>> WHAT - NOT HIS MEDALS?

NICE PHOTO...
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2004/2/9/134218.shtml
The picture Democrats have been hoping nobody had: John Kerry sitting behind Jane Fonda during an anti-war rally at Valley Forge, PA in September 1970.
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_020904/content/eib_extra.guest.html

Kerry Photo Shocker: Candidate Teamed Up With 'Hanoi' Jane Fonda
Jane Fonda and John Kerry at an anti-war rally in Valley Forge, Pa. (Corbis Images)
A photo seemingly showing Democratic presidential front-runner John Kerry protesting the Vietnam War with anti-American actress "Hanoi Jane" Fonda - the photo Dems fear most - exists, and has been obtained by NewsMax.com.
On Labor Day weekend 1970, Kerry - then a rising star with Vietnam Veteran Against the War - teamed up with Fonda as the two headlined an ugly anti-war in rally in Valley Forge, Pa., railing against U.S. policy in Southeast Asia from the back of the same flatbed truck.
The photo shows "Hanoi Jane" listening raptly as speakers denounced American soldiers for committing "genocide" in Vietnam and accusing the U.S. of "international racism."
Three rows behind 'Hanoi Jane" sits a man who bears a striking resemblance to the Democratic presidential front-runner.
According to Corbis Images, which owns the image, the photo was taken at the same 1970 Valley Forge protest that turned Sen. Kerry into an anti-war star.
Douglas Brinkley's biography "Tour of Duty" chronicles Kerry's exploits at Valley Forge, where he reportedly followed Fonda onto the back of that pick-up truck to deliver his own diatribe against the war in Vietnam.
"We are here because we above all others have earned the right to criticize the war on Southeast Asia," Kerry shouted into the microphone, as Fonda and the crowd cheered wildly.
"By the time [Kerry] hopped off that pick-up truck to thunderous applause," writes Brinkley, "he was the new leader of the VVAW by popular default."
The Massachusetts Democrat's speech also cemented his alliance with Fonda, and the two traveled to Detroit to organize a January 1971 event they called the "Winter Soldier Investigation."
At a Detroit motel, Kerry and Fonda assembled a myriad of disgruntled witnesses claiming to be Vietnam vets, each with his own story of American atrocities.
According to Jug Burkett, whose landmark Vietnam war history "Stolen Valor" chronicles some of Kerry's anti-war misadventures, Fonda played a key role at the Detroit event.
"There's no doubt that Jane Fonda financed the Winter Soldier hearings," Burkett told NewsMax on Monday.
He said that several of the witnesses who testified at the protest's "hearings" later turned out to be complete impostors.
The event prompted "Hanoi Jane" to "adopt" Kerry's group "as her leading cause," writes Brinkley. It was at Kerry's Winter Soldier protest that the anti-American actress met her future husband, Students for a Democratic Society radical Tom Hayden.
The next year Fonda was off to Hanoi, where she mounted an anti-aircraft battery and pretended to shoot down American pilots.
Of Kerry, Burkett told NewsMax, "Any Vietnam veteran who knows what Kerry did after he came home from Vietnam is definitely not a fan of John Kerry."


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A Question Russert Should Have Asked
Posted Feb 9, 2004
Week in and week out, Tim Russert is the best interviewer on network television. But he didn't perform to his normal high standard, when he interviewed President Bush for the February 8 edition of NBC's "Meet the Press."
The questions Russert asked Bush about U.S. intelligence on Iraq roughly mirrored the politically motivated accusations that Democratic presidential candidates have been flinging at Bush from the stump. These Democratic accusations are uniformly disingenuous, lacking the hard factual predicate that is the hallmark of the typical Russert question.
For example, Russert asked Bush: "How do you respond to critics who say that you brought the nation to war under false pretenses?" In asking this, Russert presented no analysis of the credibility of the "critics'" underlying assumption that Bush had any reason before the war to believe Iraq did not possess weapons of mass destruction.
What could Russert have asked that he didn't? Here's a suggestion:
"Let me read you, sir, a remarkable thing that David Kay told the Senate Armed Service Committee when he testified January 28. Kay said: 'In interviewing the Republican Guard generals and Special Republican Guard generals and asking about their capabilities and having them [WMD], the assurance was they didn't personally have them [WMD] and hadn't seen them [WMD], but the units on their right or left had them [WMD].' My question to you is: Given that even Iraqi Republican Guard generals were convinced that Iraq did have WMD, would it have been reasonable for the American President to assume that Iraq did not have WMD?"
Russert missed the chance to put this question to President Bush. He should not miss the chance to put it to Sen. John Kerry--the next time Kerry appears on "Meet the Press."
Copyright ? 2003 HUMAN EVENTS. All Rights Reserved.

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Intelligence war: Pentagon faults CIA finding on Iraqi WMD
SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
Friday, February 6, 2004
The U.S. military community has disputed a CIA determination that Iraq was unlikely to have transferred weapons of mass destruction to neighboring Syria and Lebanon's Bekaa Valley in early 2003.
Defense Department officials said U.S. Army intelligence and the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency have concluded that Saddam Hussein might have transferred Iraq's WMD arsenal to Syria a year ago, according to reports by Geostrategy-Direct.com and Middle East Newsline.
The officials said the U.S. intelligence community has amassed sufficient evidence to press Syria to open its facilities to British-U.S. inspection.
Pentagon sources said Rumsfeld and Tenet have long been at odds regarding WMD programs under Saddam as well as in other Middle East regimes. The sources said Rumsfeld has advocated a shakeup in the intelligence community.
"The record of the [U.S.] intelligence community, particularly with respect to the Middle East and the Persian Gulf, is an appalling record," Richard Perle, former chairman of the Defense Policy Advisory Board, which advises the Pentagon, said.
Geostrategy-Direct.com reported in its Aug. 19, 2003 edition that Israeli intelligence had identified what were believed to be Iraqi weapons of mass destruction goods in Hizbullah-controlled Lebanon. The Israelis used a spy satellite to photograph several tractor-trailer loads of suspected weapons into the Bekaa Valley, where the Islamist terrorist group is based, according to U.S. officials cited by the report. Shipments were made between January and the first week of March in 2003.
The Iraq Survey Group - the 1,300-member team examining WMD issues - was told by members of the Saddam regime that Iraq sent biological weapons to Syria and chemical weapons to the Syrian-controlled Bekaa Valley in Lebanon, Pentagon officials said. In addition, Middle East Newsline reports that the group was told that components of Saddam's chemical weapons program were shipped to Syrian Air Force facilities in central Syria.
In contrast, the State Department and the CIA leadership back the view that Saddam was unlikely to have transferred his arsenal of WMD and extended-range Scud missiles in March 2003. Officials said the department, as well as significant elements in the CIA, has quietly concluded that Saddam would not have trusted Syria or any other of its neighbors with Iraq's WMD arsenal.
On Wednesday, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Iraq might have transferred its weapons of mass destruction arsenal to other countries. In testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee, Rumsfeld cited the transfer of Iraq's WMD as the second of three possibilities regarding the whereabouts of Saddam Hussein's. He did not say where the WMD was transferred to, but earlier U.S. intelligence officials said the most likely destination was Iraq's neighbor Syria.
But Rumsfeld discounted the possibility that Iraq did not have WMD in March 2003, when the United States launched a war to oust the Saddam regime.
"That's possible, but not likely," Rumsfeld said.
Rumsfeld did not discount the other prospects. One is that the WMD was transferred "in whole or part to other countries. The other theory was that Saddam concealed WMD throughout Iraq or destroyed such weapons before the start of the war."
"And once something is buried, it stays buried," Rumsfeld said. "In a country the size of California, the [chance] of finding something buried in the ground - without being led to it by someone knowledgeable -- is minimal."
In January, David Kay, director of the Iraq Survey Group, said Baghdad did not have WMD when the United States invaded Iraq in March 2003. Kay also said that Iraq could have transferred its WMD arsenal to Syria.
Yet another prospect, Rumsfeld said, was that Iraq contained small quantities of biological or chemical agents and a surge capability, which means the ability to produce weapons on short notice. Such a prospect would mean that the Iraq Survey Group could find these weapons in the months ahead.
"Finally, there is the possibility that it was a charade by the Iraqis," Rumsfeld said. "Saddam Hussein himself might have been fooled by his own people, who may have tricked him into believing he had capabilities he didn't really have."
Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Sen. Pat Roberts has supported the Pentagon assessment that Iraq transferred WMD components to Syria. On Thursday, the committee reviewed a 300-page classified report of the panel's eight-month inquiry into the fate of Iraq's WMD arsenal.
On Thursday, CIA director George Tenet did not raise the prospect that Iraq transferred WMD to Syria or other countries. Instead, he cited a finding by the Iraq Survey Group that the Saddam regime systematically destroyed and looted forensic evidence before, during and after the war. "We have been faced with organized destruction of documentary and computer evidence in a wide range of offices, laboratories and companies suspected of weapons of mass destruction work," Tenet said. "The pattern of these efforts is one of deliberate, rather than random, acts."
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Planned railroad would connect Mideast with Europe, Asia
SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
Monday, February 9, 2004
ABU DHABI - Arab countries have completed a plan to establish a railway network throughout the Middle East.
The multi-billion dollar plan would form a rail link between the Middle East and Europe and Asia as well as connect the Gulf region to the rest of the Arab world. The plan was completed at a recent meeting of the Directors General of the Mideast Railways Organizations.
"We will convene the next meeting of the Middle East railways organization in Damascus, Syria in March or April, and in this meeting all the parties to the regional railway link will present their respective plans to execute their individual expansions, including the financing scheme to fund their country's railway expansion program," Abdul Razak Abdul Feilat chairman of the group, said in late January.
Israel was not cited in the railway plan, Middle East Newsline reported.
Under the plan, a railroad would run through Gulf Cooperation Councl states and proceed through Saudi Arabia's Red Sea system toward Jordan, Syria and Turkey. From Turkey, the train network would move northwest toward the rest of Europe or Asia. Jordan, Syria and Saudi Arabia have also been discussing a railway link.
Officials said the regional network would depend on whether member countries of the Middle East agree to finance their portion of the railway.
Abdul Feilat told the Riyad-based Saudi Gazette that the organization was trying to coordinate funding from a consortium of regional banks or international financial institutions. He said the cost of a rail link betweeen Amman, Jordan and the Syrian border would cost $200 million. The cost from Damascus to the Turkish border was estimated at $600 million.
A key obstacle to the plan is Iraq, which does not yet have a permanent government. Abdul Feilat said the rest of the Arab world would have to wait for the emergence of a permanent Iraqi government until Baghdad could be linked to the rest of the planned network.
Saudi Arabia is expected to be the hub in two-phase GCC railway system. In the first phase, Manama, Bahrain would be linked to Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province and Doha, Qatar. That phase would include construction of a bridge that connects Bahrain to Qatar.
The second phase would link Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Oman with Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Saudi Arabia is expected to begin construction of a rail link from the Arabian Gulf to the Red Sea, in 2005. Each of the countries has plenty of disused rail lines. They include the Saudi line to Syria as well as railways between Syria and each of the following Arab countries - Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon.
In a related development, Iran has delivered 180 railroad cars to Sudan worth $10 million. Iranian Transportation Minister Ahmad Khorram said Teheran would deliver another 320 railway carriages to Sudan.
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Arafat's bodyguards recruited for suicide attackes
Special to World Tribune.com
MIDDLE EAST NEWSLINE
Thursday, February 5, 2004
JERUSALEM - Bodyguards of Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat have been recruited for suicide operations against Israel.
Israel military sources said special operations forces have arrested at least one member of Arafat's Force 17 praetorian guard. Force 17 is responsible for Arafat's security and has branches throughout the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Arafat's ruling Fatah movement has been cited for being the leading force in suicide operations against Israel. But the Israeli arrests marked one of the first times that Arafat's bodyguards have been involved in such attacks.
Israeli security agents captured Muhammad Abu Lil, 18, on Dec. 13 along with another Fatah agent from the West Bank city of Nablus, both of whom were on their way to bomb a restaurant in the Israeli city of Petah Tikva. The statement said Abu Lil's accomplice, Ahmed Abu Hawila, had been recently recruited to Force 17.
A Fatah commander was said to have recruited suicide attackers from Force 17. The sources identified Nader Abu Lil, a 25-year Fatah commander, for responsibility for the recruitment of Force 17 and other Palestinian security officers, as well as planning operations.
The information of Fatah's recruitment from Arafat's guard came in wake of the arrest of suspected suicide squads in December. The suicide squads were said to have been recruited and organized in Nablus.
Nader Abu Lil was also accused of having planned to launch a suicide attack in January 2004. The military statement said an Israeli raid on Jan. 2 in Nablus's old city quarter yielded two large bombs meant for use in Israel. A suspected suicide squad composed of Palestinians from Nablus-area refugee camps was captured.
Military sources said the use of Arafat's bodyguards for attacks has been encouraged by Iran and Hizbullah, which finance up to 90 percent of Fatah insurgency operations. They said that in many cases Fatah has teamed with the Iranian-sponsored Islamic Jihad or Hamas to launch operations in Israel.
On Wednesday, Israel's military reported that troops captured a Fatah commander in the northern town of Tubas in the West Bank. The commander was identified as Jihad Sawafta, who survived a previous assassination attempt by Israeli forces.
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Rumsfeld invites 7 Mideast allies to sign up for counter-terror duty
SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
Monday, February 9, 2004
WASHINGTON -- The United States wants its allies in the Middle East to participate in NATO efforts to intercept shipments of weapons of mass destruction.
U.S. officials said the Bush administration has approved a program for a range of states located in the Mediterranean to help intercept suspected WMD and ballistic missile shipments to such countries as Iran and Syria. They said these countries comprise the seven that participate in the Mediterranean Dialogue.
The countries are Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia. The countries have been participating in a NATO dialogue effort since 1994.
"We can look at ways to strengthen and expand NATO's Mediterranean Dialogue so the alliance can better engage nations in North Africa and the Middle East," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told a security conference in Munich on Saturday. "Strengthening the Mediterranean Dialogue, I believe, should be high on our agenda for the NATO Summit in Istanbul."
Rumsfeld cited two key areas of cooperation: the interdiction of WMD and what he termed counter-terrorism. Other areas cited by the secretary were peacekeeping missions, border security, opportunities for attendance at NATO schools, and participation in the Partnership for Peace exercises.
The Mediterranean Dialogue has failed to achieve multilateral cooperation amid Arab differences with Israel on numerous issues, particularly Israel's nuclear program and relations with the Palestinians. Instead, NATO has focused on separate efforts with each of the seven members of the dialogue. The last NATO consultation with the seven members took place in September 2003.
In 2003, scientists from Algeria, Jordan, Mauritania and Morocco were recruited for NATO's science program. The panel sought to obtain input from scientists from Arab League states "concerning the implications for civil science of the fight against terrorism," a NATO statement said. The activities -- which included the detection of WMD, decontamination, medical countermeasures and agro-terrorism -- were termed as unclassified.
Administration officials said the United States plans to press for the inclusion of the seven Middle East states in the Mediterranean Dialogue in NATO's PfP. They said Turkey has agreed to support the U.S. demand at the Istanbul summit in June.
At the same time, the United States has pressed the European Union to delay an economic and political cooperation agreement with Syria because of its WMD program. Several EU members have agreed with Washington that any pact with Syria must be preceded by guarantees that Damascus will eliminate its biological and chemical weapons programs.
For its part, Iran canceled its participation in the Munich conference.
The administration has also determined that several Middle East states began steps toward democracy that should be encouraged by NATO. The developments cited by the administration include the establishment of a new parliament in Morocco, the 2002 parliamentary elections in Bahrain, the decision by Oman to allow men and women to vote, the adoption of a constitution in Qatar, elections in Jordan in the summer of 2003 and direct elections for Kuwait's parliament.
[On Monday, the Washington Post reported that the Bush administration plans to promote democracy in the Middle East via a model similar to the 1975 Helsinki accords with the former East Bloc. The reported initiative would commit Arab and South Asian regimes to adopt democratic reforms and be held accountable on human rights.]
"Our challenge is to think creatively about how we can harness the power of the alliance and to contribute to similar democratic progress across the Middle East," Rumsfeld said.
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Gigantic Outlay Party
Republicans stuff record pork down federal piehole
Ralph R. Reiland
"The pledge not to waste our tax dollars rings hollow," says Stephen Moore, president of the Club for Growth and a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, "given that in a matter of days [President Bush] will sign into law a budget-buster that provides money for Alaska skating rinks, Michigan swimming pools and Iowa indoor rain forests."
Moore is referring to the president's pronouncement in his State of the Union address that "we must spend tax dollars wisely" and the complete lack of opposition from the White House to the mile-high pile of pork in the recently passed fiscal 2004 Omnibus spending bill.
In addition to the tropical forest, the new Michigan pools and the Alaska skating rinks, the Omnibus bill gouges taxpayers to the tune of $725,000 for the Please Touch Museum in Philadelphia, $2 million for the Appalachian Fruit Laboratory, $1 million for the Alaska SeaLife Center, $300,000 for the National Wild Turkey Federation, $500,000 for the Montana Sheep Institute, and $2 million for a golf awareness program in St. Augustine.
The indoor rain forest gets a whopping $50 million. This faux paradise for parrots will be built in Coralville, Iowa, a town with a population of 17,246 according to the latest Census Bureau survey, or about 5,000 households. The $50 million, in other words, averages out to $10,000 per household, not bad for a place that doesn't even have an airport.
For taxpayers wanting to visit their money, Coralville boasts a low crime rate (there was one murder back in 2001) and a "Nightlife" section in the town's Convention & Visitors Bureau guide that lists 12 restaurants. None stays open past 9 p.m.
The "star attraction" in Coralville is fossil watching, according to the Visitors Bureau, thanks to the flood of 1993. "For the first time in the history of the dam, water overtopped the emergency spillway," the guide tells us. "The overflow lasted a month, washing away tons of soil, huge trees, and part of our new road. When the waters receded, the 375-million-year-old fossilized Devonian ocean floor was revealed."
On top of all that, with things still up in the air in Iraq and Afghanistan, George W. Bush says he wants to have a U.S. base on the moon, by 2015 or so, for "human missions to Mars and to worlds beyond." This interplanetary escapade comes with a price tag of $50 billion per year in spending that will supposedly be pulled from other federal programs over the next decade, plus an extra $200 million per year in new spending.
Add to that, on the more evangelical side of things, the President's proposal to have the federal government spend $1.5 billion to promote "healthy marriage." Between the lines, that means we'd better stop thinking it might be okay to have a wedding cake with two little plastic grooms sticking in the icing. But on the spending side, it means federal abstinence instructions for anyone in need of what the President is calling "character education"--plus some communication courses for the poor, so they quit fighting so much and getting divorced and driving up the deficit.
The bottom line? The Congressional Budget Office is projecting that the federal government will build up $2.4 trillion in red ink spending over the next decade, a number $1 trillion higher than the CBO's estimate in August.
"The big story is Republicans have become a big spending party," says Moore. "And I think the White House is really the ring leader of the spending spree."
With the federal budget costing more than $20,000 on average per year for every family in America and this year's deficit projected to hit a record $477 billion, Moore points to a philosophy in George W. Bush's State of the Union address that only promises to hike the level of unnecessary and wasteful spending.
"The State of Bush's Union has become in some ways a State of Dependency and a State of Entitlement," says Moore. "He has this unattractive tendency to believe that there's a government grant program for every problem that afflicts America. He wants to spend millions to promote holy matrimony. He wants to spend $200 million to fight obesity. Why can't we just tell fat people to stop overeating?"
The numbers tell the story. The average annual real increases in domestic discretionary spending were 2.0 percent under Jimmy Carter, minus 1.3 percent in the Reagan years, 4.0 percent with George H.W. Bush, 2.5 percent in the Clinton years, and 8.2 percent with George W. Bush.
Ralph R. Reiland is a columnist for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and the B. Kenneth Simon Professor of Free Enterprise at Robert Morris University.
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Tbilisi: Russia Was Warned of Attack
By Anatoly Medetsky
Staff Writer
AP
Abu Walid, third from left, seen at an undisclosed location in the North Caucasus.
A man showed up at the Russian Embassy in Tbilisi a day before the metro blast and warned that Chechen rebels planned to carry out a "huge" terrorist attack in Moscow on Friday, Georgia's state security minister said Monday.
The announcement came as investigators said Friday's explosion bore the trademarks of a train suicide bombing in Stavropol last year and Moscow observed a day of mourning.
The blast in the metro tunnel near the Avtozavodskaya station killed at least 39 people. President Vladimir Putin has blamed Chechen rebels.
Georgian Security Minister Valery Khaburdzania said the man was recruited by authorities in the breakaway region of Abkhazia who knew of the bombing in advance and plotted to place the blame for the attack on Georgia, Interfax reported.
He said the man, Nazir Aidabolov, a Russian citizen from the republic of Kabardino-Balkaria, was told to go to Georgia's Pankisi Gorge and collect the names of several Chechens there that he could later give to Federal Security Service officials at the Russian Embassy. The Pankisi Gorge has long been a hideout for Chechen rebels.
This would have created "the impression that the terrorist acts had been planned specifically in the Pankisi Gorge," Khaburdzania told reporters in Tbilisi, Interfax reported.
He said Aidabolov went to the embassy and warned an FSB officer there that Chechens were planning a major attack for Friday.
Abkhaz officials denied Khaburdzania's allegations Monday.
New Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili arrives for his first official visit to Russia this week.
Aidabolov also warned the FSB officer that a second attack would be carried out at an outdoor market in the southern Stavropol region two or three days later, Khaburdzania said.
Stavropol authorities ordered all regional markets closed for three days after the Moscow bombing for sanitary inspections, local media reported.
The FSB has detained Aidabolov for questioning, Ekho Moskvy radio reported.
FSB officials could not be reached for comment late Monday.
But earlier in the day, the FSB, which is in charge of the metro bombing investigation, reiterated that Friday's blast was most likely the work of a suicide bomber.
"This terrorist act is identical to the one committed last year in Yessentuki," FSB deputy director Vyacheslav Ushakov told a gathering of State Duma deputies in the Moscow region.
In December, a suicide bomber blew up a train near the Stavropol region town, killing 46 people.
Ushakov did not elaborate on the similarities.
But sources close to the investigation said Monday that the explosive device used Friday had been packed with nuts and metal bolts -- shrapnel meant to increase the force of the blast and used by Chechen suicide bombers in a series of attacks last year, Interfax reported.
The investigation is being headed by Alexander Zhdankov, the FSB's point man for combating terrorism and a former commander of the federal forces in Chechnya. Local media said his involvement might help investigators trace possible links between the explosion and Chechen rebels.
As one of his first acts, Zhdankov ordered FSB departments in the North Caucasus region to search for possible accomplices in the Moscow bombing and focus on the families that have lost relatives in the ongoing war with federal troops, Kommersant reported Monday.
FSB sources said the blast might have been ordered by Arab warlord Abu Walid, who is thought to be responsible for distributing foreign financial aid among Chechen rebels, Moskovsky Komsomolets reported.
While the main theory being investigated is that a suicide bomber detonated the explosives, the FSB is also looking into the possibility that a time bomb might have been left on the train and exploded when a passenger picked it up, Kommersant said. Investigators earlier established that the device detonated about 50 centimeters above the floor. A third theory is that the blast might have been accidental.
Although the official death toll has been placed at 39, reports from a morgue official familiar with the situation and in the local media put the number at between 50 to 120 people.
Gazeta reported Monday that City Hall has a list of the actual number of people killed that is much higher than the official one, but the FSB has barred it from releasing the information.
The FSB denied this. "We are ignoring this report. The main thing now is to conduct the investigation," an FSB spokesman said by telephone.
The Moscow prosecutor's office issued a vague statement saying that 39 is not the final figure but it was unlikely to change.
Prosecutors said 34 bodies had been identified as of Monday -- 18 men and 16 women. They said the dead included two Armenians and one Moldovan. The youngest was a teenager who was to turn 18 this month, and the oldest was a man of 57.
Pavel Ivanov of the Russian Forensic Medicine Center said the exact death toll could be established in four weeks, after experts study all the body fragments, RIA Novosti reported.
The type of metro car that exploded can carry up to 200 passengers, which was probably the case when the blast occurred during the Friday morning rush hour, metro spokeswoman Yelena Krylova said.
Russian newspapers gave heartbreaking accounts of how relatives identified the dead. Natalya Kiselyova, 35, died as she was headed for work at the Central Elections Commission, her parents told Izvestia. They said they recognized her by a finger with a ring and a piece of a fur coat. Kiselyova was among the election officials who oversaw the legality of last year's Chechen referendum.
TV Center television reported that one of those killed was the wife of a man who died in the Dubrovka theater hostage crisis in 2002.
Ushakov on Monday called for new laws giving more power to the FSB to prevent terrorism, saying that among other things the FSB needs to be able to arrest suspects without a court warrant, Interfax reported. He urged the government to study the experience of the United States, which passed security laws after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Amid the accusations that rebels are behind Friday's bombing, Chechens complained of a growing animosity Monday. Rudnik Dudayev, head of the Chechen Security Council said authorities have received hundreds of calls from Chechen students in other regions complaining of "cynical treatment" and "reproaches" by teachers.
Chechen President Akhmad Kadyrov condemned what he called "the instigation of ethnic enmity."
Nationalities Minister Vladimir Zorin echoed his comments, saying, "International terrorism is no doubt enemy No. 1 today, but it is no less dangerous to instigate anti-Caucasus and xenophobic sentiments in a great multinational country like Russia."
As of Monday, 102 people remained hospitalized, Interfax reported.
Flags flew at half-staff in Moscow and theaters canceled shows as the city held a day of mourning. Residents placed hundreds of red and white carnations at the entrance to the tunnel between Avtozavodskaya and Paveletskaya stations.
The first two victims were buried at Moscow's Danilovskoye and Kotlyakovskoye cemeteries on Monday, and more funerals were planned for Tuesday.
A poll released Monday indicated that 59 percent of residents -- mostly elderly people and women -- are now afraid to ride the metro, Interfax reported. Some 38 percent said they were not affected by the blast, according to the poll of 500 Moscow residents carried out Saturday and Sunday by the Romir Monitoring agency.
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Blast Stirs Up Conspiracies
By Pavel Felgenhauer
Moscow police and FSB operatives are still investigating last Friday's blast in the metro that killed 39 people and injured more than 100. It seems there is still no clear answer as to whether it was a terrorist attack or an accident.
Terrorist bombs usually include nails, bolts etc. to kill as many people as possible, but no traces of prepared shrapnel have been found in the ripped-up subway car or in the bodies of the dead and wounded. The intent to inflict maximum damage has not been established. The attack cannot be unquestionably declared a terrorist outrage -- it may still conceivably be an accident.
Muscovites regularly carry dangerous items on the metro. Once, in the late 1970s, I went into the metro with a 20-liter container filled with liquid nitrogen gas at -196 degrees Celsius and frozen radioactive biological specimens. I wanted to take it from Kazansky Station to my institute and could not get a car. The container was a cone of shining metal that looked like a ballistic missile warhead. A policeman did not like the way it looked or my explanation, and turned me away. I covered it with my coat, re-entered the metro and made the journey.
Someone could have been carrying explosives in the metro, stolen from army stockpiles or from an industrial plant (together with detonators), to sell to someone on the black market. In the rush-hour crowd, someone could have accidentally pushed and activated the detonator.
We may never know for sure whether it was an accident or not, just as we do not know for sure who planned the explosions of apartment blocks in 1999 in Moscow and other cities. The authorities blamed Chechen separatists and used the outrages as a prime motive for going to war. Since then, independent investigators have questioned this official narrative; and a number of people have been charged in connection with the bombings, but none of the accused have been ethnic Chechens.
The day after the metro blast, when the facts had not yet been established and nothing was known about who did it and why, President Vladimir Putin accused the Chechen rebels and their leader, Aslan Maskhadov, of being behind it. Maskhadov's foreign envoy, Akhmed Zakayev, denied the rebels were involved. In today's Russia, it's virtually impossible to imagine that any FSB investigator would have the nerve to say that Maskhadov was not guilty, when Putin publicly says that he is.
Talking to journalists, Putin announced: "Once more we hear calls from abroad to hold talks with Maskhadov. This would not be the first time we have encountered a synchronization of crimes committed in Russia and calls to hold talks with terrorists. The fact that we are called to hold talks with Maskhadov after crimes are committed is in itself indirect proof of Maskhadov's connection with bandits and terrorists. As a matter of fact, we do not need this indirect evidence. We know for sure that Maskhadov and his bandits are linked to this terror."
In his statement, Putin cited as a "call to hold talks with Maskhadov," a letter signed by 145 members of the European Parliament in Strasbourg that envisages a withdrawal of Russian troops from Chechnya and the creation of a temporary UN administration to bring peace to the region. Apparently, Putin assumed that the fact the publication of the EU letter coincided with the metro explosion is in itself evidence (albeit indirect) that Maskhadov was behind the blast. Putin has also announced that "certain elements in the Russian Federation" also "synchronize" their sinister activities with Chechen terrorist attacks. but "Russia does not conduct negotiations with terrorists -- it destroys them."
Taken at face value, Putin's statement exposes an amazingly complicated and widespread conspiracy. It is reminiscent of things uttered at different times by Belarussian dictator Alexander Lukashenko, Yugoslavia's Slobodan Milosevic or Josef Stalin.
This may be a glimpse of Putin's true mind-set as formed by the reports of his spooks, diplomats and prosecutors. In this world, the Kremlin is besieged by unscrupulous Westerners who aspire to grab our oil and other natural wealth and synchronize their antics with deadly Chechen terrorist attacks, as well as with "certain elements in the Russian Federation."
If that's Putin's true outlook on the world, no one should be surprised that in several days' time our military will be holding an exercise that simulates a nuclear war with the West as part of Russia's "war on terrorism."
Pavel Felgenhauer is an independent defense analyst.
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Germany Offering 200 Used Airplanes
By Lyuba Pronina
Staff Writer Germany says it has the answer to one of the most pressing problems facing Russia's booming airline industry -- aging fleets.
The German government has sent a letter to Transportation Minister Sergei Frank offering Russia the chance to lease up to 200 secondhand mid-range passenger jets to replace some of the roughly 500 Soviet-era Tupolev Tu-134s and Tu-154s that make up the backbone of Russia's commercial aviation sector.
Once the world's most prolific producer of civilian aircraft, Russia's aviation industry has virtually ground to a halt in recent years, a decline the government is trying to reverse with a project to develop a new and affordable line of mid-range craft. Mass production, however, is still years away, and most of Russia's hundreds of airlines cannot afford foreign-made craft.
The German government, together with international carriers SAS and Germania, as well as American leasing company General Electric Capital Aviation Services, is offering to negotiate the lease of up to 200 McDonnell Douglas MD-80s and Fokker-100s.
"This could be an interim solution for Russian airlines," said GЯnter Zaibt, who heads Germania's operations in Russia.
Russian aviation authorities were mixed on the idea.
"The arrival of these jets will crush the industry, but something has to be done," said one State Civil Aviation Service official who asked not to be named.
Viktor Samokhin, deputy head of the State Civil Aviation Service's flight airworthiness department, was more categorical. "We are not preparing any reply," he said. "We have enough old aircraft of our own and don't need another's old aircraft."
Zaibt dismissed concerns that a deal would retard efforts to revive domestic aviation production.
"It will help Russian airlines to bridge the demand gap until Russian manufacturers will be able to provide sufficient number of new airplanes," he said.
Zaibt declined to go into the specifics of the proposal, saying talks are at an early stage. But he did say that the 172-seat MD-80s are 14-years-old on average, while the 107-seat Fokker-100s are at least 8-years-old, and that both models are valued at under $10 million.
He said the money airlines will save operating more efficient Western aircraft will allow them to buy domestically produced jets when they become available.
"This will not require any investment from the Russian government," he said.
Although top domestic carriers have been struggling to find ways to modernize and expand capacity to keep up with surging demand, they were mixed on the German pitch.
Sergei Koltovich, head of fleet planning and procurement for Aeroflot, which operates 27 Boeings and Airbuses, said that the flagship carrier is not interested in the American-made MD-80s, but it may be interested in the Dutch Fokkers. "Aeroflot has a shortage of regional craft, and Fokker-100 is a proven and reliable aircraft that has been used extensively by foreign airlines," he said.
Mikhail Koshman, spokesman for Sibir, said that although both aircraft are not quite what his company is looking for, it still may be interested. "All will depend on the price," he said.
Sibir last week leased its third Airbus for its Armenian subsidiary Armavia, and a second ATR-42 regional craft.

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Ivanov Says Russia May Pull Out of Arms Treaty

By Greg Walters
Special to The Moscow Times Russia may abandon a security treaty limiting conventional weapons and troop deployments in Europe, Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said at an international security conference in Munich on Monday, unless it is changed to rule out NATO forces in the Baltic states.
Ivanov protested that the Conventional Forces in Europe treaty, negotiated in the 1980s between the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the Warsaw Pact, does not include Baltic countries, which are scheduled to become NATO members in April.
"With NATO enlargement, they start operating in the zone of vitally important interests of our country," Ivanov said, The Associated Press reported. "They should -- in deed, not only in words -- take into account Russian concerns."
Ivanov's comments come as the United States is considering a wide-ranging reorganization of its forces based in Europe.
Talks between Russia and NATO have broken down in recent years over an updated version of the CFE, which reworked the treaty to take the collapse of the Soviet Union into account.
Europe and the United States have protested Russia's reluctance to withdraw troops from Georgia and Moldova, despite commitments made by Moscow when the treaty was updated in 1999.
Since then, Russia has repeatedly delayed ratification of the new version of the treaty. On Monday, Ivanov said the CFE could become a relic of the Cold War.
Speaking at the conference, U.S. Senator John McCain said, "Undemocratic behavior and threats to the sovereignty and liberty of her neighbors will not profit Russia -- but will exclude her from the company of Western democracies," The New York Times reported.
Independent military analyst Pavel Felgenhauer said Monday that despite Ivanov's rhetoric, Russia is not likely to unilaterally pull out of the treaty. "This will not bring Russia any kind of gain," he said. "There's no real need for withdrawal, just to make some noise."
But in its current form, the treaty appears to be unworkable, Felgenhauer said.
"Russia is clamoring for ratification of the treaty to happen, and the Baltic states to be included," he said. "But the West says Russia must first withdraw from Georgia and Moldova."
The Baltic countries' exclusion from the CFE means that, in theory, NATO could mass any amount of troops and weaponry there when those countries join the alliance.
But Felgenhauer said such an action would be highly unlikely. Both NATO and Russia maintain forces well below the treaty's limits.
On Monday, Lithuanian Defense Minister Linas Linkevicius told The Associated Press that there are no "concrete plans" to set up NATO bases in Lithuania, but also said, "It's not excluded in the future."
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Rybkin's Location Is a Mystery to Police

By Caroline McGregor
Staff Writer The mystery shrouding the disappearance of presidential candidate Ivan Rybkin deepened Monday, amid conflicting reports of his whereabouts and the abrupt opening and closing of a murder investigation.
Local media reported Monday afternoon that police had located Rybkin, a former State Duma speaker who has been bitingly critical of President Vladimir Putin. The reports did not specify his location.
But police spokesman Alexei Vakhromeyev said Rybkin reportedly surfaced on his own and police were in the process of verifying that information. "For now, we haven't found him," he said by telephone.
Rybkin's campaign manager, Ksenia Ponamaryova, who with Rybkin's wife signed a missing persons report Sunday night, said Monday that they have had no contact with him since he disappeared Thursday evening.
His wife, Albina, said both of his cars are in his garage and she feared he might have been kidnapped.
At the request of Rybkin's relatives, the Presnenskaya district prosecutor's office opened a criminal inquiry into Rybkin's disappearance on suspicion of premeditated murder at 11 a.m. Monday.
The Moscow city prosecutor's office learned of this and canceled the inquiry at noon, spokeswoman Svetlana Petrenko said. "It was judged as premature," she said.
She said the city prosecutors were, however, continuing to investigate Rybkin's disappearance and would decide within 10 days whether the facts warranted a criminal case.
Gennady Gudkov, a member of the State Duma security committee, said Monday afternoon that security service officials had told him that Rybkin might have been located at a sanatorium in Odintsovo, just west of Moscow.
Calls to the sanatorium indicated that Rybkin had never been there. The presidential administration, which owns the sanatorium, also denied Rybkin had ever been there.
Gudkov later retracted his statement, saying that his sources might have been joking.
The search for Rybkin comes as a Moscow court is trying six suspects in last year's murder of his former colleague in the Liberal Russia party, Deputy Sergei Yushenkov. (See story, Page 2.) A third colleague from Liberal Russia, Vladimir Golovlyov, was also gunned down in murky circumstances, in August 2002. Liberal Russia is backed by businessman Boris Berezovsky, and he and Rybkin are closely associated.
Fueling confusion about Rybkin's disappearance, Berezovsky said in a telephone interview Sunday night that he was "pretty certain" that Rybkin was safe and would reappear Monday.
Ponamaryova said she remained skeptical about that prediction. "There is information that Boris Abramovich [Berezovsky] interprets in a certain way. I have the same information, but my interpretation is different," she said.
Rybkina said in an interview published in Berezovsky-owned newspaper Kommersant on Monday that she thought her husband's disappearance was intended to remove him as a challenger to President Vladimir Putin in the March 14 election.
Central Elections Commission chief Alexander Veshnyakov said Rybkin's registration, granted Friday, remains in place. Until Friday, some had doubted that the commission would approve the 2 million signatures submitted by Rybkin to register his candidacy.
Viktor Fedoruk, 49, the head of one of Rybkin's signature-drive teams, was arrested Wednesday night on suspicion of falsifying signatures, and a Moscow court has ruled that he should remain in custody.
Late last month, state television cast doubt on the validity of Rybkin's signatures, suggesting in news reports that students had been hired to falsify them.
Rybkin fired back that the lists of signatures shown on television were not his but Putin's, bearing the president's date of birth at the top. He argued this in a letter sent to Veshnyakov and media outlets on Thursday, the day he disappeared.
As a candidate, Rybkin was allotted free airtime to participate in televised debates by the Central Elections Commission on Monday. Deciding how to handle it, though, is complicated, because only in the two "exceptional cases" of illness or official obligations can a candidate send a representative to appear in his stead, Veshnyakov said.
Ponamaryova said Rybkin would "most likely" forgo the debate slots, since no one is prepared to stand in for him.
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Fact or fiction? The truth is out for politicians
A poll of what voters want offers a reality check for those in power and those who are seeking it
By Brendan Pereira
MALAYSIA CORRESPONDENT
KUALA LUMPUR - One of the interesting things about politics anywhere is that assumptions and hunches once put into the spin cycle often come out dressed up as fact.
It is no different here in Malaysia. Take the current buzz over elections and preoccupation with the choice of candidates.
Some say the Muslim electorate here expects its assemblymen and elected representatives to be packing impressive religious credentials.
Recycled enough times by journalists, political pundits and even seasoned politicians, this information acquires a veneer of truth and authority.
But occasionally, along comes a study or survey that separates fact from fiction. One such survey was conducted recently by Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM) to gauge the political climate in Kedah, where the battle for the Malay vote is going to have the intensity of an iron cage wrestling match.
Several hundred people were surveyed and they were categorised as Umno supporters, Parti Islam SeMalaysia (PAS) supporters or those without political affiliation. The findings turn a few assumptions on their heads.
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FACT? In an increasingly religious Malaysia, religious credentials are a crucial factor.
SIX out of 10 respondents said leaders should be trustworthy. The public also wanted them to be disciplined, hardworking and accessible.
Sure, it was important that candidates be grounded in religion, but it was not among the top five criteria that voters looked for in their potential elected representatives.
Voters also did not expect leaders to be visionaries or corporate figures.
From this, it is clear that what most want is clean politicians who visit their constituencies regularly, rub shoulders with the electorate often and listen to voters' woes with some empathy.
This finding could come in useful for those among the senior Umno leadership who are in the midst right now of choosing candidates for the coming general election.
Some politicians have been making a beeline for Putrajaya, the administrative capital, to lobby Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and other senior figures.
They have touted their educational qualifications, corporate credentials and loyalty to the political party.
Some have gone the extra mile, backing up their claim for candidacy by conducting street polls among Umno members in their divisions.
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FACT? In the Muslim heartland up north, it is the future of religious schools and corruption that weigh heavily on the minds of rural voters.
GUESS what? Umno supporters, PAS supporters and fence-sitters all share the same concern: Worry about how little money is flowing into their pockets.
More than half of poll respondents were perturbed about the low price of padi, and many others complained that it was tough to make a living as a rubber smallholder.
A significant number of them were concerned about the unemployment rate for young people in Kedah.
The survey findings were supported by focus group discussions which Universiti Utara Malaysia lecturers had with Umno members, PAS members, non-governmental organisations and civil servants.
Dr Mansor Mohamed, a member of the team, said: 'By and large, people are concerned about their economic well-being. They are also tired of the politicking.'
These findings point a way forward for those eyeing the Malay vote. It suggests that the pride over Alor Star being granted city status and the Kedah Menteri Besar's fixation on achieving developed status for the northern state may be misplaced.
The hungry and disenchanted voter cares less about what lies ahead, more about concrete answers for his woes today.
This suggests that despite years of economic progress, there are significant pockets of Malaysians who have yet to taste the fruit of development.
Such people are not interested in flash, skyscrapers or an Islamic state.
Perhaps all they want is simply a better life
Copyright @ 2003 Singapore Press Holdings. All rights reserved.
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"Dominate. Intimidate. Control."
The sorry record of the Transportation Security Administration
James Bovard
When 9/11 exposed the holes in American airport and airline security, the Bush administration and Congress responded with the usual Washington panacea: a new federal agency. Congress quickly deluged the new Transportation Security Administration (TSA) with billions of dollars to hire an army of over 50,000 federal agents to screen airport passengers and baggage.
But before the agency was even a year old, it was clear that it had "become a monster," to quote the chairman of the House Aviation Subcommittee, John Mica (R-Fla.). Arrogant, abusive, incompetent, and expensive, the TSA is, in the words of the House Appropriations Committee, "seemingly unable to make crisp decisions...unable to work cooperatively with the nation's airports; and unable to take advantage of the multitude of security-improving and labor-saving technologies available."
The attacks of September 11, 2001, changed many things, but they did not make the federal government more competent or effective, and they did not make it more willing to respect the dignity or liberty of its citizens. For proof, one need only examine the TSA's sorry record.
Jumpy Screeners
In June 2002 news leaked out that TSA airport screeners missed 24 percent of the weapons and imitation bombs planted in the government's undercover security tests. At some major airports, screeners failed to detect potentially dangerous objects in half the tests. The results were worse than they first appeared, because the testers were ordered not to "artfully conceal" the deadly contraband and instead pack their luggage "consistent with how a typical passenger in air transportation might pack a bag." Although the tests seemed designed to see if screeners could catch terrorists with single-digit IQs, they still failed to find the weapons much of the time.
That does not mean TSA screeners don't find anything. Notable triumphs have included seizing a tiny pair of wire cutters from a Special Forces veteran who had been shot in the jaw in Afghanistan and needed the cutters to snip his jaw open if he started to choke; evacuating terminals in Los Angeles upon discovering that travelers were carrying such dangerous devices as a belt buckle or a tub of jam; and shutting down several concourses in St. Louis after a federal security screener spotted what appeared to be a "cutting tool" in a carry-on bag. After detecting the suspicious object, the St. Louis screener followed proper procedure: He fetched his supervisor to take a look at the frozen image on the video screen at the checkpoint. A few minutes later, the supervisor concluded that the bag was indeed suspicious and needed to be manually searched. But the passenger had long since retrieved it and headed to his or her flight. Hundreds of passengers were evacuated and up to 60 flights were delayed; despite many searches, the suspicious item was never found.
On January 15, 2003, the Tampa airport was evacuated after screeners discovered an abandoned briefcase that appeared to be packed with bombs. The ticketing level of the terminal was cleared, the roads outside were closed,
and the bomb squad arrived. An hour later, it was determined that the briefcase was a TSA dummy designed to test airport security. "We use these bags repeatedly, so the fact that the bag was in that area was not surprising," TSA Security Director Dario Compain told the St. Petersburg Times. "That it was unattended, that there was no one with it who knew its true nature and could stop the escalation of our action before it reached the evacuation stage, is what's troubling."
The TSA detains more than just packages. More than 1,000 people have been arrested at airport checkpoints since the feds took over security in February 2002. A regulation passed that month made it a federal crime to interfere with airport screening personnel. A single word can be sufficient to trigger an arrest.
Betsylew Miale-Gix, a 43-year-old personal injury lawyer and former world boomerang record holder, was stopped at a security checkpoint at Hartford's Bradley International Airport on June 30, 2002, and informed that she could not carry her boomerangs onto the plane. The boomerangs weighed less than three ounces each and were fragile -- the type of item that is routinely crushed if sent as checked luggage. Miale-Gix had flown many times after 9/11 and had never encountered any objections to her boomerangs. They wouldn't be much use as weapons, after all; as one of her fellow boomerang enthusiasts commented, throwing a competitive boomerang at someone is "like throwing a first-class letter."
The state trooper who banned the boomerangs from the flight refused to listen to Miale-Gix's explanation, and she swore at him as she was departing the screening area. She was quickly arrested, handcuffed, charged with breach of the peace, and compelled to pay $500 for bail. TSA spokeswoman Deirdre O'Sullivan told The New York Times that although boomerangs are not on the official list of prohibited carry-on items, "the screeners have the discretion to decide whether or not that item could be used as a weapon."
Travelers who assert their legal rights can find themselves bounced. Della Maricich was banned from a Portland-to-Seattle flight on May 1, 2002, after she asked an airport screener to keep her purse where she could see it while he searched it. (Many airport screeners have been accused of theft since the new search procedures were introduced.) The screener refused, and Maricich demanded to speak to his supervisor. A National Guardsman arrived on the scene a few minutes later and, Maricich later told The Wall Street Journal, "He told me that because I had disrupted the line by calling for a supervisor, I would not be allowed to fly out of PDX that day. He told me that I was a troublemaker and I was the only one who had ever complained."
On August 2, 2002, a screener at Hartford's Bradley International Airport poked through the wallet of Fred Hubbell, an 80-year-old World War II combat veteran who had already undergone two full searches in that airport that morning. "What do you expect to find in there, a rifle?" the exasperated Hubbell asked. He was then arrested for "causing a public disturbance" and fined $78. Dana Cosgrove, the TSA airport security chief, later justified the arrest on the grounds that "all that the people around him in the waiting room heard was the word rifle."
The TSA flaunts its power to bar people from flights. A group of 20 high school students and Catholic priests and nuns, members of Peace Action Milwaukee, were detained at Milwaukee's airport on April 19, 2002, after some of their names turned up on a "No Fly Watch List" issued by the federal government. According to one member of the group, a sheriff's deputy told her, "You're probably being stopped because you are a peace group and you're protesting against your country." Many of the travelers missed their flights and had to fly the following day. Yet Sgt. Chuck Coughlin of the Milwaukee sheriff's department insisted, "Although it was time-consuming, and although they were flight-delayed, the system actually worked."
The TSA's no-fly lists are often poor sources of information. Many travelers are repeatedly stopped erroneously and taken aside for intensive questioning, regardless of how many times they have previously proved that they are not a threat to national security. As David Sobel, general counsel of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, told the Financial Times, "Nobody wants to accept responsibility for the maintenance of the [no-fly] list, and nobody wants to claim the authority to remove a name." Now the TSA, at Congress's behest, is creating the Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System (CAPPS II), which will assign a "threat level" to every person who flies within the United States. The TSA has provided almost no information on how the system will operate, although the government has indicated that it could sweep up a vast amount of personal information on each traveler -- including credit history, financial and transaction records, Internet usage, and legal records (including speeding and parking tickets).
In January 2003 the TSA revealed a new regulation allowing it to suspend pilot licenses based on unproven suspicions that the pilot might pose a security risk. Those who lose their livelihoods as a result of such edicts will not necessarily be permitted to see the evidence against them. The TSA did not seek comments from the public before announcing its new rule, which fails even to define "security risk." Phil Boyer, president of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, protested that the TSA was being "the cop, prosecutor, judge, jury and appeals court....Clearly, this is a violation of basic constitutional rights." But agency spokesman Brian Turmail dismissed the concerns: "The bottom line is: If you're not a terrorist, you don't need to worry about this."
Crazy Cops
The TSA has proven inept in the air as well as on the ground. It was determined to expand the number of air marshals quickly from a few hundred to more than 6,000. When most of the applicants failed the marksmanship test, the agency solved that problem by dropping the marksmanship test for new applicants. (The ability to shoot accurately in a plane cabin is widely considered a crucial part of a marshal's job.) Some would-be marshals were hired even after they repeatedly shot flight attendants in mock hijack response exercises.
USA Today's Blake Morrison noted a report that "one marshal was suspended after he left his gun in a lavatory aboard a United Airlines flight from Washington to Las Vegas in December. A passenger discovered the weapon." Another air marshal left his pistol on a Northwest flight from Detroit to Indianapolis; a cleaning crew discovered the weapon. Morrison noted: "At least 250 federal air marshals have left the top-secret program, and documents obtained by USA Today suggest officials are struggling to handle what two managers call a flood of resignations."
The Transportation Department responded to the USA Today expos? by sending Secretary Norman Mineta to an air marshal training facility, where he witnessed a training exercise in which marshals shot a would-be hijacker. Afterward Mineta commented, "I not only saw a remarkable demonstration of skill and marksmanship, but a degree of professionalism we are instilling throughout our aviation security system."
Eight days later, on August 31, 2002, Delta Flight 442 was proceeding from Atlanta to Philadelphia with 183 people on board when a disheveled passenger began rummaging in the overhead bin. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that the trouble began when the man "made inappropriate comments to a female passenger a few rows behind him." Two plainclothes air marshals jumped up and tackled the guy, shoving him first to the back of the plane and then dragging him to the first class area.
Then the trip got interesting. One of the marshals returned to the front of the coach section, drew his Glock semiautomatic pistol, and started screaming and pointing his gun at passengers. Philadelphia Judge James Lineberger, a passenger on the flight, later told the Associated Press, "I assumed at that moment that there was going to be some sort of gun battle....There were individuals looking to see what they were pointing at, and [the air marshals] were yelling, `Get down, get out -- get your head out of the aisle.'" In a formal complaint to the TSA, Lineberger declared that "there was no apparent reason for holding all the passengers of the plane at gunpoint, and no explanation was given."
Lineberger was sitting diagonally across from the initial target of the marshals, yet did not notice any problem on the flight until the marshals went ballistic. Susan Johnson, a social worker from Mobile, Alabama, was also unaware of any disturbance until the air marshals seized the man. "It never made sense," she told the Inquirer. "This guy was not any physical threat that we could see. Maybe he said some things to them that made them concerned. He just appeared to us unstable, emotionally." According to Becky Johnson, a reporter who wrote a column about the episode for her Waynesville, North Carolina, newspaper, "They never, ever said who they were, that they were air marshals or whoever."
After the flight landed, the marshals nailed another terrorist suspect: a physician and retired U.S. Army major named Robert Rajcoomar. He was handcuffed and taken into custody because, as TSA spokesman David Steigman later explained it, he "had been observing too closely."
Rajcoomar had been sitting in first class quietly reading and drinking a beer until the marshals dumped the allegedly unruly passenger from coach class into the adjacent seat. Rajcoomar told the Inquirer: "One [marshal] sat on
the guy....he was groaning, and the more he groaned, the more they twisted the handcuffs." Rajcoomar asked the stewardess for permission to move to another seat in first class; she told him to take one of the seats the marshals
had vacated.
When the plane landed, Rajcoomar recalled, "One of these marshals came down to me and said, `Head down, hands over your head!' They pushed my head down, told me to bend down." Rajcoomar said one of the marshals told him, "We didn't like the way you looked" and "We didn't like the way you looked at us." He was locked up in a filthy cell for three hours before being released without charges. His wife was left to roam the Philadelphia airport, not knowing what had happened to her husband.
And the person who initially set off the marshals? He was questioned after the plane landed, but a U.S. attorney decided not to file charges.
The air marshal who brandished his weapon had twice applied to be a cop in Philadelphia but failed the police department's psychological tests. He had also been rejected in an attempt to become a prison guard. When he threatened scores of coach passengers, he had received only two weeks of training.
What escalates this episode beyond a mere bizarre anecdote is the fact that the TSA hailed these marshals as models. Several days after the incident, Thomas Quinn,
the national director of the air marshal program, asserted, "The federal air marshals did a very good job. They did exactly as they're trained to do." And TSA spokesman Robert Johnson, speaking to the Associated Press, blamed the passengers for being held at gunpoint: "If people would have stayed in their seats and heeded those warnings, that would not have happened. It's our opinion that it was done by the book."
Not Just Birth Pangs
Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport is home to 1,800 TSA screeners. At 1:50 p.m. on January 9, 2003, one of them swabbed the outside of a passenger's laptop bag to check for explosives. The screener returned the bag to the pas-senger, who proceeded to his plane. Three minutes later, the screener noticed that the explosive trace detection machine indicated a positive alert for Semtex, a plastic explosive, from the laptop. The screeners then spent three more minutes checking the machine to confirm the accuracy of the positive alert before they informed a TSA supervisor of the problem. The supervisor and screeners then left the checkpoint to walk around and see if they could find the man suspected of having plastic explosives in his laptop. (The explosive detection test is notorious for false positives.)
The group searched four airport departure gates and, after they could not find the man, returned to the checkpoint to retest the machine. More than half an hour after the positive alert for plastic explosives occurred, the TSA notified an airport policeman standing 15 feet from the checkpoint of the problem. Orders were quickly given to empty the terminal. Almost an hour after the laptop owner passed through the checkpoint, his description was circulated through the airport.
Three terminals at the nation's third-largest airport were closed for almost two hours. Thousands of people were evacuated from the airport and at least 200 flights delayed. Hundreds of passengers already on planes waiting for takeoff were obliged to deplane. Forty other airports were affected.
Because the Dallas-Fort Worth airport was not blown up that afternoon, the TSA declared victory. Agency spokesman Ed Martelle told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram: "We caught him, but we lost him. But what he couldn't do was harm anyone. The system worked." The TSA refused to name either the manufacturer of the machine that gave the alert or the screener; as spokesman Brian Doyle explained, "There are privacy issues involved here." After prying into tens of millions of Americans' bags, the agency suddenly developed respect for privacy -- for itself and its corporate suppliers.
Although the TSA promised to issue a full report on the incident, it reneged, announcing a few weeks later that national security concerns prevented it from releasing any more details of the debacle. The TSA also declared that "details about future breaches also would be kept secret because of national security," The Dallas Morning News reported. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram added: "Too much information was made public about the breach, local TSA officials have been told. Further disclosures by airport officials or anyone else privy to the final report could result in fines and/or jail time."
While some people may retain hope that the preceding fiascoes are merely birth pangs, contrary evidence continues to cascade in:
* On February 6, 2003, according to Airport Security Report, San Francisco International Airport was disrupted after a Taiwanese woman with two carry-on bags "sprinted through an unmanned security checkpoint at 10:46 a.m. It wasn't until 1 p.m. that TSA officials evacuated the terminal." TSA agents looked for the woman, concluded she was "lost in the crowd," and then spent time reviewing the videotape of the security checkpoint before ordering an evacuation and rescreening.
* On March 8, 2003, a terminal at the Hartford, Connecticut, airport was evacuated after a screener was caught taking a late afternoon nap by an X-ray machine.
* On March 11, 2003, according to Airport Security Report, TSA officials shut down the Birmingham, Alabama, international airport after "four people were discovered lurking on the airport tarmac. They fled on foot when officers questioned them about their badges identifying them as airport security workers." Dozens of flights were delayed and hundreds of people were evacuated before it was learned that the four suspicious individuals were TSA officials testing airport security.
* On March 21, 2003, Cleveland Hopkins International Airport was placed under a 40-minute lockdown, prohibiting all passenger entries or exits and all plane departures. TSA agents hit the alarm when they spotted a little toy gun on a child's belt buckle in a carry-on bag.
The TSA confiscated the child's belt buckle. Spokesman
Rick DeChant announced, "Had Mom or Dad helped this kid pack, this [airport lockdown] could have been avoided."
* On April 3, 2003, a passenger at Baltimore-Washington International airport refused to be rescreened after the metal detector signaled an alarm from her first pass. Instead, she walked on to her flight. Although two concourses were closed for an hour, the woman was never apprehended.
* In May 2003 Americans learned that the TSA had fired scores of screeners who had been on the job for several months in Los Angeles and New York after finding that they had criminal records. The Los Angeles Times reported that the agency "lost background questionnaires, failed to run some employee fingerprints through a national crime database and was unable to complete background checks." The Times noted that congressmen began investigating the TSA's "background check process after reports that a screener at Kennedy airport was arrested earlier this year for allegedly stealing $6,000 from a passenger." At Dulles International Airport in Washington, D.C., the agency failed to complete background checks on more than a third of the 600 screeners. One employee complained: "It defeats the purpose of what you are here for. It's a 200-plus [person] security breach." Nationwide, more than 20,000 TSA screeners were on the job even though the government had not completed background checks on them.
One reason for the federal takeover of airport security, you may recall, is that private companies had hired screeners of dubious character and poor trustworthiness.
On March 10, 2003, a TSA press release proudly announced, "The Transportation Security Administration has intercepted more than 4.8 million prohibited items at passenger security checkpoints in its first year, contributing to the security of the traveling public and the nation's 429 commercial airports." Agency chief James Loy bragged that "those statistics are strong testimony to the professionalism and attention to detail of our highly trained security screeners." A few weeks later, he upped the ante, informing the House Appropriations Committee: "We have identified, intercepted, and therefore kept off aircraft more than 4.8 million dangerous items."
And so all the fingernail clippers and cigar cutters seized since 9/11 transmogrified into proof that the federal government is protecting people better than ever. The press release did not mention that the checkpoint seizures included frying pans, dumbbell sets, horseshoes, toy robots, and an unknown but huge number of small pointy objects.
Security as Theater
Here's a more sobering measure of the agency's effectiveness: The New York Daily News celebrated the first anniversary of 9/11 by sending two reporters around the country, taking 14 flights on six airlines, and passing through 11 major airports during Labor Day weekend 2002. The reporters carried box cutters, razors, knives, and pepper spray in their luggage. They took their contraband through the checkpoints at all four of the airports used by the hijackers on 9/11. "Not a single airport security checkpoint spotted or confiscated any of the dangerous items, all of which have been banned from airports and planes by federal authorities," the paper revealed. The reporters were selected for hand searches several times, but even then nothing was found. There were more security personnel and searches than a year before, "but it amounted to nothing more than a big show."
The TSA blamed the failures on its prehistory, commenting that the Daily News' findings "underscore the failures of an aviation security system inherited by the federal government last fall." A spokesman for Department of Transportation Secretary Mineta, Leonard Alcivar, greeted the findings with a spurt of positive thinking: "The reality is Americans have never had a higher level of security in the history of aviation."
There was less room for positive thinking a year later, when college student Nathaniel Heatwole pulled a similar stunt, planting box cutters and fake bombs on six different planes to probe the gaps in security. In September 2003 he sent the TSA an e-mail message explaining what he had done, in the hope of sparking improvements in the system. Instead he was brought up on charges and now faces up to 10 years in jail.
There is no series of tricks or reforms that will guarantee safe air travel. But a first step toward better security is to recognize the facades the feds have created. The TSA should no longer be permitted to burden travelers or taxpayers. The armies of federal agents occupying American airports should be disbanded. In the meantime, airports and airlines must not be shielded from liability if their negligence results in carnage. The specter of devastating liability lawsuits could produce more innovations and sounder security policies than the incentives produced by Washington political circuses.
Federal intelligence agencies should do a better job of notifying airports and airlines of specific current threats. Resources should be focused on determining actual threats, rather than treating every grandmother and toddler as a potential hijacker. And it would be helpful to amend U.S. foreign policy to reduce the number of foreigners willing to kill themselves to slaughter Americans.
In the wake of 9/11, the federal mentality toward air travelers is best summarized by the motto posted at the headquarters of the TSA air marshal training center: "Dominate. Intimidate. Control." But it takes more than browbeating average Americans to make air travel safe.
James Bovard is the author of Terrorism and Tyranny: Trampling Freedom, Justice, and Peace to Rid the World of Evil (Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), from which this article is adapted.
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washingtonpost.com
Airline Surveillance Office Director Resigns
TSA Says Bell's Departure Will Not Affect Rollout of Proposed Passenger Screening System
By Robert O'Harrow Jr.
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, February 10, 2004; Page A08
The director of a program to develop an electronic screening system for airline passengers plans to resign April 3, according to his resignation letter.
Ben H. Bell III, director of the new Office of National Risk Assessment in the Transportation Security Administration, said he would retire after almost 35 years of service in the federal government.
His decision comes at a delicate time for the data-surveillance system known as CAPPS II, which has been delayed for almost two years by technical issues and questions about its impact on privacy.
The U.S. General Accounting Office is scheduled to issue a report in coming days about the proposed system's effectiveness and potential impact on civil liberties. Congress ordered that the report be completed before allowing CAPPS II to move forward. An unfavorable outcome could further delay implementation.
Testing of the system is scheduled to begin in late spring. If successful, officials expect to start phasing in CAPPS II this summer.
TSA spokesman Mark Hatfield said Bell's departure would have no impact on the rollout. "His legacy will be the addition of one of the most important layers of security in aviation," he said.
In his resignation letter, Bell praised the "risk assessment platform," saying it will serve as a model for use by government intelligence and private information services to enhance U.S. security.
"Fully implemented and supported, it will be among the first fruits of a new kind of partnership between the government and the private sector -- where the best technology used in commerce is leveraged to protect our freedom, and where privacy and security are not competing interests, but complementary goals," Bell wrote.
The CAPPS II system is designed to use giant reservoirs of personal information stored by Acxiom Corp., LexisNexis Group and other companies to authenticate every passenger's identity. Government computers, based in suburban Washington and Colorado, will then match those names against intelligence and lists of known or suspected terrorists.
Under current plans, passengers will be assigned one of three designations: regular screening, extra screening or apprehend.
Few homeland security initiatives have spurred as much controversy as CAPPS II. JetBlue and Northwest airlines have been harshly criticized for sharing passenger information with the government -- including some agencies not directly involved in CAPPS II -- and now they and others have expressed reluctance to participate.
Major U.S. carriers are scrambling now to create disclosure policies that tell customers how personal information is being used, in anticipation that the government may force the airlines to turn over records for the system.
Democratic presidential candidate Wesley K. Clark also came under fire from rivals for working as a lobbyist for Arkansas-based Acxiom in its bid to secure a role in CAPPS II and other security initiatives.
Though some privacy advocates acknowledge the need for an aviation screening system, they complain that development of CAPPS II has been overly secretive. Some advocates have expressed concern that the screening will turn airports into all-purpose checkpoints.
Bell and other government officials have insisted in congressional testimony and interviews that that will not happen. Last summer, the government declared its intentions to use CAPPS II to apprehend wanted violent criminals, an apparent expansion of its original aim.
David Sobel, general counsel of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in the District, said Bell's departure raises new questions about how the system is coming along. "There are still lots of questions to be answered," Sobel said.
James X. Dempsey, executive director of the Center for Democracy and Technology in the District, said Bell "honestly was trying to protect privacy." But he predicted Bell's resignation would not impede the program's implementation.
"We need some kind of passenger screening system," Dempsey said. "It's not a task, it seems to me, that we can walk away from."
Bell, a retired Marine officer, was asked to build CAPPS II in late 2002 because he mixed computer savvy with foreign, domestic and law enforcement intelligence experience. He has also served as deputy assistant commissioner for intelligence at the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Part of Bell's appeal, officials said, was that he was committed to building an effective system that would use passenger records narrowly only to stop terrorists.
? 2004 The Washington Post Company

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Microsoft offers cut-rate Windows
By Matthew Broersma, CNET News.com
Tuesday, February 10 2004 9:34 AM
Microsoft has provided a modified version of Windows XP with reduced features for use in the Thai government's low-cost PC program, and may make this software available to other governments, the company said.
The "entry-level" version of Windows was created to allow Microsoft to participate in the Thailand ICT Ministry's program without adjusting its policy of charging the same price for Windows and Office no matter where in the world they are sold, Microsoft said Monday. The software was provided at a cost of 1,500 baht, or about US$40, compared with the usual price of several hundred dollars.
"The Microsoft software provided for the ICT program in June 2003 is a Thai-language specific, customized, entry-level version based on Windows XP Home and Office XP Standard," said a Microsoft spokeswoman.
Last year, market research firm Gartner said the Thai deal was the beginning of the end for the one-price policy, predicting Microsoft would be compelled to halve its prices in poorer countries by the middle of 2004. Now Microsoft says it is looking to collaborate with more governments on low-cost PC initiatives, using customized software with reduced functionality, as in Thailand.
Andrew McBean, Microsoft Thailand's managing director, said in an interview with The Bangkok Post last week that the company was developing an entry-level version of Windows for sale in poorer countries.
Microsoft has come under increasing competitive pressure from open-source software such as Linux in developing countries, where the single-price policy makes Microsoft software too expensive for most. The Thai ICT PCs were originally available only with Linux. Linux PCs are seen as a threat to Windows partly because buyers are considered likely to replace the operating system with pirated copies of Windows.
Several Asian governments have recently embraced open-source software in an attempt to fix problems such as high software costs and wide-scale software piracy. The price of Microsoft software is often cited as the root of the problem.
Authorities in Asia have bemoaned the company's lack of flexibility, arguing that market price should be tied to local economic conditions. Being forced to use English-language versions because of the lack of local-language options is also a sore point.
Countries like Malaysia, Vietnam, China, Japan and Korea have said they are wary of giving monopolistic control of crucial software to a foreign-based corporation, free to charge any price without regard for national interests.
Microsoft has repeatedly denied it will adjust its one-price policy. Speaking at the Singapore launch of the Office System 2003 productivity suite last November, Oliver Roll, Microsoft general manager for Asia-Pacific and Greater China, said that while the single-price policy won't change, the company was willing to give discounts if it would help certain IT-disadvantaged groups.
Today, a copy of the Microsoft Windows operating system or Office productivity suite costs roughly the same in every country. For example, Windows XP Home is US$199 and Office XP, US$399. Given that the average income of a Thai worker is US$7,000 a year, it would be the equivalent of charging US$3,000 for the bundle in the United States, according to Gartner Hong Kong.
Matthew Broersma of ZDNet UK reported from London. John Lui of CNETAsia contributed to this report.
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IBM switches Korean head after bribery scandal
By Winston Chai, CNETAsia
Friday, February 6 2004 6:13 PM
IBM has replaced the head honcho for its South Korean operations, following a high-profile bribery fiasco last month.
In January, Korean authorities indicted 48 government officials and executives, mostly from IBM and affiliated companies such as LG IBM PC--a joint venture between IBM and Korean firm LG Electronics-- for rigging public-sector computer contracts.
According to the Seoul District Prosecutor's Office, IBM Korea allegedly amassed a slush fund worth almost 3 billion won (US$2.5 million) which was used to pay off government officials. Big Blue has since denied the existence of this fund and said it has fired the employees in question.
An IBM Asia-Pacific spokesperson told CNETAsia it has named Tony Romero, a 23-year veteran with the company, as the new head for Korea.
Romero was previously the general manager of IBM ASEAN and South Asia. He also served as president for IBM Argentina between 1997 and 1999, a period when the business unit faced a similar bribery probe pertaining to a rigged deal with Argentinean bank Banco Nacion.
Romero takes over from former IBM Korea head, Chae-Chol Shin, who was appointed as the country's general manager in 1996. IBM said Shin made a "personal decision to retire" after 31 years with the company.
ZDNET Korea's Yong-Young Kim contributed to the story.
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China gears up for RFID
By ZDNet China, Special to CNETAsia
Monday, February 9 2004 9:43 AM
The Standardization Administration of China has created a working group that will establish a national standard for radio frequency identification tags.
Called "electronic tags" in China, these small transmitters--essentially high-tech bar codes that can be scanned from a distance and even through the walls of boxes--are seen by many as the key to a far more efficient supply chain than is achievable today.
There is no single standard for RFID. The SAC said that it will try to draft its standard so that it will be compatible with similar technologies.
RFID companies are likely to closely monitor how the standardization process moves forward. Recently, the Chinese government demanded that the Wi-Fi chips sold in the country contain an encryption standard controlled by 11 local companies. To sell Wi-Fi parts in the large and rapidly growing market in China, foreign companies necessarily have to partner with Chinese companies or license the technology from them.
With manufacturers and distributors scrambling to meet those retail and military mandates, research firm IDC said it expects RFID spending for the U.S. retail supply chain to grow from US$91.5 million last year to nearly US$1.3 billion in 2008.
Privacy advocates, however, assert that the radio-tag technology could allow companies to track individuals. Although many in the industry have said this is more difficult than it sounds (RFID tags can be disabled by a trip through a microwave), some companies have backed away from trials.
Another controversy with RFID is finding companies to make the tags. Intel, IBM and others are very interested in the technology, but because it will allow them to sell more servers and software for managing networks of tags. The RFID tags themselves will only sell for a few cents when volume production begins.
ZDNet China is based in Beijing. CNET News.com's Michael Kanellos contributed to this story
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