres. The population of Hiroshima has grown to over one million and that of Nagasaki to 440,000. Major industries in Hiroshima today are machinery, automotive (Mazda) and food processing, those in Nagasaki are associated with its international port, particularly Mitubishi Heavy Industries.
Nuclear energy has come to be an important part of the life of each city in a totally new way: today one quarter of Hiroshima's electricity is from nuclear power and half of that for Nagasaki is nuclear. Both cities are testimony to the positive benefits of a technological society which applies available energy resources to the needs of urban populations and industry.
Sources (much of the paper is taken directly from Pochin's book):
Edward Pochin, 1983, Nuclear Radiation: Risks and Benefits, Clarendon Press Oxford. UNSCEAR, 1977 and 1994, Sources and Effects of Ionizing Radiation. F. Barnaby, 1982, The Effects of a Global Nuclear War: The Arsenals, Ambio XI, #2-3. IAEA 2004, Radiation, People and the Environment.
Note: Being opposed to the spread of nuclear weapons and their testing, the World Nuclear Association does not normally comment on such. However, the 50th anniversary of the Hiroshima bomb in 1995 inevitably focused public attention on weapons, so this paper endeavours to complement the kind of factual information normally provided by the WNA on the peaceful uses of nuclear power.
Information on weapons matters and tests can be found on http://NuclearFiles.org
-------- accidents and safety
Tell Mayor Newsom, 'Clean up the landfill!'
How dead animals dumped in HP Shipyard lead to cancerous human breasts
November 10, 2004
San Francisco Bay View
by Bob Nichols Project Censored Award winner
http://www.sfbayview.com/111004/cleanup111004.shtml
Marin County residents, go ahead, carefully and completely feel your breasts and those of the one you are with. Do you feel any small lumps that probably aren't supposed to be there?
If so, just think of the potentially cancerous lumps as a gift from America's thriving nuclear weapons program more than 50 years ago right here on the shore of San Francisco Bay. The Hunters Point Naval Shipyard's Naval Radiation Defense Laboratory to be exact.
Then lift your eyes to gaze upon the sleek buildings clinging to the finest land overlooking America's best view and glimpse the Lawrence Livermore Nuclear Weapons Laboratory (atomic bomb factory) annex called Lawrence Berkeley National Lab lording it over Berkeley across the bay.
Forget that there are colleges and universities in Berkeley. The real business of the company town is bombs - hydrogen and neutron bombs. In 1955, when this picture was taken, the Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory, Building 815, was the site of nuclear radiation experiments on animals. The six-story windowless structure still stands today.
The sociopaths holed up at the nuclear weapons factory looking down on everybody else call the shots. Everyone in the Bay Area dances to the bomb factory's invisible tunes called "The Boogie Woogie of Cancerous Deaths by the Bay."
Here's what these totally brilliant dorks have done to all of us. This includes, of course, former and current San Francisco mayors Willie Brown and Gavin Newsom, who made the absolute career-ending move of getting mixed up with the never-ending lies and oozing corruption coming from on high above the bay. More on the Neutron Twins later. Get ready to call Mayor Newsom now!
Here's what the sadistic, death loving "scientists" from our shared legacy of more than 50 years ago did, in a nutshell.
Everybody in the Bay Area who has graduated from the 10th grade, and the whole wide world for that matter, knows that atomic radiation is dangerous, bad and kills people. Period. End of discussion. Uranium is an absolute value of death. X-rays and other weird stuff even.
Well, in any country of millions of people, I guess, there are always some who will say about something like this, "Wow! This uranium stuff is so cool. I wonder how fast it kills people and animals? Let's spend billions of dollars to find out and have a really good time!"
And, of course, they convinced the United States government to set them up in the long, white, windowless building in the Hunters Point "paradise on earth" Shipyard on the shore of San Francisco Bay so they could slaughter thousands of animals and find out.
At the same time, those knowledgeable enough to put one foot in front of the other and walk realized that it was a nuclear radiation death experiment on humans in the area, too. Yes, that would be you and those you love and care for.
Next, they proceeded to use nuclear poison to see how much it took to kill animals. Of course, they had already tested the radiation on U.S. Marines in Hiroshima, Nagasaki and the American deserts during above-ground nuclear bomb tests.
The destruction in Japan is still regarded as just a test of nuclear devices. They always want ever more "data." Enough is never enough with these "scientists."
To make this sadistic orgy of death look "scientific" and to extend the slaughter, the killers in lab coats said they were looking for the amount of the deadly radiation that killed 50 percent of the animals. They even published the results, since they were so proud of their handiwork.
Long story short, the death dealing "scientists" went on to have fine careers and retire from the United States government-funded nuclear weapons program. We pay their pensions to this day. In the meantime, guess what these human killing machines did with all the dead and rotting animal corpses?
Ha! Turns out they had a really convenient gully out back of their Shipyard lab with a little stream in it that led to San Francisco Bay. They simply chucked all the dead or dying animals into the gully out back when they were through with them.
Duhh! Out of sight, out of mind! Hallelujah! Done! Once in San Francisco Bay, the radioactive stew from the dead animals mixes with radioactive fallout from the thousand or so atomic bomb tests the government conducted in the mountains.
And there is the connection, folks. Yes, dumping the radioactive, rotting-from-the-inside-out animals into the gully with the little stream in it out back of the Hunters Point Shipyard lab leads directly to the breast cancer epidemic for the Marin County humans who have breasts.
That would be everybody, dudes, not just the women. Men are included in this radioactive gift to Marin County of cancer and pus and rotting flesh and death.
It's a plague that Mayor Newsom can choose to clean up!
The way all this works is through the mechanism of the little stream in the gully out back. The stream is still there. The radiation is still there. There is a landfill over it now, though. For the past 60 years, the stream has deposited its payload of deadly radioactive particles into the bay.
From there, the radioactivity is swept up on the Marin County beaches and mud flats. Like clockwork, the tide goes out, the mud or sand dries out, and the wind blows the radioactive breast-corrupting poison inland some 25 or 30 miles.
Wait! It gets worse. The so-called "scientists" at Lawrence Livermore Nuclear Weapons Laboratory and bomb factory know this. In fact, they have known it for a long time.
So, do any of you readers think they told anyone? Do you think they did what any sane person would do and alert people in the Bay Area to the danger and start the work of cleaning it up - immediately?
The answer is straightforward, simple, one word: The answer is "No." But they did put monitoring devices out in the bay to study the radiation so they could correlate the human kill rates. It was just another fun science experiment.
That's why they decided to "study" human exposure to radiation and see if they could duplicate the results they got years ago killing animals smaller than humans. They did not tell anyone that the mess left behind needed to be cleaned up.
Next, we will see how Mayors Willie Brown and Gavin Newsom succumb to that ol' Devil "Temptation" and want to leave the radioactive mark on the breasts of Marin County - all of them - by building over the radioactive mess, now a poisonous landfill with a little stream at the bottom, instead of cleaning it up like they know they should.
I'll give you readers two guesses as to why Mayors Brown and Newsom chose to proceed with doing exactly the wrong thing at the wrong time in the wrong place in this life-or-death situation for thousands.
Any day now, just as soon as he can, Mayor Newsom plans to give Lennar Corp. the go-ahead to proceed with building 1,600 homes alongside the landfill - and he may decide to build a new 49ers stadium on top of the landfill - while the little stream at the bottom of the gully continues to carry the contamination out into the bay forever. Never will it be cleaned up and decontaminated, if Newsom has his way.
Marin County breasts will just have to take their chances in a rigged game. No breast is as important as this monument to Mayors Brown and Newsom; don't you agree that's the way it's supposed to be? Don't you? Don't you?
If this article got you up and off your behind, then call, write, email and/or drop by Mayor Newsom's office, now.
Call the mayor now! Just say to Mayor Newsom, politely of course, "Clean up the landfill!" I certainly would not want Mayor Newsom to think I was encouraging anything else other than quiet, polite, respectful conversation about the premature deaths, killings really, of thousands of men, women and children in the past and into the future. Naw, not at all.
You know what to do. Go for it!
Call Mayor Newsom at (415) 554-6141, fax him at (415) 554-6160, email him at gavin.newsom@sfgov.org or drop by his office in City Hall Room 200.
Email the Bay View at editor@sfbayview.com with your results.
Bob Nichols. Nichols is a 2004 Project Censored Award winner. He encourages people to learn more about the corruption of the American nuclear weapons program. He may be reached at info-radiation-wars@cox.net.
Editor's note: According to a front page story in Monday's Chronicle, "Seeking toxic causes of breast cancer," breast cancer rates in San Francisco are about as high as Marin County's, and together the rates are the second highest in the world. Other reports have noted especially high rates in San Francisco's Marina District, which, like Marin, is on the bayshore. In Bay View Hunters Point, the bayshore neighborhood surrounding the Shipyard, record rates of breast cancer, asthma and infant mortality have been reported.
A Newsom-Pelosi-Lennar connection?
Ever since Lennar/BVHP, a subsidiary of the nation's largest homebuilder, was designated Master Developer for the Hunters Point Shipyard by the San Francisco Redevelopment Commission, they've been dying to get started on the extremely profitable project of building 1,600 new homes right next to the Shipyard's radioactive, toxic Parcel E landfill, one of the most contaminated sites in the country. And Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi has been leading the charge to make it happen.
When Lennar first got the nod, Willie Brown was mayor, and San Franciscans learned that he had once had a business relationship with Lennar. What about Mayor Gavin Newsom?
Triumphantly, Mayor Newsom announced upon his return from a meeting in Washington with Pelosi in late March, "For the first time, we have the Navy's signature on an agreement that ensures the conveyance will begin shortly," according to the April 1 Chronicle ("Navy signs binding pact on first parts of shipyard"). Newsom was speaking of the conveyance of Parcel A, the part of the Shipyard where the new homes are planned, from the Navy to the City.
To make it happen, Congresswoman Pelosi, the Democratic "whip" in Congress, had had to call in the ranking Democrat on the House minority appropriations subcommittee, described by the Chronicle as "a big gun," because the Navy had been "having doubts about going ahead" with the transfer. "'I have been working on this agreement for more than a decade, and I am proud we are near our goal,' Pelosi said in a statement" made after the Navy signed off, the Chronicle reported.
Could Nancy Pelosi and Gavin Newsom have a personal interest in seeing Lennar succeed? Bay View Hunters Point activists noticed recently that a man named Laurence Pelosi was until very recently the senior vice president of Lennar Communities, another Lennar subsidiary and a component of Lennar/BVHP. Laurence Pelosi was the treasurer for Gavin Newsom's campaign for mayor last year. He is described in the press as Newsom's cousin, while Nancy Pelosi is related to Newsom through his aunt.
Activists are continuing to look into these intriguing relationships and will keep Bay View readers posted.
-------- africa
UN Team: Keep Congolese Uranium Mine Closed
November 10, 2004
NAIROBI, Kenya, (ENS)
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/nov2004/2004-11-10-03.asp
United Nations investigators have found that a uranium mine in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) that collapsed in July, killing nine people, is at high risk of caving in again and must remain closed.
The interagency team, led by the UN Environment Programme and the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), visited the Shinkolobwe uranium mine in the southwestern province of Katanga between October 25 and November 4, and is preparing technical recommendations.
Expert records radiation readings at Shinkolobwe mine, DRC, while other UN team members look on. (Photo (c) IRIN / OCHA) The environmental assessment team found high risks of mine collapse and potential chronic exposure to ionizing radiation, OCHA said in a statement on Tuesday.
"The situation in Shinkolobwe could be described as anarchistic - there is no respect for mining safety regulations," said Bernard Lamouille, an expert in artisanal mining who participated in the United Nations assessment.
The team also included people from the World Health Organization, the International Atomic Energy Agency, and the UN Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The mine had been excavated for uranium but closed before the country gained independence in the 1960s. The main shafts were covered with concrete. In the late 1990s, artisanal mining for cobalt was allowed, leading to uncontrolled and dangerous mining activities.
Around 15,000 people were dependent on the mining activities and living in the nearby village of Shinkolobwe.
However, during the UN team's visit, no artisanal miners were active onsite. Following the evacuation of the mining site in early August, the adjacent village had been destroyed. Artisanal miners and their dependants had reportedly dispersed to other artisanal mining sites and some returned to neighboring towns.
Artisanal workings at Shinkolobwe mine, DRC. (Photo (c) IRIN / OCHA) "No immediate risks to the environment were observed," said Alain Pasche of the UN assessment team, "though we have taken samples of water, soil and sediments, which will be further analyzed in Switzerland for heavy metal concentration."
From 1997 until August 2004, some 6,000 miners were entering the former Shinkolobwe mine site each day without authorization to extract cobalt. They had excavated a huge open pit next to the former uranium mine, which was flooded after it was mined out.
In light of the possibility that uranium might be extracted and sold on the black market, the United States demanded that the DR Congo government regain control over the mine site.
In January 2004, President Joseph Kabila banned access to the site, but miners were still working at the site until part of it collapsed in July.
All the miners who worked the site are at risk of developing cancer and other health problems because of high radiation levels at the site, concluded the UN investigators.
-------- depleted uranium
Veterans Day Address to the Nation
A suggested speech for the president.
seattleweekly.com
by Rick Anderson
November 10 - 23, 2004
http://www.seattleweekly.com/features/0446/041110_news_veteransday.php
In honor of Veterans Day this week, George Bush is likely to say a few words about those who served. That can be a tricky proposition for a war president, especially after he and his father created a new class of vets who are overwhelming the Veterans Benefits Administration. Still, as the president's re-election suggests, never misunderestimate the persuasive power of folksy political spin. Perhaps like . . .
My fellow Americans, first some good news. On this hallowed day, I'd like to announce some steps we've taken to honor our military veterans. Because the Pentagon, with a mere $425 billion annual budget, doesn't have the cash it needs for all the buglers necessary at veterans' funerals, we have begun buying fake bugles, with digital recordings of "Taps."
Pardon me while I flick away a tear.
This new thing is called the Ceremonial Bugle. It's for real. If a service member survives battle and is lucky to live long enough to die gracefully, the government will provide push-button horns that guests can play at military funerals.
You know, I think I had one of those as a kid. Came from Monkey Ward or somewhere. But mine was a bit cheaper. These babies cost $500!
We give a lot of lip service to our veterans' plights. But with this artificial final salute, we are able to truly express the country's gratitude for all they've done for us.
Thank you for your applause.
We have a lot of other obligations when it comes to veterans. Of course, many of these commitments were made in the heat of battle, or when we had to rush to war.
We used to tell our veterans they were guaranteed medical care for life. And they were-until the 1950s. That's when we first learned the rising cost of war left little in the bank for the aftermath. We felt it was our duty, however, to continue to make promises we couldn't keep.
Trouble is, there are now 26.5 million war vets in the U.S., and they are dying at the rate of only 1,000 a day. That leaves way too many for the government to financially deal with at a time when we have to launch another $5 billion aircraft carrier or build a $50 billion space-defense system to make the skies safe from anthrax balloons.
So at any one time, more than 3,000 veterans are waiting six months or longer for their first visit to the doctor. Disabled vets are waiting six months to two years for disability compensation. As of Aug. 31, the Department of Veterans Affairs had a backlog of 330,000 disabled vets awaiting evaluation. Veterans advocacy groups figure my administration has underfunded the VA by $2.6 billion.
But we are dealing with that. We have undertaken a plan to reduce VA spending over the next 10 years by $6 billion and at the same time continue our push to close VA hospitals and reduce staffing. Some veterans, such as those well-off noncombat vets who pull down $30,000 a year as civilians, have been cut off from VA medical care altogether.
I am confident that my continued tax cutting will have a lasting effect, as well.
Most veterans, having once been in the service, understand that the evil-doer is money, not policy. With war, you have to spend more than you've got, particularly if you have no idea what you're getting into. That's why we've had to charge soldiers wounded in Iraq for their hospital meals-though we stopped when word of it leaked out-and why we haven't been able to give our soldiers all the things they need, such as salaries.
A couple months back, a Government Accountability Office survey showed the Army Reserve payroll system wasn't operating as smoothly as it should. Mistakes had occurred in 95 percent of the examples the GAO examined. Most of the time it was a case of a soldier being overpaid. We have gotten tough with them, however, and now they've got to pay that money back. One guy was given $36,000 too much, and we plan to see he faces criminal charges.
And listen, soldiers are often left without paychecks. To partly make up for it, we occasionally bill some of them for their service to their country. Thirty-four soldiers in a Colorado National Guard unit stationed in Afghanistan, for example, received notices they owed the Army an average $48,000 each. Unfortunately, their unit commander-who risked his life by flying with payroll records to Kuwait, crossing Uzbekistan, where his plane was fired on-straightened out the mess, and we weren't able to collect.
We continue nonetheless to turn things around. One example: The government typically praises its troops in battle and then breaks its promises when they come home. Today, we're not waiting for them to come home! Last year, the Pentagon moved to cut troop pay for those soldiers still on the front line in Iraq. There was something of an uproar, however, and Congress quickly dashed that innovation.
Here's another cost-saving measure: Many troops live at poverty level in substandard military housing and risk their lives for $18,000 a year. They're on duty essentially 24 hours a day, which works out to $2 an hour. By keeping wages and benefits low, we are able to help the Pentagon continually expand its budget-predicted to hit a record $500 billion in a few years.
And clearly our generals need help. As it is, they can't account for 56 airplanes, 32 tanks, and 36 missile launchers, according to an inventory review, and have lost or misplaced $1 trillion in assets. Thankfully, the American taxpayer has opened his wallet wider and wider, with very little complaint.
I thank you for not holding that against me during my re-election campaign.
The VA has its budget problems, too, of course. To help solve that, I have asked the Department of Veterans Affairs to cross its fingers, so there won't be a delayed reaction to some lingering war ailment that shows up in the future, overwhelming the medical system.
True, something always comes back to bite you. Cancer from frostbite in the Korean War. Hep C from infected yellow fever vaccine in World War II. Secret toxic spraying of our servicemen by our own government during the Cold War. Agent Orange in Vietnam. And Gulf War Illnesses, the "cocktail effect" of chemical exposures and use of the experimental drugs and vaccines we handed out to our forces in Gulf War I.
And I will admit, we're privately worried about the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq-the ones we brought with us. We fired off an estimated 300 tons of armor-piercing, depleted uranium shells in my dad's war and an estimated 200 tons so far in my war. Since 1991, reported cancer cases in Iraq have quadrupled, and depleted uranium is the suspected source. It's said to be a lingering toxic nightmare for veterans from both sides of the battle.
But I should point out that my administration has yet to admit that depleted uranium poisoning is causing any lasting harm to our military. OK, Great Britain has recognized it as a disability for UK vets. But does it make any sense to follow the policies of a country that drives on the wrong side of the road?
Now, some of our soldiers destined for Iraq in 2003 were so worried about exposure to both Saddam's weapons and ours that they rushed off to have their sperm frozen before shipping out. They also feared our medical policies and bureaucracies of mass destruction.
Here's the thing, folks: I know our soldiers are fighting for democracy. It's just that the military doesn't happen to be one!
In closing, I'd like to say that during the recent presidential campaign, the important military and veterans issues weren't one guy's wartime service or the other guy's war wounds, not even whether Dan Rather should fall to his knees and apologize to the White House. The big thing probably was whether the government should apologize to our troops and vets. We outfit them with rifles that jam, protective armor that doesn't protect, equipment that breaks, and aircraft that fall from the sky. We mislead them into war and forsake them in peace.
But what can I say? Nobody brought that stuff up!
Hey, here's a big fat salute to the Swift Boat vets.
I do promise you, my fellow Americans, that, in the country's tradition of honoring our veterans, if I can't solve these problems in four more years, I will do everything in my power to leave them for the next president.
Happy Veterans Day, everyone. See you at the cemetery!
-------- europe
France to partially privatise nuclear giant Areva
PARIS (AFP)
Nov 10, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041110142702.lnh5uufw.html
The French government will further privatise Areva in the first half of 2005, bringing the listed capital of the world's leading civilian nuclear energy group to 35-40 percent, Economy Minister Nicolas Sarkozy said Wednesday.
The announcement came as Areva seeks to enlarge its international footprint, notably in energy-hungry China which is planning to add 32 new nuclear reactors over the next 15 years.
The massive Chinese expansion plan is estimated to represent 80 percent of all reactor construction for the next two decades.
The French economy ministry said Wednesday that wider privatization would better position Areva in the nuclear sector. The group's competitors, apart from Russian rivals, are publicly listed.
"Thanks to this expanded access to capital markets, Areva will be more flexible to exploit opportunities for its development, particularly from an international perspective," the economy ministry said in a statement.
"The state will continue in any case to retain, directly or indirectly, more than half of Areva's capital, due to the strategic nature of nuclear energy for France."
The sale of shares in Areva will be open to retail investors, with a "significant part" being reserved for employees.
The ministry added that funds obtained in the operation will be used to help with dismantling nuclear sites. Currently 4.5 percent of Areva's capital is quoted in the form of investment certificates. At their current market price, a 40 percent stake would be worth about four billion euros (5.2 billion dollars).
The group has a total market value of about 10 billion euros based on Tuesday's closing price of 288.80 euros for the non-voting Areva investment certificates.
Sarkozy, who has signaled presidential ambitions, made the announcement before his planned resignation by month's end. Thus he will not be directly in charge of the privatization in a sector sensitive to public opinion.
The French nuclear union federation immediately demanded further information on the ministry's decision, recalling "the intangible principles which should be respected" in the process.
The announcement confirmed newspaper reports Wednesday that the government was poised to further privatize the nuclear group.
Areva has annual sales of about 8.26 billion euros and a workforce of 48,000. It has activities in some 40 countries.
The government directly owns 5.19 percent of its capital. The atomic energy commission CEA holds a 78.96 percent stake, the quasi-public bank Caisse des depots et consignations has 3.59 percent, the state firm Erap has 3.21 percent and state electricity giant EDF has 2.42 percent. Employees hold 1.06 percent.
Since its creation in 2001 in the merger of Cogema, Framatome and CEA Industrie, the group has sought privatization.
Areva submitted its case to the state holdings agency several months ago, and its chairman Anne Lauvergeon has reiterated that the group was ready for flotation and was simply awaiting the government's decision to go ahead.
Areva already indicated last year that it wanted to list in the spring or autumn of 2004.
But the privatization was held up by Alstom, the struggling French engineering group. Areva had been mooted several times as a potential buyer of Alstom, which Lauvergeon had steadfastly refused.
With the acquisition of Alstom's power transmission and distribution unit this year, Areva made its case to the government that the time was right for further privatization.
All rights reserved. (c) 2004 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.
----
Europe's chances of securing major nuclear project improve
(AFP)
Nov 10, 2004
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20041110/sc_afp/science_energy_iter_eu_041110182126
VIENNA - The European Union (news - web sites) appeared to be slowly winning the battle over who will host a new major nuclear fusion project after Japan and the United States backed down on what earlier was outright refusal to let France be home to the reactor known as ITER.
Two days of intense negotiations in Vienna failed to secure a firm promise from these two powers which want the revolutionary International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project to be located in Rokkasho-Mura, in northeastern Japan.
But neither Tokyo nor Washington ruled out Cadarache in southern France, the EU's choice also backed by Russia and China and already home to Europe's biggest nuclear research centre.
"All parties were greatly encouraged by the positive atmosphere and expressed their optimism that the process was now proceeding effectively towards a fruitful conclusion among the six parties in the near future," the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said in a statement issued after discussions closed on Tuesday.
The IAEA said the talks would "continue in the near future with the aim of aligning the two parties' views."
According to Japanese sources, the matter is likely to be settled once the winner offers the loser a substantial consolation prize for the loss of the project. "The host will have to make a generous proposal to the non-host," Satoru Ohtake, the director of nuclear fusion at Japan's science and technology ministry, told AFP on Wednesday.
He said the final decision from Tokyo would be "taken at ministerial level."
Another source close to the talks said of the Japanese: "They seem ready to bow."
In Brussels, an official conceded Wednesday that the European Union had offered Japan a "sweetener" to allow France to host the project but refused further comment.
"I cannot elaborate on the sweetener, but I think we have made reasonable offers," European Commission (news - web sites) spokesman Fabio Fabbi told reporters.
ITER is a test bed for what is being billed as a clean, safe, inexhaustible energy source of the future. The project, emulating the sun's nuclear fusion, is not expected to generate electricity before 2050.
The ITER budget is projected to be 10 billion euros (13 billion dollars) over the next 30 years, including 4.7 billion euros to build the reactor. The European Union plans to finance 40 percent of the total.
France said at the end of September that it was ready to double its financial stake in the project, bringing it up to 914 million euros, or 20 percent of total construction cost.
The European Commission is to make a proposal on November 26 on the EU's position on the project.
Sources at the commission in Brussels said Tokyo might agree to a tradeoff scenario in which it lets ITER go to France if Japan gets to be host country for a new international scientific computing centre.
The fact that a research center already exists in Cadarache is seen as a strong point in the EU's favor. Locating ITER at a site that employs 3,500 science experts of which 400 specialise in nuclear fusion would help ITER get off the ground faster.
"They could take advantage of the existing infrastructure. They could start working at the very first day without losing their autonomy," a source close to the talks said.
Fabbi told reporters at the close of the negotiations that the commission was hopeful for a deal that would bring the project to France.
"We have reason to say that the Japanese have not flatly refused this position, although not endorsing it openly. Other delegations that have been supporting the Japanese candidate site have kept a similar line," Fabbi said.
"That's cause for some optimism," he added.
--------
EU Threatens to Go It Alone on Nuclear Fusion
Story by Paul Taylor and Louis Charbonneau
REUTERS AUSTRIA:
November 10, 2004
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/28086/newsDate/10-Nov-2004/story.htm
BRUSSELS/VIENNA - The European Union warned yesterday it may go ahead and build the world's first nuclear fusion reactor with whatever partners it can find if there is no global deal to put the project in France at talks in Vienna.
European Commission research spokesman Fabio Fabbi said the EU hoped a deal would be clinched yesterday to build the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) at Cadarache, near Marseille, rather than at a rival site in Japan.
"Our priority is to get an agreement with the largest number of participants and if possible with all six partners (the EU, the United States, Russia, China, Japan and South Korea).
"If there is no agreement, we'll have to think over ... how we go ahead with a maximum number of partners who want to participate," he told a news briefing.
Nuclear fusion has been touted as a long-term solution to the world's energy problems, as it would be low in pollution and use limitless sea water as fuel. The idea is to replicate the way the sun generates energy.
EU research and industry ministers are due to discuss how to move forward at a meeting on Nov. 25-26 and the Commission will recommend a course of action depending on the outcome of the Vienna talks, Fabbi said.
The EU's tactics in the fight for the $12 billion reactor resembled methods for which Europeans often criticize the United States - vowing to go it alone with a "coalition of the willing" if a multilateral forum does not back its course.
An EU source told Reuters this week that Cadarache was set to win the contest because Japan had signaled it would drop its bid in return for compensation.
But an official at the Japanese Science and Technology Ministry said Tokyo had not ended its bid to host the project.
Diplomats in Vienna said the outcome was still uncertain.
One Western diplomat familiar with the talks said: "They're still trying to slug it out. There may be a decision today on who gets it or they may decide that that they can't decide yet. The Japanese haven't given up yet."
"The Japanese are offering inducements to the French and the French are offering inducements to the Japanese," he said. The United States initially backed Japan's bid to put the reactor in the remote northern fishing village of Rokkasho in what was seen as a punishment to France for leading opposition to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
It now appears to be neutral. Asked where Washington now stood, a U.S. official in Vienna said: "The United States supports a six-party ITER, but negotiations on where that will be located are still progressing today."
Fusion involves sticking atoms together, as opposed to today's nuclear reactors and weapons, which produce energy by blowing atoms apart.
However, 50 years of research have failed to produce a commercially viable fusion reactor.
-------- iran
Iran Official Warns of NPT Pull-Out if West Presses
(Reuters)
By Paul Hughes
Nov 10, 2004
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=CEHQPVUCRW1MACRBAEOCFEY?type=topNews&storyID=6771774&pageNumber=1
TEHRAN - Iran will pull out of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and develop its atomic program in secret if Western nations threaten or put pressure on Tehran, a senior Iran diplomat was quoted as saying on Wednesday.
Iranian government officials have in the past repeatedly said Tehran had no intention of following North Korea's example of withdrawing from the NPT.
Diplomats expect Iran to announce shortly that it has agreed to suspend nuclear fuel cycle activities which could be used to make bomb material as part of a deal with the European Union to avoid referral to the U.N. Security Council.
But Sirus Naseri, a member of the Iranian negotiating team in the talks with the EU, warned Iran -- which says its atomic program is strictly for civilian use -- could take drastic steps if the talks did not proceed as Tehran wants.
"If they start to pressure or threaten us, then we will put aside the treaty and go underground," the semi-official Mehr news agency quoted him as saying.
"In that case, after one or two years, America and the EU will send mediators to talk to us and find a solution," he said.
Iran says it has the right as an NPT signatory to develop an atomic program to generate electricity to meet booming demand.
But Washington and Israel say Tehran's real ambition is to make nuclear weapons and want it to scrap activities that could be used to make bomb-grade material, such as uranium enrichment.
The EU says that if Iran scraps its enrichment facilities it will guarantee a supply of fuel for its reactors.
SUPENSION YES, CESSATION NO
But Naseri said Iran "will never rely on other countries to supply us with the nuclear fuel, which means we will definitely keep our enrichment program."
-------- japan
Japan denies ending bid for nuclear fusion project
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
November 10, 2004
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/28074/story.htm
TOKYO - Japan has not given up on its bid to host a global nuclear fusion project, a Japanese government official said yesterday.
A European Union source said this week that the EU was confident a deal to be outlined yesterday would site the $12 billion nuclear fusion project in France and that Japan had signalled it would give up its bid in return for some form of compensation.
"There is no truth to such remarks, which could be a kind of bluff. There has been no change in Japan's policy," an official at the Science and Technology Ministry told Reuters. "The Japanese government will continue with its efforts to host the project."
The European Union and five other industrial powers including Japan plan to build the world's first futuristic reactor that would generate energy through nuclear fusion.
But the six partners in the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) are split over where to locate the reactor, with Washington backing Tokyo's bid in what has been seen as a payback for Japan's support for the war in Iraq and France's opposition.
Negotiators from the EU, United States, South Korea, Japan, Russia and China began meeting this week in Vienna, headquarters of the International Atomic Energy Agency, to seek a deal.
"The agreement foresees ITER in Cadarache," the EU source said in Brussels this week, referring to the French site north of Marseille. "They are preparing an agreement under which the Japanese would receive something."
While the EU, backed by China and Russia, wanted ITER to be built in Cadarache, the United States along with South Korea had preferred Rokkasho, a remote fishing village in northern Japan.
The ITER project would create the world's first sustained nuclear fusion reaction.
Nuclear fusion has been touted as a solution to the world's energy problems, as it would be low in pollution and would theoretically use sea water as fuel.
Fusion involves sticking atoms together, as opposed to today's nuclear reactors and weapons, which produce energy by blowing atoms apart.
Fifty years of research, however, have failed to produce a commercially viable fusion reactor. (Reporting by Teruaki Ueno, editing by Alan Raybould)
------- korea
Deserter lifts veil on closed regime
November 10, 2004
By Jeremy Kirk
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20041109-110229-5423r.htm
SEOUL - Charles Robert Jenkins, sentenced last week to 30 days in prison for deserting from the U.S. Army four decades ago, may prove a valuable source of intelligence on the world's most inaccessible country, North Korea.
The 64-year-old Jenkins admitted at his trial that he had deserted to North Korea by creeping across a minefield in the demilitarized zone to avoid duty in Vietnam. He spent 39 years in North Korea, teaching English to officer cadets and appearing in propaganda films.
But before the trial, Jenkins had offered the U.S. military critical details about how North Korea uses foreigners in its spy program in exchange for an administrative discharge.
A formal request for the discharge filed in August said Jenkins was "absolutely willing to confirm a suspicion long held by U.S. intelligence agencies that a number of Americans were used, most often unwillingly, by North Korea to arm spies with English-speaking skills so they could target American interests in South Korea and beyond."
The request also said Jenkins could confirm that "at least three other Americans who are suspected of deserting to North Korea were allowed to marry East European and/or Middle Eastern women who had been brought to and held in North Korea against their will."
"In two of the cases, the Americans had multiple children who are now young adults who appear to be American or European themselves."
Military authorities rejected the offer of a deal and went ahead with last week's court-martial, but are expected to debrief the former Army sergeant regardless.
Col. Vic Warzinski, a public-affairs officer for U.S. Forces Japan, said Jenkins has been cooperative since he returned to Army custody on Sept. 11, but he would not comment on intelligence matters.
"In general, defectors have kept their value for years after the fact," said Eric Heginbotham, an expert on Korean studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington. "In the North Korean case, we know so little about the society and the whole system."
Jenkins could go through an initial set of interviews and then be used later as a reference, Mr. Heginbotham said. "I think they'll want to have access to him indefinitely."
Jenkins was a nearly forgotten Cold War tumbleweed until two years ago when it was revealed he had married a Japanese abductee. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi gained the release of five abductees, including Jenkins' wife, Hitomi Soga, after North Korean leader Kim Jong-il admitted the country had secretly snatched Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s.
Mrs. Soga captured the Japanese public's sympathy by scripting simple poems about her family while her husband and two children, Mika, 21, and Brinda, 19, remained in North Korea. They were reunited in July in Jakarta, Indonesia, after the Japanese government brought Jenkins and his children on a charter flight.
-------- us nuc waste
Nuclear waste at center stage
Scientists discuss reprocessing and recycling
REVIEW-JOURNAL
By KEITH ROGERS
November 10, 2004
http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2004/Nov-10-Wed-2004/news/25221821.html
Scientists from around the world traveled to Las Vegas on Tuesday to talk about a common problem: How to reduce the amount of nuclear waste destined for yet-to-be-built repositories like the one planned for Yucca Mountain.
The solution, they said, is to continue to develop and explore a couple techniques known in scientific circles as reprocessing and transmutation. As one put it, it's like "the alchemist's dream of turning lead into gold."
"What hasn't been shown is the feasibility at the engineering level. We can do it one atom at a time," said scientist Gary Cerefice, among the hosts of the three-day conference at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. About 120 scientists from countries including France, Japan and Russia are attending.
Although progress in developing the techniques is measured in decades, the pursuit continues abroad to reprocess or recycle materials in spent nuclear fuel pellets.
Reprocessing spent fuel in the United States has been prohibited since the mid-1970s. The Bush administration allows research into what it takes to extract usable plutonium and uranium.
The other technique, transmutation, is aimed at taking long-lived radionuclides such as americium and neptunium and transforming them into smaller amounts of shorter-lived radioactive materials to be buried in a repository.
"We're doing the research. The implementation is many, many years away," said Carter "Buzz" Savage, who directs the U.S. effort at the Department of Energy.
Reprocessing and transmutation won't change the need for a Yucca Mountain repository but may reduce or eliminate the need for future repositories, he said.
The task of making transmutation viable would entail licensing a new generation of reprocessing plants, fuel fabrication plants and reactors.
Some scientists envision regional facilities to cater to commercial power reactors. One scenario would be to locate them at Yucca Mountain.
The Department of Energy hopes to begin a licensing review in December for the proposed repository at Yucca Mountain, with first deliveries of spent fuel from U.S. power reactors in 2010.
Savage said the government is spending $68 million on the Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative Program, with the same amount expected next year.
-------- MILITARY
-------- afghanistan
Kabul in Touch With Captors of U.N. Aides
November 10, 2004
By CARLOTTA GALL
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/10/international/asia/10afghan.html
KABUL, Afghanistan, Nov. 9 - The Afghan government announced Tuesday that contact had been made with the three United Nations election officials kidnapped nearly two weeks ago, and it expressed hope that they would be released soon.
"A lot of progress has been made, and the hope is exciting that, God willing, they will be released and safely join their families," the president's spokesman, Jawed Ludin, said at a weekly news briefing.
Two of the hostages, Annetta Flanigan and Shqipe Habibi, made telephone calls to their homes, Mr. Ludin said. Reuters reported that the third hostage, Angelito Nayan, a diplomat for the Philippines who had been assigned to the United Nations, called his Foreign Ministry with a message for his sister saying that he was all right.
Despite continued threats by the kidnappers, the latest news suggested that negotiations over the hostages had been working and that a deal for their freedom might be on the horizon. Afghan officials said the kidnapping group, which calls itself Jaish-e-Muslimeen, or Army of Muslims, appeared to be motivated by money more than anything else.
"This is a deal between robbers and the government," a senior security official said. "Al Qaeda is not involved yet." But he added that there was a danger that the kidnappers would still try to pass the hostages on to a group with ties to Al Qaeda.
The kidnappers also expressed hope for a deal. "We're very hopeful they will accept our conditions," Akbar Agha, the group's leader, told The Associated Press by telephone.
Jaish-e-Muslimeen has demanded the release of 26 prisoners. Mr. Ludin did not say if any prisoners would be freed in return for the hostages' freedom, but he said the government was prepared to do anything to ensure the safety of the United Nations staff members, who had been working on the Afghan presidential election.
Government officials said they were hoping to have the hostages released before the weekend. The hostages are thought to be not far south of Kabul, a government official said, although negotiations for their release were being conducted in southern Kandahar Province.
-------- africa
Sudan, Rebels Reach Accord On Darfur
Government Approves No-Fly Zone, Access to Aid
By Emily Wax
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, November 10, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38097-2004Nov9.html
NYALA, Sudan, Nov. 9 -- With violence increasing and political pressure mounting to end the conflict in Sudan's Darfur region, the government agreed Tuesday to halt military flights over the region and signed a separate agreement to allow free access to aid for the nearly 2 million people displaced by the violence.
At peace talks in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, the government agreed to disarm allied militiamen known as the Janjaweed. In security agreements signed by the government and rebel parties, both sides agreed to reveal the location of their forces to African Union cease-fire monitors in a war that the United Nations has called the world's worst humanitarian crisis.
"We still have a long way to go, but the step we have taken this afternoon is a very important step in the right direction," President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria, chairman of the African Union, told reporters in Abuja after a signing ceremony.
But he was quick to add, "These documents won't be worth the paper they are written on if they are not scrupulously implemented on the ground."
Just a week ago, Sudan's government called the idea of a no-fly zone "unreasonable" and threatened to shut down the peace talks. But with violence still raging in Darfur's 20-month conflict between African rebels and pro-government forces, food aid has now been blocked to 200,000 people and large swaths of Darfur are "no-go" areas for U.N. humanitarian workers.
Sudan's decision comes 10 days before a meeting of the U.N. Security Council, which could have imposed sanctions on the country's oil industry or taken other punitive measures because of the worsening security situation in Darfur.
Since a cease-fire agreement was signed in April, it has been violated 180 times, or roughly once a day, the African Union says. The Sudanese government this week also drew international criticism for forcibly moving hundreds of families from one camp near the capital of South Darfur to another camp, where the families said they feared they would be subject to attacks.
Nearly 2 million Africans live in squalid tent cities across Darfur after being driven from their farms by the fighting, which broke out in February 2003 when African tribes rebelled against the Arab-led government.
In retaliation, the United Nations says, the government has bombed villages and armed the Janjaweed militias. Tens of thousands of people have died from hunger, disease and violence; the Bush administration has described the crisis as genocide.
Officials of the Sudanese government said the agreement showed they were working hard for peace in Darfur. "It is really a landmark agreement for Darfur," Sudanese spokesman Ibrahim Mohammed Ibrahim said in a telephone interview from Abjua. "We are serious and we want to do this."
During two weeks of often-tense African Union-sponsored talks, rebel leaders demanded the no-fly zone because, they said, the government continues to bomb civilians and is using the flights to determine rebel positions.
There was still no decision on political issues, including the African tribes' demands for a more equitable share in power and wealth with the central government in Khartoum. Analysts say such issues must be addressed to reach a lasting solution to the Darfur crisis.
"We are not there yet. We have to see what's going to happen in reality and in practice," said Mahgoub Hussain of the Sudan Liberation Army, the larger of two rebel groups at the peace talks. "We've had agreements like this in the past. A lot more needs to be done to enforce this."
Maj. George Wachira, who heads the African Union's cease-fire commission, said that establishing the no-fly zone was a positive move and that his team would be able to monitor it. The African Union has 700 troops on the ground now and is planning to deploy 2,300 more to monitor a shaky cease-fire.
"This no-fly zone is a good step and it's very needed. But it has to be kept. I wish everyone would just put their arms down and work on feeding these people and getting things back to normal," Wachira said. He added that it would be naive to think the peace deal will unfold without any violations from either side. "Promises have to be kept. We want to wait and see," he said.
Alfred Taban, editor and publisher of the Khartoum Monitor, the capital's independent English-language newspaper, noted that the government of Sudan had already promised to disband the Janjaweed militias months ago. Instead, the United Nations and human rights groups say, the militias have merged with Sudan's army and police.
"I think the new agreement is very important because this definitely lays down some restrictions on bombing civilians in Darfur," Taban said. "But the problem is that the government very often doesn't stick to agreements. This is a big concern. They can say they will do something and everyone will forget that it wasn't done."
-------- business
Pentagon Widens Procurement Investigation
By Renae Merle
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 10, 2004; Page E01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38200-2004Nov9.html
The Pentagon's investigation into the actions of a former Air Force official who admitted giving preferential treatment to Boeing Co. for several years is expanding into a broad review of how the military buys weapons.
The effort could turn into the widest examination of the Pentagon procurement system since the 1980s influence-peddling scandal known as Ill Wind. The scrutiny was spurred by Darleen A. Druyun's admission last month that she gave preferential treatment to Boeing after the company hired her daughter and son-in-law. Druyun was sentenced to nine months in prison.
The Pentagon will broaden its inquiry of procurement procedures beyond the Air Force to all the services, said Michael W. Wynne, the Pentagon's acting acquisition chief. The investigation will consider what lapses in the Air Force system allowed Druyun to favor Boeing, whether those problems still exist and whether similar problems exist in the other services, he said. If the task force finds problems, it will recommend ways to address them, he said.
"This is an egregious problem. It detracts from all of us," Wynne said. "The purpose of this review is to provide advice on how [Druyun] accrued enough power" to take illegal action undetected. "We are looking across the services to see if there are other people who accrued this type of power."
The Pentagon has begun two large-scale investigations under separate groups. The Defense Science Board, a Pentagon advisory group, will study the procurement systems. The Defense Contract Management Agency will lead a survey of all the contracting-related actions taken by Druyun during her nine years as the Air Force's deputy acquisition chief, starting in 1993. That will include her decisions on company bonuses and contract extensions, defense officials said. The inquiry will likely be far-ranging because Druyun had a role in hundreds of contracts before she retired in November 2002.
Air Force officials have said they made significant changes to the procurement system after Druyun retired and joined Boeing as a vice president. Her position was eliminated and her power dispersed to a wide range of lower-ranking officials. But senior Air Force officials felt a Department of Defense-level review was necessary to move beyond the scandal.
Druyun's revelations are also likely to keep Boeing's space business in limbo. Last year, the Air Force suspended Boeing from bidding on space contracts after the company admitted that some of its employees had proprietary Lockheed Martin Corp. documents during a competition for a rocket-launch contract.
While Air Force officials have repeatedly said they hoped to lift the suspension soon, that now seems unlikely. "It's really hard for the Air Force to move forward now that this has all come out," Wynne said. "We've got to sweep away any allegations of ethical misconduct."
The Pentagon has also asked the Government Accountability Office to handle protests filed by Boeing's competitors after Druyun admitted that her relationship with Boeing tainted her decision to award the company a $4 billion contract to upgrade the electronics on the C-130 transport plane. Originally, Lockheed, L-3 Communications Holdings Inc. and BAE Systems PLC filed protests on the award with the Air Force, but those have been withdrawn and will be refiled with the GAO, Wynne said. Lockheed's protest included two classified programs, which will not be refiled with the GAO but will be addressed by the Air Force, Wynne said.
Boeing officials have said the company is not aware of receiving preferential treatment.
The Pentagon's inspector general is also investigating Druyun's actions. Wynne said the review should include whether Druyun gave preferential treatment to defense contractors who employed her husband. William S. Druyun retired from a mid-level position at General Dynamics Corp. this year.
--------
Europeans Lobby in Washington for Military Work
November 10, 2004
By LESLIE WAYNE
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/10/business/10military.html?pagewanted=all&position=
As a corporate symbol, it's hard to find anyone more all-American than Sammy Pence of Grand Prairie, Tex.
With his cowboy hat and boots, and his bold stance in front of a helicopter painted red, white and blue, Mr. Pence, a former Marine, both breeds cattle on his ranch and oversees the delivery of helicopters for EADS North America, the United States arm of Europe's largest military contractor.
Mr. Pence, so cloaked in patriotic imagery, is the public face the European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company, or EADS, is sending to the American military establishment via a powerful new marketing campaign. Though foreign-owned and of French and German lineage, EADS is making a push to gain a toehold inside the Pentagon, and the ad that features Mr. Pence is just one small, but highly visible, part of these efforts.
"We feel very American," said Mr. Pence, who spent over three hours posing for the advertising photo and who has worked for EADS or its parent companies for 20 years. "Most of our employees are former military. We are proud of what we have done."
In these days of stark American and European differences over the Iraq war and other issues, selling military equipment from a company with a French and German imprint may be a tall order. But just as other foreign contractors, including Thales, BAE Systems and Rolls-Royce, have begun to get a piece of the Pentagon's $400 billion budget, EADS is edging its way in, too, with a series of small successes and a dose of old-fashioned American lobbying.
"What we are trying to do is bring new competitive forces to the military marketplace," said Ralph Crosby, a former Northrop Grumman executive who became chief executive of EADS North America in 2002. "It will be good for the taxpayer. As an enterprise, we want to establish our U.S. citizenship."
Turning the French Tricolor into the Stars and Stripes, of course, is no easy task. Not only is EADS facing anti-French sentiment, but its effort to sell its wares in Washington also comes at a time when a strong "Buy America" attitude is taking hold among many members of Congress.
"The American military market is by far the biggest in the world," said Loren Thompson, a military analyst at the Lexington Institute, a nonprofit research group in northern Virginia that promotes smaller government. "Every company wants to offer its products here. But EADS is uniquely impaired because of bad feelings toward the countries of its parent company. In the Pentagon, when you say EADS, people think 'France.' "
Even so, EADS has managed to make some significant gains. The company has sold more than 2,000 of its American Eurocopter helicopters to the Coast Guard, the Border Patrol, the Department of Homeland Security and numerous law enforcement agencies. It has acquired some small American military contractors and gotten involved in partnerships with big players like Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin on a number of Pentagon contracts with billion-dollar price tags.
Last month, EADS reorganized its operations in the United States to enhance its eligibility for classified contracts. And, it has lined up a team of former Pentagon officials and Congressional insiders to lobby Washington decision makers.
Help has come in the most unexpected ways. With a scandal surrounding rival Boeing Company over its bungled effort to land a $20 billion Air Force contract for a new fleet of aerial refueling tankers, EADS has a long-shot opportunity to be involved in that high-profile deal. These aerial tankers are used to refuel fighter jets in midair.
EADS North America, with annual revenues of $700 million, is still a relatively small subsidiary of EADS, the $36 billion European aerospace consortium that makes military equipment for the global market and is the 80 percent owner of Airbus, the European commercial jetliner manufacturer that recently surpassed Boeing in new sales.
EADS just recently landed contracts for a refueling version of the Airbus in Germany, Canada, Australia and Britain, even beating Boeing in some of these competitions.
But EADS is still looking for its big breakthrough: cracking the Air Force tanker deal would open the door to tens of billions of dollars in potential military equipment sales. EADS's Airbus tanker is the only alternative to Boeing, whose earlier tanker bid was artificially inflated by Darleen Druyun, the former Air Force acquisitions officer who also admitted illegally giving EADS's proprietary pricing data to Boeing. Ms. Druyun is now serving a nine-month prison term for her actions.
"When and if there is competition for the U.S. tanker," said Mr. Crosby, "we will be there to compete." The Pentagon's 2005 budget mandates that the tanker proposal be opened up, pending further studies.
To sweeten its offer, EADS has promised to do final Airbus tanker assembly in the United States and to make sure that more than 50 percent of the content is made in America. Earlier this month, EADS's efforts got a lift when Lockheed Martin, Boeing's chief rival among Pentagon contractors, said it would team up in any future tanker bid, giving EADS additional political heft and a more American look. Yesterday, the Pentagon's top weapons buyer, Michael Wynne, said EADS deserved to be considered in any new competition.
EADS has also been wise in playing Washington's political game, cozying up to important politicians, hiring an impressive roster of former Pentagon officials and Congressional staff members and opening manufacturing plants in politically powerful districts, largely in the pro-military South.
Just last month, the company opened a new 85,000-square-foot helicopter factory in Columbus, Miss., in the northeastern part of the state.
At that ribbon-cutting came an announcement of two new government contracts - a $75 million deal to make 55 helicopters for the Border Patrol and a $124 million Coast Guard contract to upgrade 95 previously purchased EADS helicopters. The Mississippi plant will be in addition to EADS helicopter plants in Grand Prairie, Tex., and Mobile, Ala.
In Washington, the EADS lobbying team is led by Samuel Adcock, a former legislative assistant to Senator Trent Lott, the Mississippi Republican who was once the Senate majority leader. In his old job, Mr. Adcock advised Senator Lott on military issues and pushed for bigger Pentagon budgets. Mr. Adcock is also a member of the Defense Science Board, an influential panel that advises the defense secretary, Donald H. Rumsfeld, on military policy.
Other military heavyweights on the EADS North America board include William Schneider Jr., a former State Department official who is chairman of the Defense Science Board, and Richard Burt, a former ambassador to Germany. They are joined by three retired military generals and admirals - one each from the Coast Guard, the Navy and the Air Force.
EADS officials were also included in an annual Alaskan fishing tournament with Senator Ted Stevens as host on the Fourth of July this year. Mr. Stevens, a Republican, has been chairman of the powerful Appropriations Committee. Officials at EADS, which sponsored a dinner at the event, were able to mingle with industry executives, Republican Senators and Pentagon officials, including John Young, an assistant secretary of the Navy, and Labor Secretary Elaine Chao and Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta.
"They are playing the same political game as all other military contractors," said Keith Ashdown, a military industry analyst at Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonprofit organization that monitors federal spending. "It's got to give them a good shot. We'll see how it works out in the near future."
EADS has been quietly shopping for acquisitions. Last month, it acquired Racal Instruments, a maker of military equipment testing gear in Irvine, Calif., for $105 million, its second purchase in this sector.
"So far, they have been moving fairly slowly," said Richard Aboulafia, a military analyst with the Teal Group, an aerospace consulting firm in Fairfax, Va. "One could argue that growth-by-stealth is a strategy, so that they can expand without drawing the attention of the Buy America crowd."
Yet with a number of contracts on the horizon, it's hard to say how long EADS can operate in the shadows. EADS has teamed with Lockheed and Northrop Grumman on the first phase of a $87.4 million maritime patrol turboprop aircraft for the Coast Guard that ultimately could lead to the purchase of 30 aircraft, at $30 million each or more. EADS is also eyeing an Army contract for 128 medium-lift transportation planes.
Last September, EADS and Northrop Grumman announced a partnership to work together on the development of the next-generation personnel recovery vehicle for the Air Force. "This is a really big deal," said Mr. Crosby, pointing out that the contract could reach $2 billion.
EADS has also formed a partnership with Northrop on several other initiatives. These include the EuroHawk unmanned aerial surveillance program in Europe, and ground surveillance programs for NATO. In September, EADS and Northrop signed a preliminary agreement to pursue business opportunities in the global ballistic-missile market.
EADS is also working with Lockheed to explore missile defense partnership opportunities in the United States and overseas and entered into another partnership with Lockheed to sell EADS's small-ship radar to customers around the globe, including the Coast Guard.
"We've established ourselves here," said Mr. Crosby. "The fact that we are competing to offer the U.S. government new products should be considered a good thing."
-------- chemical weapons
Moscow complains of lack of financing for destruction of chemical weapons
MOSCOW (AFP)
Nov 10, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041110161909.5f0r5pgb.html
Russia on Wednesday said it would boost its own spending in 2005 on a programme to destroy its vast arsenal of chemical weapons, complaining of inadequate assistance from foreign donors led by the United States.
Russia still has a stockpile of around 40,000 tonnes of chemical warheads. It has stated its intention to destroy 20 percent of the stockpile by 2007 and to eliminate it by 2012.
Leaders of the Group of Seven most industralised countries (G7) in 2002 offered up to 20 billion dollars to Russia to dispose of its chemical weapons and military plutonium stocks and secure facilities from the threat of terrorists.
Chemical disarmament is "an international problem" and must be resolved "with the international community on an equal basis," said Alexander Kharichev, secretary of of the country's chemical weapons disarmament commission.
"But for the moment, 90 percent of the funding is coming from the Russian budget. Given the situation, we are doubling the financing for this programme," added Kharichev, who was participating in a conference in Moscow on chemical disarmament.
In 2004, the Russian state devoted 5.4 billion roubles (186 million dollars) for chemical disarmament and for next year has allocated 11.2 billion roubles (386 millions dollars), the official said.
But between 1992 and 2003, Russia received only 217 million dollars from abroad for the programme, said Viktor Kholstov, deputy head of the federal industry agency which is responsible for overseeing the chemical disarmament.
"Russia only gets 30 percent of the sums announced by the Americans in their aid programmes," the rest going on "organisational costs" of the US institutions and entreprises which participate in the programme, Kharichev told AFP.
The official, however, praised cooperation with Germany and the Netherlands, which he said "use more transparent schemes."
Russia has the world's largest chemical weapons stockpile, including stocks of sarin and VX nerve gas.
Dismantling its stocks of military plutonium and chemical weapons, seen as vulnerable to theft in the corruption-tainted post-Soviet era, was made a priority goal in international efforts to halt proliferation, prompting leaders at the G7 summit at Kananaskis, in Canada, in 2002 to offer up to 20 billion dollars in aid to dispose of them.
-------- colombia
Rightist Militias Are a Force in Colombia's Congress
November 10, 2004
By JUAN FORERO
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/10/international/americas/10colombia.html?pagewanted=all&position=
CAUCASIA, Colombia, Nov. 5 - Here in the humid cattle pastures of northern Colombia, Congresswoman Rocío Arias says she feels at peace. She needs no bodyguards, as she does in Bogotá.
That may seem odd, since this is a region controlled by a 15,000-member coalition of right-wing paramilitary groups accused by Colombian and American officials of mass murder and cocaine trafficking. The United States is seeking the extradition of the biggest drug kingpins.
But as the coalition, the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, negotiates the disarmament of 3,000 of its members with President Álvaro Uribe, Ms. Arias's fearlessness is understandable. She is a key advocate in Congress, part of a network of political leaders who are making sure that none of the wanted men here go to prison or face extradition.
"For me, the land here is paradise," Ms. Arias, 35, said with a smile as she was ferried across a swath of cattle country. "Here, you can live with your doors open. It's calm. You can breathe tranquility, patriotism, optimism."
It is increasingly clear that the political coalition the paramilitary forces have created is at the apex of its power. The militias control several northern states, including major drug trafficking routes. They have also placed their advocates in Colombian institutions like the attorney general's office and town and city halls, according to Western diplomats, rights advocates and Colombian lawmakers.
Perhaps the most troubling sign of paramilitary influence is in Congress. There, Ms. Arias and a colleague, Eleonora Pineda, lead a group of 16 legislators from rural regions who, to varying degrees, openly support the paramilitary leaders, particularly their demand for a deal in which they would not serve jail time or face extradition if they demobilize their forces.
The two have been particularly adept, political analysts and lawmakers say, at whitewashing the image of the paramilitary coalition, which is on the State Department's list of terrorist organizations.
It is unclear how many among the 263 other members of the two-house Congress are aligned with the right-wing militias. Salvatore Mancuso, the best-known paramilitary commander, has said that at least 30 percent of the lawmakers are controlled by paramilitary groups.
Gustavo Petro, a left-leaning congressman and vigorous critic of the negotiations with the militias, says Congress is split into three groups: those eager to collaborate with them, those opposed but forced to cooperate and those actively opposed.
"These ladies are with them, part and parcel," he said. "They're not the only ones. There are 40 or 50 who are also with them. They have to be, because their future in Congress is dependent on paramilitary support."
Told of the accusations, Ms. Arias smiled, shrugged and said: "I'm not a paramilitary congresswoman. I'm just a congresswoman convinced of the path of negotiated solutions."
But it is not hard to gauge where her sympathies lie.
When three paramilitary commanders, including Mr. Mancuso, spoke to Congress in July, Ms. Arias and Ms. Pineda helped them engineer the event as a way of mitigating the warlords' fearsome reputation as killers and cocaine traffickers.
The two congresswomen sent out embossed invitations to diplomats and journalists. They picked up the three leaders at Bogotá's military airport when they arrived from their northern lair. The congresswomen brought suits for the men, who are used to wearing fatigues, and then ferried Mr. Mancuso to a store to buy dress shoes.
The American ambassador, William Wood, called the scene scandalous, but for the paramilitary forces' supporters in Congress it was seen as a historic event that gave the leaders a chance to present their side.
Colombia's Congress is filled with old-style politicians, mostly men, who range from former guerrillas or labor leaders to aristocrats to statesmen like Senator Rafael Pardo, who is widely respected inside Colombia and abroad. Many are skilled at no-holds-barred backroom politics.
Ms. Arias, a small-town journalist and community worker who is divorced and has three children, offers a dramatic break. Her role is to lobby for a process beneficial to the paramilitary coalition, a group she credits for driving off rebels who killed an uncle and three cousins of hers.
In an interview in the heart of paramilitary country, the man believed to be the most ruthless commander, Diego Fernando Murillo, said Ms. Arias was "not an appendage to the structure." But he smiled and praised her, saying, "She's defending the peace process."
To make their case for them, the militias have also hired former television reporters to carry out publicity campaigns. Businessmen with ties to the group quietly lobby, too. But political analysts and lawmakers say it is Ms. Arias who is the most enthusiastic supporter, traveling to Washington and Spain to make the case for the commanders.
"They are not narco-traffickers," she said, rattling off the names of commanders who have assured her that they have no ties to cocaine smuggling. "I believe in the word of Salvatore Mancuso. I believe in the word of Adolfo Paz."
It is, in fact, the issue of drug trafficking that has kept Ms. Arias most occupied in Congress. Aside from a resolution declaring a popular northern hat a national symbol, she has proposed only one piece of legislation since her election two years ago, a law to bar extradition for paramilitary commanders involved in peace talks.
It received 59 signatures in support, she said, but the legislative session ended before it could be brought to a vote. She promises to propose it again next year.
"They're negotiating, they're making sacrifices, and what's the prize?" she said. "The United States is going to have them extradited."
She has only good things to say about the paramilitary fighters, who are mostly concentrated in the hamlet of Santa Fe de Ralito, the center of a safe haven ceded by the government for talks. Ms. Arias spends at least one night a week there, and Ms. Pineda lives nearby.
Charges of drug trafficking and mass murder, she said, are exaggerations created by "the enemies of peace."
"Of course, innocents have died," she said. "But the Self-Defense Forces have dedicated themselves to attacking the guerrillas, not the communities, not the institutions."
-------- iraq
U.S. Forces Battle Into Heart of Fallujah
Units Meet Scattered Resistance; Attacks Continue Elsewhere
By Jackie Spinner, Karl Vick and Omar Fekeiki
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, November 10, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A35979-2004Nov9?language=printer
NEAR FALLUJAH, Iraq, Nov. 9 -- U.S. forces pushed into the heart of Fallujah on Tuesday, encountering roadside bombs, rockets and gunfire on the second day of a battle to wrest control of the city from insurgents.
Army and Marine units that entered Fallujah from the northeast and northwest on Monday night had fought their way to the city center and beyond by Tuesday night, U.S. commanders said.
Soldiers with the Army's 1st Infantry Division made their way to the southeastern part of the city, a neighborhood of factories and warehouses where they expected to find guerrillas waiting for them. Instead, the district was relatively quiet, though the units reported being fired on by women and children armed with assault rifles.
"There were multiple groups running around shooting at us," said Air Force Senior Airman Michael Smyre, 26, of Hickory, N.C., an airstrike spotter attached to the 1st Infantry who was wounded when a rocket hit his armored vehicle. "You could see a lot of rubble, trash everywhere. It was real nasty-looking."
Marines fighting to the west of the Army units advanced to the main east-west highway that divides Fallujah and reported persistent resistance from insurgents firing from mosques.
The U.S. military said 10 troops and two members of Iraq's security forces were killed in the first two days of the battle, the largest military operation since the U.S.-led invasion last year. U.S. and Iraqi leaders hope the assault will break the grip of insurgents who have held Fallujah for nearly seven months.
Some Iraqi political and religious groups condemned the push into Fallujah, a stronghold of the Sunni Muslim minority. A leading Sunni organization, the Iraqi Islamic Party, quit the country's interim government, and Sunni clerics on Tuesday made good on threats to call for a boycott of January elections. Harith Dhari, head of the pro-insurgency Association of Muslim Scholars, said balloting would occur "over the corpses of those killed in Fallujah."
Insurgents elsewhere in Iraq, meanwhile, continued a strategy of mounting attacks. In Baqubah, a restive city northeast of Baghdad, armed bands attacked two police stations. Police officials and the U.S. military said the attacks were beaten back. A car bomb at an Iraqi National Guard camp outside the northern city of Kirkuk killed three people and wounded two. And two U.S. service members were killed in a mortar attack on a base in Mosul, also in the north.
In Baghdad, where insurgents on Monday night detonated a car bomb outside a hospital treating victims of two car bombs outside churches, interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi imposed a curfew from 10:30 p.m. to 4 a.m. U.S. fighter jets made low passes over the capital, a show of strength rarely seen since the 2003 invasion.
At a news conference in Baghdad, Lt. Gen. Thomas Metz, the commander of foreign military operations in Iraq, said the assault on Fallujah had so far "achieved our objectives on or ahead of schedule." He added, "I think we're looking at several more days of tough urban fighting."
The general said the battle plan as a whole was on course. "We felt like the enemy would form an outer crust in defense of Fallujah. We broke through that pretty quickly and easily," Metz said. "We also then anticipated him breaking up into small three- to six-person detachments or squads, which we've seen throughout the day, today especially."
Witnesses said that by Tuesday night, U.S. and Iraqi forces controlled the Jolan, Mualimeen and Askali neighborhoods in the north of Fallujah. They also held the Rawdha Muhammediya mosque, headquarters of the insurgent fighters and the mujaheddin shura, the city's self-appointed government.
The assault pushed insurgents into Shuhada and other neighborhoods in the southernmost part of the city, where they are fighting and hiding behind buildings and houses, witnesses said.
Metz said that because U.S. forces formed a "very tight" cordon around the city Sunday night, the enemy "doesn't have an escape route" and eventually would be cornered.
But Sheik Abdul-Sattar Edatha, the spokesman for the shura council, said most foreign fighters had already left the city. The U.S. military had estimated that there were 2,000 to 3,000 foreign fighters in the city, many of them part of a network linked to Jordanian-born guerrilla leader Abu Musab Zarqawi.
"Militarily speaking, the city falls under the U.S. forces' control," Edatha said. "The foreign fighters won't stay here and die. They lost the battle. They spread in other places."
On Tuesday night, Fallujah's eerily empty streets were littered with shattered concrete and dead bodies, said a resident shaken by a missile strike on the second story of his family home. Insurgents cloaked in checkered head scarves carried wounded fellow fighters to mosques.
Civilians caught in the crossfire were gathered in a hospital donated by the United Arab Emirates and flying a blue and white UNICEF banner. There, medical workers low on bandages and antiseptic bound wounds in ripped sheets and cleaned torn skin with hot water.
The Jolan and Askali neighborhoods seemed particularly hard hit, with more than half of the houses destroyed. Dead bodies were scattered on the streets and narrow alleys of Jolan, one of Fallujah's oldest neighborhoods. Blood and flesh were splattered on the walls of some of the houses, witnesses said, and the streets were full of holes.
Some of the heaviest damage apparently was incurred Monday night from air and artillery attacks that coincided with the entry of ground troops into the city. U.S. warplanes dropped eight 2,000-pound bombs on the city overnight, and artillery boomed throughout the night and into the morning.
"Usually we keep the gloves on," said Army Capt. Erik Krivda, of Gaithersburg, the senior officer in charge of the 1st Infantry Division's Task Force 2-2 tactical operations command center. "For this operation, we took the gloves off."
Some artillery guns fired white phosphorous rounds that create a screen of fire that cannot be extinguished with water. Insurgents reported being attacked with a substance that melted their skin, a reaction consistent with white phosphorous burns.
Kamal Hadeethi, a physician at a regional hospital, said, "The corpses of the mujaheddin which we received were burned, and some corpses were melted."
In addition to ripping open entire neighborhoods, the armor assault also brought into the open an insurgent command that until this week remained shadowy even to Fallujah residents. Ex-generals from the former Iraqi army's Republican Guard passed written orders, complete with official stamp, to subordinates who snapped salutes, witnesses said.
Iraq's new army, formed after occupation authorities dismantled the armed forces that had served during the rule of Saddam Hussein, is taking part in the fight against insurgents in Fallujah, primarily as a rear element to help clear areas once U.S. forces have moved through. Marine commanders have declined to comment on the offensive, deferring to Iraqi officers. On Tuesday, Brig. Gen. Abdul-Qadir Muhammed Jasim characterized the offensive as "a holy task to fight for Fallujah people."
"We will fight to the last drop of our blood to free our people," he said at a news conference just outside the city. "We will fulfill the tasks we've been asked to do, with the cooperation of our friends."
Jasim said that resistance had been lighter than expected and that the Iraqi soldiers were in good spirits and eager to finish the operation.
"The operation is going very precise and with a very small number of casualties," he said. "In every place we finish an operation, our forces start to distribute aid, food, clothes, blankets and even money. . . . We are very sure that we are moving in the right way and will do the tasks we are asked to do very precisely."
Metz repeatedly praised Iraqi forces, saying they had "acquitted themselves very well in this fight." Metz said the Iraqi soldiers had been used especially to search the city's 77 mosques. "In several mosques today, lots of munitions and weapons were found, and they were found by those Iraqi soldiers," he said.
Metz's account suggested a marked improvement among the Iraqi troops in recent months. In April, the last time U.S. commanders tried to use Iraqi forces in Fallujah, a battalion of freshly trained Iraqi troops refused to go.
A senior Iraqi official said it was too early to tell how the Iraqi forces performed. "During the operation you always hear they're doing good," said Industry Minister Hachim Hasani. "After the operations are finished, we'll find out."
Hasani's political organization, the Iraqi Islamic Party, quit the interim government Tuesday to protest the Fallujah offensive. But Hasani, who opposed the U.S. Marine siege of the city earlier this year, quit the party Tuesday and retained his cabinet post. "Iraq is larger than any party," Hasani said. "Things should be done through the government, not outside the government."
Vick and special correspondent Bassam Sebti reported from Baghdad.
--------
Rebuilding What the Assault Turns to Rubble
Seabees, Other Units Began Planning Early for the Reconstruction of Fallujah
By Jackie Spinner
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 10, 2004; Page A20
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37987-2004Nov9.html
NEAR FALLUJAH, Iraq, Nov. 9 -- Weeks before Marine and Army units stormed into Fallujah, blowing up buildings and blasting holes in insurgent positions, Navy Lt. Cmdr. Larry Merola was already working on a plan to fix the damage.
Merola, an architect from Stoughton, Mass., was part of a Seabee team of engineers, builders and carpenters responsible for estimating the battle damage long before the first tank rolled.
Merola and his crew -- which included an ironworker from Connecticut, an electrician from Virginia and a general contractor from New Hampshire -- pored over combat plans with Marine commanders and made suggestions for how to secure the city without completely tearing it apart.
"A lot of trigger-pullers and pilots, they can do just about anything with their weapons," said Merola, 38, a reservist with the 7th Naval Construction Regiment, based in Newport, R.I. "But you don't want to give people a piece of flat earth to start over with when you're done."
Now, with U.S. and Iraqi security forces pushing their way through Fallujah, military commanders say an essential component in the battle to retake the city is putting it back together when the infantry leaves. More than $90 million in U.S.-funded reconstruction projects are planned for the city once it is secure.
"We don't do a combat operation in Fallujah unless we are prepared to repair it," said Col. John R. Ballard, commander of the Marine 4th Civil Affairs Group, based in Washington. "This isn't about punishing the town. This is about getting rid of a very bad influence. When we do that, there is going to be damage."
The Marine unit, which Ballard called "the secret weapon that fixes what other people break," will spearhead the initial rebuilding effort on behalf of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, which is responsible for the restive Sunni Triangle region. Marine commanders have $40 million at their disposal to spend in the city, including paying compensation to residents whose property is damaged by either side in the conflict. Families suffering a death, serious injury or property damage can receive a one-time payment of as much as $2,500.
The Army is drawing from the same $40 million pot to pay damage claims. On Tuesday afternoon, a group of soldiers from Bravo Company of the Army's 445th Civil Affairs unit, attached to the Marine Civil Affairs Group, left a base camp near Fallujah and headed into the city on the heels of the advancing infantry units.
The soldiers will spend the next two days meeting with Army commanders and driving around the city assessing the state of water, sewage and garbage disposal systems, and other infrastructure. If the city is secure enough, they also will begin processing damage claims, said Capt. Kamil Sztalkoper, a spokesman for the Army's 1st Infantry Division Task Force 2-2, whose soldiers were among the first into Fallujah on Monday night.
"We came in to eliminate the terrorists and insurgents," said Sztalkoper, 26, of Cleveland. "We want to return the city of Fallujah to the people as quickly as possible. This is obviously one means of showing the people of Fallujah that we are serious about returning what is theirs back to them. Yes, in the process, some things are destroyed, but here we are to help correct what we had to do."
About $50 million worth of reconstruction projects designated for Fallujah have been on hold since April, when the Marines broke off an offensive and insurgents seized control of the city.
In addition, the U.S. Project Contracting Office, which is responsible for spending congressionally approved reconstruction funds for Iraq, has identified four key projects -- worth an additional $50 million -- to start within two months after the city is returned to local government control.
One of those priorities is cleaning up Fallujah's water system, which is contaminated with sewage. The contracting office plans to spend $35 million on a new sewage treatment facility for the city. The other early priorities are $4 million to build four schools, $6.2 million for a new health care facility and clinics, and $2.5 million to improve the electrical grid.
An Iraqi police officer from Fallujah said residents of the city were eager for the reconstruction to begin.
"It's not just a matter of jobs," said the man, who declined to give his name. "Before April, the people inside the town, many people were fighting the Americans. But now the situation is different. They want someone to help them. The schools are not open. No one can go to his job. We want the Marines to come in to help."
Lt. Col. Leonard DeFrancisci, civil affairs officer for Regimental Combat Team 1 of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, said the Marines have prioritized projects basically by "war-gaming" what needs to be done.
"We try to project critical stuff," he said. "People are going to need to eat. They are going to need medical care."
Merola, the Seabee, said reconstruction planning must go hand-in-hand with combat planning. The more infrastructure that can be retained during an operation, the better, he said.
For example, he said, combat planners might want to destroy a bridge so that insurgents won't be able to use it. Instead, engineers will work with the combat planners to figure out a way to take out part of the bridge, eliminating the expensive necessity of completely rebuilding it.
"You have to remove the enemy, but people in the city are going to go back," he said. "You can't just turn it to sand."
--------
THE INSURGENTS
Rebel Fighters Who Fled Attack May Now Be Active Elsewhere
November 10, 2004
By EDWARD WONG and ERIC SCHMITT
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/10/international/middleeast/10insurgency.html?oref=login&pagewanted=all&position=
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Wednesday, Nov. 10 - Insurgent leaders in Falluja probably fled before the American-led offensive and may be coordinating attacks in Iraq that have left scores dead over the past few days, according to American military officials here. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian militant who is the most wanted man in Iraq, has almost certainly fled, military officials believe. Americans say his group is responsible for attacks, kidnappings and beheadings that have killed hundreds in more than a year. Before the offensive began, some military officials said Mr. Zarqawi could be operating out of Falluja, but his precise whereabouts have not been known. "I personally believe some of the senior leaders probably have fled," Lt. Gen. Thomas F. Metz, commander of the multinational forces in Iraq, said in a video conference with reporters on Tuesday. "I would hope not, but I've got to assume that those kinds of leaders understand the combat power we can bring."
Insurgent attacks continued to exact a heavy toll across Iraq on Tuesday. Two American soldiers died in a mortar attack in Mosul, where government authority appears to be ebbing. Gunmen assassinated a senior government official in Samarra. Guerrillas fired mortars at police stations in downtown Baghdad while hundreds of fighters massed in the center of the provincial capital of Ramadi, just 30 miles west of Falluja.
A suspected car bombing outside an Iraqi National Guard base in Kirkuk killed three people and wounded two others, Reuters reported. The attacks on Tuesday followed several others over the weekend, both in Baghdad and the Sunni triangle.
The American military said on Tuesday that six people had been killed in the car bomb attack Monday night outside Yarmouk Hospital in Baghdad. Five were Iraqi policemen, and the sixth was a civilian, the military said. In the two church bombings the same night, one Iraqi was killed and several wounded, and one of the bombers was disguised as an Iraqi policeman, according to a report put out by a Western security contractor.
This spate of what appear to be coordinated attacks, as well as the dispersal of top insurgent leaders, suggests that the Falluja offensive alone will not crush an insurgency that has been gathering strength. And it raises the prospect that insurgents will try to regroup and infiltrate Falluja after the fighting is over, as they have done in Samarra.
American military officials said that they anticipated a surge in violence timed to the Falluja invasion and Ramadan, the Islamic month of fasting that is supposedly auspicious for martyrdom. They say they are not under the illusion that an attack on Falluja will break the back of the insurgency, or that the capture of Mr. Zarqawi is a realistic goal. The objectives of the offensive are to deny a safe haven to the insurgents, install the presence of the Iraqi government in the city and ensure the area is secure enough so residents can freely vote in the upcoming elections, General Metz said.
"The important idea to consider is that this is not an operation against Zarqawi or his network," said a senior military official in Washington who has been monitoring the battle. "It is just one of many steps that need to be taken in order to defeat a complex and diverse insurgency in which the Zarqawi network is but one element.''
But other military officials in Baghdad and Washington are expressing concern that the operation could end up being both a public relations disaster and strategic setback if some top leaders are not captured.
"This is causing some concern because if Falluja comes up a 'dry hole,' after all the operations, we will have to explain it," said a military official in Baghdad. "We will have to address it if this happens. If we don't retain any senior leadership, it may cause backlash."
An insurgent who gave his nom de guerre as Abu Khalid and identified himself as a mid-level commander said in a telephone interview that leaders had decided two days before the offensive to flee the city and leave only half of the insurgents behind to fight.
"From a military point of view, if a city is surrounded and bombarded, then the result of the battle is preordained," Abu Khalid, a major in the former Iraqi army, said. "It's not a balanced battle. So we told half of our fighters to leave the city and the other half to stay and defend it."
General Metz said the absence of insurgent leaders could explain why the defense of Falluja seemed to lack military cohesiveness. Though some forces are engaged in fierce house-to-house combat, several Marine commanders on the ground have said they have been surprised by the relative lack of resistance from the guerillas. By early Wednesday, the Marine and Army units that punched through the northern barricades at the start of the assault had swept past the main east-west highway.
The recent wave of assaults that prompted Prime Minister Ayad Allawi to declare a state of emergency appeared to have been a loosely coordinated counterattack to the American-led offensive, senior military officials said.
They have shown the guerrillas can strike with great effect outside of Falluja, and even while that city is under siege. Since last Saturday, scores of Iraqis, many of them security officers, have been killed in attacks ranging from bomb and mortar attacks on police stations in Samarra to suicide car bombings of Christian churches in Baghdad. At least six American troops and one British soldier have been killed in assaults outside of Falluja. The American military reported 130 attacks on Monday, well above the average of 80 a day over most of the summer.
Other senior officers said that an unknown number of the estimated 2,000 to 3,000 insurgents in Falluja had escaped, but not necessarily all the leaders. The American military did not seal off Falluja completely until Sunday night, when soldiers stormed a hospital and two bridges on the western edge of the city. American commanders on the ground in Iraq say up to 90 percent of the city's residents fled in the build-up to the offensive, and guerillas could well have been among them.
Abu Khalid, the guerrilla fighter, said insurgent leaders had debated how many men to leave in the city.
"There were different views about that," he said. "They discussed percentages like 20 percent inside the city and 80 percent outside, to save as many fighters as possible for future operations. In the end, they settled on a 50-50 split."
"We told the fighters that those who want to stay alive and fight should leave, and those who want to become martyrs in this battle should stay," he said.
Abu Khalid argued that even if the Americans take the city, they will lose in the long run, because "the Americans will raid houses and arrest a lot of people, and this will increase resentment and hatred and give the resistance more support in the city."
Canny insurgents rarely stand and fight, and they often take advantage of their ability to blend in with civilians and melt away. And for them, the propaganda campaign is as important, if not more so, than the strictly military one, since the most immediate goal is to win the support of the people.
Starting Monday, as American and Iraqi forces swept through Falluja from the north, they found insurgents falling back.
Even in the warren of alleyways of the northwest Jolan neighborhood, the scene of the some of the toughest fighting in April, when the Marines first tried an ill-fated invasion, American commanders said they had encountered less resistance than they thought they would.
In a recent offensive in Samarra, American-led forces swept through rebel-held territory, only to have the insurgency return soon afterward.
On Saturday, as final preparations were under way for the Falluja assault, insurgents in the Samarra area staged coordinated car bomb and mortar attacks that left at least 30 dead, many of them policemen.
Now insurgents are touting Samarra, as well as other violence-ridden towns around Iraq, as a model of their own tenacity.
"The Americans are mistaken if they think they think they are going to end the resistance by occupying Falluja," Abu Khalid said. "What about Samarra? Baquba? Tal Afar? And maybe also in some cities in the south in the future. The resistance is not in Falluja only."
Edward Wong reported from Baghdad for this article and Eric Schmitt from Washington. Thom Shanker, in Washington, and an Iraqi employee of The New York Times, in Baghdad, contributed reporting
--------
U.S.-Led Forces Gain More Ground in Falluja as Battle Rages
November 10, 2004
By DEXTER FILKINS and ROBERT F. WORTH
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/10/international/middleeast/10cnd-iraq.html?ei=5094&en=0e2ff628a45e61c9&hp=&ex=1100149200&partner=homepage&pagewanted=all&position=
FALLUJA, Iraq, Nov. 10 - The American-led assault has gained more territory in Falluja after days of airstrikes and street-to-street fighting with insurgents, while a militant group said today that it had kidnapped two of the Iraqi prime minister's relatives and would execute them if the siege on the city was not lifted.
Iraqi troops have found "hostage slaughterhouses" in the city where captives were held and killed, the commander of Iraqi forces in the city, Maj. Gen. Abdul Qader Mohammed Jassem Mohan, told reporters today. Computer discs showing beheadings and black clothing worn by insurgents in some of the videos were discovered, he said.
Troops have captured the mayor's office, two mosques, a commercial center and other major objectives in the heart of the downtown and advanced past the main highway through the city. Today, the military said in a statement its troops had fought their way through at least half of the city.
It said its aircraft fired guided munitions today at a mosque after troops came under small arms fire from insurgents holed up inside. On Tuesday, American aircraft dropped a laser-guided bomb to destroy a building in the city in which there were "anti-Iraqi elements," the military said.
The insurgents continued to fight and withdraw to new positions as American and Iraqi military forces - relying heavily on artillery and air support - pushed in from the north. Battles continued in the south Falluja neighborhoods of Resala and Nazal as the insurgents appeared to be retreating along a central corridor toward the southern fringes of the city. Lt. Gen. Thomas F. Metz, the commander of day-to-day military operations in Iraq, said Tuesday in a video teleconference from Baghdad that commanders anticipated "several more days of tough urban fighting" before the Falluja offensive was over. He said most of the military's objectives had been met "on or ahead of schedule" against a force of 2,000 to 3,000 insurgents.
Today, on the third day of operations, the military said in a statement that 11 American troops and two Iraqi soldiers had been killed in the assault. In the 24-hour period ending at 2 a.m. today, 31 American and Iraqi troops had been wounded and more than 100 insurgents killed, officials said.
In the first significant political fallout over the offensive, the country's most prominent Sunni party said Tuesday that it was withdrawing from the interim Iraqi government, and the leading group of Sunni clerics called for a boycott of the coming elections.
The announcement that two members of Dr. Allawi's family had been kidnapped on Tuesday night was made by his spokesman, Thaier al-Naqib, in a statement today. One of the relatives, Ghazi Allawi, the prime minister's 75-year-old cousin, was not involved in politics and did not hold a government job, Mr. Naqib said. Ghazi Allawi's son's wife was also seized from their house in the Yarmuk neighborhood of Baghdad .
A posting on an Islamic Web site by a group calling itself Ansar al-Jihad claimed responsibility for the kidnapping and demanded that Dr. Allawi and his government lift the siege on Falluja and release all detainees in Iraq, threatening to behead the captives in 48 hours if their demands were not met, The Associated Press reported.
In other violence, an American soldier was killed today and one was injured after their combat patrol was hit by an explosive device in the Baghdad area, the military said in a statement.
And a curfew was declared in the northern city of Mosul today amid escalating violence, while Dr. Allawi extended the closing of Baghdad airport, the Agence France-Presse news agency reported.
The last American attempt to stage an assault on Falluja, in April, bogged down amid outrage over reports of civilian casualties, and insurgents consolidated their control over the city in May.
American and Iraqi officials have said securing Falluja is a crucial step in ensuring that elections planned for January can be conducted safely.
After a day of violence in several cities across the country, Dr. Allawi on Tuesday declared a daily curfew in Baghdad from 10:30 p.m. to 4 a.m., to last indefinitely, the first in the capital in more than a year. The A.P. reported that a statement posted on an Islamic Web site in the name of eight known militant groups in Iraq warned Baghdad residents to stay home today "to avoid putting their lives in danger."
Mr. Naqib, the spokesman, held a news conference on Tuesday at a military camp near Falluja where he read a statement from the prime minister calling for the insurgents to lay down their weapons.
"A peaceful solution to the city of Falluja is possible, and we can spare the rest of the city military confrontation," Mr. Naqib said. "The Iraqi military forces are ready to enter Falluja peacefully and lay their authority over it after armed men and terrorists lay down their weapons."
Although Dr. Allawi has said he made the best possible effort to reach a peaceful solution before ordering the offensive, leaders of Falluja have criticized the government for not giving the negotiations a chance.
In Falluja, Iraqi troops have generally not taken part in the main fighting, being largely relegated to following behind the Americans and searching houses and other buildings after the battles end.
When asked on Tuesday about the performance of new Iraqi security forces, General Metz said they had performed ably and that he had received no reports of discipline problems.
"They have assisted in clearing buildings and homes because it's a manpower-intensive battle in the urban terrain," he said. "And they have performed very well in all those clearing operations."
At least one enormous battle raged in the center of Falluja until midday Tuesday, as American marines and soldiers, followed by the Iraqi forces, ground their way south and captured the Muhammadia Mosque, which insurgents had been using as a command center and bunker. Eight marines were wounded in the operation, and the military said it had killed many insurgents.
After nearly 16 hours of fighting, First Sgt. Ronald Whittington, with the First Battalion, Eighth Marines, appeared stunned on Tuesday after five of his men went down in a single moment after dashing through machine-gun fire to cross the road in front of the mosque.
"It was bad, bad," Sergeant Whittington said. "I don't know where the shooting was coming from."
General Metz said most adversaries were now fighting in small units and were unable to mount a unified defense of the city.
He acknowledged that terrorist-style attacks across the Sunni region of Iraq outside Falluja were a counteroffensive to the American and Iraqi mission in Falluja.
Christine Hauser contributed reporting for this article from New York, James Glanz, Edward Wong and Iraqi employees of The New York Times from Baghdadand Thom Shanker from Washington.
--------
Goliath Beats David In Fallujah
World Crisis Web
November 10th, 2004
http://www.world-crisis.com/news/1049_0_1_0_M/
As the reinvasion of Fallujah enters its third day, the USA-led offensive is still facing intense resistance in most parts of the city, despite overwhelming firepower and disproportionate numbers being on the side of the invaders. A few thousand resistance fighters, using small arms and mortar fire, are defending the city street by street under heavy bombardment from satellite co-ordinated F-16 jets, helicopter gunships, tanks, and fighting vehicles, using 2,000 pound bombs and cluster bombs, and equipped with an assortment of depleted uranium tipped shells, 'kevlar' jackets, and night-vision equipment.
The USA military have said this evening that about a third of the city is under their control, including parts of the city center. There is no independent verification of such claims, since all non-embedded reporters have been prevented access to the city. However, even reporters embedded with USA forces - and whose reporting is subject to military restrictions - say that the invading forces are having to fight every step of the way. The cover of night wont be saving the city's resistance or it's civilians from the oncoming power of the USA military machine.
The cover of night wont be saving the city's resistance or it's civilians from the oncoming power of the USA military machine.
"These people are hardcore," Captain Robert Bodisch told embedded reporters earlier in the day. "A man pulled out from behind a wall and fired an RPG (rocket-propelled grenade) at my tank. I have to get another tank to go back in there," he said.
As dark fell on the besieged city, a BBC correspondent embedded with the invading troops in Fallujah reported slow but steady progress for the offensive, and said he expected the resistance losses to be very heavy. "I imagine there must be many casualties considering the amount of gunfire I've seen," he said. "The Americans launch about five hundred rounds to the insurgents' one," he added. However, he noted that open resistance had died down in much of the retaken parts of the city with the coming of nightfall, since the dark gives an advantage to those using night vision equipment.
USA military forces achieved their first major objective over the weekend with the destruction of the city's main hospital and the capture of another, thus preventing injured resistance fighters and Fallujah residents from gaining access to medical treatment. Overnight, they built on that achievement by surrounding the battered al-Hidra mosque compound, half a mile into Fallujah from the north. However, the compound is believed to be defended by a small number of Muslims determined to die rather than surrender the mosque to the USA.
A Fallujah resident named Fadril al-Badrani, speaking by phone to the BBC earlier, gave one of the few reports of what the invasion has meant for the tens of thousands of unarmed civilians still left inside the city as it is being invaded. He described conditions in Fallujah as "like hell", saying that hundreds of bombs and shells were landing every minute. Some Arab news agencies are reporting that 200,000 shells have fallen on the city since Sunday.
Today, the invading forces managed to take control of another hospital, and destroyed a district health clinic that had been treating the injured resistance fighters, a USA military spokesmen said. Sami al-Jumaili, a doctor at the hospital who escaped arrest when it was taken by US troops, said the city was running out of medical supplies and only a few clinics remained open. "There is not a single surgeon in Fallujah. We had one ambulance hit by US fire and a doctor wounded," he told reporters. "There are scores of injured civilians in their homes whom we can't move. A 13-year-old child just died in my hands."
Meanwhile, USA defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, warned Americans that the expected victory in Fallujah would not end armed resistance in Iraq. "These folks are determined," he said. "These are killers. They chop people's heads."
Just before the battle began, Iraqi Defense Minister, Hazem Shaalan, who before the USA invasion had been a bank manager in the UK since 1985, took time to inspect the troops under his command. Just before he left for his Baghdad office, he gave the troops some rousing words of encouragement, as they went to do battle with their own countrymen.
"I swear by God," he said with much conviction, "we will fight until the last drop of our blood."
Alluding to his recent entry into the country, with his fellow statesmen, Iyad Allawi, Ahmed Chalabi, and others, he said: "When we came to Iraq with the coalition forces, our decision was to build Iraq through its sons. Today is your day, and jihad is for you - not for those rats."
Most of Fallujah's 250,000 inhabitants have fled the city ahead of the invasion, as have a large number of militants, aiming to carry on their guerilla war of resistance in other parts of the country. However, up to 100,000 - mostly unarmed civilians.- are estimated to be trapped there, since all escape routes have been closed for several days. The city's shops and marketplaces, those that escaped last month's "softening up" air bombardment, have been closed since the end of the USA election campaign.
Asked to comment on the start of the Fallujah assault, United Nations spokesman Fred Eckhard said Secretary General Kofi Annan was again warning that the attack could "destabilise the country at a critical point in the preparation for the elections". However, with the UN Security Council under the control of USA veto power, and with George W Bush still riding high from his election victory last week, international law is a spectator to this event.
Nevertheless, a mixture of shame and fear of reprisals is having an effect, albeit small, on the morale of those Iraqis who are supporting the invasion. On Monday, USA military spokesperson admitted that several hundred Iraqi 'National Guards' had in the last few days either demanded to be placed on 'leave' while the invasion took place, or had simply left their posts against orders from their commanders. The incident illustrates the predicament faced by men torn between a desire to keep a steady job in the conflict-ridden country and the outrage of the large proportion of fellow Iraqis over them supplying fake legitimacy to the illegal invasion of their own country.
Both Shi'a and Sunni Muslim clerics have already condemned those Iraqis who take part in the city's invasion, including the Association of Muslim Scholars, an influential Sunni umbrella group with the support of 3,000 mosques in Iraq. The association this week issued a fatwa calling for all Iraqi soldiers, national guardsmen and police officers to quit immediately or become legitimate targets for the resistance.
"Those who kill Iraqis are not Iraqis," cautioned Sheik Mohammed Bashar al Faidhi on behalf of the association. "You made a terrible mistake in Najaf. Be careful not to repeat this experience because the occupier will leave one day, but the people will stay."
Speaking today for a large proportion of Iraq's Shi'a community, Sheik Abdulhadi al Darraji, spokesperson for Muqtada al-Sadr's office in Baghdad condemned the invasion, and warned 'National Guard' troops that, "an assault against Fallujah is an assault against all Iraqis."
-------- israel / palestine
Israeli Forces Kill 3 Palestinians
Associated Press
Wednesday, November 10, 2004; Page A23
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37988-2004Nov9.html
JERUSALEM, Nov. 9 -- Israeli troops on Tuesday shot and killed two Palestinians who entered an unauthorized area in the Gaza Strip, military sources said.
Troops in the West Bank town of Nablus also clashed with stone-throwing youths, shooting dead a 22-year-old man and seriously wounding another, witnesses and hospital officials said.
The two men in the Gaza Strip had approached a separation fence near Kibbutz Kfar Aza, a communal farming village in southern Israel east of Gaza City, the sources said. They added that there have been several attempts recently to infiltrate Israel and plant explosives in the area.
Palestinian security officials confirmed the deaths.
Later Tuesday, Palestinian militants fired a rocket into an open area in southern Israel and attacked two Jewish settlements in Gaza with unidentified projectiles. No injuries were reported.
--------
Israel Will Allow Arafat Burial in West Bank, After Cairo Funeral
November 10, 2004
By STEVEN ERLANGER
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/10/international/middleeast/10cnd-araf.html?pagewanted=all
RAMALLAH, West Bank, Nov. 10 - Yasir Arafat can be buried at his battered headquarters here as the Palestinians requested, the Israeli government decided today in a gesture to his likely successor, Mahmoud Abbas. Mr. Arafat will be buried here after a funeral service in Cairo, where Arab leaders can come without having to pass through Israeli border controls.
Mr. Arafat remained alive tonight in a French military hospital in a Paris suburb, but he has suffered liver and kidney failure, according to Nabil Shaath, the foreign affairs minister of the Palestinian Authority.
But Palestinian officials have long ago given up pretending that Mr. Arafat cannot die. Instead, as hundreds of journalists waited here for a press conference that never came outside Mr. Arafat's headquarters, the former British fort known as the Muqata, bulldozers and dump trucks came in through the gates, clearing away rubble for a burial ceremony likely to come soon.
Mr. Arafat had always refused to remove the crushed cars and rubble left by the major Israeli military incursion of the spring of 2002, when he became a prisoner in the Muqata and used it as a symbol of his defiance. But it was clear today that his political heirs had the future on their minds, planting saplings where the rubble was removed.
As night came, about 200 young men began a vigil outside the headquarters, pasting posters of Mr. Arafat on the walls and lighting votive candles.
Meeting much of the day with party and government officials after their return from visiting Mr. Arafat's bedside and meeting a with the French president, Jacques Chirac, Mr. Abbas, who is No. 2 in the Palestine Liberation Organization, and Ahmed Qurei, prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, appeared to be waiting for official word from Paris that Mr. Arafat had died.
There was a debate about whether to hold elections to replace Mr. Arafat as president of the authority within 60 days of his death, as the authority's basic law demands, Palestinian officials said. Some argued that elections would be too difficult and risky and might not be carried out in time, especially with Israeli troops intermittently occupying parts of the West Bank and Gaza, and that the legislature, the Palestinian Legislative Council, should select a president instead.
But the leadership decided to follow the basic law and hold elections, said Hanan Ashrawi, a Palestinian legislator. American officials favor the elections as the best way to establish legitimacy quickly, the United States State Department spokesman, Richard Boucher, said in Washington on today.. He said that Secretary of State Colin L. Powell spoke Tuesday with Mr. Shaath "about the situation as it was and what plans were being made," Mr. Boucher said. "Our interest is in seeing smooth arrangements. And they appear to be being made and carried out. And we hope that the calm and the kind of orderly processes prevailing will continue."
President Bush said that with a new Palestinian leadership that asks for help in building a democratic, free society, "there will be an opening for peace."
When that happens, Mr. Bush said, "and I believe it's going to happen because I believe all people desire to live in freedom, the United States of America will be more than willing to help build the institutions necessary for a free society to emerge so that the Palestinians can have their own state." He added, "The vision is of two states, a Palestinian state and Israel living side by side, and I think we've got a chance to do that, and I look forward to being involved in that process."
Mr. Abbas is expected to run for the presidency as the candidate of Fatah, the largest faction in the P.L.O., said Edward Abington, a former American diplomat and now a consultant to the Palestinian Authority. But Mr. Abbas may face strong challenges from more popular, militant candidates who may have the tacit support of groups like Hamas.
"Even if he wins with 60 percent of the vote," a senior Israeli official said, "and a Hamas-supported candidate gets 40 percent, do you think Hamas will then accept what he says?"
The Israeli government wanted Mr. Arafat buried in the Gaza Strip, far away from Israel proper, using the fact that his father and sister are buried there. But in the cabinet debate this morning, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon asked if anyone, including the army and the intelligence agencies, objected to the Ramallah burial site. No one did, Israeli officials said. Instead, there was agreement that the first request of Mr. Abbas as putative heir should be acceded to, despite concerns over emotional marches and unrest that could affect nearby Jerusalem. The Americans had urged the Israelis to live with Ramallah for the sake of Mr. Abbas, an Israeli official said.
The Israeli Army would coordinate the burial plans, the cabinet decided, but would stay out of Ramallah.
"The responsibility for maintaining security and public order in Ramallah during the funeral and after it falls on the Palestinians," a cabinet statement said. "Israel will not be involved in maintaining security in Ramallah during the funeral, assuming it takes place in Ramallah. This message was passed on to the Palestinians and Arab and international bodies."
From Gaza, however, only a few Palestinian notables would be allowed to travel to Ramallah for the burial, the Israelis said.
The Cairo service is also expected to be highly restricted, with attendance limited to officials and notables. And the ceremony itself may take place at the Cairo airport, which would make a burial on the same day in Ramallah a possibility.
In France, the Arafat death watch continued, with a senior Muslim cleric, Taissir Dayut Tamimi, the head of the Islamic court in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, arriving to read verses from the Koran at Mr. Arafat's bedside at the Percy military hospital outside Paris.
"He is sick and his condition is very difficult, but he remains alive," Mr. Tamimi said. "As long as there is a manifestation of life present, from movement to temperature in the body, then he is alive."
He declared that euthanasia is contrary to Islam, and Palestinian officials said that as long as Mr. Arafat's heart continued to beat, he would not be declared dead.
"The president of the Palestinian Authority is a difficult condition but still alive," Mr. Tamimi told reporters after the visit. "I ask God Almighty to restore his health and be merciful with him."
Speaking in Arabic, Mr. Tamimi also said, "I stayed at my brother's side for almost an hour" and asked God "to relieve his suffering."
There had been speculation that Mr. Tamimi was sent to authorize the removal of Mr. Arafat from life-support systems. Asked whether Mr. Arafat's life-support machines could be turned off, Mr. Tamimi became angry and said that it was forbidden by Islam.
Indeed, there are numerous verses of the Koran that can be interpreted as barring suicide or euthanasia.
"Destroy not yourselves. Surely Allah is ever merciful to you," says one. Another suggests that God decides the time of death: "Nor can a soul die except by Allah's leave, that is a decree with a fixed term."
Leila Shahid, the Palestinian envoy to France, told France-Info radio that Mr. Tamimi had come to France because
"clearly a man of religion should be near a patient in the final phase of his life."
"That is why he is there," she explained, "not to disconnect him - because euthanasia is banned in Islam."
Speaking in English outside the hospital today, Ms. Shahid praised Secretary of State Powell for his actions during Mr. Arafat's recent decline.
"Mr. Powell has been calling us already four days ago and everyday since," she said. "He said he was supporting him, that there is a lot of emotion. He said that if there is anything that he can do as a foreign minister of the U.S. government, he would do. So he's been calling practically everyday. We really appreciate it."
As part of what seems to be a concerted effort to deny the perception of problems with Mr. Arafat's wife, Suha Arafat, Ms. Shahid said: "Mrs. Arafat is in a very difficult state. She didn't leave him a single moment. She's a very courageous and strong woman."
Elaine Sciolino contributed reporting from Paris for this article.
--------
Netanyahu Drops Resignation Threat
November 10, 2004
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/10/international/middleeast/10israel.html?pagewanted=all
JERUSALEM, Nov. 9 - The Israeli finance minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, on Tuesday retracted a threat to resign unless Prime Minister Ariel Sharon set a date for a referendum on plans to withdraw settlers from the Gaza Strip.
Mr. Netanyahu, a former prime minister and a rival to Mr. Sharon, said in a statement issued by his office that the uncertainty surrounding Yasir Arafat's illness required him to stay in the government.
Mr. Netanyahu waited until the end of a two-week ultimatum he issued after Mr. Sharon won a Parliament vote to back his withdrawal plan.
Mr. Sharon refused the referendum demand. The other three ministers withdrew their resignation threats earlier.
-------- prisoners of war
U.S. to defend use of Guantanamo war tribunals
November 10, 2004
By Guy Taylor
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20041110-121739-1212r.htm
The Bush administration said it will vigorously defend its power to try al Qaeda suspects in specially designed war crimes tribunals at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, after a federal court's decision to halt them.
A District of Columbia federal judge on Monday ruled that President Bush exceeded his authority in classifying suspects eligible for the tribunals, which would be the first of their kind held by the United States since World War II.
U.S. District Judge James Robertson, a 1994 Clinton-appointee, found that the tribunal system was being conducted unlawfully, outside the guidelines of U.S. military law and the Geneva Conventions.
The administration quickly decried the ruling, which came as the result of a lawsuit filed by Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a former chauffeur for Osama bin Laden. He is one of four suspected al Qaeda members charged so far in the system.
"We vigorously disagree with the court's decision, and will seek an emergency stay of the ruling and immediately appeal," Justice Department spokesman Mark Corallo said Monday.
"We believe the president properly determined that the Geneva Conventions have no legal applicability to members or affiliates of al Qaeda, a terrorist organization that is not a state and has not signed the Geneva Conventions."
Mr. Corallo said that by giving protected Geneva Conventions prisoner-of-war status to al Qaeda members, Judge Robertson "has put terrorism on the same legal footing as legitimate methods of waging war."
The White House designed and authorized the war crimes tribunals - formally called "military commissions" - after September 11 to try terror suspects classified as "enemy combatants" outside the bounds of traditional federal courts.
An estimated 550 terror suspects are held at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, on Cuba's southern tip. The majority were brought there more than two years ago after capture in Afghanistan, where U.S.-led forces routed the al Qaeda-supporting Taliban regime.
The Bush administration refers to all of the detainees as "enemy combatants," although Mr. Hamdan and the three others are the only ones so far charged in the military commissions.
Judge Robertson's ruling said the United States must treat Hamdan not as an enemy combatant, but as a prisoner of war protected by the Geneva Conventions until a "competent tribunal" - independent from the president's determination - finds otherwise.
Under the rules of military justice, POWs can be tried only by court-martial, not by the special military commissions.
New York-based Human Rights Watch said the judge's ruling "should put the final nail into the coffin of the military commissions," which have been "a disaster" and "should never have been created in the first place."
Administration officials have said one motivation for using the commissions has been to protect classified evidence that could be brought up during a conventional trial.
Mr. Corallo said the system "was carefully crafted to protect America from terrorists while affording those charged with violations of the laws of war with fair process."
-------- us
A provision of the No Child Left Behind Act requires high schools to give military recruiters previously confidential student information.
Connection Newspapers
by Brian McNeill
November 10, 2004
http://www.connectionnewspapers.com/article.asp?article=42650&paper=0&cat=109
After a military recruiter at South Lakes High School recently outlined the benefits of serving in the National Guard, David Cruz decided he would enlist as soon as he graduates from the Reston school in June.
Cruz, a 17-year-old senior at South Lakes, said the National Guard could put him on a computer engineering career track and is probably his only chance to attend college.
"The National Guard has a good program," Cruz said. "They'll teach me discipline. They'll guarantee I'll go somewhere in life. Make sure that I don't get left behind, you know?"
Thanks to a still little-known provision in the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2002, high schools like South Lakes are required to provide military recruiters with previously confidential information on students like Cruz.
Among the law's 670 pages is a requirement for all public secondary schools to provide recruiters with access to school facilities and contact information for each student, including names, telephone numbers and addresses.
The provision was included in the Bush administration's education reform law because recruiters were being routinely denied access to high schools. In 1999, military recruiters were barred from schools on 19,228 occasions, according to the U.S. Department of Defense.
And especially now, recruiters assert, with the military fighting major combat operations in both Iraq and Afghanistan, the need for a steady supply of fresh recruits is ever more important.
There are more than one million active duty soldiers in the Army, Army Reserve and National Guard. Of those, just under 12 percent are currently deployed in Iraq or Afghanistan, according to Defense Department statistics.
PARENTS have the right to opt their child out of the military recruiting provision of No Child Left Behind, withholding personal information from recruiters. But few local parents have chosen to do so, according to Fairfax County Public Schools.
This year, only five students opted out from the military recruiting requirement at South Lakes. At Centreville High School and Lake Braddock Secondary School in Burke, fewer than 30 students opted out. At McLean High School, 63 students opted out, while at Madison High School in Vienna there were 84 students and at West Potomac High School in Alexandria, there were 93.
The reason relatively few students opt out from the requirement is likely because many people still do not realize the military recruiting provision exists. Also the military recruiting opt-out form is sent to students' homes in August in a packet of other opt-out forms, most notably for Family Life Education - also known as "sex ed" - and many parents simply ignore the whole packet altogether.
"We send this whole huge packet out and it can get lost in there," said School Board Member Tessie Wilson (Braddock). "It's unfortunate that there are so many parents out there that don't realize they can opt out."
Recruits must be 18-years-old to enlist in the military, though 17-year olds can sign up with parental consent. All high school students - both male and female - are included on each school's recruiting list.
Lynn Terhar, president of the Fairfax County Council of PTAs, said some parents do not mind having their teenager's information passed along to military recruiters, but others are outraged.
"There's a lot of parents who are absolutely offended that the schools would hand this information over to recruiters," she said. "On the other hand, I think there's still a lot of parents that don't realize this exists at all."
Terhar said she has received a few complaints about military recruiters buying high school directories to have access to all student names, including those who opted out.
SGT. MIKE WATSON, the National Guard recruiter who helped convince Cruz, the South Lakes student, to enlist, travels to high schools throughout Fairfax and Loudoun counties, meeting with students and offering fringe benefits brochures and action-packed recruiting DVDs to anyone interested.
Watson, who has been a recruiter for two years and served as a Marine in Desert Storm, is responsible for recruiting two high school students or other young people from the area each month.
He said he has heard about a handful of other recruiters painting an overly-rosy picture of military life, but he tries to be up-front with any potential recruits, telling them there is a good chance they would serve in combat.
"If there's something misstated to get someone to join, then that's something I have to live with," he said. "We place the highest ethical standards on our recruiting."
This month, recruiters like Watson will start to send out mailings and make telephone calls to the high school students that did not opt out.
Watson said that the recruiting should not be seen as an invasion of privacy because if the student is not interested, he marks them off the list and will not persue them further.
"I don't want to invade anyone's privacy," he said. "If they don't want to serve in the military, that's just fine."
SCHOOL BOARD member Stephen Hunt (at large), who served as an active duty Naval flight officer from 1980 until 1995, said he is proud to know that Fairfax County high schools are providing recruiters with student information because it means more local students might become interested in military service.
"Every American should have the opportunity to serve their country," he said. "It's a great opportunity for everyone. Very few places will give you the responsibility, at such a young age, as the military."
For Cruz, the South Lakes student enlisting in the National Guard, he was happy to hear from military recruiters, who he said have given him a new direction in life.
He said his mother is worried he might be killed in combat, having seen that nearly 1,300 U.S. soldiers have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Also, Cruz said he has qualms about fighting overseas.
"I don't really believe in killing because it's against the Bible," he said. "But if I have to, I'll do my duty for my country."
To Opt Out
For parents or 18-year-old students who would like to have their names removed from military recruiting lists, download the opt out form from http://www.fcps.edu. Though forms were sent home with students in August, there is no deadline for Fairfax County students to opt out.
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
-------- courts / tribunals
U.S. Takes Oregon Assisted-Suicide Law to High Court
Associated Press
Wednesday, November 10, 2004; Page A04
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37147-2004Nov9.html
The Bush administration asked the Supreme Court yesterday to block the nation's only law that allows physicians to help terminally ill patients die more quickly.
The appeal from Attorney General John D. Ashcroft had been expected since May, when a lower court ruled that the federal government could not punish Oregon doctors who prescribed lethal doses of federally controlled drugs.
Oregon voters approved the law, and since 1998 more than 170 people have used it to end their lives. Most had cancer.
The Bush administration has argued that assisted suicide is not a "legitimate medical purpose" and that doctors take an oath to heal patients, not help them die.
While not as prominent as abortion, the issue is an important one for conservative Christians, who helped Bush win a second term last week. The Justice Department waited until yesterday, the last day possible, to file paperwork at the high court, which has been hearing cases without Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, who is being treated for thyroid cancer.
Oregon's law, known as the Death With Dignity Act, lets patients with less than six months to live request a lethal dose of drugs after two doctors confirm the diagnosis and determine the person's mental competence to make the request.
Paul D. Clement, acting U.S. solicitor general, said in the appeal that the law cannot stand because it conflicts with the federal government's powers. The Supreme Court probably will decide early next year whether to hear the case.
The high court has dealt with right-to-die cases before. Justices held in 1997 that while Americans have no constitutional right to assisted suicide, states may decide the issue for themselves without federal interference.
Oregon is the only state that has a right-to-die law. At issue for the Supreme Court now would be the bounds of a federal law declaring what drugs doctors may prescribe.
A federal judge and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in San Francisco have ruled that federal officials do not have the power to circumvent the Oregon law to punish health professionals in the state.
-------- drug war
Columbia voters ease marijuana restrictions
Possession of small amounts of drug will be handled in municipal courts;
medical use OK'd.
By Scott Charton
Associated Press
November 10, 2004
http://springfield.news-leader.com/news/today/1110-Columbiavo-223042.html
Columbia - Sifting through results from this college town's passage of two proposals easing up on marijuana prosecutions, attorney Dan Viets sees something notable: The overwhelming approval means voters across the political spectrum supported the changes.
That's encouraging to Viets, a longtime state legislative lobbyist for decriminalizing marijuana and allowing its medical use statewide.
Republicans will control the Legislature and the governor's office starting in January, "and this vote indicates to me that a bipartisan voting population, as it matures, is recognizing that marijuana use is not really something that ought to be treated like a crime," Viets said Tuesday.
Outnumbered critics of the two proposals approved Nov. 2 dismiss Viets' suggestion support for decriminalizing marijuana has grown beyond Columbia.
They say proponents wrapped their local campaign in misleading information, helped by about $50,000 from a national group supporting marijuana decriminalization. Foes say they lacked organization and money.
That's in contrast to a city election in April 2003, when a single pot proposition - merging sentencing changes and allowing medical marijuana - flopped at the polls, partly because a Bush administration drug official traveled to Columbia to speak against it.
New petitions were circulated after that defeat to put the now-divided proposals onto a general election ballot, when larger turnout would presumably help, and it did.
"This time, they struck popular chords by conjuring up this idea that a first-time offender will lose a federal student loan if they're convicted in state court, and that just wasn't happening here. And as for the medical marijuana portion, they left out the part that people would still have to buy it off the street, even with a doctor's note," Boone County Prosecutor Kevin Crane said in an interview Tuesday.
Crane and Columbia Police Chief Randy Boehm made statements against both proposals, but they were drowned out.
Proposition 1, the medical marijuana proposal, got more than 69 percent of the vote. It allows seriously ill patients, with permission from their physician, to use marijuana inside the city limits. No other Missouri community has anything similar on the books, and marijuana possession remains a state crime - if a charge is filed in state court.
Proposition 2, which was approved with almost 62 percent of the vote, stipulates that marijuana arrests shall be the lowest priority of city law enforcement. And it mandates that arrests for possession of 35 grams or less of pot - about 1 1/4 ounces - shall be handled in municipal court, a less serious venue than state court.
The maximum penalty: a $250 fine, with no jail. Charges could be dropped after a year if the defendant has no similar run-ins with the law.
In state court, the same charge packs a $1,000 fine and a year in jail.
Viets said that was a key to winning votes in the home of the University of Missouri-Columbia: pointing out that state court convictions for marijuana possession can cost even a first offender their federal student loans.
"It just doesn't benefit anybody to force someone to drop out of school," Viets said.
Viets could not provide a specific number of Columbia cases in which students found guilty of marijuana possession in state court lost federal student aid. The National Organization for Reform of Marijuana Laws reports some 150,000 such cases during the last five years.
Crane, the state prosecutor, thinks the effect on student loans was overstated. He says his office already sent first-offense possession charges involving small amounts of marijuana to municipal court.
"It was the usual practice anyway," Crane said. "Now, the Columbia police have had some discretion taken away by the voters."
-------- homeland security / national intelligence
Probe of marshals was 'appropriate'
November 10, 2004
By Audrey Hudson
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20041110-121734-3039r.htm
Homeland Security officials acted correctly in investigating federal air marshals who criticized the agency or divulged sensitive information, according to an inspector general's report released yesterday.
"These investigations, and actions taken by Federal Air Marshal Service (FAMS) and Transportation Security Administration (TSA) against air marshals as a result of these investigations, were appropriate under the circumstances," the report says.
Inspector General Clark Kent Ervin said the findings are based on an internal directive that forbids the law-enforcement officials from speaking to the press without authorization, "criticize or ridicule" government agencies, post messages on the Internet or divulge information classified as sensitive security information (SSI).
The report found that 11 investigations of marshals were conducted for speaking to the public, to the press or on the Internet and that at least three investigations resulted in dismissal, resignation or administrative leave for an undisclosed number of marshals.
At least one investigation occurred after press reports last year that the number of cross-country and international flights protected by air marshals was being cut back to save money.
After the cuts were publicized by MSNBC, the TSA transferred $9 million back to the flight budget, the report says. The Washington Times reported recently that protecting cross-country flights remains a low priority for the FAMS and that instead, marshals are flying two to three short flights each day.
"There was a temporary decline in the number of flights that air marshals flew beginning on Aug. 1, 2003. Flights decreased as much as 17 percent before returning to normal again on Aug. 6, 2003," the report says.
In mid-August, MSNBC reported that management was conducting a "witch hunt" to determine who leaked the information, and Rep. Jim Turner, Texas Democrat and ranking member of the House Select Committee on Homeland Security, asked Mr. Ervin to investigate whether there had been retaliation.
Out of thousands of air marshals in 21 field offices, 157 air marshals in eight offices were interviewed, and 30 said they had been threatened about releasing information to the public.
"Five air marshals from two field offices said they were threatened with prosecution for disclosing information to the press or public. They said their supervisors' threats included being led away in handcuffs, being fired and prosecuted, or being subjected to polygraph exams if the leaks continued," the report says.
However, the inspector general (IG) questioned the legal accuracy of whether the policy allowed for arrest and prosecution for releasing a government record.
The report also said there is no evidence to support accusations that threats were made to take action against marshals under the Patriot Act.
David Adams, FAMS spokesman, said the report "substantiates we did not conduct any type of witch hunt against out employees, and we feel the IG report is a fair representation of our offices and our personnel."
"The IG found no evidence of retaliation in talking to the press or public, and also said neither the FAMS or TSA threatened to take any action under the authority of the Patriot Act," Mr. Adams said.
Air marshals discounted the report, which examined incidents last year, and said retaliation continues against agents, some in the past few months.
One marshal accused of leaking a memo was grounded and ordered to wash cars for a week in August. The marshal said he was not the leaker and asked the inspector general to investigate, but he said the request has been ignored.
The leaked memo was key to a story that a quota system to file reports forced some marshals to file false surveillance-detection reports.
Frank Terreri, federal air marshal agency president with the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, was put on administrative leave last month, just days after his organization released a public statement announcing a vote of no confidence in FAMS director Thomas Quinn.
"Our action was not an ad hoc reaction, but routine procedure consistent with policy," Mr. Adams said.
--------
Witch Hunting Air Marshals Is Disputed
November 10, 2004
By BRIAN WINGFIELD
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/10/politics/10marshals.html
WASHINGTON, Nov. 9 - The Federal Air Marshal Service and the Transportation Security Administration did not conduct a "witch hunt" to discipline and retaliate against air marshals who spoke to reporters in 2002 and 2003, according to an audit released Tuesday by the Department of Homeland Security.
However, the audit, conducted by the department's Office of Inspector General, did report that several air marshals said their supervisors threatened them with prosecution if they were found to have released sensitive information to the public.
The disclosure of such information, while against federal air marshals' policy, is not a prosecutable offense.
The audit was requested by Representative Jim Turner, Democrat of Texas, in response to three news reports that appeared on the Web site of MSNBC.
On July 30, 2003, MSNBC reported that the Transportation Security Administration intended to remove air marshals from some long-distance flights for budget reasons, allowing those flights to go unprotected against possible terrorists. Later that day, MSNBC reported that the agency had reversed its decision.
On Aug. 21, 2003, MSNBC reported that the agency was conducting a "witch hunt" to identify and discipline those air marshals who had spoken with the media.
As a result of investigations by the marshal service and the security agency about the disclosure of sensitive information, the audit said one air marshal was terminated, one was suspended for being a second-time offender, two resigned before investigations were complete, and one was placed on administrative leave. The other cases were resolved or closed.
During the course of the audit, conducted between November 2003 and March 2004, the inspector general's office interviewed 157 air marshals. Most said they did not believe that their managers were conducting a witch hunt to discipline them. Thirty said that they felt threatened with disciplinary action; five said they were threatened with prosecution.
The inspector general's office determined that the investigations by the air marshals and the T.S.A. were "consistent with current guidelines and regulations."
-------- human rights
Panel Says Census Move on Arab-Americans Recalls World War II Internments
November 10, 2004
By ERIC LIPTON
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/10/politics/10census.html
SUITLAND, Md., Nov. 9 - The Census Bureau's decision to give to the Department of Homeland Security data that identified populations of Arab-Americans was the modern-day equivalent of its pinpointing Japanese-American communities when internment camps were opened during World War II, members of an advisory board told the agency's top officials Tuesday.
"This for the Arab-American community is 1942," said Barry Steinhardt, a civil liberties lawyer and member of the panel, the Decennial Census Advisory Committee. "Thousands of Arab-Americans have been rounded up and deported."
The criticism came at a daylong special meeting held at the Census Bureau's headquarters in this Washington suburb to discuss the disclosure this summer that on two occasions after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the agency provided comprehensive reports to Homeland Security listing Arab-American populations by city and ZIP code.
The data, from the 2000 census, had already been made public on the agency's Internet site and did not include any individual names or addresses, information the agency is prohibited from disclosing. Further, Homeland Security officials have said the data were requested simply to help them decide at which airports they needed to post Arabic language signs, not for law enforcement purposes.
But the Census Bureau director acknowledged at the meeting that by tabulating and handing over the data to the Department of Homeland Security, even if doing so broke no laws , the agency had undermined public trust, potentially discouraging Arab-Americans or other minority groups from filling out future census forms.
"It affected the perception of the Census Bureau," said the director, Charles Louis Kincannon. "And that is a very important problem for us."
But Mr. Kincannon rejected comparisons to what occurred during World War II, when the bureau gave maps and statistics to the Army identifying where Japanese-Americans lived.
"This is not 1942," he said. "That kind of internment is not going on."
The meeting largely drew leaders of a variety of ethnic and racial groups, some of them members of the committee, and the criticism there was voiced by many other than Arab-Americans. Representatives of Asians, Hispanics, blacks, American Indians and Native Alaskans each objected to the agency's action.
"Once you lose the trust of the public, it is hard to get it back," said Karen Narasaki, a member of the committee who said her parents and grandparents were sent to internment camps during World War II.
Concern was also raised about a new effort by the Census Bureau to prepare annual estimates of illegal immigrants as part of an overall population count. Those estimates, a recent report by the Government Accountability Office said, may permit approximate counts by geographic area of the number of illegal-immigrant children of school age, data that members of the committee said might ultimately be used against migrant families.
But Mr. Kincannon said that if the Census Bureau wanted to report population sizes accurately, it needed to try to count fast-growing immigrant and illegal-immigrant populations.
"It is in our interest and the public's interest to have a good estimate," he said.
Since the disclosure over the summer that the data were given to the Homeland Security Department, the Census Bureau has already changed the way it handles requests from law enforcement agencies for special tabulations of census data or extractions of data already tabulated. Before any such information is now released, a senior administrator must approve the request. Requests that involve some "sensitive'' populations - children, noncitizens, prisoners, the poor, the terminally ill and certain "small minority groups" - also require that high-level approval even if the data are not being shared with a law enforcement agency.
But several members of the advisory board said the new rule was too ambiguous, particularly when it came to determining which minorities were considered "sensitive." One solution suggested by committee members Tuesday would be to release to the public any special tabulations prepared for law enforcement agencies, so that there would be less suspicion about what kind of data the Census Bureau might be sharing. Others urged the creation of a kind of ombudsman - a "privacy officer" who would routinely review these kinds of data requests.
Mr. Kincannon said he expected to issue a more permanent and comprehensive revision of rules in this area next year, to try to rebuild public confidence.
"To conduct the census,'' he said, "we depend on the trust of the respondents.''
-------- immigration / refugees
Bush revives bid to legalize illegal aliens
November 10, 2004
By Bill Sammon
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20041110-123424-5467r.htm
President Bush yesterday moved aggressively to resurrect his plan to relax rules against illegal immigration, a move bound to anger conservatives just days after they helped re-elect him.
The president met privately in the Oval Office with Sen. John McCain to discuss jump-starting a stalled White House initiative that would grant legal status to millions of immigrants who broke the law to enter the United States.
The Arizona Republican is one of the Senate's most outspoken supporters of expanding guest-worker programs and has introduced his own bill to offer a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants.
"We are formulating plans for the legislative agenda for next year," said White House political strategist Karl Rove. "And immigration will be on that agenda."
He added: "The president had a meeting this morning to discuss with a significant member of the Senate the prospect of immigration reform. And he's going to make it an important item."
While the president was huddling with Mr. McCain, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell was pushing the plan during a visit to Mexico City.
"The president remains committed to comprehensive immigration reform as a high priority in his second term," he told a meeting of the U.S.-Mexico Binational Commission. "We will work closely with our Congress to achieve this goal."
But key opponents in Congress said Mr. Bush's proposal isn't going anywhere.
"An amnesty by any other name is still an amnesty, regardless of what the White House wants to call it," said Rep. Tom Tancredo, Colorado Republican and chairman of the Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus.
"Their amnesty plan was dead on arrival when they sent it to the Congress in January, and if they send the same pig with lipstick back to Congress next January, it will suffer the same fate," he said.
With the House and Senate already clashing over border security and deportation provisions in the pending intelligence overhaul bill, some Capitol Hill aides said it's almost impossible that Congress could agree on a broader immigration proposal.
Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), said he "suddenly went from calm to stressed out" after learning of the president's renewed push for immigration relaxation.
He predicted the plan would continue to meet vigorous opposition from House Republicans.
"If the House wouldn't deliver this bill before the guy's election, when he claimed he needed it for the Hispanic vote, why would they deliver it after the election, when their constituents overwhelmingly oppose it?" he said. "Why would House leaders follow the president over a cliff?"
White House officials insisted the move was not "payback" to Hispanic voters who supported Mr. Bush in greater numbers last week than in 2000. Although the president first proposed relaxing immigration shortly after taking office, he mothballed the idea after September 11, 2001, and downplayed it on the campaign trail.
"The president has long believed that reforming our immigration system is a high priority," White House deputy press secretary Claire Buchan said yesterday.
Mr. Stein said Mr. Bush is already a "lame duck president" whose proposal "has no credibility." He expressed astonishment that the president resurrected the plan before pushing other second-term agenda items, like tax simplification or Social Security privatization.
"There's a sense of obstinacy in the face of overwhelming evidence that it's a losing approach," he said. "I mean, the definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing, expecting a different result."
Though most members of Congress agree on the need for a guest-worker program to fill unwanted jobs, House Republican leaders, including Majority Leader Tom DeLay, Texas Republican, have panned other parts of the president's proposal as an amnesty.
Mr. Bush has not sent immigration legislation to Congress, though seven bills have been introduced by members of the House and Senate, according to Numbers USA, an organization that lobbies for stricter immigration controls.
They range from a proposal to give legal status to fewer than 1 million agricultural workers to a bill that could legalize most of the estimated 10 million illegal immigrants currently living in the United States. But none of the bills has passed even one chamber.
Mr. McCain is sponsoring a bill, along with Reps. Jim Kolbe and Jeff Flake, both Arizona Republicans, that would go further than the president's principles by explicitly allowing those now here illegally to enter a guest-worker program and eventually apply for permanent residence.
White House press secretary Scott McClellan said the president wants to "provide a more humane treatment" of illegal aliens from Mexico.
"America has always been a welcoming society, and this is a program that will match willing workers with willing employers," he said. "It will promote compassion for workers who right now have no protection."
He added of Mr. Bush: "It's something that he intends to work with members on to get moving again in the second term. It's something he believes very strongly in."
Mr. Powell yesterday insisted that security is an important part of his boss's proposal.
"We must also be innovative in our efforts to stop those who abuse the openness of our societies along the border, who would use this openness to harm our citizens through trafficking in drugs, or trafficking in human beings, or by committing acts of terrorism," Mr. Powell said.
Some on Capitol Hill said Mr. Bush may be emboldened by the fact that he didn't appear to lose support among conservatives in this year's election, and several Republicans who did support guest-worker programs defeated primary challengers, including Mr. Flake, Mr. Kolbe and Rep. Christopher B. Cannon, Utah Republican.
"I think a lot of members around the country saw those results and realized that voters are more interested in a serious solution to this problem," said Mr. Flake's spokesman, Matthew Specht. "So I think that certainly improves the chances for reform next year."
In a 90-minute interview Sept. 22 with editors and reporters of The Washington Times, Mr. Rove said a Bush victory would "be an opportunity" for the president's guest-worker proposal for immigrants, although he declined to call it a "mandate," as he did on such issues as Social Security reform and tax cuts.
•Stephen Dinan contributed to this report.
----
Arizona initiative inspires others
November 10, 2004
By Jerry Seper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20041110-123436-8100r.htm
The passage of an Arizona immigration initiative requiring verifiable identification to vote or receive public benefits has spurred similar efforts in other states and created panic among some Hispanics, who are questioning whether it is safe to go to work, shop or send their children to school.
The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) - which successfully derailed Proposition 187 in California in 1994, a measure that also would have blocked illegal aliens from receiving public services - has vowed to fight the new initiative, known as the Arizona Taxpayer and Citizens Protection Act.
"We lost the battle, but we're not going to lose the war," said Daniel Ortega, a Phoenix lawyer and MALDEF spokesman. "We should have beaten it at the polls, but I truthfully and honestly believe we will beat it in the courts."
MALDEF plans to ask a federal judge to issue a preliminary injunction against the new Arizona law as soon as election results are certified Nov. 22. It will argue that the initiative does not specify what benefits can be withheld and does not detail how much implementing the initiative will cost taxpayers.
Initiative proponents, arguing that illegal immigration in Arizona is out of control, said Proposition 200's passage on Nov. 2 was a crucial first step in reducing a glut of illegal immigration and sends messages to government officials in both Washington and Mexico that illegal immigration will not be condoned.
The initiative - opposed by key elected officials in Arizona, including Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano and Republican Sen. John McCain; several Hispanic advocacy groups; labor unions and community and civil rights organizations - passed with 56 percent of the vote.
Stricter border enforcement efforts by federal authorities in California and Texas have funneled hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens into Arizona, where they have placed huge demands on schools, hospitals and other public services.
Janet Murguia, head of the National Council of La Raza, said opponents would have been successful in defeating the initiative if they had more time to reach out to voters. She said the organization "continued to be frustrated by the immigration situation, but we want to remind folks this still is not the answer."
And Mr. McCain told CNSNews.com yesterday, "I understand the frustration most Arizonans feel with our unprotected border, but I don't think this is the right answer. It could be very divisive."
But Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), said the proposition's decisive victory was a "testament to how strongly people in Arizona and the rest of the country feel about the need to deal with the burgeoning problem of mass illegal immigration."
"Voters in Arizona told unresponsive politicians in Arizona and across the country that if they do not address mass illegal immigration, the public is prepared to go over their heads," said Mr. Stein, adding that it was "likely" that voters in other states inundated with mass illegal immigration will see the passage of Proposition 200 "as a model of grass-roots activism that can be replicated in their states."
Randy Pullen, a member of the Republican National Committee who chaired the Yes on Proposition 200 Committee, said passage of the initiative would inspire similar efforts in other Western states and draw the attention of state and national lawmakers.
"When you have the governor, your senators and your congressional delegation against it, you're outspent 5-to-1, and you still win ... it's a pretty clear message that people want something done," Mr. Pullen said. "We believe this is the beginning of illegal immigration brought under control."
Miss Napolitano said she will sign the bill once it is certified, bowing to the will of the people.
In the days after the initiative's passage, Arizona state officials and Hispanic community leaders said they were deluged with calls from immigrants worried about whether it was safe to go to work, shop or send their children to school.
Head Start leaders in Phoenix said attendance dropped dramatically after Tuesday's vote, including in one class in which only two of 20 students showed up.
Officials at the Maricopa County Department of Human Services in Phoenix said Spanish-speaking teachers and staff members were assigned to call the parents of 2,700 students enrolled in the federal program to assure them their children were safe at school. Head Start spokeswoman Rachel Schultz said attendance is now normal.
Opponents said many immigrants, both legal and illegal, were afraid that because of the proposition's passage, they could be stopped at any time and asked for their papers.
The Mexican government said yesterday that the initiative "will lead to discrimination based on racial profiling while limiting access to basic health and educational services."
The Foreign Ministry said the initiative "doesn't contribute in any way, shape or form to any constructive manner of dealing with the migration phenomenon between Mexico and Arizona."
Meanwhile, efforts are under way elsewhere to duplicate the Arizona success, including in:
• California, where a grass-roots organization known as the California Republican Assembly hopes to gain enough signatures to qualify an anti-immigrant initiative for the March 2006 ballot. The group wants to restore portions of Proposition 187 that prohibited benefits to illegal immigrants not mandated by federal law.
• Georgia, where a group known as Georgians for Immigration Reduction said it was "very energized" by the Arizona vote and, says spokesman Jimmy Herchek, is watching "closely" what happens in that state's court challenges. Mr. Herchek said draft legislation will be presented to legislators in the near future.
• Colorado, where Defend Colorado Now is drafting a constitutional amendment to prevent illegal aliens from receiving "public services" other than those involving public safety or life-threatening emergencies. A petition drive is to begin in January 2006, with 70,000 signatures needed to put it before voters.
•Texas, where Texans for Fair Immigration hope to draft legislation similar to the Arizona initiative and lobby state officials to pass it. State laws bars the placement of initiatives on the ballot.
The Arizona initiative requires proof of citizenship when registering to vote and identification when voting in person. It also calls for state and local government employees to check the immigration status of those applying for non-federally mandated public benefits and establishes fines and other penalties for those who fail to do so.
--------
Justices Rule in Immigrant's Favor
Drunken Driving Not a Reason for Deportation, Court Says
By Charles Lane
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 10, 2004; Page A04
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A36412-2004Nov9.html
The Supreme Court ruled yesterday that a noncitizen convicted of injuring two people while driving drunk cannot be deported as a violent criminal, in a unanimous decision that resolved a long-standing legal debate in favor of immigrants' rights.
Issuing his first written opinion since the court announced Oct. 25 that he has thyroid cancer, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist wrote that drunken driving, even when it results in serious harm to others, does not entail the kind of specific criminal intent that Congress meant to punish when it passed a law in 1996 requiring the removal of all immigrants who commit "crimes of violence."
"Interpreting [the law] to encompass accidental or negligent conduct would blur the distinction between the 'violent' crimes Congress sought to distinguish for heightened punishment and other crimes," Rehnquist wrote.
The court ruled in favor of Josue Leocal, 47, a Haitian immigrant who came to the United States in 1980 and became a legal resident in 1987 but was ordered deported in October 2001 after pleading guilty in Florida to two counts of causing serious bodily injury while driving under the influence of alcohol. In November 2002, after serving his sentence for the crimes, Leocal was deported to Haiti.
Last year, the Atlanta-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit upheld his deportation; yesterday's Supreme Court ruling overturns that opinion and opens the door for the readmission of Leocal, whose wife and two children are U.S. citizens.
It is a defeat for the Bush administration, which had argued that drunken driving could be considered a crime of violence because even the unintentional use of force, as in the wild maneuvers of an intoxicated driver, could be construed as violence.
"Today's unanimous decision repudiates the administration's improper interpretation of the law and underscores the crucial role of the courts in reviewing government deportation orders," said Lucas Guttentag, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Immigrants Rights Project. "It is now incumbent on the government to allow immigrants who have been wrongly deported to return."
Immigrants rights groups estimate that hundreds of noncitizens may have been deported for drunken-driving offenses since 1996, when the Clinton administration first made the argument that such felonies should be considered deportable crimes.
In 1998, during Operation Last Call in Texas, immigration agents rounded up hundreds of noncitizens with drunken-driving convictions, including some cases that were many years old.
The Bush administration adopted the Clinton interpretation of the law, even as several lower courts rejected it, leaving the law in an unsettled state until yesterday.
Rehnquist did not appear at the bench to read the 10 1/2-page opinion. It was announced in his absence by John Paul Stevens, the senior associate justice.
It was the fifth straight oral argument session that Rehnquist has missed since not appearing in court Nov. 1, the date on which he had initially hoped to return after undergoing cancer-related throat surgery Oct. 23.
Leocal v. Ashcroft, No. 03-583, was argued before the court Oct. 12, with Rehnquist presiding.
That week, Rehnquist had an MRI test on his throat -- and he has apparently been under the care of physicians almost continuously since. In a Nov. 1 statement, he said he is undergoing radiation and chemotherapy treatments.
The court has not confirmed the precise nature of Rehnquist's illness. Outside experts have said that, based on the course of his treatment so far, it is likely that he has a very aggressive and often fatal disease called anaplastic thyroid cancer.
-------- terrorism
Man Charged With Aiding Terrorists
Wyo. College Student Reported Roommate
By John Mintz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 10, 2004; Page A03
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37993-2004Nov9.html
A Wyoming college student has been charged with providing material support to a terrorist group after acknowledging to federal agents in Texas that he was trying to send military equipment to a Somali group that the U.S. government has designated as a terrorist organization, officials said yesterday.
The student, Mark Robert Walker, 18, also told agents that he was trying to arrange travel to Somalia to fight alongside the al-Ittihad al-Islamiya group, which the U.S. government said is allied with al Qaeda, according to a document filed in federal court in El Paso.
FBI agents began a probe of Walker on Oct. 28, after his roommate at Wyoming Technical College called authorities to say Walker had been using his computer to communicate with terrorists. Walker fled Wyoming to Mexico after his roommate confronted him, according to an affidavit filed by Mark Kaminsky, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent. Agents later found that Walker, using the name Abdullah, was the administrator of a "jihadist" Web site, the affidavit said.
Agents found that on the Web site and in e-mail communications with a man named Khalid, Walker had expressed admiration for terrorists and said he wanted to leave for Somalia to join in jihad, the affidavit said. Walker also expressed a desire to buy weapons, ammunition, night-vision goggles and bulletproof vests for the Somali fighters, it said.
The FBI placed Walker's name on a watch list, and last Saturday ICE agents detained him after he tried to enter the United States from Mexico at a border crossing near El Paso. He agreed to talk to agents and told them of his activities, after which he was arrested, the ICE affidavit said.
Walker had become interested in Islam at a mosque in his home town of Rochester, N.Y., officials said. "He seems like a lost guy who got obsessed with jihad," one official familiar with the case said.
Western intelligence agencies have suspected al-Ittihad al-Islamiya of involvement in a number of terrorist plots in East Africa, including the 2002 suicide bombing of an Israeli-owned hotel in Kenya, in which 16 people were killed.
-------- POLITICS
-------- corruption
Campaign With No Candidate Keeps Racking Up Expenses
Salary for Congressman's Wife, Travel Spending Included
By T.R. Reid
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 10, 2004; Page A25
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38003-2004Nov9.html
DENVER -- At first glance, the reelection campaign of Rep. Scott McInnis (R-Colo.) looks downright frugal. In an age of million-dollar-plus House races, McInnis reported expenses of less than $150,000 in the year leading up to last week's election.
Of course, the McInnis campaign should have been cheap, since there was no campaign -- he announced in the summer of 2003 that he would not seek another term. But his campaign committee has since reported expenditures of thousands of dollars each month -- and much of the spending has accrued to the benefit of his wife, Lori.
The campaign without a candidate has paid Lori McInnis more than $40,000, plus a benefit plan of $1,150 per month, to serve as campaign manager. The campaign pays for the car and the cell phone she uses. It also has spent tens of thousands of dollars on restaurant, hotel and travel bills since McInnis ended his candidacy.
Federal law and House rules say campaign funds cannot be converted to the personal use of candidates or family members. Contributions left over after a candidate withdraws can legally be used for necessary expenses of shutting down a campaign, for official duties of the candidate or for contributions to charity or other political entities. It is legal for congressional campaigns to hire relatives of the candidate.
"It's legal to hire family members, and some people do it," noted Fred Wertheimer of the campaign watchdog group Democracy 21. "But it gets a little hard to explain why you're paying a family member to work on a campaign when there's no campaign.
"At best, this is an effort to skim the system," Wertheimer said. "At worst, it raises potentially serious legal questions."
Mike Hesse, McInnis's chief of staff, said Lori McInnis is responsible for archiving the records from previous campaigns, for contributing money to other candidates and for dealing with the accounting firm the campaign hired to keep track of income and outgo. He said she generally works from home, and parks the campaign car there. He said she needed the car in May for events connected to the Colorado Republican convention.
The outlays by the McInnis committee reflect the realities of campaign finance these days. With a battery of incumbent-protection mechanisms in place, and with many House districts designed to be one-party monopolies, most incumbents rarely face a serious reelection challenge. Yet contributions, primarily from interest groups, have skyrocketed.
The result is that most incumbents have accumulated significant campaign treasuries that they don't need for campaigning. When McInnis decided to leave Congress -- he will become a lobbyist for the Washington law firm Hogan & Hartson -- his campaign had more than $1.4 million in reserve. But the Campaign Reform Act of 2002 says that money "shall not be converted by any person to personal use." Still, the campaign committee known as Friends of Scott McInnis found ways to use some of the excess.
As is common for retiring candidates, McInnis contributed some leftover funds to other campaigns, including the unsuccessful congressional campaign of his wife's brother. He sent thousands of dollars to the legal defense fund of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.); three of DeLay's top political aides were indicted in September on charges of illegally raising political funds from corporations in 2002.
Lori McInnis has been a paid employee of her husband's reelection campaign since 2001, spending reports show. She was paid about 50 percent more for the 2004 election cycle, with no candidate, than she was paid in the 2002 campaign, when she had an active candidate to manage.
Beyond that, the campaign fund paid for purchases at grocery stores, gas stations, convenience stores and flower shops, the reports show. It has paid for plane and train tickets and rental cars. The former candidate's campaign pays the monthly bills for a conventional phone and a cell phone and an Internet connection at the McInnis home, Hesse said.
A reading of the expenditure reports McInnis has filed with the Federal Election Commission suggests that the lawmaker and those around him regularly used campaign contributions to pay bills small and large. In February, somebody spent $3.23 at the deli counter of the Safeway in Grand Junction, Colo., McInnis's home town. This expense was paid by the campaign and was described as a "meeting" when reported to the FEC.
The committee also paid for meetings at steakhouses, Chinese restaurants and Tex-Mex joints around the D.C. area, including dinners at the Prime Rib on K Street NW ($331.55), Blackie's House of Beef on 22nd Street NW ($571.55) and the Peking Gourmet Inn on Leesburg Pike in Baileys Crossroads ($119). Hesse said most of these events were gatherings of McInnis's former contributors.
The campaign paid for numerous cups of coffee at the Starbucks on 17th and Pennsylvania, with bills ranging from $6 to $30 and each expenditure described as a meeting. Hesse said McInnis often "found it easier to go to Starbucks" than to meet people in his office.
McInnis represents a large district on the western slope of the Rocky Mountains. When he decided not to seek reelection, a local farmer, John Salazar, entered the race as a Democrat. Salazar's victory last week made Colorado's 3rd District one of the few House districts in the country to switch parties in the 2004 election.
-------- us politics
Ashcroft, Evans quit Bush Cabinet
November 10, 2004
By Jerry Seper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20041110-123431-6160r.htm
Attorney General John Ashcroft and Commerce Secretary Donald L. Evans resigned yesterday, the first two Cabinet members to leave the administration in the wake of President Bush's re-election last week over Sen. John Kerry.
Mr. Bush praised both men, saying Mr. Ashcroft "worked tirelessly to help make our country safer" and calling Mr. Evans "one of my most trusted friends and advisers," who worked to "advance economic security and prosperity for all Americans."
In a five-page handwritten letter of resignation, Mr. Ashcroft told the president that the "objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved," but added that the Justice Department "would be well-served by new leadership and fresh inspiration."
Mr. Ashcroft said he would remain until a successor is confirmed; Mr. Evans said he would leave in January.
Mr. Ashcroft, 62, one of Mr. Bush's first Cabinet picks in 2000, had been rumored for some time to be ready to leave, telling colleagues he was exhausted after four years of leading the Justice Department's war on terrorism.
He also has been under constant attack for his staunch enforcement efforts and for his defiant public defense of the Patriot Act, which has drawn criticism from both Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill.
"I believe that my energies and talents should be directed toward other challenging horizons," Mr. Ashcroft said in the letter, which was dated Nov. 2 - Election Day.
Although Mr. Ashcroft wrote the letter a week ago, he released it yesterday, saying in the note that he wanted to time his resignation "and the ensuing transition in conjunction with you so that your administration and the cause of justice are served optimally."
He said he wrote the letter by hand "so its confidentiality can be maintained" and the transition arrangements made.
Mr. Evans, 58, long has been considered one of the president's best friends - dating back to their days in the oil business in Midland, Texas - and was instrumental in Mr. Bush's 2000 campaign.
In his letter of resignation, he said: "These past four years have brought great progress in strengthening America's national security and economic security, and advancing the global march to peace, prosperity and freedom. Your leadership inspired our nation and the world to reach higher and to try harder to achieve goals beyond conventional expectations.
"While the promise of your second term shines bright, I have concluded with deep regret it is time for me to return home. It is a blessing to have served America with such an extraordinary leader and a true friend," he said.
White House officials told reporters that neither Mr. Ashcroft nor Mr. Evans was asked to resign from the Cabinet.
Mentioned as possible successors to Mr. Evans are Mercer Reynolds, national finance chairman for the Bush campaign who helped raise more than $260 million for the president's re-election; Marc Racicot, former Montana governor and the 2004 Bush campaign chairman; and former Sen. Phil Gramm, Texas Republican.
Other rumored departures include Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell.
Mr. Rumsfeld said Monday he had not discussed whether he will stay on as the Pentagon chief, but made clear this week he is not finished trying to "overhaul" the U.S. defense and military establishment.
"When I arrived back at the Pentagon some four years ago, [Mr. Bush] asked me to undertake an overhaul of the department's assumptions and organization and strategies. We've now spent nearly four years doing so, and we've made considerable progress, but there's much to be done," he said.
Other Defense Department officials have said Mr. Rumsfeld is expected to continue in the top defense job for a year before stepping down.
Mr. Powell said late Monday en route to Mexico City that he faced an extensive travel schedule in Europe over the next several weeks in an effort to repair relations with other countries damaged by the Iraq war. He gave no hint about his departure from his Cabinet post.
National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice has been mentioned as a potential successor to both Mr. Rumsfeld and Mr. Powell.
Mr. Ashcroft has been berated by liberal, civil rights and other activist groups as an enemy of blacks, women and "working people," saying he would ignore hate crimes, restrict abortion and even allow rat poison in drinking water - a reference to his vote as a U.S. senator to weaken the Clean Water Act.
His high visibility often clouded the Bush message, department insiders said, although he stood firm in his commitment to defend the nation, noting that the United States was at war with terror and that "thanks to the vigilance of law enforcement ... we have not suffered another major terrorist attack."
Sen. Charles E. Grassley, Iowa Republican, who worked with Mr. Ashcroft and Mr. Evans as chairman of the Senate Finance Committee and a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, praised the two men last night.
"As the United States faced difficult times after the attacks of September 11, Don Evans and John Ashcroft stood firm with our president to help this country move forward," he said.
"Secretary Evans played an important role in helping the president bring us out of an economic recession, and Attorney General Ashcroft has been instrumental in protecting America from further terrorist attacks. During my interaction with them, I greatly appreciated their integrity, ideals and principles," he said.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin G. Hatch, Utah Republican, said Mr. Ashcroft "served our country faithfully during one of our most challenging chapters in history. ... His courage and leadership are second to none."
Sen. Richard J. Durbin, Illinois Democrat and a longtime Ashcroft critic, said Mr. Bush "now has the opportunity to appoint a new attorney general who will protect not only our safety, but our constitutional rights as well."
A shortlist of potential replacements for Mr. Ashcroft includes Mr. Racicot, White House General Counsel Al Gonzales, Deputy Attorney General James B. Comey, U.S. Attorney Paul J. McNulty in Virginia and Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.
Others mentioned as possible nominees are former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani and former Deputy Attorney General Larry D. Thompson, who recently was hired as vice president and general counsel at Pepsico in New York.
Mr. Giuliani has said he is busy in a private consulting business and was not seeking the job, and a spokesman for Pepsico said Mr. Thompson was "excited about his opportunities" at the company and was "fully committed to that effort."
•Joseph Curl, Stephen Dinan, Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough contributed to this report.
----
U.S. foreign policy will be 'aggressive'
November 10, 2004
By Nicholas Kralev
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20041109-110238-1279r.htm
MEXICO CITY - The Bush administration will pursue an "aggressive" second-term foreign policy that will dispel the "overhang" cast over the first four years by Iraq and the wider mideast, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said yesterday.
Asked how he saw his own role in implementing such an agenda, Mr. Powell said only: "I'm very pleased to be secretary of state." Nevertheless, he articulated the administration's priorities authoritatively, confident he was speaking for President Bush.
"I understand the importance of Iraq. I understand the overhang that that and the Middle East has on how we are viewed in the world, and the impression that some people have of us," Mr. Powell told reporters accompanying him on a one-day visit to Mexico.
"But it's an impression that will change as we start showing our success, such as the kind of success we showed in Afghanistan," he said in reference to that country's elections last month.
Running through a long list of priorities, the secretary cited "first and foremost, the global war on terror," mentioning particularly the efforts to hunt down al Qaeda terrorists believed to be hiding along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
Mr. Powell next mentioned Iraqi elections slated for late January, noting that U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan "has agreed to increase the size of the U.N. presence in Iraq, and we have been making arrangements to provide them the necessary security."
Turning to the Middle East, the secretary was careful not to support any Palestinian leader who might succeed the gravely ill Yasser Arafat, whose death appears imminent.
At a later press conference in Mexico City, Mr. Powell said the United States "remains ready to engage with the Palestinian leadership, as the Palestinian leaders define that leadership, toward the president's vision of two states living side by side in peace: Israel and the state of Palestine."
Mr. Powell also talked about Washington's alliances in Asia and Europe, its relations with Russia and China, and "the new strategic program that we have with India."
"We will continue to press in Africa to resolve regional conflicts, Sudan being the one that's uppermost in our mind," he said. "But we'll continue to do work to follow up on Liberia, to assist U.N. peacekeepers in Congo and to help the United Nations and our French friends in Cote d'Ivoire."
Several people were killed and dozens wounded yesterday in Ivory Coast - Cote d'Ivoire in French - as angry crowds descended on French forces seeking to evacuate foreigners from an impending civil war.
Conspicuously absent from Mr. Powell's list were Iran and North Korea, which along with Iraq formed the "axis of evil" defined by Mr. Bush in 2002.
Aides traveling with Mr. Powell warned against reading too much into those omissions, saying he had not had time to mention every issue on the administration's agenda.
Asked later about North Korea, Mr. Powell said, "We are not doing anything right now but waiting for six-party talks to reconvene....
"We go into these talks with a sense of trying to solve a problem, not just to stick to our talking points, and we will try to make sure that we approach such talks in the future within that same spirit, if there's something to be flexible about," Mr. Powell said.
Mr. Powell was in Mexico City for the 21st meeting of the U.S.-Mexico Binational Commission.
----
Ashcroft, Evans To Leave Cabinet
Attorney General Cites Job's Rigors
By Dan Eggen and Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, November 10, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A37503-2004Nov9?language=printer
John D. Ashcroft, the combative attorney general whose anti-terrorism policies made him the focus of a fierce national debate over civil liberties, resigned yesterday along with Commerce Secretary Donald L. Evans, one of President Bush's closest friends.
Ashcroft, 62, has been one of the most controversial and influential figures of Bush's first term. Ashcroft provided reliable fodder for Democrats on the campaign trail and served as a visible representative of the evangelical Christians who played a crucial role in reelecting the president.
Administration sources said Ashcroft's successor is likely to be White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales.
In a five-page handwritten resignation letter to Bush -- dated Election Day but released yesterday -- Ashcroft took credit for declining crime rates and the absence of terrorist attacks on U.S. soil since Sept. 11, 2001. "The objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved," he wrote.
But Ashcroft, whose gallbladder was removed in March after he was hospitalized for pancreatitis, also wrote that the "demands of justice are both rewarding and depleting" and that "the Department of Justice would be well served by new leadership and fresh inspiration."
Bush said in a statement that Ashcroft "has worked tirelessly to help make our country safer" and has "transformed the department to make combating terrorism the top priority."
The resignations were the first departures from Bush's Cabinet since his reelection, and administration officials said they came for very different reasons. Ashcroft -- aware of the controversy he has provoked and, according to friends, exhausted after his illness -- preemptively offered his letter before the White House initiated a formal discussion about his future.
Evans, 58, often described as Bush's best friend, is eager to return to Texas to rejoin family members, who have already moved back.
A White House official said Bush considered Ashcroft's resignation at Camp David over the weekend and decided to accept it this week. Ashcroft said in his letter that it was handwritten "so its confidentiality can be maintained."
Picking Gonzales would give Bush tight control over the Justice Department. As governor of Texas, Bush put Gonzales on the state Supreme Court.
Administration sources said other contenders to replace Ashcroft include his former deputy, Larry D. Thompson, who would be the nation's first African American attorney general but has indicated he is not interested, and Marc Racicot, a former Montana governor who was chairman of Bush's reelection effort.
Ashcroft's deputy, James B. Comey; former New York City mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani; and New York Gov. George E. Pataki also are on the handicap lists of administration insiders. Most are considered more moderate than Ashcroft.
Ashcroft's nomination was the subject of a pitched battle in the Senate, which confirmed his appointment in February 2001 by a modest margin along partisan lines. In a message to Justice employees yesterday, Ashcroft said he will continue to serve as attorney general until his successor is confirmed.
Ashcroft, the son and grandson of Assemblies of God ministers, spent most of his political career as an attorney general, governor and U.S. senator in Missouri. He explored a run for president in 1998 as the candidate of the religious right.
Ashcroft became the nominee for U.S. attorney general after losing his reelection bid in November 2000 to another former Missouri governor, Mel Carnahan. Carnahan died in an plane crash weeks before the election, and his wife, Jean, served in his stead.
Ashcroft was thrust into a central role after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. He presided over a federal dragnet that apprehended and deported hundreds of Arab and South Asian foreign nationals on immigration violations but resulted in relatively few convictions for terrorism.
Ashcroft helped shepherd through Congress a package of stringent anti-terrorism measures, the USA Patriot Act, and used the new powers to dramatically restructure the missions of the FBI and the Justice Department, which became primarily focused on thwarting another attack.
Ashcroft came under persistent assault from Democrats, civil libertarians and even some Republicans, who questioned the Justice Department's use of secretive court proceedings and aggressive surveillance and search techniques. The Supreme Court rebuffed one of the department's central anti-terrorism strategies, ruling in June that men detained indefinitely without charges as enemy combatants by the U.S. military are entitled to lawyers and access to U.S. courts.
Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, compared Ashcroft to A. Mitchell Palmer, who oversaw raids targeting thousands of alleged radicals as attorney general in the Woodrow Wilson administration.
"This attorney general has been one of the most divisive forces in the Bush administration," Romero said. "His legacy will show that he was one of the worst attorney generals in American history, with an outright hostility for civil liberties and overt disdain for critics. . . . If President Bush wants to make good on his promise to unite the country, he can do no better than to start with the attorney general."
But leading Republicans argue that Ashcroft helped transform the Justice Department and FBI at a time when the United States is under persistent threat of attack from al Qaeda and other terrorist groups.
"His service came at a challenging time in our history," Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) said in a statement. "His dedication and commitment to fighting the war on terror has been critical to ensuring the safety . . . in our homeland."
A longtime friend of Ashcroft's expressed bitterness that the White House had originally welcomed him as a lightning rod who drew criticism away from Bush, then decided not to stand by him. "He was something to offer to evangelicals," said the friend, who declined to be identified. "They used him, and now they're done with him and he's being tossed aside."
In his letters to Bush and to Justice employees, Ashcroft focused in part on accomplishments other than fighting terrorism. They include, he said, more prosecutions of gun crimes, a crackdown on drug trafficking, and the convictions of executives at Enron, WorldCom and other companies for corporate crimes.
Ashcroft pushed the envelope on many hot-button issues. His department endorsed an expansive interpretation of the Second Amendment right to bear arms and sought to gain access to edited records of abortion patients from the Planned Parenthood Federation of America as it defended the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act in a lawsuit.
On many issues, Ashcroft's responses to criticism were often confrontational. He told a stunned Senate Judiciary Committee in December 2001 that criticism of government tactics "only aids terrorists," and said two years later that librarians worried about FBI surveillance powers were "hysterics."
This April, Ashcroft, testifying before the Sept. 11 commission, characterized a legal memo written by one of the panel's Democratic members as the "single greatest structural cause for the September 11th problem." The bipartisan commission and many legal experts disputed the claim.
Ashcroft plans to give speeches, join corporate boards and perhaps work with universities, administration officials said.
Research editor Lucy Shackelford contributed to this report.
--------
Ashcroft Quits Top Justice Post; Evans Going, Too
November 10, 2004
By ELISABETH BUMILLER
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/10/politics/10cabinet.html?pagewanted=all&position=
WASHINGTON, Nov. 9 - Attorney General John Ashcroft, one of the most high-profile and polarizing members of the Bush cabinet, said Tuesday that he would resign, after a tumultuous tenure in which he was praised for his aggressive fight against terrorists but assailed by critics who said he sacrificed civil liberties in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Commerce Secretary Donald L. Evans, a close friend of President Bush who spent years promoting the administration's tax cuts across the country, also submitted a letter of resignation on Tuesday.
The two were the first in a series of departures from the administration that are expected before Mr. Bush is inaugurated in January for a second term.
Larry Thompson, who served as deputy attorney general until last year and is a personal favorite of the president, is the leading candidate to replace Mr. Ashcroft, according to a Republican close to the White House. If named, Mr. Thompson, 58, would be the first African-American ever to lead the Justice Department. Others mentioned as possible successors include Marc Racicot, who was chairman of Mr. Bush's re-election campaign, and Alberto R. Gonzales, the White House counsel.
In his letter of resignation, Mr. Ashcroft indicated that he would stay in the job to ensure a smooth transition until his successor was nominated and confirmed.
Mercer Reynolds, a Cincinnati businessman who was Mr. Bush's campaign finance chairman, is a top candidate to replace Mr. Evans, the Republican said.
In a hand-written resignation letter to Mr. Bush, dated Nov. 2, that was released by the White House on Tuesday, Mr. Ashcroft said, "The demands of justice are both rewarding and depleting."
He added: "I take great personal satisfaction in the record which has been developed. The objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved. The rule of law has been strengthened and upheld in the courts. Yet, I believe that the Department of Justice would be well served by new leadership and fresh inspiration."
The resignation of Mr. Ashcroft, 62, had been widely expected, even as some Justice Department officials in recent days had suggested that he might want to stay on.
But Mr. Ashcroft had been sidelined for nearly a month last March when he underwent surgery to remove his gall bladder after a severe case of pancreatitis. In addition, he never developed a close relationship with Mr. Bush and annoyed some members of the White House staff who thought he was at times a grandstander who was overtly politicizing the Justice Department. One Republican close to the White House said on Tuesday night that Mr. Ashcroft had gotten a "strong signal" from the administration that his resignation would be accepted.
Mr. Bush, in a three-paragraph statement released by the White House, praised Mr. Ashcroft for his work over the past four years.
"I applaud his efforts to prevent crime, vigorously enforce our civil rights laws, crack down on corporate wrongdoing, protect the rights of victims and those with disabilities, reduce crimes committed with guns and stop human trafficking," the statement said. "I appreciate his work to fight Internet pornography. I am grateful for his advice on judicial nominations and his efforts to ensure that my judicial nominees receive fair hearings and timely votes."
But Mr. Ashcroft's critics were caustic. "We had an attorney general who treated criticism and dissent as treason, ethnic identity as grounds for suspicion and Congressional and judicial oversight as inconvenient obstacles," said David Cole, a law professor at Georgetown University. "He was a disaster from a civil liberties perspective but also from a national security perspective."
Republicans close to the White House said they expected Mr. Ashcroft's successor to be announced on Wednesday. Naming Mr. Thompson, who is widely regarded as a moderate and is respected by both Democrats and Republicans, would be a critical early signal that Mr. Bush is making a move toward the political center.
"You would hopefully see a more modulated approach by the Justice Department on the issues that John Ashcroft was very aggressive on," said Alan Vinegrad, who served as United States attorney in Brooklyn early in the current administration.
Mr. Thompson, the general counsel at Pepsico in Purchase, N.Y., left the Justice Department in August 2003. But he has kept up his ties to the administration, and earlier this year joined Mr. Bush at a ceremony in Buffalo to mark the anniversary of the USA Patriot Act, an antiterrorism law. "Larry, we miss you over there," Mr. Bush said at the ceremony. "Don't get too comfortable."
Mr. Thompson, who has been a visiting professor at the University of Georgia law school and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, came under scrutiny in 2002 when a conservative public interest group, Judicial Watch, filed a lawsuit that accused Mr. Thompson of helping artificially inflate the stock of the Providian Financial Corporation when he was a director there. Mr. Thompson, who made at least $1 million from the sale of his stock, denied any wrongdoing.
The resignation of Mr. Evans had also been widely expected. Mr. Evans, who has known Mr. Bush for more than three decades, had made it clear to associates before the election that he wanted to step down even if the president won a second term. Mr. Evans' family had recently moved back to Texas, and Mr. Evans has been a Republican favorite to run for governor of the state.
In his letter of resignation to the president, dated Nov. 9, Mr. Evans said, "While the promise of your second term shine bright, I have concluded with deep regret that it is time for me to return home." He added, "It is a blessing to have served America with such an extraordinary leader and a true friend."
Mr. Bush, in a statement released by the White House, called Mr. Evans "one of my most trusted friends and advisers" and "a valuable member of my economic team." Mr. Bush added: "To encourage job creation here at home, Don has worked closely with me to reduce taxes, open markets for American goods and services and promote a level playing field abroad."
Mr. Evans' departure is part of a broader reshuffling expected in the administration's economic team, which includes John W. Snow, the treasury secretary. A prominent Republican with close ties to the White House said on Tuesday that while Mr. Snow will remain for now at Treasury, he will probably step down after six months or a year.
Extending Mr. Snow's tenure would reward the treasury secretary, a 65-year-old former railroad executive who aggravated Bush campaign officials when he traveled to Ohio in October and called job losses under the president nothing more than "myths." But Mr. Snow has also been a tireless salesman for Mr. Bush's tax cuts and a cheerleader for his economic policies.
Administration officials are also contemplating a shift for Stephen Friedman, who is currently director of the White House National Economic Council. Mr. Friedman, a former top executive at Goldman Sachs, is under consideration as the United States trade representative and would be in charge of negotiating international trade agreements.
It remains unclear what will happen to Robert B. Zoellick, Mr. Bush's top trade negotiator for the past four years. Mr. Zoellick, who made progress on global trade talks and negotiated free-trade agreements with Chile, Australia and nations in Central America, had been looking for a new post in a second Bush term.
Republicans also said on Tuesday that Roland W. Betts, a close friend of the president and a Democrat, is a leading candidate to become chairman of the inauguration festivities in Washington in January. Mr. Betts, an owner of the Chelsea Piers sports and entertainment complex in Lower Manhattan, has known Mr. Bush since their days together at the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity at Yale University, and spent election night at the White House with Mr. Bush.
Edmund L. Andrews contributed reporting from Washington for this article, andAdam Liptak from New York.
--------
Ashcroft's Resignation Letter
Associated Press
Wednesday, November 10, 2004; Page A14
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38401-2004Nov9.html
"The objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved. The rule of law has been strengthened and upheld in the courts. Yet, I believe that the Department of Justice would be well served by new leadership and fresh inspiration. I believe that my energies and talents should be directed toward other challenging horizons.
"Therefore, I humbly state my desire to resign from the office of United States Attorney General."
John D. Ashcroft, in resignation letter
--------
NEWS ANALYSIS
Antiterror Campaign Made Ashcroft a Lightning Rod
November 10, 2004
By ERIC LICHTBLAU
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/10/politics/10legacy.html?hp&ex=1100149200&en=8f2be8a4800dce73&ei=5094&partner=homepage
WASHINGTON, Nov. 9 - John Ashcroft was flying in a Cessna jet over Detroit on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, when he received word that the Twin Towers had been hit. Scribbling notes on the back of a speech that he was supposed to give that day, he turned to an aide and declared, "Our world has changed forever."
Indeed, the terrorist attacks and Mr. Ashcroft's unexpected role as point man in carrying out the administration's antiterror policies would make him one of the most powerful and divisive figures ever to serve as the nation's top law enforcement official.
To his supporters, Mr. Ashcroft was an aggressive and unapologetic warrior against terrorism, unflinching in his efforts to remake the Justice Department in order to avoid a repetition of the Sept. 11 attacks. President Bush, in announcing Mr. Ashcroft's resignation as attorney general Tuesday, said he had "worked tirelessly to help make our country safer."
To his many critics, however, Mr. Ashcroft was a symbol of excesses of the antiterror campaign, a man engaged in overzealous prosecutions and insensitive to civil liberties. He became an applause line in John Kerry's stump speeches.
Mr. Ashcroft himself set the tone for the division less than three months after the attacks when he said before a Senate panel: "To those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists, for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve.''
In his four years at the helm of the Justice Department, Mr. Ashcroft left his mark by promoting a variety of conservative causes. He overruled prosecutors to push for more aggressive use of the death penalty, expanded prosecutions for Internet pornography, advocated a broader interpretation of gun ownership rights and subpoenaed the medical records of abortion providers.
But it is his legacy in the fight against terrorism that is sure to be dissected by historians for generations.
Mr. Ashcroft was an unlikely leader in that arena. He was nominated to be attorney general only after losing re-election to the Senate four years ago in a Missouri race in which his Democratic opponent, Gov. Mel Carnahan, was killed in a plane crash but won nonetheless. Mr. Carnahan's widow, Jean, was then appointed to the seat by the state's Democratic governor.
Mr. Ashcroft's selection by Mr. Bush, followed by a bruising confirmation battle in the Senate, was regarded as a plum for the president's conservative religious base.
In his first months as attorney general, some officials at the Federal Bureau of Investigation accused him of being inattentive to concerns about the threat of terrorism, but the Sept. 11 attacks appeared to energize a Justice Department leadership struggling to find its way.
Mr. Ashcroft successfully pushed for Congress to approve the wide-ranging antiterrorism USA Patriot Act just weeks after Sept. 11, and he urged adoption of even stronger law enforcement tools in an effort to overcome what he regarded as bureaucratic hindrances in tracking and detecting terrorist plots.
He also frequently went on television to announce the disruption of terrorist "sleeper cells" in the United States and to issue terror warnings.
But terrorism prosecutions in Detroit and elsewhere would crumble or come under withering criticism, and a report from the Justice Department's own inspector general objected to the department's prolonged detention - and occasional physical abuse - of hundreds of illegal immigrants with no clear ties to terrorism who were arrested in the period after the attacks.
Moreover, the Justice Department's stance on the treatment of detainees and the jailing of "enemy combatants" drew criticism from both sides of the ideological spectrum, with the Supreme Court declaring earlier this year that "a state of war is not a blank check for the president."
Juleanna Glover Weiss, who served as a senior aide to Mr. Ashcroft in the Senate and in his short-lived presidential run in 1999, acknowledged in an interview Tuesday that he had become a lightning rod in the debate over balancing national security and civil liberties.
"Ashcroft took the most heat of anyone in the Bush cabinet," she said. "But he did it with fortitude and grace, and above all else he protected Americans during one of our most truly trying times."
Senator Charles E. Schumer, a New York Democrat who frequently sparred with Mr. Ashcroft, said the attorney general's pursuit of undertakings like the ill-fated Tips program - which encouraged utility workers and others to report suspicious activities in people's homes - "made my jaw drop."
Mr. Schumer said Mr. Ashcroft "certainly functioned out of conviction, but he was one of the most polarizing attorneys general in history."
Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, said he believed that Mr. Ashcroft would be remembered "for one of the worst civil liberties records of any modern attorney general."
Mr. Ashcroft's posture sometimes irked officials at the White House who saw him as too publicity-hungry, as in 2002 when he used a live video feed from Moscow to announce the case against Jose Padilla, suspected of a plot to detonate a radioactive bomb in the United States.
But in recent months, with the White House clearly concerned about Mr. Ashcroft's divisiveness and he recovering from a bout of pancreatitis that led to gall bladder surgery, he adopted a much lower profile, devoting many public appearances to issues unrelated to terrorism, like intellectual-property rights.
The attorney general recently bought a farm in rural Virginia, and associates say he is interested in exploring positions in the private sector, academia or international affairs - or maybe even another presidential run.
"The objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved," Mr. Ashcroft said in his resignation letter to Mr. Bush, dated Nov. 2. "The rule of law has been strengthened and upheld in the courts. Yet, I believe the Department of Justice would be well served by new leadership and fresh inspiration. I believe that my energies and talents should be directed toward other challenging horizons."
-------- ENERGY
-------- alternative energy
New Report Refuels Debate on Wind Farm
November 10, 2004
By Beth Daley,
The Boston Globe
http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=351
As the federal government begins a 60-day public comment period before it can make a final decision on the proposed wind farm in Nantucket Sound, the project's chief opponent says the government should allow more time for public response to a crucial 4,000-page report that appears to pave the way for the wind farm's approval.
The new draft environmental impact report, prepared over three years by the Army Corps of Engineers, will be released in full today, but supporters and opponents responded to details that became public yesterday morning. The findings are largely favorable to the project, suggesting that the 130 turbines proposed to be built off Cape Cod would have little or no negative effect on the surrounding air, sea, and animal life.
The public has 60 days to comment on the report before the Corps issues a final version and makes a decision on the project, which is expected next year.
The report is by far the most important hurdle the controversial project must overcome before construction begins. The draft gives the first public look at the federal government's stance on the 460-megawatt power plant.
The Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, a group founded to block the project, said yesterday that it intends to ask the government to extend the comment period to six months, saying that two months is too little time for the public to digest the enormous amount of information in the Army Corps report.
"A 60-day comment period during the holiday season on a complex and controversial project is unfair," said Susan Nickerson of the alliance.
Army Corps officials said yesterday that they would consider written requests to extend the comment period, but that they had already added 15 days to the minimum required time of 45 days.
Even though few had seen the entire report by yesterday afternoon, reaction was swift from opponents and supporters after details were published by news agencies and summaries of the report were leaked. The two sides have begun lining up engineers and scientists to start poring over the document.
"The struggle has just begun," said Charles Kleekamp, vice president of Cape Clean Air, an environmental group that supports the farm.
Governor Mitt Romney, who opposes the project on aesthetic grounds, says the report downplays a key consideration. "The question is, does the wind farm impinge on the beauty of one of the great natural resources on the East Coast, and it does," he said.
Yesterday, the Army Corps of Engineers said few projects are blocked because of aesthetic considerations, in part because it is such a subjective matter. Supporters of wind farms have called the proposed turbines futuristic and beautiful, while opponents have called them a blight.
The Nantucket Sound wind farm, proposed by Cape Wind Associates, would be the country's first offshore wind farm. A host of politicians have attempted to block the project since it was proposed three years ago. If the Army Corps sticks to the 60-day public comment period, the agency is likely to issue a decision next year. If it is approved, construction could begin soon afterward.
"This is great news for citizens hoping to turn decades of rhetoric into action on renewable energy," Cape Wind president Jim Gordon said, referring to the report's findings.
The $13 million draft environmental impact report was paid for by Cape Wind. Some 16 agencies and groups weighed in with comments and data about potential impacts the farm would have, and the Army Corps received hundreds of individual comments.
Cape Wind's involvement in the report has drawn critics, including Nickerson, who says the Army Corps was overly reliant on data collected by consultants paid for by the developer. They also faulted the Army Corps' hiring of TRC, a national engineering firm with an office in Lowell, to help put the federal document together. Nickerson said TRC would be bound to write a favorable review because it works on wind issues, among others.
Army Corps officials said they specifically hired TRC as an independent third party because they have an energy background and experience with similar reports. A spokeswoman for TRC said Nickerson's comments were untrue.
"TRC deals with all kinds of energy," spokeswoman Samantha Guerry said. "The idea they would be biased to any particular energy source is ridiculous."
Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, whose family compound would overlook the project, issued a statement saying the project shows the need for better rules to govern what he sees as the bequeathing of public ocean to private interests.
Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly said: "We cannot allow the federal government to give away 24 square miles of pristine waters to a private developer. . . . [W]hat is happening here is wrong."
Marc Breslow, director of the Massachusetts Climate Action Network, which supports the plan, said if the report summary is accurate, "completion of a final [environmental report] should be done expeditiously."
Source: Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News
-------- energy
Floating Natural Gas Plant Is Proposed for L.I. Sound
November 10, 2004
By BRUCE LAMBERT
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/10/nyregion/10gas.html
Long Island Sound, already crisscrossed by underwater electric cables and a natural gas pipeline, is now envisioned as the site of a floating station where ships will bring more gas to be piped ashore to the New York City region.
If approved and built, the $700 million gas transfer project would be one of the world's first such offshore operations, industry experts say.
But no sooner had the plan been announced yesterday than environmentalists were voicing opposition. And though the site is in New York waters, Connecticut's attorney general, Richard Blumenthal, expressed "grave concerns."
The sponsor, Broadwater Energy, filed a letter with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission yesterday to start the application. Broadwater is a partnership formed for the project by TransCanada Corporation of Calgary and Shell U.S. Gas and Power of Houston, an affiliate of Royal Dutch Shell.
"We want to guarantee a safe and dependable supply of clean gas to meet the area's needs, and we anticipate a broad base of customers," said the project's director, John Hritcko Jr. More gas would help prevent energy shortages and keep down costs, Broadwater says.
Long Island and New York City pay high energy prices because they have no local sources of cheap power, like oil and gas wells, coal-fired generators, nuclear plants or hydropower. Gas is preferred to oil because of lower emissions and less vulnerability to foreign supply disruptions.
The site barely skirts Connecticut's underwater boundary, about nine miles offshore north of Wading River in Suffolk County. There a tower would be anchored to the bottom of the Sound, about 90 feet deep.
The gas plant, a floating structure resembling an ocean tanker and permanently moored to the tower, would be 1,100 feet long, 180 feet wide and up to 100 feet above the waterline, Mr. Hritcko said. Ships would deliver natural gas, cooled to 260 degrees below zero Fahrenheit to make it liquid and thus denser, safer and easier to store and transport.
At the station, the liquid gas would be warmed until it becomes gaseous again. Then it would be sent through a new 25-mile-long pipeline connecting to the existing Iroquois pipeline. From there the gas would be piped to Long Island, New York City and Connecticut for use by electricity generating plants, homes and businesses.
The proposed capacity is one billion cubic feet of natural gas a day, enough for about four million homes, Broadwater said.
Although a few such regasification plants are on land or at waterfronts, none are offshore, said Robert N. Shively, a partner in Enerdymanics, an energy information company in Laporte, Colo. Two offshore proposals are pending in the Gulf of Mexico and another off California, he said.
Critics were quick to react. "The last thing we need is an industrial monstrosity sitting in the middle of Long Island Sound," said Adrienne Esposito, executive director of the Citizens Campaign for the Environment, a statewide group. "It's already a very vulnerable, stressed water body. Why would we put one more threat? We've worked so hard to protect the Sound. I can't imagine this is going to be embraced by the environmental community."
Mr. Blumenthal said: "Especially critical, close scrutiny should be given to any proposal that potentially endangers Long Island Sound. A massive container filled with a flammable, dangerous substance certainly raises grave concerns, particularly when linked to a new pipeline."
More projects for liquid natural gas are proposed than approved. The Broadwater plan requires approvals from the energy commission, Coast Guard, Army Corps of Engineers and New York's Department of Environmental Conservation. No local approval is needed, Mr. Hritcko said. He said the project would pay $15 million a year in taxes and funds that could be used for the environment.
Gas projects raise safety concerns, and Broadwater has hired the company run by Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, to devise security measures.
Liquid gas is not combustible, but it can become so as it turns gaseous. Liquid gas plants "have very solid safety records," Mr. Shively said. Even if an accident happened, advocates of the project say that harm would not extend beyond the station and its 30-member crew.
While proponents say that leaks would simply dissipate, Ms. Esposito said they would harm the already compromised air and water.
The Long Island Power Authority, which would very likely use the natural gas or buy the electricity generated by it, sounded a cautious note. "Obviously Long Island is in need of additional energy resources if we want to keep the lights on," said its president, Richard M. Kessel. "At the same time, the Long Island Sound belongs to everyone, and there are environmental concerns."
-------- OTHER
America's Main Street Revisited Pennsylvania Ave. Reopened to Pedestrians
By Manny Fernandez
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 10, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A36753-2004Nov9.html
Mark Gwynne took his family to see the White House yesterday, but he didn't get his hopes up. The family physician from North Carolina was expecting to wander into a fortified security zone on Pennsylvania Avenue.
But he found something else entirely. Gone were the concrete planters, temporary fences, Jersey barriers and other obstacles that had lined the two-block stretch of Pennsylvania in front of the White House. In their place was a plaza with granite sidewalks and benches, elegant streetlights and a rustic brown pavement similar to that used at Buckingham Palace in London. Small gray poles served as traffic barriers and guard posts remained, but the security measures no longer dominated.
Gwynne and his family -- his wife, two young children, father and mother -- walked up to the fence and watched Barney, the Bushes' black Scottish terrier, stroll onto the lawn. It was a Washington moment that might have been considered mundane before Sept. 11, 2001.
But in these jittery times of heightened security, Gwynne said, the privilege of having a close look took on new significance. "It's open," said Gwynne, 32. "As an American, this is what I expect. I don't expect to be locked out of our nation's capital."
Gwynne was among the first to visit the new stretch of Pennsylvania Avenue NW. The street between the White House and Lafayette Square was officially reopened to pedestrians about 11 a.m. after a ceremony with first lady Laura Bush. The section of roadway between 15th and 17th streets, one of the most popular tourist destinations in Washington, has been inaccessible to the public since January, when construction of security and aesthetic improvements began.
The pedestrian plaza is one of several security-related construction projects at Washington landmarks. Crews are building an underground visitors' center at the Capitol to provide more amenities to tourists and better security for Congress. Construction is also underway on landscaping and security improvements at the Washington Monument.
John V. Cogbill III, chairman of the National Capital Planning Commission, which initiated the proposal to redesign Pennsylvania Avenue in 2001, said the reopening is a symbolic milestone in a post-Sept. 11 Washington that continues to struggle with striking a balance between security and openness.
"Public spaces can be both secure and welcoming," Cogbill said.
For years, security decisions created a mismatched look outside the White House, with concrete planters and other traffic barriers turning the avenue into what many urban designers and visitors considered an eyesore.
Now, the entrances to Pennsylvania Avenue at 15th and 17th streets are called entry courts and paved with gray granite. The avenue retains its original dimension (84 feet wide), but the surface outside the White House is a most noticeable difference, a grayish-brown pavement made of crushed rock.
Finishing touches remain. Four new guard booths with granite bases and copper roofs await specially designed bulletproof glass, and nearly 90 Princeton American elms will be planted along the avenue in March.
Officials at the Federal Highway Administration, which oversaw the roughly $23 million project, said the renovations were the most significant improvements made to the avenue outside the White House since President Ulysses S. Grant paved it with asphalt in 1876.
"This thoroughfare has always been a connector, connecting the White House and the Capitol and the three branches of government," Bush said. "And a new Pennsylvania Avenue will again connect visitors with this glorious city, with 'the People's House' and with American heritage."
Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D), who joined the first lady at the ceremony, said the reopening to pedestrians was "an important step" to also allowing vehicular traffic there. The street has been closed to traffic since the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995.
Landscape architect Michael Van Valkenburgh designed the guard booths and the gray poles that serve as traffic barriers at 15th and 17th streets NW to be removable if the street were reopened to vehicular traffic, said Elizabeth Miller, project officer for the planning commission.
Staff writer Monte Reel contributed to this report.
-------- genetics
U.S. Genetically Modified Corn Is Assailed
NAFTA Report Calls Grain a Threat to Mexico;
Administration Disputes Study
By Marc Kaufman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 10, 2004; Page A02
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37992-2004Nov9.html
A scientific panel of international experts has concluded that the unintended spread of U.S. genetically modified corn in Mexico -- where the species originated and modified plants are not allowed -- poses a potential threat that should be limited or stopped. But the United States yesterday attacked the report and its conclusions as unscientific, and made clear it did not intend to accept the recommendations.
The report, written by a group convened under the North American Free Trade Agreement, rejected the U.S. position that the modified corn is, in effect, no different than conventionally bred corn hybrids. It said that because the Mexican government has never examined or approved the use of transgenic crops, their presence in the country is an inherent problem.
"How would Americans feel if we started getting living transgenic seeds that had been judged to be safe by the Cuban government but not the American government?" asked Norman C. Ellstrand, a University of California at Riverside geneticist and member of the NAFTA-appointed panel. "We would be outraged, and so are many Mexicans. Like us, they have the right to make up their own minds about genetically modified crops."
The Mexican government embraced the NAFTA report and said it expected to implement many of its recommendations.
The report, only the fifth in the treaty organization's history, was requested by Mexican farmers and officials in 2002 after researchers found that some forms of genetically modified corn were present in Mexico and were being naturally spread by cross-pollination. One variety contained genetically modified bacteria that protect the plant from certain insects, and another protects the plant if a particular kind of otherwise deadly weed killer is used on the fields.
Although it remains uncertain how the modified corn got into Mexican fields, the report concluded that the large-scale importation of U.S. corn was the likely cause. The Mexican government distributes massive amounts of U.S. corn for grinding into cornmeal and flour, but some farmers are believed to have planted the corn instead. Once planted, the genetically modified corn spread naturally in fields over the seasons.
Genetically modified corn can be legally used as food in Mexico but cannot be planted and grown, except in small test plots recently approved by the government.
The NAFTA report concluded that the modified corn does not pose a health risk, but it did say that the environmental consequences are less well understood. It also raised the possibility of the spread of potentially more hazardous types of modified corn -- such as varieties grown in the United States to produce pharmaceuticals and industrial products.
"If those types of corn ever made it to Mexico and got planted, then yes, there would be a health and safety problem that would be very hard to solve," Ellstrand said.
The U.S. rejection of the NAFTA report was broad and pointed.
"This report is fundamentally flawed and unscientific; key recommendations are not based on sound science and are contradicted by the report's own scientific findings," the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Trade Representative said in a joint statement. "Implementing many of the report's recommendations would cause economic harm to farmers and consumers of all NAFTA countries and restrict international trade."
The U.S. statement specifically criticized one recommendation -- that all U.S. corn coming into Mexico be milled at or near the border so it cannot be planted. That practice, it says, "would increase the cost of U.S. corn significantly, negatively affecting Mexico's livestock producers and consumers."
The NAFTA report and the U.S. response are also far apart on what constitutes a scientific assessment of the issue. The report included information about the attitudes of Mexican farmers to the genetically modified corn, saying many find it frightening and a threat to their staple food, while American officials said those views have no place in a scientific study.
In support of their formal critique, the U.S. agencies cited the report's conclusion that "scientific investigations and analyses over the past 25 years have shown that the process of transferring a gene from one organism to another does not pose any intrinsic threat over the short or long term, either to health, biodiversity or the environment."
The NAFTA report went on, however, to conclude that the specific characteristics of any newly created organism need to be examined -- making the case that the benefits and dangers of any genetically modified plant can be determined only by testing in the locales where it will be used. In the United States, the EPA, the Agriculture Department and sometimes the Food and Drug Administration must approve genetically modified plants before they can be introduced.
The National Corn Growers Association also sharply criticized the panel's conclusions. "The report needlessly raises concerns where there are none about a technology that is proven safe and already greatly benefits the environment and farmers around the world," NCGA President Leon Corzine said.
A copy of the NAFTA report was leaked last month to the environmental group Greenpeace, which distributed it in Mexico. The report was released Monday.
After the initial release, Mexico's equivalent of the EPA, Semarnat, said in a statement: "There is no doubt that the recommendations in the official document will be beneficial for Mexico and its environment. . . . Semarnat is awaiting the official publication of this report and is confident that the majority of the recommendations made will be implemented."
-------- ACTIVISTS
Bush Threatens Mankind, says Caldicott
by David Williams
Monday, November 15, 2004
Sydney Morning Herald
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1115-10.htm
Nobel Peace Prize nominee Dr Helen Caldicott fears US President George Bush's re-election will lead to Armageddon and she isn't sure if mankind would survive another four years.
"This is the most serious election that has ever occurred in the history of the human race, without a scrag of doubt," she told smh.com.
Helen Caldicott, world-renowned anti-nuclear and environmental activist. Photo: AP "I don't know if we'll survive the next four years ... I don't think the Americans have, on the whole, the faintest idea - and I have to say also I don't think most Australians do either. But it's not just the threat from nuclear war. It's the threat of what's happening to the environment, the global warming which is occurring rapidly now, to ozone depletion, to species extinction, to deforestation - it's the whole thing."
Speaking from her son Will's Boston home, the Australian pediatrician, who runs the Nuclear Policy Research Institute in Washington, has just spent a frantic two-and-a-half months criss-crossing America to deliver her anti-nuclear and anti-Bush message. She discovered the country was more divided than at any time since she first stepped onto American soil in 1966.
Early on election day she was convinced Democratic challenger John Kerry would win but reality soon set in.
"This is what I've been afraid of and I actually can't believe it's happening," she said. "The voter turnout was so high, which should have supported Kerry.
"I don't think I've ever felt so personally, politically devastated in my life and that includes when [former president Ronald] Reagan won a second term of office - which was pretty devastating for me as I was so heavily involved in the anti-nuclear movement in those days.
"But this is worse, these people are much worse than the Reagan people."
Dr Caldicott rose to fame in the American peace movement during the '70s and '80s, her vehement antinuclear stance earning her many enemies, some of whom saw her as an apologist for the Soviet Union. She has long warned of the dangers of nuclear weapons, America's "first strike" policy and missile defense.
In her 2002 book The New Nuclear Danger, she detailed links between the Government and weapons makers and Mr Bush's will to militarize space.
Mr Bush's win meant "endless war and I think it could mean nuclear war", she said.
"In January 1995 we got to within 10 seconds of nuclear war when [former Russian president Boris] Yeltsin and the Russians made a mistake and thought they were under attack. The Americans still have a first-strike policy to win a nuclear war against Russia. The weapons are still in place both in America and Russia. Virtually nobody knows that in this country and that a mistake or a terrorist takeover of the command system - on either side - or errors being made could lead to the end of life on earth."
In a website interview two years ago, Dr Caldicott was asked why Mr Bush remained so popular. She replied she didn't believe it - that the polls were inaccurate [although that was before the invasion of Iraq].
Now she has to face the reality that more than half of Americans want Mr Bush back, despite [or because of] his policies. She puts it down to brilliance on the part of his campaign team, in particular Karl Rove, and the ignorance of much of the population.
"They [the Bush administration] have been able to con the American people with their extremely brilliant propaganda and brainwashing, with the help of the media ... they consistently lie. On the whole the American people don't really understand the dynamics of the right at all. They don't know that Bush et al want to go into Iran next and that they want to dominate the world militarily and that they want to put weapons in space.
"I don't think they [the American public] understand. It is a mandate for Bush to do absolutely anything he wants. I know people don't like me using this word but they're fascists."
Not firing all her ammunition at Mr Bush, she saved some for Australian Prime Minister John Howard. She said Australia was now the "51st state of the US".
"I've always been so proud of my country, now I'm not just ashamed by what's happening and embarrassed ... but I really fear for the future of Australia and the previous wonderful quality of life that we've always had."
-------
------- OneList (submissions from subscribers)
------- Depleted Uranium Keeps On Killing!
-----------
Posted
without profit or payment for research and educational
purposes only,
in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107.